Nairobi Work Programme on Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation to Climate Change (Agenda Item 3): Intervention by the United States Delegation: Meeting of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical AdviceThirteenth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate ChangeBureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Bali, Indonesia December 4, 2007 Nairobi Work Programme on Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation to Climate Change (Agenda Item 3) As delivered. Mr. Chairman, The United States welcomes the progress made on implementation of the Nairobi Work Programme and we thank you and the Secretariat for your able stewardship of the process. As to our views on the issue at hand, that being the possible need for a group of experts under the Nairobi Work Programme, the United States acknowledges that experts groups have been successfully established by the UNFCCC in the past, but these groups have functioned best when they had a clear and narrowly focused mandate. Because the Nairobi Work Programme is currently engaged in initial consideration of issues under nine themes ranging from observations to socio-economic information to adaptation to economic diversification, we have concerns about how feasible it would be to establish an experts group of a manageable size that could provide the range of scientific and technical expertise required to cover all of these topics. In our view, the Secretariat has been quite successful in bringing together a diverse set of experts, as needed, for the workshops and experts meetings and we don’t quite see how an expert group could improve on their performance in this regard. However, given the clear value added to the Nairobi Work Programme from experts and relevant organizations who are contributing substantially to the programme outside of the discrete activities undertaken by the UNFCCC itself, we are willing to consider several options for expanded expert input as we approach the midpoint of our five year work programme and our need to chart a course for the second half of our proscribed work. In closing, Mr. Chairman, we would like to express our satisfaction with progress under the Nairobi Work Programme to date, we look forward to engaging in constructive deliberations here, and we note our pledge to support a number of activities within the work programme in the coming year. Thank you. |
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