From	Richard Tol	Date	Wed, 12 Nov 97 15:09:29 CET
To	Mike Hulme
CC	timothy.mitchell
Subject	re: positives and negatives
>It would indeed be interesting to poll all of our invitees using a more >sophisticated >questionnaire, but this is not what we are about. For example, if you >disagree >with the Statement I would be interested to know the grounds of your >disagreement. Mike, Thanks. I am always worried about this sort of things. Even if you have 1000 signitures, and appear to have a strong backup, how many of those asked did not sign? Also, I happen to be of the opinion that the US proposal for Kyoto is too ambitious. But of course I am thinking of real policies, not of negotiation-rhetoric. Finally, I think that the text conveys the message that it is a scientific defense for the EU position. There is not any. Even DG11 finds a hard to defend (at least, in the draft version of their attempt -- I don't think the final version has appeared yet). Whatever you think about long-term goals, 2010 is pretty soon. At the moment, no country has any experience with serious emission reduction POLICY. Minus 15% is serious, particularly because of the effort that will be spend on the monetary union and because the UK and Germany are too optimistic on their baseline emissions. Rash action instead careful thinking may well run serious, international climate policy deep into the ground. Cheers Richard