World Climate Change Conference
Moscow 2003

Global temperatures have risen by over 0.7°C in the last 300 years - evidence that climate change is already taking place. 0.5°C of this warming occurred during the 20th Century and most of the warming was from 1910 to 1940 and from 1976 onwards.

The World Conference on Climate Change, hosted by Moscow from 29th September to 3rd October 2003, will provide an opportunity to bring together those involved in climate change issues. It will attempt to identify and re-examine what steps need to be taken to solve what many think is the one of the greatest challenges for the future. The conference is being supported by Russian President Vladimir Putin, UN and G8 leaders, although its focus will be scientific rather than politically based.

According to Yuri Izrael from the Russian Academy of Sciences, "scientific observations show that over the past 100 years the average air temperature on the Earth has grown by 0.6 degrees and this has already lead to certain consequences in the life of human community."

The conference in Moscow is being organised by a committee headed by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Gordeyev and is expected to be attended by 1,200 people representing governments, scientific communities and business circles from over 52 countries. The committee has invited 50 scientists, who are well-known in the field of climate change, to present papers at the plenary sessions.

The previous World Climate Conferences held in 1979 and 1990 gave grounds for the scientific understanding of climate change processes and became an important basis for the UN's Kyoto Protocol - the international agreement on tackling climate change, adopted in 1997.

Under the terms of the protocol, the EU as a whole is committed to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by 8% of their 1990 levels by 2008 - 2012. Although 96 countries had so far ratified the protocol, including the EU, both the USA and Australia opposed it.

The main goal of the conference is to provide a comprehensive discussion of the scientific aspects of both the natural and human impacts on climate change. The major topics for discussion are:

• Science of Climate Change;
• Ecological, Social and Economic Impacts of Climate Change;
• Mitigation of and Adaptation to Climate Change and the Role of Technology;
• Stakeholders' Dialogue (Governments, NGO's, Business, Scientific Community and Public at Large): the UN FCCC, and the Kyoto Protocol and their evolution.

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