ESSAY-1

CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change is already happening and represents one of the greatest

environmental, social and economic threats facing the planet. The European Union
is committed to working constructively for a global agreement to control climate
change, and is leading  the way by taking ambitious action of its own.
The warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from
observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread
melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level. The Earth's average
surface temperature has risen by 0.76° C since 1850. Most of the warming that has
occurred over the last 50 years is very likely to have been caused by human
activities.

What Causes Climate Change

The causes of climate change can be divided into two categories, human and
natural causes.

It is now a global concern that the climatic changes occurring today have been
speeded up because of man's activities.

The natural variability and the climate fluctuations of the climate system have
always been part of the Earth’s history however there have been changes in
concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere growing at an unprecedented
rate and magnitude. The United Nations, governments and many top scientists
around the world believe that we must act now to stabilise and arrest further
changes.

Causes of Climate Change

 

Human Causes of Climate Change

"It has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the climate is changing
due to man-made greenhouse gases. We are already committed to future
substantial change over the next 30 years and change is likely to accelerate over
the rest of the 21st century."
 
 The Met Office, Hadley Centre, UK
 

"The Hadley Centre holds an unique position in the world of climate science. No
other single body has a comparable breadth of climate change science and
modelling, or has made the same contribution to global climate science and current
knowledge."

Independent Review 2007

The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century saw the large-scale use of fossil fuels
for industrial activities. Fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas supply most of
the energy needed to run vehicles, generate electricity for industries and
households. The energy sector is responsible for about ¾ of the carbon dioxide
emissions, 1/5 of the methane emissions and a large quantity of nitrous oxide.

Carbon dioxide is undoubtedly, the most important greenhouse gas in the

atmosphere. Changes in land use pattern, deforestation, land clearing, agriculture,
and other activities have all led to a rise in the emission of carbon dioxide.
Methane is another important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. It is released from
animals such as dairy cows, goats, pigs, buffaloes, camels, horses and sheep
Methane is also emitted during the process of oil drilling, coal mining, leaking gas
pipelines, landfills and waste dumps.

The certainty of global warming can be seen through some of the natural
phenomenon like the effect on crops and extreme weather conditions around the
world. It is especially clear in the dramatic change of the polar caps, i.e. the Arctic
ice cap is shrinking and the Antarctica ice shelf is melting.

Natural Causes of Climate Change

The earth’s climate is influenced and changed through natural causes like volcanic
eruptions, ocean current, the earth’s orbital changes and solar variations.

Volcanic eruptions - When a volcano erupts it throws out large volumes of

sulphur dioxide (SO2), water vapour, dust, and ash into the atmosphere. Large
volumes of gases and ash can influence climatic patterns for years by increasing
planetary reflectivity causing atmospheric cooling.

Ocean current - The oceans are a major component of the climate system. Ocean
currents move vast amounts of heat across the planet. Winds push horizontally
against the sea surface and drive ocean current patterns. Interactions between the
ocean and atmosphere can also produce phenomena such as El Niño which occur
every 2 to 6 years. Deep ocean circulation of cold water from the poles towards the
equator and movement of warm water from the equator back towards the poles.
Without this movement the poles would be colder and the equator warmer. The
oceans play an important role in determining the atmospheric concentration of
CO2. Changes in ocean circulation may affect the climate through the movement
of CO2 into or out of the atmosphere.

Earth orbital changes - The earth makes one full orbit around the sun each year.
It is tilted at an angle of 23.5° to the perpendicular plane of its orbital path.
Changes in the tilt of the earth can lead to small but climatically important changes
in the strength of the seasons, more tilt means warmer summers and colder winters;
less tilt means cooler summers and milder winters. Slow changes in the Earth’s
orbit lead to small but climatically important changes in the strength of the seasons
over tens of thousands of years. Climate feedbacks amplify these small changes,
thereby producing ice ages.

Solar variations - The Sun is the source of energy for the Earth’s climate system.
Although the Sun’s energy output appears constant from an everyday point of
view, small changes over an extended period of time can lead to climate changes.
Some scientists suspect that a portion of the warming in the first half of the 20th
century was due to an increase in the output of solar energy.

Main Contributors and Causes of Climate Change

According to the UK Government the main contributors of man made causes of

climate change in the UK are:
 

* 4% of carbon emissions come from industrial processes

* 7% come from agriculture – for example methane emissions from livestock and
manure, and nitrous oxide emissions from chemical fertilisers
21% carbon emissions from transport 

65% come from the use of fuel to generate energy (excluding transport)

About 40% of carbon emissions in the UK are the result of decisions taken directly
by individuals. The biggest sources of emissions for most people are likely to be:

* energy use in the home (the main use is heating) 

* driving a car

* air travel

The causes of climate change continued

Increase in global temperatures - Inter-government Panel

The most recent assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) says that the earth’s average temperature has risen by 0.74 degrees
in the period from 1906 to 2005, and that the average temperature will continue to
rise.

The greenhouse effect is a natural mechanism that retains the heat emitted from the
earth’s surface. The earth’s average temperature is at the moment around 14
degrees celsius (57 degrees fahrenheit). If the natural greenhouse effect did not
exist, the average temperature would be around minus 19 degrees celsius (minus 2
degrees fahrenheit).

The greenhouse effect is caused by a range of different gases in the earth’s

atmosphere. Water vapour makes the most significant contribution to the
greenhouse effect, followed by CO2. The atmospheric content of greenhouse gases
– in particular CO2 – and the consequences for the climate are being discussed
because the content of these gases in the atmosphere has risen precipitously in a
period covering approximately the latest 250 years, and especially the last 50.

At present the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 385 ppm (parts per
million). Before industrialization it was about 280 ppm. Analyses of air contained
in ice from the Antarctic ice cap show that there is far more CO2 in the air today
than at any time in the last 650,000 years. 
The consequence is that the greenhouse effect is becoming stronger, and therefore
the earth is becoming warmer. How much warmer has, however, been a matter of
dispute. The most recent assessment report from the IPCC is from 2007. It
concludes that the earth’s average temperature has risen by 0.74 degrees in the
period from 1906 to 2005. The warming is stronger over land areas than over the
sea, and accordingly it is strongest in the northern hemisphere. At the same time
occurrences of heat waves and violent downpours have also increased, the oceans
have risen, and the ice at the world’s poles and on its mountains has begun to melt.
All of these effects are predictable in the event of global warming.

The IPCC’s most recent assessment report concludes that the average temperature
will continue to rise, but that the extent and the duration of this rise, and the
severity of its consequences, depend on how quickly and how effectively
emissions of greenhouse gases can be restricted and, over time, reduced.

REMEDIES

Grasping the extent of the danger that climate change presents is not always easy,
especially when we are enjoying unseasonably balmy weather, which allows us to
sit on café terraces in December. 

For world politicians and experts assembled in Poland for a 12-day UN summit,
however, the threat is all too real. The chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, warned that by 2020, up to 4.3
billion people could have decreased access to water.

The large gathering in Poland, convened as part of the two-year process set to
define the way forward beyond the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, is a
kind of dress rehearsal for the global summit that will produce the next treaty, to be
held in Copenhagen in 2009.

While most nations assembled in Poland understand what is at stake, reaching a

consensus on how to address the issues and, crucially in these frugal times, how
the cost of cutting emissions and preventing further loss of CO2-absorbing rain
forests will be shared, is still proving tough.

Emerging economies still want richer nations, lead contributors of greenhouse

gases so far, to bear a greater share of the cost of making the transition to more
environmentally friendly practices. The success of the Copenhagen summit next
year will also depend in part on how much the incoming Obama administration
will depart from the conservative position maintained by the incumbent US
government. China had refused to make pledges unless the US, a major polluter,
shows greater commitment to strict targets.

Environmentalists believe global greenhouse gases need to be reduced by at least

50 percent by 2050, compared to 1990 benchmark levels, in order to limit global
warming to 2 to 3 degrees.

In Turkey, despite attempts by campaigners to raise the alarm, there is no real

sense that the government sees the need to tackle emission curbs and
environmental protection urgently. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had
announced earlier this year that Turkey would ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but the
proposal is still waiting in Parliament, apparently low on the agenda. According to
recent press reports, the file is 30th in line to be taken up by the national assembly.

Yet according to statistics released last month by the UN Climate Change

Secretariat, Turkey has the dubious honor of posting the highest increase of
greenhouse gas emissions among countries party to Annex I of the UN Convention
on Climate Change. Whereas across the industrialized world, emissions decreased
about 5 percent between 1990 and 2006, in Turkey they nearly doubled during that
period.

Interestingly, a recent survey conducted by the HSBC Climate Change Initiative in

developed and emerging economies -- but unfortunately not in Turkey -- suggests
that at the grassroots level, the vast majority of people want their countries to take
on a "fair share" of emissions cuts: in emerging markets, only 4 percent of people
believe that promoting economic growth should justify increasing emissions,
whereas in the US, 72 percent of those surveyed want their country to reduce
greenhouse gases by at least as much as other nations. In fact, 26 percent in the
UK, Canada and the US agree that they should pay more to give other economies a
chance to expand.

Overall, the survey, which included France, UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, the
US, Mexico, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Hong Kong and China, found that the
awareness gap between the developed and developing world was narrowing. But
while concern about climate change had increased in most, but not all, countries,
individual commitment to tackling it was losing momentum: 48 percent of
respondents wanted governments to take the lead with specific measures such as
investing in renewable energy or stopping deforestation.