The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was jointly established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 1988. The terms of reference include: (i) to assess available scientific and socio-economic information on climate change and its impacts and on the options for mitigating climate change and adapting to it and (ii) to provide, on request, scientific/ technological/socio-economic advice to the Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). From 1990, the IPCC has produced a series of Assessment Reports, Special Reports, Technical Papers, methodologies and other products that have become standard works of reference, widely used by policymakers, scientists and other experts.

This volume, which forms part of the Third Assessment Report (TAR), has been produced by Working Group III (WGIII) of the IPCC and focuses on the mitigation of climate change. It consists of 10 chapters covering the technological and biological options to mitigate climate change, their costs and ancillary benefits, the barriers to their implementation, and policies, measures and instruments to overcome these barriers. As is usual in the IPCC, success in producing this report has depended first and foremost on the knowledge, enthusiasm and co-operation of many hundreds of experts worldwide, in many related but different disciplines. We would like to express our gratitude to all the Co-ordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors, Contributing Authors, Review Editors and Reviewers. These individuals have devoted enormous time and effort to produce this report and we are extremely grateful for their commitment to the IPCC process. We would like to thank the staff of the WGIII Technical Support Unit (TSU) and the IPCC Secretariat for their dedication in co-ordinating the production of another successful IPCC report. We are also grateful to the governments, who have supported their scientists’ participation in the IPCC process and who have contributed to the IPCC Trust Fund to provide for the essential participation of experts from developing countries and countries with economies in transition. We would like to express our appreciation to the governments of The Netherlands, Norway, Germany and South Africa, who hosted drafting sessions in their countries, to the government of Ghana, who hosted the 6th session of Working Group III for official consideration and acceptance of the report in Accra, and again to the government of The Netherlands, who funded the WGIII Technical Support Unit.

We would particularly like to thank Dr. Robert Watson, Chairman of the IPCC, for his sound direction and tireless and able guidance of the IPCC, to Dr. Sundararaman, the Secretary of the IPCC and his staff for the secretarial support, and Professor Ogunlade Davidson and Dr. Bert Metz, the Co-Chairmen of Working Group III, for their skilful leadership of Working Group III through the production of this report.

G.O.P. Obasi

Secretary-General
World Meteorological Organization

Executive Director
United Nations Environment Programme
and
Director-General
United Nations Office in Nairobi

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