Yesterday the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its synthesis report in Valencia. This morning I learned that there was another important international meeting happening not far away in Montpellier – the final international committee of the consultative process to establish an International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity (IMoSEB).
The steering committee includes individual scientists, representatives of more than 20 governments (incuding the United States), and representatives from a variety of international, intergovernmental, and United Nations agencies as well as various non-governmental organizations and research initiatives. The consultative process began more than two years ago at the Paris Conference on Biodiversity. “The goal is to set up a worldwide network of expertise that, similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will issue updated reports on the planet's biodiversity” (source)
A grim story just came out about the French meeting about IMoSEB: http://frogmatters.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/biodiversitys-equivalent-to-ipcc-gets-grim-news-report/