The Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), at its seventeenth session, agreed that the work on the scientific and methodological aspects of the proposal by Brazil should be continued by the scientific community. An expert meeting on scientific and methodological aspects of the proposal was organized by the Governments of Brazil, Germany and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Berlin, Germany, on 8–9 September 2003. This document contains a report on this meeting, which was jointly submitted by the above-mentioned Governments. In accordance with the procedure for miscellaneous documents, this submission is attached and reproduced in the language in which it was received and without formal editing