Primer on Climate Change and Sustainable Development

Our current knowledge of the basic science of climate change is summarized, before progressing to future scenarios of development, in this condensed and accessible review of the latest state-of-the-art assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Possible adaptation and mitigation measures, including cost and benefit analyses, are covered as well.

Professor Mohan Munasinghe has post-graduate degrees in engineering, physics and development economics, from Cambridge University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McGill University, and Concordia University. Presently, he is Chairman of the Munasinghe Institute For Development (MIND), Colombo; Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Geneva; and Hon. Chief Energy Advisor to the Government of Sri Lanka, Colombo. From 1974-2002, he worked for the World Bank, Washington DC, in various positions including Director and Senior Advisor. From 1982 to 1987, he was the Senior Energy Advisor to the President of Sri Lanka. During 1990-92, he served as Advisor to the United States President's Council on Environmental Quality. He has implemented international development projects for three decades, and contributed to IPCC work for 15 years. He has won a number of international awards and medals for his research, authored over 80 books and several hundred technical papers, and serves on the editorial boards of a dozen international journals.

Dr Rob Swart was trained as an environmental engineer at Delft Technological University and received his PhD on the risks of climate change from Amsterdam Free University. He has held various positions at the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and Environment (RIVM) since 1980, and also spent time working for the World Health Organization and the US Environmental Protection Agency. He has also worked on projects in the area of global change and sustainability for the Stockholm Environment Institute, the OECD and UNEP. He was Head of the Technical Support Unit of Working Group III of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and co-editor of the IPCC Third Assessment Report Climate Change 2001: Mitigation (2001, Cambridge University Press) and the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (2000, Cambridge University Press). Currently, he is manager of the European Topic Centre on Air and Climate Change of the European Environment Agency.