Getting Climate Policy on Track after The Hague

In November 2000, the Sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-6) ended in disarray and recrimination. The objective of the meeting was to agree on the details of the definitions and rules underlying the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in 1997. Unfortunately, the issues at stake were not small ones but points of principle and substance on which agreement had previously proved impossible, not only in Kyoto but in the negotiating sessions that followed. COP-6 is to be reconvened in July 2001 in the hope of resolving the differences, but the outlook is not favourable because positions appear to remain far apart. As a result, it is not clear what directions the international negotiations might take next. This article explores various paths, and draws the conclusion that several years may be required before a necessary revision of the Kyoto rules and targets can be undertaken. In the interim, progress on climate issues should not stop, and the authors suggest a set of efforts to be pursued, even while the search for a common global response continues. These efforts include pursuing domestic action to reduce emissions, maintaining activities already begun under the Framework Convention, and, in as much as possible, seeking agreement on consistent accounting rules.     

On the Ancient Parliament and Castle of Acton Burnell

The remains of an iron dagger within an iron sheath were found in 1998 at Castlethorpe, Buckinghamshire: the only one recorded in Britain and Ireland. Their typological characteristics are those of early iron-age examples, made somewhere between 600 and 400 B.C. A unique design feature and the circumstances of its deposition are discussed.     

The Royal Councils of Worcester

The possible existence of a Roman signal station at Whitby has a significant impact upon the study of the Roman defensive system of the North Yorkshire coast and our understanding of the Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical topography of the area. Whitby lies at the mouth of the River Esk and its associated harbour on the North Yorkshire coast, amidst an intervisible chain of five known signal stations, but is perhaps best known for its Anglo-Saxon monastery founded by the Northumbrian king Oswy in A.D. 657. No absolute archaeological evidence of a signal station at Whitby exists, but the toponym suggests that the site had an association with a signal station or watchtower. It is clear that the existing stations were designed to function as a cohesive system, given their similar form and contemporary dates: communication and intervisibility were therefore essential aspects of this defensive network. Despite this, the stations to the north and south of Whitby—those at Goldsborough and Ravenscar respectively—are not intervisible. A station positioned at Whitby would effectively close this gap in the system.

Attempting to reconcile the near complete absence of archaeological remains with the place-name and geographical evidence, this paper uses geologically determined erosion rates to examine the possibility that such a station existed on the more than three hundred metres of coastal land that has eroded since the Roman period. In doing so it addresses the extent to which archaeologists can reconstruct and work with an ancient coastline on a local scale. Having established the probability of a ‘lost’ station, the paper discusses the results of a GIS viewshed application which address the feasibility of such a station's intervisibility from its neighbouring station to the south. The concluding sections investigate the stations' possible form.