ABSTRACT
The contribution of Working Group II to Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2001b) devoted nearly 1000 pages of text to a thorough assessment of the current literature on the potential impacts of climate change and climate variability.1 Organized across seven different sectors and eight different regions, their work provides immediate access to the ‘state of the art’ in evaluating the vulnerabilities of communities, nations, and regions to possible climate futures-at least as of the year 2000. The present paper will not try to duplicate the
♦John E. Andrus Professor of Economics, Wesleyan University, 238 Church Street, Middletown, CT 06459; USA. email < gyohe@wesleyan.edu > ♦♦Department of Atmospheric Sciences, MC 223, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 105 S. Gregory Street, Urbana, IL 61801 USA. email < schlesin@atmos.uiuc.edu >
1 The first IPCC assessment (IPCC, 1990) began the process of reviewing the scientific literature in support of what became the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It was augmented by a supplementary report (IPCC, 1992) and subsequently followed in three parts by the Second Assessment Report, the SAR, in the middle of the decade (IPCC (1996a), (1996b), and (1996c)). The Third Assessment Report also appeared in three parts. Working Group I focused on the natural science of climate change (IPCC, 2001a). Working Group II concentrated on impacts and adaptation (IPCC, 2001b); and Working Group III reported on the state of our understanding about mitigation (IPCC, 2001c).
