Proceedings of the World Climate Conference–A Conference of Experts on Climate and Mankind, Geneva, 12–23 February 1979. WMO–No. 537. Geneva. pp. 709–716

The Conference Declaration of the First World Climate Conference held in Geneva, Switzerland in 1979, recognizes that it is now "urgently necessary" for the nations around the world to take advantage of a man's present knowledge of climate to take steps to improve significantly that knowledge, and to foresee and to prevent potential man-made changes in climate that might be adverse to the well-being of humanity. The Conference Declaration concludes and recommends that the World Climate Programme proposed by the World Meteorological Organization deserves the strongest support of all nations. Among the main thrusts are research into the mechanisms of climate in order to clarify the relative roles of natural and anthropogenic influences, improving the acquisition and availability of climatic data, application of knowledge of climate in planning, development and management, study of impacts of climatic variability and change on human activities and the translation of findings in terms of greater use to governments and people. It further concludes that there is an immediate need for nations to utilize existing knowledge of climate and climatic variations in the planning for social and economic development.