World Climate Conference

The world climate conferences are a series of international meetings focussing on climate change.

The First World Climate Conference was held on 12-23 February 1979 in Geneva and sponsored by the WMO. It was one of the first major international meetings on climate change. Essentially a scientific conference, it was attended by scientists from a wide range of disciplines. In addition to the main plenary sessions, the conference organized four working groups to look into climate data, the identification of climate topics, integrated impact studies, and research on climate variability and change. The Conference led to the establishment of the World Climate Programme.It also led to creation of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988.

The Second Climate Conference was held on 29 October to 7 November 1990, again in Geneva. It was an important step towards a global climate treaty and somewhat more political than the first conference. The main task of the conference was to review the WCP set up by the first conference. The IPCC first assessment report had been completed in time for this conference. The scientists and technology experts at the Conference issued a strong statement highlighting the risk of climate change. The Conference issued a Ministerial Declaration only after hard bargaining over a number of difficult issues; the declaration disappointed many of the participating scientists as well as other observers because it did not offer a high level of commitment.

As of 2004 there have been no further conferences in the series (although in 1991 the WMO considered it [http://www.cs.ntu.edu.au/homepages/jmitroy/sid101/uncc/fs206.html] ), perhaps because the IPCC conferences have covered the necessary ground, or perhaps the UNFCCC does. In 2003 a World Climate Change Conference was held in Moscow [http://unfccc.int/sessions/othermt/moscow03/] which is occasionally referred to as the 3rd WCC, but its actual status is unclear.

The Third World Climate Conference is scheduled to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, 31 August- 4 September 2009.

External links

* [http://www.wmo.int/pages/world_climate_conference/index_en.html Official website of the World Climate Conference - 3, to be held in 2009]
* [http://www.cs.ntu.edu.au/homepages/jmitroy/sid101/uncc/fs213.html UNFCCC factsheet on the 1st conference]
* [http://unfccc.int/resource/ccsites/senegal/fact/fs221.htm UNFCCC factsheet on the 2nd conference]
* Margaret Thatcher's [http://www.margaretthatcher.org/Speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=108237&doctype=1 speech to the second conference]
* [http://unfccc.int/cop3/fccc/climate/fact17.htm Timeline of conferences, to 2000]