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Climate Change Farhana Yamin Joel B Smith and Ian Burton1 10 1 Introduction Science forms the backbone of the international climate change regime The negotiation and entry into force of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC in only four years was due in large part to the strong international scientific consensus on the need for a convention the draft elements of which were appended to the first scientific assessment report produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC in 1990 Bodansky 1993 Although more circumspect in terms of policy recommendations the IPCC s Second and Third Assessment Reports generated significant momentum for the negotiations leading to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and decisions subsequently adopted by the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties COP in 2001 the Marrakesh Accords that enabled the Protocol s entry into force in February 2005 What contribution will the Exeter conference and the Fourth Assessment Report FAR scheduled for completion in 2007 make to future climate policy An important focus of attention for scientists and policy makers in the coming decade will most likely be on making operational sense of Article 2 of the Convention avoidance of dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system The crucial science policy issues would thus be how Article 2 relates to future efforts under the UNFCCC Kyoto and or a new legal instrument to prevent climate change mitigation as well as how it provides policy guidance for dealing with adverse impacts and potential beneficial opportunities adaptation This paper does not attempt to provide an answer to what constitutes dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system Instead it reviews some of the various perspectives on Article 2 that have emerged over the last 15 years of negotiations as ways have been sought to arrive at a common understanding It then offers an assessment of the current situation of a dangerous change in climate The paper aims to catalyze future science policy discussions by providing an overview of the main approaches to Article 2 and some sense of history about how changing science policy considerations have created 1 Farhana Yamin Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies University of Sussex UK Joel Smith Vice President Stratus Consulting USA Ian Burton Scientist Emeritus Meteorological Service of Canada Emeritus Professor University of Toronto Canada challenges for climate science and policy It then focuses on three issues germane to the evolution and operation of Article 2 that have been in our view relatively neglected in climate literature related to Article 2 namely the categorization of climate change in terms of timing scale and types of impacts the role of adaptation and the development of a new process of global decision making or negotiations that can accommodate divergent human values We conclude by suggesting that the categorization of climate impacts geophysical biophysical human health and wellbeing and the scale at which impacts are assessed are critical for determining what may be a dangerous level of climate change To date the scientific community has been given insufficient guidance about scale and categorization issues in policy processes Unless remedied the resulting lacunae will by default be filled by scientists resorting to familiar mental frameworks and unexplained values and preferences which may or may not accord with the perception values and framework of policy makers or broader publics This would not likely lead to effective implementation of Article 2 given that a number of levels of dangerous anthropogenic interference DAI can legitimately be chosen for the purposes of climate policy Our conclusions about the way in which values are interlaced with technical issues in a unique way in climate change suggest that process issues are of critical concern particularly in terms of who makes decisions and the values embedded in those decisions The setting of any climate goal or target long or short term should be the result of informed dialogue between researchers negotiators and the public Thus a crucial part of the next phase of the climate science policy nexus is development of a process which can enable a full and open discussion on Article 2 and lead to a consensus and resolution on shorter term aspects of climate policy such as targets and timetables 10 2 Perspectives on Article 2 The definition or framing of a problem plays an important part in shaping subsequent institutional and political responses including which kind of knowledge will be considered relevant for devising solutions Climate change was identified as a problem by scientists and came to be framed as an international environmental problem Even though climate change profoundly implicates economic social and political developments which are the responsibility 82 Perspectives on Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference of treasuries and economic and planning ministries the initial framing meant ministries of the environment were typically given lead responsibilities over climate change be reached through the adoption of short term legally binding quantitative targets that are reviewed and revised in response to changing scientific technical and other relevant information The acid rain ozone and climate change regime also share the framework convention protocol approach to standard setting The basic feature of this is to institutionalize an iterative policy cycle