Integrating sustainable development into the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

This paper reviews how sustainable development was treated in prior assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and presents proposals on how it might be integrated into the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). There has been a steady, but slow, increase in the exposure and treatment of sustainable development in each subsequent IPCC assessment. However, much more remains to be done if the mandate provided in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is to be met. The paper argues that the AR4 can take three practical steps in making the integration more complete. First, at the conceptual level, equity concerns should be made a more pervasive, even central, focus of the AR4. Second, at the analytical level, the examination of alternative development pathways begun during the TAR process needs to be continued and expanded. Third, at the operational level, the AR4 should deal with sustainable development in all its chapters rather than relegating it to a peripheral few, should broaden the base of expertise reflected in its panels of authors and reviewers, and should commission a companion special report on climate change and sustainable development.