Global Climate Change. The Climate Change session began with welcoming remarks from Todd Maiden on behalf of PBC and Zhang Jinliang on behalf of Peking University. The presentations during the two sessions can be grouped into two areas: (1) Overviews of global climate change and its implications, and (2) Topics dealing with the situation in China. In his keynote lecture, John Holdren discussed technologies that could play an important role in addressing the challenge posed by global climate change, and highlighted some of the important new information provided in the 2007 Reports of the IPCC. Toufiq Siddiqi followed this global overview with a presentation on the changing role of Asia with respect to greenhouse gas emissions, and pointed out that four of the top ten emitters of carbon dioxide from energy use are in Asia. He noted that equity issues between countries, within countries, and between generations would need to be taken into account if a post-Kyoto agreement is to be successful. The latter theme was also emphasized by Amy Sinden in her presentation on the ethics of climate change, who concluded that climate change is not only a market failure, but also a political failure driven by gross disparities in wealth and power.

In the presentations on China, Tian Chunxiu discussed the benefits of simultaneous mitigation of air pollution and climate change, and illustrated this with a study on Shanghai. Chen Wenying made a comprehensive presentation on alternative energy scenarios for China, and the corresponding emissions of greenhouse gases. The recently announced National Climate Change Program of China was outlined by Gao Hairan from the office responsible for coordinating climate change policies in China. Different aspects of the health impacts of climate change in China were discussed by Zhang Jinliang and Gao Qingxian in two separate presentations. Climate change will also have significant implications for agriculture in China, and these were discussed by Lin Erda.