As the Kyoto conference of the parties on the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change once again underscored, man-made climate
change has become one of the major challenges to our generation and many
generations to come. Since scientific evidence on climate change can be
seen as increasingly reliable, the focus of our attention has to turn
more and more to the question of foreseeable damages and to
possibilities to prevent and mitigate climate change. In other words, we
need to analyse the economic aspects of man- marle climate change and
the policy options to prevent its most severe impacts. This book reports
on the findings of an international workshop on these aspects of global
climate change. It was organised by the Centre for European Economic
Research (ZEW) in Mannheim, Germany on March 6th and 7th 1997. In the
light of the ongoing international policy-making process on climate
change, we decided to publish the report after the Kyoto conference from
December Ist to 10th, 1997, to include the results of the conference,
which emphasise the importance of economic aspects and economic policy
options when it comes to addressing the problern of man-made climate
change. Thus, this book went to press in February 1998 the moment we
received the official version of the Kyoto Protocol, which is reproduced
in the annex.
