Last
updated Monday, April 02, 2012.
The climate is changing. The earth
is warming up, and there is now overwhelming scientific consensus that it is
happening, and human-induced. With global warming on the increase and species
and their habitats on the decrease, chances for ecosystems to adapt naturally
are diminishing. Many are agreed that climate change may be one of the greatest
threats facing the planet. Recent years show increasing temperatures in various
regions, and/or increasing extremities in weather patterns.
This
section explores some of the effects of climate change. It also attempts to
provide insights into what governments, companies, international institutions,
and other organizations are attempting to do about this issue, as well as the
challenges they face. Some of the major conferences in recent years are also
discussed.
Last
updated Monday, March 05, 2012.
The climate is changing. The earth
is warming up, and there is now overwhelming scientific consensus that it is
happening, and human-induced. With global warming on the increase and species
and their habitats on the decrease, chances for ecosystems to adapt naturally
are diminishing.
Many
are agreed that climate change may be one of the greatest threats facing the
planet. Recent years show increasing temperatures in various regions, and/or
increasing extremities in weather patterns.
This
section looks at what causes climate change, what the impacts are and where
scientific consensus currently is.
Posted
Saturday, January 15, 2005.
Research
has shown that air pollutants from fossil fuel use make clouds reflect more of
the sun’s rays back into space. This leads to an effect known as global dimming
whereby less heat and energy reaches the earth. At first, it sounds like an
ironic savior to climate change problems. However, it is believed that global
dimming caused the droughts in Ethiopia in the 1970s and 80s where millions
died, because the northern hemisphere oceans were not warm enough to allow rain
formation. Global dimming is also hiding the true power of global warming. By
cleaning up global dimming-causing pollutants without tackling greenhouse gas
emissions, rapid warming has been observed, and various human health and ecological
disasters have resulted, as witnessed during the European heat wave in 2003,
which saw thousands of people die.
Last
updated Saturday, December 25, 2004.
The
world mostly agrees that something needs to be done about global warming and
climate change. The first stumbling block, however, has been trying to get an
agreement on a framework. In 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) was created by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
and the World Meterological Organization (WMO) to assess the scientific
knowledge on global warming. The IPCC concluded in 1990 that there was broad
international consensus that climate change was human-induced. That report led
way to an international convention for climate change, the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), signed by over 150 countries
at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. This section looks at this Convention and some
of the main principles in it.
Last
updated Monday, March 05, 2012.
The
United States plus a few other countries, and many large corporations, have
opposed climate change treaties seemingly afraid of profit impacts if they have
to make substantial changes to how they do business.
However,
as more climate change science has emerged over the years, many businesses are
accepting this and even asking their governments for more action so that there
is quick clarification on the new rules of the game so they can get on with their
businesses.
This
section explores some of those fears to see if they are justified or not.
Last
updated Monday, March 05, 2012.
For many years, large, influential
businesses and governments have been against the idea of global warming. Many
have poured a lot of resources into discrediting what has generally been
accepted for a long time as real.
Now,
the mainstream is generally worried about climate change impacts and the
discourse seems to have shifted accordingly. Some businesses that once engaged
in disinformation campaigns have even changed their opinions, some even
requesting governments for regulation and direction on this issue.
However,
a few influential companies and organizations are still attempting to undermine
climate change action and concerns. Will all this mean a different type of spin
and propaganda with attempts at green washing and misleading information
becoming the norm, or will there now be major shift in attitudes to see
concrete solutions being proposed and implemented?
Last
updated Sunday, January 08, 2012.
For
a number of years, there have been concerns that climate change negotiations
will essentially ignore a key principle of climate change negotiation
frameworks: the common but differentiated responsibilities.
Realizing
that greenhouse emissions remain in the atmosphere for a very long time, this
principle recognizes that historically:
- Industrialized nations have emitted far more greenhouse gas emissions (even if some developing nations are only now increasing theirs);
- Rich countries therefore face the biggest responsibility and burden for action to address climate change; and
- Rich countries therefore must support developing nations adapt—through financing and technology transfer, for example.
This
notion of climate justice is typically ignored by many rich nations and their
mainstream media, making it easy to blame China, India and other developing
countries for failures in climate change mitigation negotiations.
Development
expert, Martin Khor, calculated that taking historical emissions into account,
the rich countries owe a carbon debt because they have already used more than
their fair quota of emissions.
Yet,
by 2050 when certain emission reductions are needed by, their reduced emissions
will still add up to be go over their fair share:
However,
rather than continue down the path of unequal development, industrialized
nations can help pay off their carbon debt by truly helping emerging countries
develop along a cleaner path, such as through the promised-but-barely-delivered
technology transfer, finance, and capacity building.
So
far however, rich nations have done very little within the Kyoto protocol to
reduce emissions by any meaningful amount, while they are all for negotiating a
follow on treaty that brings more pressure to developing countries to agree to
emissions targets.
In
effect, the more there will be delay the more the poor nations will have to
save the Earth with their sacrifices (and if it works, as history shows, the
rich and powerful will find a way to rewrite history to claim they were the
ones that saved the planet).
These
issues are explored in more depth here.
Last
updated Monday, April 02, 2012.
Flexibility
mechanisms were defined in the Kyoto Protocol as different ways to achieve
emissions reduction as part of the effort to address climate change issues.
These fall into the following categories: Emissions Trading, Joint
Implementation and Clean Development Mechanism.
However,
these have been highly controversial as they were mainly included on strong US
insistence and to keep the US in the treaty (even though the US eventually
pulled out). Some of the mechanisms face criticism for not actually leading to
a reduction in emissions, for example.
Image
©: Centre for Science and Environment
Last
updated Tuesday, October 29, 2002.
A
mechanism suggested for tackling climate change and warming has been the idea
of using Carbon Sinks to soak up carbon dioxide. To aid in this, reforestation,
or planting of new forests, have been suggested. This is a popular strategy for
the logging industry and nations with large forests interests. While there may
be some potential in this solution, it cannot be effective on its own. This is
because it legitimizes continued destruction of old-growth and pristine forests
which are rich ecosystems and have an established biodiversity base (albeit
shrinking now) that naturally maintain the environment (at no cost!). Creating
new forest areas would require the creation of entire ecosystems. It is also criticized
for being a quick fix that does not tackle the root causes effectively and does
not lead to, or promote actual emissions reduction.
Last
updated Sunday, December 05, 2010.
It
seems there has been a recent interest in associating climate change/global
warming with “over population” and that countries such as China and India have
to do more to help contain global warming.
Yet
rich countries have a lot to do themselves. There were agreed reasons why
developing countries were exempt from initial greenhouse gas emission targets:
it was the emissions from rich countries that accumulated in the atmosphere for
so long to trigger climate change.
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