| Summary: | ultimate objective of this Conuention and any relnted legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may ad,opt is to achieue. in accordance with the releuant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the at-mosphere at a lec,el that woull, preuent dan-gerous anthropogenic interference with the cl imate system (1)." A.o.di.rg to general circulation mod-els (GCMs), a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration would increase the global mean temperature by 1.5'to 4.5oC (2-4).Thrs change wouid be dangerous in drought-prone regions and low coastal areas. Although other regions might ben-efit and the net global effect could be posit ive, some would suffer. The United Nations Convention as quoted above tries to maintain the sta-tus quo by protecting the losers and minimizing the immense risks of global climace change. Although laudable, the specific wording of the "ultimate objec-tive " does not express these aims cor-recclv and realisticallv. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 was stable at 280 t 5 parrs per mil-lion (ppm) for 1000 years before the year 1800, according to ice-core records. As a result of human-made emissions, it has now increased by abour 30olo above this baseline (5). The current population of about 6 billion people emits about 6 bil-lion tons of carbon into the atmosohere per year (6). A populat ion of t0 bl l l ion people, projected for the vear 2030 (7), would emit 10 billion tons if consumo-t ion patterns do not change The concentration of CO2 started increasing in the 19th cenrury according to ice-core records, although the human-made emissions were on the order of only 1 billion tons (5). If the aim is to stabilize the CO2 concentration, annual emissions of less chan 1 billion tons are therefore probably required; emissions must certainly be less than Z billion tons per year. 'S7ith the currenr parrern of fossil fuel use, the population trend, and the trends in per capita emissions of CO2 (6), a level
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