Global Warming

Long ago it is thought that the earth was conceived in a fiery blast of volcanoes and molten lava. The earth cooled and life was spawned. From the first bacterium that swarm the new ocean through just before the industrial revolution climate, lacking any external factors, has steadily changed.(Global Warming Updates, 2000) However, since the industrialization of civilization, the climate of the earth has faced an ever growing foreign factor. This factor is the emissions of the so called “greenhouse effect”. This phenomenon has been given the title global warming, and has sparked a new debate in local, state, national, and world policy.

Global warming is a phenomenon (otherwise known as “climate change” or “the greenhouse effect”) Whereby solar radiation that has reflected back off the surface of the earth remains trapped at atmospheric levels, due to the build up of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, rather than being emitted back into space. The effect of this is a warming of the global atmosphere. Climate change is a long standing phenomenon, as the mix of the various gases that make up the earth’s atmosphere have changed over long periods of time, so average global temperatures have fluctuated. What has alleged to be different about the current spell of global warming is that it is taken to be (1) caused by human action and (2) occurring at an unprecedented rate. The consequences of global warming remain uncertain, but climate change models predict deforestation, desertification, a pole ward shift of vegetation and animal populations, rising sea levels, and decreased precipitation.(Oxford University Press, 2007)

By the 20th century, scientists had rejected old tales of world catastrophe, and were convinced that global climate could change only gradually over many tens of thousands of years. But in the 1950’s, a few scientists found evidence that some changes in the past had taken only a few thousand years. (Weart, 2007). During the 1960’s and 1970’s other data, supported by new theories and new attitudes about human influences, reduced the time a change might require to hundreds of years. Many doubted that such a rapid shift could have befallen the planets as a whole. The 1980’s and 1990’s brought proof that the global climate could indeed shift, radically and catastrophically, within a century or even a decade.(Weart, 2007, Ð'¶ 1)

The figure above shows average global temperatures from 1860 onwards, in degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit. (Source: United Nations Environment Program World Meteorological Organization)

International cooperation is required for the successful reduction of greenhouse gases. The first international conference addressing global warming was held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, informally known as the Earth Summit, 150 countries pledged to confront the problem of greenhouse gases by signing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). To date more than 180 nations have ratified the UNFCC, which commits nations to stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would avoid dangerous human interference with the climate. (Charlemagne, 2006, p.54) .This is to be done so that ecosystems can adapt naturally to global warming, food production is not threatened, and economic development can proceed in a sustainable manner. (Smagorinsky, 1970, p.25)

The nations at the Earth Summit, agreed to meet again to translate these good intentions into a binding treaty for emissions reductions. In 1997 in Japan, 160 nations drafted an agreement know as the Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to the UNFCC. This treaty set mandatory target for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Industrialized nations that ratify the treaty are required to cut their emissions by an average of five percent below 1990 levels. This reduction is to be achieved no later than 2012, and commitments to start achieving the targets are to begin in 2008 (Smagorinsky, 1970, p.29) Developing nations are not required to commit to mandatory reductions in emissions. Under the Kyoto rules, industrialized nations are expected to take the first steps because they are responsible for most emissions to date and have more resources to devote to emissions-reduction efforts.

The protocol could not go into effect unless industrialized nations accounting for 55 percent of 1990 greenhouse gas emissions ratified it. That requirement however, was met in November 2004 when Russia approved the treaty, and it went into effect in February 2005. By the end of 2006, 166 nations had signed and ratified the treaty. Notable exceptions included in the United States and Australia. (Christianson, 1999, pp. 254-58)

In 1998, the United States became a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol. However, in 2001 United States president George W. Bush withdrew American support for the treaty. He claimed that the treaty’s goals for reducing carbon dioxide emissions would be to costly and would harm the United States economy. (Christianson, 1999, pp. 260)

He also claimed that the treaty would put an unfair burden on industrialized nations. Opposition of the treaty was spurred by the oil industry, the coal industry, and other enterprises that manufacture or depend on fossil fuels.

The Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, is only the first step in addressing greenhouse gas emissions. To stabilize or reduce emissions in the 21st century, much stronger and broader action is required. In part because the Kyoto Protocol did not take into account the rapid industrialization of countries such as China and India, which are among the developing nations exempted from the protocol’s mandatory emissions reductions. However, developing nations are projected to produce half the world’s greenhouse gases by 2035. (Christianson, 1999, pp.263) Leaders of these nations argue that emissions controls are a costly hindrance to economic development. In the past, prosperity and pollution have tended to go together, as industrialization has always been a necessary component of an economy’s development. Whether or not an economy can grow without increasing greenhouse gas emissions at the same time is a question that will be critical as nations such as China and India continue on the path of industrialization. (Christianson, 1999,