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COP 2 INTRODUCTION COP 2 took place on 8/19 July 1996 at Geneva,Switzerland.Its objectives were to review studies on the environmental and economic effects of removing subsidies and other supports to energy and transport.Another main aim was to consider advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to reforming policies and addressing externalities in the energy and transport sectors. PROCEEDINGS Some of the highlights in the proceedings include the following. Ms. Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Proramme, said that the IPCC, in the conclusions reached in its Second Assessment Report, had been forthright and clear in its message to the world. The implications were equally clear: all further anthropogenic emissions of radiatively-active gases needed to be regarded as deliberate acts of pollution which governments were ethically bound to control within limits that would not allow dangerous interference with the climate system. Eventually,Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said that the IEA was deeply involved in the Convention process because energy was a major part of the climate change problem and hence needed to be a major part of the solution to that problem. International cooperation on energy matters increasingly involved cooperation on global environmental issues, especially greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Describing the inputs already made by IEA to the Convention process, he said the IEA ministers had reaffirmed their political commitment to the goals of the Convention and to the aim expressed in the Berlin Mandate. It was particularly important, in light of the experience gained since the adoption of the Convention, that the commitments set for time-frames beyond the year 2000 should be realistically attainable. Describing the key underlying factors in the energy sector which governed the scope for action on greenhouse gas emissions, he emphasized the need to ensure that policy decisions were taken in full awareness of the implications for energy use and resulting emissions. The long time-scale for infrastructural change needed to be matched by long-scale commitments to change and long-scale policy instruments, including energy technology research and development. The fact that the world’s economy was at present highly geared to the use of fossil fuels did not mean there was no theoretical economic potential for action that would achieve substantial reductions in energy use and related emissions. There was, however, a need to face up to the distinction not only between what was technically possible and what was economically reasonable, but also between what was economically reasonable and what was commercially and politically possible. In conclusion, he outlined a number of opportunities for action and emphasized the need for all market participants to work together to arrive at cost-effective solutions that were, the IPCC would be able to define those limits, but in the meantime a precautionary approach had to be followed. The time had come to set meaningful targets for emission reduction, including as soon as possible a global emission cap, and a timetable for its achievement. To that end, the voluntary participation of developing countries in emission reduction measures was essential. For that purpose, those countries had to be given prompt and unfettered access to international financial mechanisms and appropriate technology free of political conditionality, involving new and additional resources to those presently available for development aid. The industrialized countries, for their part, needed to give a clear lead by agreeing to reduce their carbon emissions post-2000 to the very limit of their capacity to do so. There were a number of opportunities for action: improvements in integrated and sustainable resource management; greater coordination and dialogue between existing structures at the international, regional and national levels to ensure rationality in atmospheric protection measures and actions that protect the environment; the engagement of the private sector and civil society; the use of market and non-market instruments to promote efficient energy end-use. CONCLUSIONS •	COP 2 concluded by noting the Geneva Declaration,which endorses the IPCC conclusions and calls for legally binding objectives and significant reductions in GHG emissions. •	The delegates accepted the scientific findings on climate change preferred by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change *IPCC* in its second accesment.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an intergovernmental body of UN.Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. •	The discussions at the second COP to the UNFCC saw Australia establish itself as a climate change laggard. Immediately before the conference,the government questioned the science of climate change and opposed the idea of IPCC¬ new conclusions on climate change impacts providing the basis of negotiations Environmentalist1442 (talk) 08:27, 19 May 2023 (UTC)