date: Wed, 10 Jun 98 9:23:22 +6000 from: richard.tol@ivm.vu.nl subject: Naming lead authors to: acacia_conf First, e have now embarked on a process of naming our friends and colleagues to be lead authors in the ACACIA report. It may be a good idea to have some publications of these people as well. Not all those that have been named are obvious experts. Second, and again, we need to think what we want this report to do. We have just been through an IPCC Special Report on Regional Impacts, and preparations for the IPCC TAR are ongoing. We need to choose between doing preparatory work for IPCC, or doing something completely different. I prefer the latter. If we opt not to do a standard literature review, we could work towards more integration between sectors, or work more towards policy advice. I do not think the former is doable (although it is my preference). The latter is hard, but worth pursuing. If this is the course taken, we are not looking for detail-experts but for skilled communicators with a broad overlook. Third, and again, the outline of the report needs thought, and needs to reflect the purpose of the report. In any case, I do not think it is wise to single out extreme weather. The little that is known about the impact of future extreme weather should be placed in the relevant sector chapters. So little is known about the impact of past weather extremes that I doubt it deserves a separate chapter -- instead, we could ask each chapter to add a historical/empirical review, say of weather impacts on agriculture in the past 20 years. I doubt the purpose of common scenarios. Authors will not have time to analyse these. Although the impact of climate change on manufacturing, retailing, construction, insurance, tourism, migration and so on may be substantial, the body of literature is not. It is distortion of the state of the art to have a mining (say) chapter next to a coastal zone (say) chapter. Being a social scientist, singling out soils occurs strange to me. There is no Minister of Soils in any country I know, but there are ministers of agriculture and nature (through which soils make themselves felt). Fourth, an alternative structure would be: water resources, agriculture, un- and semi-maneged ecosystems, sea level rise, health and miscellaneous -- apart from the last, this is recognizable to the policy makers we may seek to inform. Each chapter could then follow this structure: mechanisms, past impacts of weather and climate, estimates of impacts of future changes, adaptation options. If agreed, I could think of some authors. Richard Tol