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The principal vehicle for undertaking climate change research at the federal level is the United States Global Change Research Program. The multiagency program was funded in fiscal year 1997 at approximately $1.8 billion. A significant portion of the Research Program's activities is targeted at improving capabilities to predict climate change, including the human-induced contribution to climate change, and its implications for society and the environment. The United States also is committed to continuing programs in research and observation, with the aim of developing the information base required to improve predictions of climate change and its repercussions, as well as the ability to reduce emissions while sustaining food production, ecosystems, and economic development.

Extensive efforts also are being made to understand the consequences of climate change, regional impacts, and the potential for adaptation. Another area being explored by researchers is the development of technologies that would enable the United States to supply energy, food, water, ecosystem services, and a healthy environment to U.S. citizens, while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These efforts have been divided into short- and longer-term projects involving the private sector, as well as government-sponsored research.

Perhaps most notable in the international component of the research effort is U.S. participation in IPCC work. U.S. scientists participated in the preparation and review of nearly all of the more than 100 chapters of the over 2,000-page report. Researchers also participated in the collection and analysis of the underlying data through programs as varied as the World Climate Research Program, the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Program, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and an impressive array of bilateral scientific and technical work.

The Future

Overall, the conclusions to be drawn from this report can be summarized in three parts:

• Climate change is a clearly defined problem and is well recognized at the highest levels in the U.S. government. Senior officials (from the President to heads of cabinet agencies and departments) have taken a strong stand in favor of seeking to reduce emissions.

• The combined effort to address climate change (described in this report, and including the Research Program, the total costs of U.S. mitigation actions, and the international effort) are in excess of $2 billion--a significant step by any standard.

• Notwithstanding this effort, emissions continue to grow. More aggressive actions must be taken to combat the threat of climate change.

The United States is developing a long-term, post-2000 strategy to address the climate change problem. This effort, which has both a multilateral, international focus and a domestic focus, is expected to be made public in the next few months. It will be based on an extensive analytic effort to assess the effects of an array of additional policy choices, including setting legally binding, internationally agreed caps on emissions. It will consider the advantages of market-based instruments for both domestic and international emissions trading, as well as joint implementation for credit with developing countries. It will consider approaches to be taken for gases for which monitoring and measurement are relatively simple (e.g., for carbon dioxide emissions from stationary energy sources), as well as those gases for which emissions are more difficult to measure (such as nitrous oxides from agriculture).

Currently underway, the effort is intensive and time-consuming. It involves more than twenty agencies within the federal government, as well as several offices in the Executive Office of the President. Congress will be consulted in the development of policies and will most likely need to enact legislation to implement any agreed program. A significant stakeholder outreach program will be undertaken over the next several months to engage the best thinking on alternative approaches, and following adoption of a program to ensure maximum compliance with the course of action chosen.

 www.state.gov

 http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/climate/index.html

 Global Warming International Center

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