The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up jointly by UNEP and the World Meteorological Organisation in 1988 to provide periodic scientific analysis of the causes, impacts and possible policy response options to climate change issues. This synthesis report is the 4th and final part of the IPCC's third assessment report, and contains information on nine policy-relevant questions regarding the IPCC's 2001 assessment. It is intended to assist governments, individually and collectively, to formulate appropriate adaptation and mitigation responses to the threat of human-induced climate change.

The Climate Change 2001 volumes of the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC provide the most comprehensive assessment of climate change since its second report, Climate Change 1995. This Synthesis Report provides a policy-relevant, but not policy-prescriptive, synthesis and integration of information contained within the Third Assessment Report and also draws upon all previously approved and accepted IPCC reports that address a broad range of key policy-relevant questions. For this reason it will be especially useful for policy makers and researchers, and as a main or supplementary student textbook for courses in environmental studies, meteorology, climatology, biology, ecology, and atmospheric chemistry.

For policymakers -- Synthesis report -- Annexes.

IPCC assessment of the scientific, technical, environmental, economic, and social aspects of the mitigation of climate change.

The report also provides a comprehensive assessment of past and future sea level change in a dedicated chapter.

The warming of the Earth has been the subject of intense debate and concern for many scientists, policy-makers, and citizens for at least the past decade. Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, a new report by a committee of the National Research Council, characterizes the global warming trend over the last 100 years, and examines what may be in store for the 21st century and the extent to which warming may be attributable to human activity.