IPCC Grants Full Participation Rights to European Community

Climate Change Standards

BSI BIP 2105
Environmental Management Report : Focus on climate change

BSI BS ISO 14064-1
Greenhouse gases Part 1: Specification with guidance at the organization level for quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and removals

BSI BS ISO 14064-2
Greenhouse gases Part 2: Specification with guidance at the project level for quantification, monitoring and reporting of greenhouse gas emission reductions or removal enhancements

BSI BS ISO 14064-3
Greenhouse gases Part 3: Specification with guidance for the validation and verification of greenhouse gas assertions

ISO 14050
Environmental management — Vocabulary

ISO 16813
Building environment design Indoor environment General principle

ISO 14065
Greenhouse gases — Requirements for greenhouse gas validation and verification bodies for use in accreditation or other forms of recognition

UNI UNI/TR 11286
Greenhouse gases - Analysis of the potential use of the standards ISO 14064 and ISO/DIS 14065 in the field of GHG emissions, with specific reference to the provisions of Directive 2003/87/ EC

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IPCC Grants Full Participation Rights to European Community

October 28, 2009 // Published as a news service by IHS

The IPCC is a United Nations organization that acts as an objective source of information on climate change.

The decision, made at the IPCC meeting in Bali in late October, recognized the special status of the European Community and gave European Commission (EC) representatives the right to participate actively in all scientific discussions and to introduce proposals at IPCC meetings, but not the right to vote.

The EC welcomed the decision, which is in line with what it requested.

"Supporting climate research and the development of low carbon technologies is one of the EU research priorities," said EC Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik.

"The European Commission's research-funding programme, the 7th Framework programme, is also one of the main drivers and funding sources of international climate research and cooperation in this area. This is why I strongly welcome that we have a voice in the main UN forum that provides policymakers with sound climate science."

EC Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said, "The European Community is a Party to the UN climate change convention and the Kyoto Protocol, and our recent decisions and proposals in the global fight against climate change underline that we will continue to lead."

"It is important that we will now be fully involved in the IPCC's future scientific assessments of climate change, which of course shall remain the basis for our policies, both nationally and globally. Fundamentally, the agreement that we need in Copenhagen shall be guided by science developed by the IPCC," Dimas added.

Background
The IPCC was established in 1988 to assess the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for understanding the risk of man-made climate change. Its regular assessment reports - the fourth was published in 2007 - represent the most authoritative global scientific consensus on the issue.

The members of the IPCC are countries that are either a member of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) or the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).

Since the European Community is neither a member of the WMO nor UNEP, it cannot become a full member of the IPCC. However, in a number of international forums, such as U.N. conferences, the EC's special status is recognized through an enhanced observer status. This practice has now been adopted by the IPCC.