Support for ICSU Activities in Environment and Global Change

International Science Council, Paris

Investigators

Abstract

The International Council for Science (ICSU) will promote coordination of environment- and global change-related activities of he various ICSU unions, committees and other bodies. ICSU's Advisory Committee on the Environment (ACE), with support from ICSU's environmental sciences officer, will keep under review and will identify and address scientific issues that cut across the four major international global change research programs -- the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP); the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP); the International Human Dimensions (of Global Environmental Change) Program (IHDP) and Diversitas. Such issues already singled out include: carbon, water, food, and fiber cycles; climate and agriculture; and science for sustainability. Efforts will be also be undertaken to improve the flow of data, information and scientific results from scientists to policymakers. Improved linkages between natural and social sciences related to global change will be explored, as will the relationship between health and the environment, including global change. Other issues that ICSU/ACE will address include (1) the relationship between the global observing systems and the global research programs and (2) implications for global change and environmental research of the UN general Assembly's resolution on a new science agenda for sustainability. Potential new scientific initiatives will be explored in these areas and scientific workshops and similar scientific planning meetings will be convened. Special attention will be paid to the need to further involve scientists from developing countries in the full range of ICSU activities related to global change. Finally, ICSU will, as a co-sponsor of the WCRP with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), continue its support for the WCRP.