With this award, NSF provided support to the Director of the World Climate Research Programme on behalf of the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) for the ESSP Open Sciences Conference entitled "Global Environmental Change Regional Challenges" that will be held in Beijing, China, 9-12 November 2006. The Global Change Open Science Conference in Amsterdam in July 2001 brought together 1400 scientists and other interested parties form 105 countries to describe, discuss and debate the latest scientific understanding of natural and human-driven changes to our planet. They examined the effects of these changes on our societies and our lives, and explored what the future might hold. Participants at the Conference signed "The Amsterdam Declaration on Global Change" which, among other things, stated". "A new system of global environmental science is required." It called for strengthening of current cooperation among the global environmental change research programs and for greater integration across disciplines, environment and development issues and the natural and social sciences. It also called for grater collaboration across national boundaries and for intensified efforts to enable the full involvement of scientists from developing countries. This Conference will provide an opportunity to review progress since that time and to focus on integrative and multidisciplinary aspects.
