ABSTRACT
Recognizing the problem of potential global climate change, the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. In considering the costs of global warming, the IPCC have considered possible objectives for stabilising carbon dioxide concentrations at various levels and the median one is 550 ppm. Most of the public debate and policies on climate change are about mitigation rather than adaptation, but the global economy will have to adapt to climate change, whatever magnitude it turns out to be. The global economy is made up of individuals, companies and governments as well as non-governmental organisations. All of these will have to make decisions about both mitigation and adaptation, decisions that will have an economic effect at both the micro and macro level. United Kingdom government policy towards climate change has evolved since 1992.
