A call for action

It should go without saying that we are all in this together. Nothing has shown this more clearly than pictures taken from space of our round, blue, largely watery world. The boundaries between us on the land can no more stretch into the space through which we move at twenty miles a second, than penetrate the earth's slowly turning metallic core.

Ideally all work on the climate should be co-ordinated under international auspices, and major decisions which governments singly or together may take in that respect should have the sanction of the world community. Difficult political and economic issues are often involved. But work in common should remain the aim, in spite of the somewhat discouraging history of such endeavours. If it is urgent, it tends to become the responsibility of individual governments; and if it is long-term, it tends to run out of money and support. Climatic problems are at once important, urgent, and long-term.

The last few years have seen a great increase in international interest in the subject and concern for its implications. No one now doubts that we need to accumulate and disseminate much greater knowledge about the climate. Such information needs to be correctly interpreted and applied if it is to be of use. We also need to improve our understanding of the impact of climatic change on the whole range of human activity. From this follows three main areas in which action is required:

• first, some form of international agreement on how to cope with future climatic crises, and set rules by which states avoid actions which, by affecting the climate, might do damage to others;
• secondly, agreement to prevent modification of the climate for purposes of war;
• and thirdly, the establishment of means to make effective the agreements and rules which have been reached.

Nearly everyone who has worked on climatic problems begins and ends by bewailing the lack of firm scientific information about them. It is almost a convention that books, reports, and articles on the subject conclude with recommendations for yet further study, yet wider observations, and yet better co-ordinated action. This book is no exception.

Yet a good start has already been made. We are a long way from the days when information about winds, ocean currents, and weather generally was a jealously guarded commercial secret. From the second half of the 19th century, international institutions have evolved to provide information about the behaviour of the weather. With the introduction of railways, steamships, the telegraph, the radio, and aircraft, the need for a co-ordinated weather service for what seemed like a shrinking world became self-evident.

Until after the Second World War the necessary work was done by scientists on a non-governmental basis. It was not until the conversion of the International Meteorological Organization (IMO) into the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as a specialised agency of the United Nations in 1951 that governments moved in. Even today the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) retains its non-governmental status; but it has worked closely with the WMO in promoting the various international experiments in meteorology which have taken place during the last 30 years.

These activities have transformed our knowledge of weather and climate. The first major experiment was the International Geophysical Year from 1957 to 1958. The next event, following the introduction of information from satellites, was the introduction of the World Weather Watch (WWW) in 1963. The Global Atmospheric Research Program (GARP) was agreed upon in 1967 as an umbrella organisation.

Under its cover came the Atlantic Tropical Experiment of 1974 and the First Global Experiment of 1978 to 1979. The latter was designed to put together over a year precise information about the operation of the whole weather system, using for the purpose satellites, balloons, buoys, ships, aircraft, and the resources of the World Weather Watch chain of weather stations.

These activities, with their rich scientific rewards, served to bring out the contrast between our knowledge of weather and our relative lack of knowledge of climate. By the end of the 1970s anxiety was increasing about apparent variations in climate, and the long-term effects of increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other industrial pollutants.

In 1979 the congress of the World Meteorological Organization adopted the World Climate Programme(WCF) with the twin objectives of improving knowledge of the natural variability of the climate and the effects of climatic change whether natural or otherwise; and to assist governments in planning and co-ordinating activities with climatic implications so as to reduce vulnerability to climatic change.

In conformity with these objectives it was agreed to set, up four components of the World Climate Programme: the World Climate Data Programme (WCDP); the World Climate Applications Programme (WCAF); the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP); and the World Climate Impact Programme (WCIP).

These programmes describe themselves. The first two remain the responsibility of the WMO; the third is a joint effort by the WMO and the ICSU; and the fourth, which is at once the most difficult and the most important, is the responsibility of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNFP) in association with the WMO and a variety of international research organisations.

This hierarchy of activity, with its thickets of unmemorable acronyms, does not make for easy outside comprehension. Nor have the results so far justified aspirations. While the WMO, UNEF, and other United Nations agencies can co-ordinate the World Climate Programme, they cannot do the necessary work. As in the past, this must be done by the participating governments with their apparatus of meteorological services, official agencies, universities, academies, and in the last and best resort the talent and interest of individuals. [21]

International work of this kind is inevitably uneven. So far the United States has made a bigger contribution than any other country. The report entitled Understanding Climatic Change, published by the National Academy of Sciences in 1975, has been of particular value. The work of the United States Department of Energy on carbon dioxide has far exceeded that of any other organisation anywhere. Work in the United States on climatic problems now has high priority in universities, institutes, observatories, and laboratories around the country, and there is a National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado.

In Britain, the Meteorological Office and the Climatic Research Institute at the University of East Anglia have likewise done pioneer work across the whole field. In the Soviet Union there has long been concentration on Arctic problems, and the Russians prompted the POLEX project, which is associated with Canadian and American work on Arctic ice dynamics. Many other countries have programmes of their own. The list is too long to give here. While the bulk of the work is done nationally, the results are for the most part available to the world community as a whole.

These results may so far be partial and meagre, but they well show what needs to be done. In particular they illuminate the four broad objectives of the World Climate Impact Programme. These are:

• to assess the vulnerability of food systems to climate variability and change (thus covering agriculture, water resources, energy, ocean resources and fisheries, transport, human health, land use, ecology, and the environment);
• to anticipate the impacts of man-induced changes in all their complicated interactions;
• to develop new methodology (for example, through case studies and models) in measuring the impact of climate;
• and to promote the better use of such methodology to help cope with climatic variability and change.

Not surprisingly, progress has been slow. Governments have not so far been willing to support their good intentions with hard cash. In 1983, the World Climate Impact Programme enjoyed less than half the recommended minimum budget. Work has had to be cut back and projects reduced in scope.

Even the most basic information has often been lacking. Some governments lack the means and experience to gather it themselves, and are reluctant to admit observers from outside. Frequently, statistical methods are antique. Others withhold information for commercial reasons or plead the risks of national security.

In some respects the resulting gaps can be filled from information from meteorological and other satellites, but this is inevitably incomplete. The problem could arise in acute form if the idea of regular climatic censuses were pursued, or if, as seems sensible, there were increasing international division of labour in the various fields of research. In the future, information will increasingly be needed in areas not hitherto subject to international scrutiny. The effects of urban, industrial, and even agricultural pollution provide an obvious example. Many governments may be reluctant to oblige until they feel their countries damaged by the activities of others.

Here is the first main area in which new action is required: some form of international agreement on how to cope with future climatic crises, and set rules by which states avoid actions which, by affecting the climate, might do damage to others. The principle is obvious. Do as you would be done by has long been taught in the nursery. Even further back goes the Roman legal maxim

"sic utero tuo ut alienum non laedas."

use your property so as not to injure that of another.

Yet it has been slow to win respect as a guide for conduct between states. Not until after the Second World War did it begin to enter the corpus of international law. In 1949 it underlay the decision of the International Court of Justice in the Corfu Channel case, and in 1973 its decision in the case over nuclear tests in the Pacific.

It has likewise been important in a host of arbitration and other judicial decisions on such matters as cross-frontier sulphur dioxide pollution (between the United States and Canada), river pollution between France and Spain), oil pollution on the high seas, transport of nuclear materials, and disposal of nuclear waste. With industrial growth and larger scale development of resources, it is not surprising that the activities of states, companies, and individuals should increasingly impinge on each other, and require instruments of arbitration and settlement which go beyond the scope of national legal systems.

But success in coping with problems of this kind has so far been inversely proportional to the number of states involved. It is much easier to tackle a problem involving a couple of states - for example, the United States and Mexico over salinisation of the Colorado River - than one involving the 16 states concerned with the pollution of the Mediterranean. To bring in the world community as a whole represents difficulty of a new order of magnitude.

Certainly verbal progress has been made: the conclusions of the conference in 1972 which led to the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) are the indispensable foundations for a system which has yet to be properly established. The objectives of the World Climate Programme fall into the same category.

The fundamental difficulty is to persuade states to proceed further when their own interests are not directly engaged, or worse, limit the freedom of action they have enjoyed in the past. Moreover most are rightly suspicious of the processes of international bureaucracy in which extraneous political issues, abuses of procedure, unnecessary expense, and evasive compromises are all too manifest.

Yet the building of an international consensus, case by case, is in few fields more necessary than the management of climatic problems. We have already seen the possible consequences of a scheme which, although it might make parts of Central Asia blossom like the rose, could risk affecting a part of the world's climate at a critical point in the Arctic Ocean.

On a smaller scale, seeding of the clouds to induce rain in one place could in some circumstances prevent it falling in another where it is equally needed. This may already have happened in Israel at the expense of Syria, Lebanon, and parts of Jordan. To judge from arguments between the member states of the United States, this may have happened there too. The list of possible actions of this kind is already long. It will get longer as our ability, deliberate or inadvertent, to alter the climate becomes greater.

In nearly all cases it is hard conclusively to show cause and effect. Nothing is clear-cut. Those who divert rivers or seed clouds can plausibly maintain that changes elsewhere would have happened anyway. Governments which had authorised such actions would naturally enjoy the support of those who have benefited from them. They would thereby be strengthened in resisting pressure from other governments to undo-if it were possible-what had been done, to make reparation for damage caused, or to undertake not to repeat such actions. It is arguable that in the future governments will be under still greater domestic pressure to put national requirements first to ensure their own survival as well as that of their people.

But if the world is not to relapse into anarchy, with states warring over use and abuse of natural resources, some sort of international agreement in this respect - at least a self-denying ordinance and commitment to consult - seems essential. Several factors favour its early negotiation; and if the World Climate Programme can meet its objectives and live up to the expectations made of it, the issues could be defined in a fashion which would make such negotiation inevitable as well as desirable.

The unitary character of the atmosphere and the climate are already and significantly better understood. Those who might choose to alter the climate for short-term advantage could ultimately suffer as much as their neighbours. The Soviet Union does not want increased snowfall in the Arctic any more than do Canada or Greenland. Cause and effect may not be certain, but as knowledge increases, links can be better established.

With increasing populations and corresponding efforts to make the most of existing economic circumstances, governments are becoming more attached to and dependent on the maintenance of things as they are as a framework for development. Risks become greater as economies get nearer the margin and flexibility diminishes. Hence, every country becomes more vulnerable to the actions of others and more aware of its own vulnerability to change: some to the movement of ice, some to the spread of desert, and some to the continuing shifts in winds and currents, sunshine and rainfall.

Negotiation of such an agreement would be at least as difficult as that on the recently concluded Law of the Sea. The problems which then arose, and the continuing areas of dispute within it, suggest that it would be wise to proceed with caution and modesty. The aim might be to establish a framework which could later be strengthened and enlarged as circumstances required. The agreement might fall into three parts.

The first would be designed to cover all major experiments by governments (or those for whom they were responsible) which were intended to test the behaviour of the climate or which might inadvertently do so. There would be obvious problems over the definition of what should count as a major experiment. This difficulty arose in the negotiation of the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or any other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques of 1977: how should we interpret "... environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects ..."?

In the end it was agreed that "widespread" encompassed an area on a scale of several hundred square kilometres; "long-lasting" meant for a period of months or approximately a season; and "severe" involved serious or significant disruption or harm to human life, natural and economic resources, or other assets. Some comparable understanding would be necessary. It would not be easy. By definition, the results of an experiment are not always known. The essential requirement would be to establish mandatory arrangements for international consultation before major experiments took place.

Examples of activities which should come within this category are experiments in rainmaking and control of hail storms over a defined area; attempts to disperse hurricanes and typhoons; systematic towing of icebergs away from polar waters to supply fresh water to arid regions; and putting certain objects into space (such as the needles placed in orbit by the United States several years ago against protests from many scientists). Some such experiments might be of scientific value and economic benefit, and might deserve full international encouragement and support. The purpose of an agreement would not be to frustrate them, but simply to ensure that their implications were properly considered and understood in time.

The second part of the agreement would be more ambitious. It would be designed to cover all actions by governments (or those for whom they were responsible) which were intended to change global, regional, or local climates, or might inadvertently do so. It would thus follow naturally from the first part of the agreement. Again, there would be problems of definition. Beneficial as well as adverse effects would have to be assessed. There might have to be a distinction between activities subject to mandatory arrangements for prior consultation, and those formally prohibited without international approval.

Examples indicate the complexity and delicacy of the issues that would be raised. Apart from deliberate attempts to change the climate, they include:

• the permanent diversion of major rivers (as already discussed above);
• the construction of river dams and irrigation systems likely to affect an area of given size (the unforeseen and multiple consequences of the Aswan Dam for the eastern Mediterranean as well as for the Nile valley are a case in point);
• the diversion of ocean currents, including the blocking of such natural waterways as the Bering Straits, or the building of a direct canal (in other words, without locks) between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans;
• efforts to melt parts of the polar ice caps (one bright idea was to spray sea ice with millions of tons of soot);
• oil drilling in areas where major spills would have incalculable and possibly irreversible effects;
• and changes in the character of the earth's surface in an area of given size (as in the current deforestation of Brazil).

This brings us to the third part of the agreement. It is virtually certain that there would be many activities with power to affect the climate which governments would not wish to see included. This is not necessarily or only due to national selfishness or pressure of short-term economic interest. It arises from the unplanned nature of human affairs, the gradual evolution of economic processes which, once started, are hard to stop, and the genuine difficulty of showing cause and effect. In these circumstances it might be as well to recognise reality from the start, and, rather than try to dragoon governments into obligations which they might not accept or might later ignore, work instead for international endorsement of a voluntary code of good climatic behaviour.

In this way, the agreement as a whole could be made more comprehensive; and as knowledge increased and dangers became more specific and evident, items in the third part could be moved into the second, and new ones could go into the third. The virtue of the code would lie in the definition of dos and don'ts. Even this would help focus minds, the more so if it were subject to regular revision.

Within it would be covered such problems as the care of agricultural and forest land to ensure that changes in one area did not adversely affect others: for example, deforestation in Nepal can increase the risks of severe flooding in Bangladesh, and poor husbandry in one area can risk encroachment of the desert in another. The code should also recognise the more global threats to climatic stability represented by the increase of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other industrial pollutants in the atmosphere.

It is hard to think of any state whose activities would not in one form or another be covered: from the poorest countries which, through over-population and destruction of topsoils, risk making themselves and others still poorer, to the relatively rich industrial countries which are primarily responsible for the changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere.

Any idea that the climate could be modified for purposes of war would have been laughed out of court 20 years ago. Since then, public attitudes have changed, partly as a result of the war in Vietnam. Current anxiety about the prospect of the world being plunged into a prolonged Arctic winter following a major nuclear exchange has given further substance to the debate.

Environmental warfare is no novelty. The breaking of dykes in the 17th century and the bombing of dams in the Second World War are good examples. But in the 1960s, as technical capabilities grew, the United States experimented with new forms of environmental warfare, ranging from defoliation of forests to modification of local weather. Such small-scale operations as seeding fog patches to clear runways or flight decks seem usually to have been successful; but attempts over five years to intensify normal monsoon rainfall so as to wash out North Vietnamese supply trails had little or no result. It is alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency tried to dry out the Cuban sugar crop by seeding clouds which would otherwise have brought rain to Cuba. But it is most unlikely that this operation, if ever attempted, had any success.

Work on these techniques served to draw attention to other possibilities. An inventory of means of climatic among other sorts of environmental warfare makes alarming reading. It includes means of ruining crops and food supplies through creation of flood, drought, hail, or hurricane; swamping major cities and industries near sea-level by a stimulation of giant waves or tsunamis; provoking earthquakes or volcanic eruptions; striking at military targets with artificially induced lightning, and at populations through interference with the electrical behaviour of the ionosphere; and destructive irradiation of selected areas by blowing holes in the ozone layer. Some of these come into the realm of science fiction, and few could be worse than the use of nuclear weapons. But climatic weapons would be harder to limit in their effects, and the consequences could in some cases be irreversible.

News of the existence of this Pandora's box of horrors focused international attention on the need to keep the lid as tightly shut as possible. After three years' debate within the United Nations, the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or any other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques was signed on 18 May 1977 and came into effect on 5 October 1978. Perhaps the most important thing about the Convention was that it should have been signed at all. It comes as no surprise that the final text was a product of prior understanding between the United States and the Soviet Union.

By it each participating state undertook not to engage in military or other hostile use of environmental techniques having widespread, long-lasting, or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage, or injury to any other participating state. It was agreed that the term "environmental modification techniques" covered any means of changing-through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes-the dynamics, composition, or structure of the earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere, or of outer space.

So far no state has had recourse to the provisions in Article V for dealing with alleged infractions of the Convention. On this basis, a complainant could ask the Secretary General of the United Nations to set up a Consultative Committee of Experts whose job would be to "make appropriate findings of fact", or lodge a complaint with the Security Council of the United Nations.

Procedures of this kind beg more questions than answers on verification and enforcement. There is little more elusive than facts if experts do not want to find them, and the Security Council has been hamstrung by its own procedures, in particular the veto power of its five permanent members, since its origin. The Convention is, in effect, a statement of good intentions, and, so long as the major countries are content to abide by it, has symbolic value. It is subject to periodic review and remains open to improvement. But it could scarcely survive any serious attempt to exploit environmental opportunities for war, and does not even attempt to cover the environmental side effects of a major conflict, including an exchange of nuclear weapons. [22]

A series of climatic agreements of the kind suggested above would require a central body to manage them. As we have seen, there are institutions enough for the receipt and dissemination of information and the co-ordination of research. The problem is rather how to fix a point of administrative responsibility. For this, more than the World Climate Programme would be required. But it would be foolish as well as unnecessary to create yet another international organization. Better would be to graft new functions on to the World Meteorological Organisation to ensure that it could fulfil a role to the extent necessary as the international custodian of the world's climate.

As custodian, its activities would be permanent. Within its framework there would be continuing consultation on climatic issues, and periodic meetings and conferences to deal with specific points raised by participating governments. It would, for example, be necessary for it:

• to decide on the basis of the best scientific advice whether this or that experiment should be authorised;
• to judge whether particular activities fell within the scope of the agreements, and were or were not justified;
• to hear complaints from one government about the activities of another, and arbitrate between them;
• to cope as far as possible with the results of climatic crises as and when they arose;
• and to make recommendations on changes within the agreements (moving items from one part to another) and on how the agreements should be developed to meet changing circumstances.

Such functions could not be performed by international bureaucrats alone, even with the help of national experts. Representatives of participating governments would have to play a major and continuing part in the process. Rather than a consultative committee called into being to deal with specific complaints as under the Environmental Modification Convention, a permanent executive board, commission, or council with its own rules of procedure would be essential.

How could this body succeed where so many others have failed in ensuring that international agreements and the decisions arising from them are respected and, where appropriate, enforced? Would it turn into yet another organisation which avoided conclusions, fudged issues, and took refuge in ambiguous recommendations? The risks are obvious and unavoidable. A good deal would depend on the character of the agreements themselves. They should not be too ambitious, and, at least at the beginning, should err on the side of realism. Thus, it would be better to have few but relatively uncontroversial obligations, and put contentious items into the code for adjustment later as the corpus of international understanding of the issues grows.

It is worth asking who the offenders are likely to be. The answer is that nearly every state could be an offender, and as more acquired the technical ability to alter the environment, the number would increase. The major industrial countries, with their massive consumption of fossil fuels, are causing the most chemical change in the atmosphere. They are also best informed about the possible consequences, and, in the West, most responsive to public opinion. By virtue of their technical virtuosity they are already equipped to take countervailing measures if their governments believed that it was in their interest to do so.

Recent limitations on the production of chlorofluorocarbons and vehicle emissions show what can be done. Other measures could include taxes on the use of fossil fuels to promote wider use of renewable energy resources, and the compulsory installation of devices in power stations and manufacturing industry to reduce atmospheric pollution. [23]

Countries whose economies are primarily geared to the production of raw materials, agriculture in particular, are also capable of changing the climate. We have already looked at the effects of deforestation and soil erosion. Poverty in such countries is sometimes used to justify environmental abuse, and where industry is beginning, little effort is often made to control pollution. Faced by a combination of increasing poverty and pressure of population, and without an educated and articulate public opinion, governments in these countries can often make things as bad for their neighbours as for themselves. But they lack the knowledge and still more the means to cope.

By virtue of their power-like it or not-the industrial countries must carry the main responsibility for managing the world's climate. Their weight in any climatic agreements would be as preponderant as in any other international agreements. Where they determined a common interest and worked together, their influence would be paramount; where their interests diverged and they could not agree, progress would be very difficult.

Some might have to go ahead on their own in the hope that others would follow once the case for remedial action had been made and the methods used had proved feasible. In all respects, the power of scientific opinion and public opinion generally would be critical. To a greater or lesser extent all governments in industrial countries are guided by it, and some help form it. Even in those under authoritarian rule, the authorities-politicians, managers, and the rest-are products of a prevailing culture.

No culture can be sealed off from another: the rate of seepage may be slow but it is sure. No government flourishes under prolonged international disapproval. Few even enjoy casting a veto in the Security Council. In the last resort the policing of agreements on climate as on other aspects of the environment would depend on the translation of a consensus of opinion into means of mobilising, persuading, and if necessary shaming governments into co-operation and compliance.

The process will be long and hard. The creation of a consensus could come too late to prevent damage, but it should help mitigate damage already done. The time to put it together is now.

There are a number of measures, ranging from the persuasive to the compulsive, which could go into the armoury of the body responsible for the agreements. [24] One would be the creation of a worldwide compensation plan, under which those ready to risk causing change, possibly against the advice of a majority of the scientific community, would agree beforehand to make reparation to others if the worst should occur. This could be developed into an international insurance institution, funded by participating states, which would assess risks and fix premiums as in any other form of insurance.

Trade, investment, and aid policy offer obvious means of pressure. Direct embargoes against offenders are rarely practical or effective, but there are more subtle methods. For example, if a government failed to take action to correct a climatic abuse, perhaps by refusing to control industrial emission standards, others could assess the cost as a form of hidden subsidy on exports and levy countervailing duties accordingly.

Greater central control could be exercised over multinational companies, whose operations in whatever part of the world would be made subject to consistent environmental standards. Similar conditions might be urged or imposed on foreign investment. As poor countries could not be expected to have the same priorities as industrial ones, economic aid and technical assistance for them might be specifically directed and linked to correction of environmental abuse. The underlying principle would be co-operation over measures which would be as much in the local and regional interest as in that of the world as a whole.

Of course those who could exercise most leverage to support good climatic management are less the industrial countries as a whole than those who have something which others badly need. The exporters of foodstuffs, grain in particular, now occupy a commanding position. It would obviously be better for them to use their power to support an international system of agreements rather than for reasons which could be seen as self-seeking and interfering. As for erring governments, they might find it easier to accept from an international authority what they could scarcely achieve on their own.

The measures proposed may seem puny in relation to the problems we face. But even they present major difficulties, and agreement on them, or something like them, may not be feasible until the need becomes more manifest. By then it might be too late. Even if it were not too late, conditions might be worse than they are now, and the prospects for a rational world order more remote.

The most precious thing we have is the tiny, damp, curved space which is our living room. The pleasantly warm moment we now enjoy in it will not last forever. The room itself is changing, partly as a result of our actions, and we face intimidating responsibilities for it. We have no option but to meet them.