cc: "Goulden, Marisa" <marisa.goulden@royalsoc.ac.uk>
date: Fri, 25 May 2001 14:37:42 +0100
from: Tom Downing <tom.downing@eci.ox.ac.uk>
subject: RE: RS IPCC meeting
to: Mike Hulme <m.hulme@uea.ac.uk>, "Goulden, Marisa" <marisa.goulden@royalsoc.ac.uk>, Terry Barker <tsb1@econ.cam.ac.uk>,  Tom Downing <tom.downing@eci.ox.ac.uk>, "'djgriggs@meto.gov.uk'" <djgriggs@meto.gov.uk>, "'michael.grubb@ic.ac.uk'" <michael.grubb@ic.ac.uk>, "'Brian Hoskins (E-mail)'" <b.j.hoskins@reading.ac.uk>, "'jthoughton@ipccwg1.demon.co.uk'" <jthoughton@ipccwg1.demon.co.uk>, "'jcrh@mssl.ucl.ac.uk'" <jcrh@mssl.ucl.ac.uk>, "'martin.parry@uea.ac.uk'" <martin.parry@uea.ac.uk>, "Quinn, Rachel" <Rachel.Quinn@royalsoc.ac.uk>

Marisa:

I echo some of Mike's comments:

Aim and title: 

Make clear this is about climate change policy research. The IPCC led title
is too obscure, the Key Challenges and Next Steps seems a bit broad. I would
say something like: Climate Change: Research Needs for Effective Policy.

Audience and discussion: 

Mixture is the key, and means to bring them into an informed discussion. I
would go so far as to propose a quick roundtable (carousel) of working
groups to elicit key questions. 

Questions:

I would like to see the questions being more provocative--the real questions
people in the street ask rather than the arcane ones that the governments
filtered for the IPCC to answer.  

So some thoughts on the structure:

Day 1.

Session 1: Science and impacts (about 75 minutes, no discussion): 
Q1. What's new, what have we learned about climate change? An overview that
introduces the IPCC TAR in broad outline, drawing upon the synthesis report
and SPMs, etc. Sir John Houghton, Bob Watson, Bert Bolin are good standard
bearers.

Q2.  Is the evidence for anthropogenic climate change sufficient to convince
most sceptics?  This gets into the nature of scientific consensus/evidence,
the relative confidence in different elements of the debates, etc. It is
closest to your Q2, and subsumes Q1. I'm sure Mike has good ideas here.

Q3.  Are the impacts of climate change serious threats to local and global
economies?  Or, who are most vulnerable, why?  This encompasses the issues
of adaptation and economic valuation of damages. Richard Tol (Hamburg) is a
very good speaker, I've worked on vulnerabilities.

Session 2: Break and question exercise (45 minutes)
Have a set of set of flip charts around the room, with a facilitator at each
flip chart.  Each flip chart/facilitator is charged with a single
question/topic.  The audience are then free to roam the room and record
questions on each flip chart--this then becomes a pool of questions to use
to organise the discussion.  If we had say 8-10 flip charts that would be
enough. The danger of an open question-answer session is that most of the
questions will be relatively un-interesting, all will take a long time to
ask (being comments rather than questions) and the panel will take too long
to answer each question singly.  This quick device to trigger a pool of
questions that the moderator (with help from the facilitators) can draw
upon--often asking the person who recorded the question to restate it for
the audience.

Just having a good inventory of questions of interest is important.

Session 3. Panel discussion fielding questions relevant to the first three
presentations. I'm not sure where to put discussants--either 5 minutes after
the presentation or use them as moderators to synthesise the questions from
the floor and add their own perspective during the panel responses.

Session 4: Policy research (About 90 minutes, no discussion):

Q4.  What is required to identify dangerous climate change?  Can we detect
the impacts of climate change?  How do we establish what are sustainable
(safe or non-dangerous) rates 
of climate change? (Mike's question).

Q5. What are the mitigation options to prevent dangerouse climate change?
Can technology save us? Do we need fundamental changes in social values and
resource consumption?  Are institutions adaptable?

Q6.  How do we undertake decision-making under conditions of uncertainty?
What tools and methods for risk management are needed?  What analytical
frameworks can we develop that provide insight into effective climate
policy? 

Session 5. Second discussion panel.

I haven't extended this to day 2...but it might be worth addressing
questions such as:

Should adaptation be seen as a counter-balance to mitigation?

How are mitigation policies likely to affect vulnerable economies?

How should stakeholders take on board climate policy, considering the deep
uncertainty? What do they need in terms of research and advice?

It should be possible to design a series of case studies, led first by the
industry and then a researcher providing commentary.  For instance, the EA
have done a comprehensive strategic water resources plan, which they could
present, and then someone from the field of strategic environmental impact
assessment (for example) could comment on how climate change is linked to
policy and the role of scenarios, predictions, regulation, etc.

It does look like a promising event!

Tom

Thomas E. Downing
Reader in Climate Policy

Environmental Change Institute
University of Oxford
1a Mansfield Road
Oxford OX1 3SZ
Tel: +44 1865 281180 /87 (direct) /83 (secretary)
Fax: +44 1865 281181
Mobile: (07968) 065 957
tom.downing@eci.ox.ac.uk
www.eci.ox.ac.uk



-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Hulme [mailto:m.hulme@uea.ac.uk]
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2001 11:29 AM
To: Goulden, Marisa; 'tsb1@econ.cam.ac.uk'; 'tom.downing@eci.ox.ac.uk';
'djgriggs@meto.gov.uk'; 'michael.grubb@ic.ac.uk'; 'Brian Hoskins
(E-mail)'; 'jthoughton@ipccwg1.demon.co.uk'; 'jcrh@mssl.ucl.ac.uk';
'martin.parry@uea.ac.uk'; Quinn, Rachel
Cc: Goulden, Marisa
Subject: Re: RS IPCC meeting


Dear Marisa,

Some comments on the agenda

Aims
--------
I think it is important that the meeting is pitched as 
information/knowledge needs for policy rather than getting into debating 
policy per se.  If not careful, the meeting will naturally gravitate 
towards a discussion of policy - this is where the big issues lie right now 
and will probably still lie in December.  Much business for example will be 
interested in policy outcomes and processes rather than in knowledge needs 
for policy.  The meeting must have a clear research for policy pitch rather 
than a policy research pitch.

Title
------
I don't think the focus should be exclusively on the IPCC, thus I favour a 
title such as 'Climate change: what we know and what we need to know'.

Audience
--------------
Important to include engineers as stated.  Also some invited scientists 
from palaeo community and 1-2 advocates of strong non-human forcing (eg 
solar) should be invited.

The media session could be arranged over one of the lunchtimes.

I would have thought the balance could be 200 invited, 75 open and 25
reserved.

Structure
-------------
The discussants should only be given 5 rather than 10 minutes, allowing 25 
rather than 15 minutes for discussion, with three discussants.  The panel 
to take questions should include discussants.

Day 1: what we know
-------------------------------
Key questions ........ I would have Q3 being how will climate change in the 
future (WGI), Q4 being what are the likely impacts and how easy to adapt to 
them (WGII), and Q5 being to what extent can we mitigate climate change 
(WGIII)?

This would suggest 5 sessions rather than the 4 proposed, one question per 
session.  If this is too many then combine your Q1 and Q2 (WGI), as 
otherwise there is too much bias to WGI type questions.

Day 2: what we need to know
-------------------------------------------
The uncertainty issue is an important one to highlight and should either 
close Day 1 or open Day 2.  Very important that uncertainty discussion 
focuses on the scenario basis of climate prediction *as well as* the 
scientific uncertainties of predicting future climate.

The key questions here I think are ...
Q1: how do we establish what are sustainable (safe or non-dangerous) rates 
of climate change?
Q2: what are the mitigation options to achieve such rates - technical, 
social, institutional research?
Q3: how do we undertake decision-making under conditions of uncertainty - 
issue of risk management and what tools/methods are needed?
Q4: how can we enhance adaptive capacity across society?
Q5: what analytical frameworks can we develop that allows combinations of 
mitigation and adaptation strategies to be optimally designed?


I have ideas for various speakers/discussants in some of these sessions, 
but maybe this is for later.  Also, how many non-UK speakers are we 
intending to involve, or is this a UK show case only?

Mike



At 17:35 16/05/01 +0100, Goulden, Marisa wrote:
>Dear Steering Committee
>
>I have attached a report of the Steering Committee meeting held on 25th
>April 2001, apologies for the delay in sending this out. Many thanks for
all
>your emailed comments which contributed to the discussion in the Steering
>Committee meeting. Agreement was reached on the aims, and general structure
>of the meeting but several more detailed issues still need to be resolved.
I
>think you'll agree that it is particularly important that we are able to
>finalise the content of the sessions on both days as soon as possible so
>that we can begin work on planning which speakers to invite.
>
>Please send me your comments on the attached note of the Steering Committee
>meeting by Thursday 24 May. In particular we need:
>*       Your comments/suggestions for the title and content of each session
>*       Names of suggested speakers and respondents and details of which
>session you think they would be most appropriate for, with contact details
>if possible
>You may find it helpful to enter into discussion on these issues, in which
>case please use the ' reply to all ' option.
>
>We plan to consult with representatives of key stakeholder groups on an
>informal basis (e.g. policy makers and industry) to find out what they
might
>want out of the meeting. We will let you know what they say. Alternatively
>you may wish to approach some key contacts yourselves to sound out their
>reaction to the planned meeting. We would be most grateful if you could
pass
>on any impressions to the rest of the Steering Committee.
>
>Regards
>Marisa
>
>
>  <<Note of Steering Committee meeting 250401.doc>>
>
>
>Marisa Goulden
>Science Policy Officer (Environment & Energy)
>Science Advice Section
>The Royal Society
>6 Carlton House Terrace
>London SW1Y 5AG
>
>Tel: +44 (0)20 7451 2590
>Fax: +44 (0)20 7451 2692
>e-mail marisa.goulden@royalsoc.ac.uk
>
>http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk
>Registered Charity No 207043
>
>
>
>This e-mail message has been scanned for viruses and spam by the e:)scan 
>service.
