Q37.5 If the U.S. supports or opposes any changes to the IPCC rules, please identify which changes you support or oppose and why. A37.5 While in general we support many of the proposed changes to the IPCC rules, we have not yet completed our review of the draft that will be taken up at the IPCC's 14th Plenary, thus, we are not able at this time to provide a precise list of our views with respect to each proposed change. More than four months have lapsed since I submitted for your early reply a series of "Post Hearing Questions" concerning the Kyoto Protocol and related matters, and I have not received an adequate explanation for the long delay. A number of questions were important to our understanding of the U.S. position on issues that were to be discussed at the June 1998 Bonn meeting of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) Subsidiaries Bodies. I once again request a response to those questions. Two of the Post Hearing Questions, numbers 38 and 39, asked about pending actions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I understand that the IPCC and its Working Groups are scheduled to meet during the week of September 28, 1998 in Vienna, Austria. Two matters on the IPCC's Provisional Agenda that are also addressed in my questions are: (1) the Synthesis Report (SR) of the Third Assessment Report and (2) the closely related issue of possible amendments to the IPCC's rules of procedure which are currently called "Principles and Procedures," but are, I understand, being proposed to be called only "Guidelines” for preparing, reviewing, accepting, approving, and publishing IPCC reports. With regard to the SR, the provisional agenda states: "The [IPCC] Panel may recall that it deferred action on the procedure to The Honorable Stuart E. Eizenstat August 7, 1998 "The Chairman will also brief the Panel on his views on policy-relevant "Amendments proposed by the IPCC Ad-Hoc Group on Procedures were "The Chairman of the IPCC will establish a Committee of the Whole It is my understanding that the IPCC Chairman, despite the requirements and long-standing policy of the current IPCC rules of procedure, strongly favors limiting line-by-line approval by governments solely to the Summary for Policymakers portion of the SR. As to the underlying report, he wants governments, including the U.S. government, to be satisfied with the work of its preparers and to abandon the current requirement of the IPCC rules for line-by-line approval by governments of the entire SR. Reportedly, his primary reason for such abandonment is that it takes too much of the IPCC's time to conduct such a review and that the SR is, after all, based on the underlying working group reports. The proposed agenda calls for the IPCC Plenary to act on the SR issue before there is consideration of the proposals to change the rules of procedures. That apparently means that if the IPCC adopts the Chairman's "views" on the SR, the IPCC would have to make corresponding rules changes in order to conform the rules to the prior action. That is a "cart before the horse" approach. It has always been my understanding that a governmental body must abide by their rules until changed. That is certainly the rule of law for Federal agencies in the United States, including the State Department. Apparently, that is not the case in the WMO/UN System of which the IPCC is a part. Whatever the practice, the U.S. delegation should insist that the IPCC abide by its rules until changed through proper procedure. The SR is not a scientific document. It is an "intergovernmental document" that has significant policy implications, or, as the IPCC Chairman often says, "policy-relevant" implications, for governments and the public. The United States should not agree to IPCC rules changes that The Honorable Stuart E. Eizenstat August 7, 1998 I believe that the U.S. delegation should, like China, the Russian Federation, and several other countries, insist on line-by-line approval of the entire SR, as well as the Policymakers Summary. If time is the concern of the Chairman, then the answer is to shorten both the Summary and the Report, particularly since there also will be summaries of each of the reports of the Working Groups. Should you disagree with my view, I request that you explain in detail why you disagree. The Provisional IPCC agenda for Vienna proposes to create a different kind of SR than the one specified in the current IPCC Rules of Procedure. Those rules state: "The Panel will base its Synthesis Report on a review of the Working The IPCC Synthesis Report is intended to provide an overview and The new procedures for the SR proposes to delete the above procedures and replace them with the following: "The Synthesis Report should consist of a short Summary for After a protracted debate at the IPCC Plenary session in Rome in 1995, I am advised by my staff, who attended that session, that the SR of the Second Assessment Report was approved line-byline as a document representing an "overview and synthesis of the Executive Summaries and the Summaries for Policymakers of the Working Groups". Efforts to expand the SR beyond those borders were strongly resisted as putting at risk the credibility of the agreed upon scientific assessment by attempts to stretch "policy-relevant" summaries of underlying scientific information into "policy-prescriptive" statements. It is now proposed that the "new" SR will "address a broad range of policy-relevant questions" supplied by the FCCC Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice, the European Union and others before the Third Assessment Report has been drafted. This suggests that the SR and the whole Third Assessment Report will be drafted with a view to answering certain "policy- relevant" questions instead of being a full assessment of the state of the science of climate The Honorable Stuart E. Eizenstat August 7, 1998 Page four change and related socioeconomic impacts. Does the U.S. support these rule changes and this "new" kind of SR? If so, please explain why. What are those "policy-relevant" questions? Has the U.S. reviewed all of those questions and concurred in them? How? When? When will the SR be prepared, be subject to review, and be released? Is this to occur, as in the past, as part of the Third Assessment Report? If not, what is its purpose? Is the IPCC creating a new report that is separate from the assessment? Also, please explain why the IPCC Rules of Procedure are proposed to be designated as "Guidelines." Does this change mean or imply that such "Guidelines" are not binding on the IPCC, its Chairman, or the lead authors? If no, what does it mean or imply? Does the U.S. support that apparently significant change? In addition to the above, I request your response to the enclosed additional questions concerning the June 1998 Bonn meeting of the FCCC Subsidiary Bodies. The response should also include a copy of the draft Procedures of May 15, 1998 and the subsequent versions that were "circulated to governments a second time,” together with the U.S. comments on both versions. I request your full and complete reply to all of these matters not later than August 31, 1998. Sincerely, F. JAMES SEN ENBRENNER, JR. Chairman FJS/hlw Enclosure |