1.1 Introduction

The assessment ‘Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of Climate Change’ is designed to provide authoritative, timely information on all aspects of technologies and socio-economic policies, including cost-effective measures to control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A thorough understanding of future GHG emissions and their drivers, available mitigation options, mitigation potentials and associated costs and ancillary benefits is especially important to support negotiations on future reductions in global emissions.

This chapter starts with a discussion of the key issues involved in Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and of the relationship of these to emission pathways and broad mitigation options. The sections that follow reflect on past and future GHG emission trends, highlight the institutional mechanisms in place for the implementation of climate change and sustainable development objectives, summarize changes from previous assessments and provides a concise roadmap to the ‘Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of Climate Change’ assessment.