From Ecopedia

Overview

Climate Change refers to statistically significant variations in the global climate due to increased human activities, causing the release of harmful Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) in excess into the earth’s atmosphere.

Ever since the days of Industrial Revolution, which is around 150 years ago, human activity resulted in the increase of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide, methane and carbon dioxide, which contributed to the hazardous Global Warming phenomenon. Climate Change, limited to a specific region or across the entire world, represents a major environmental threat to our planet.

Environmental Effects

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international expert team founded in 1998 to review scientific research and assessment of climate change and future effects of the change, estimated that since 1850, surface mean temperatures of the earth increased by 0.76° C. Such increases in global temperatures is causing changes in rainfall, cloud cover, ocean currents, wind patterns, precipitation, and duration of seasons, besides significantly altering the distribution of plants and animals across the globe.

Greenhouse Effect and Carbon Emissions

As more and more greenhouse gases are getting released into the air, most of the sun’s energy is getting trapped in the atmosphere, due to which, large quantities of carbon available in the form of carbon dioxide on earth, is not being absorbed by trees, soil or subterranean deposits. Such a change in the composition of the earth’s atmosphere is leading to extreme and environmentally-harmful climatic conditions.

Long-term Climate Changes

Extreme weather conditions such as droughts, heat waves, heavy precipitation as well as tropical cyclone intensities are becoming a common feature due to changes in the global climatic conditions.

IPCC observed that climate trends are progressing towards stronger, longer and hotter dry periods across the world. Dry regions are found to lose more moisture due to warmer weather, exacerbating droughts as well as desertification.

Species Extinction

As per observations, adverse climatic conditions are causing frequent coastline floods, besides disrupting the supply of water and food needed for wild life existence and sustenance. Due to disruption in food and water supplies, many species are facing endangerment and extinction. In the twentieth century, global warming contributed to the mean surface temperatures of the world to increase by 0.6 °C, precipitating unsuitable warm climates for the wild life to survive and sustain.

European Union and Global Agreements

Realizing the urgency in combating climate changes, many countries across the world started adopting stringent measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and switch to eco-friendly renewable energies such as wind and solar power. Measures were also taken to significantly expand forest cover and change lifestyles of people, in general, by promoting the efficient use of energy with minimal wastage.

In an attempt to develop international strategies to combat global changes in climate, European Union became instrumental in putting forth two major UN (United Nations) treaties on climate changes:

· UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed in 1992

· Kyoto Protocol, agreement signed in 1997

UNFCCC

In order to combat climate change the convention members signed Copenhagen Accord, which obliged several developing as well as developed countries to commit to minimizing carbon emissions and pledging support for transfer of technologies, besides acknowledging the crucial role of forest systems in countering the affects of climate change.

Kyoto Protocol

The international agreement signed in Kyoto Protocol, committed the member countries to set binding targets for minimizing greenhouse gas emissions by about 5% against the levels recorded in 1990. The protocol set a time period of five years, from 2008 to 2012, to achieve the target level. The rules set for the implementation of the protocol, known as “Marrakesh Accords”, were finalized and adopted at COP7 in the year 2001, in Marrakesh.

While the UNFCCC encouraged industrialized nations to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions, the Kyoto Protocol committed the member countries to reduce the emissions.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/home_en.htm http://www.unep.org/climatechange/ http://envfor.nic.in/cc/what.htm http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch1s1-1.html http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch1s1-2.html http://unfccc.int/essential_background/items/2877.php http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php http://unfccc.int/essential_background/feeling_the_heat/items/2918.php