Climate Change

There is overwhelming scientific consensus that the earth is warming due to human activities as well as natural events.  Global warming is primarily caused by an increase in atmospheric gases, known as “greenhouse gases,” such as carbon dioxide, methane, carbon monoxide, and sulfur, which trap some of the outgoing energy that the earth radiates back into space.  While this effect is highly desirable to a point, we can get ourselves into trouble when too much of the sun’s heat is trapped and cannot escape back into space.  When excess heat gets trapped in our atmosphere, the average temperature of the earth increases, resulting in other devastating effects such as an increase in number and intensity of tropical storms, rising sea levels, droughts, and flooding.

Three of the primary sources of the increase in greenhouse gases include:

• Burning of fossil fuels (transportation, electricity production)
• Methane from farm animals
• Forest destruction

The burning of fossil fuels also releases toxic particles into the air, which are deleterious to human life and the environment.  2.4 million people worldwide die from causes linked to air pollution every year causing more deaths than car accidents.[2]

If we avoid making the necessary changes to our destructive actions, we are likely to continue on a circular path whereby each problem will exacerbate other problems, which then feed back into each other.  Experts generally agree that some of the effects of increased global temperature will include:

• Massive extinction of species
• Longer spells of intense rains or dry heats depending on location
• Ozone loss, which is likely to further aggravate global warming
• Accelerated melting of the earth’s ice cover[3]
• Warming of the oceans, leading to increased greenhouse gasses
• Oceans rising due to thermal expansion
• More powerful hurricanes
• Increased droughts
• An alarming increase in the outbreaks and epidemics of diseases[4]

In fact, we are already seeing evidence of many of these effects. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), an organization of the United Nations, released a statement in July, 2003 announcing:

“New record extreme events occur every year somewhere in the globe, but in recent years the number of such extremes have been increasing.  Recent scientific assessments indicate that, as the global temperatures continue to warm due to climate change, the number and intensity of extreme events might increase.”[5]

The scientific community came to a general consensus, and we now have international agreement, that although developing countries share the concerns over climate change, industrialized nations are responsible for the majority of global emissions and should bear more responsibly for reductions. Industrialized countries account for roughly 80% of the carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere to date.[6]   Much of the growth in emissions in developing countries results from the provision of basic human needs for growing populations, while emissions in industrialized countries contribute to growth in a standard of living that is already far above that of the average person worldwide.[7] 

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed and ratified in 1992 by most countries in the world including the United States, recognizing that there should be “common but differentiated responsibilities” for industrialized countries to reduce their emissions while helping developing countries avoid similar industrialized pollution problems in the future.  Several years later the UNFCCC was made into the legally binding commitment known as the Kyoto Protocol.  Despite signing the UNFCCC, the U.S. later contradicted itself by pulling out of the Kyoto agreements, citing China and India as the reason they wouldn’t participate.  Ironically, China and India both ratified the Kyoto Protocol.  Furthermore, since 1950, the U.S. has emitted a cumulative total of roughly 50.7 billion tons of carbon, while China (4.6 times more populous) and India (3.5 times more populous) have emitted only 15.7 and 4.2 billion tons respectively (although their numbers will rise).[8] The United States accounts for roughly 4% of the world’s population and is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for approximately 23% of global emissions and 42% of all industrialized country emissions.[9]  Despite China’s well-documented environmentally destructive contributions to global warming and other global pollution problems, they have at least made aggressive commitments to renewable energy with a goal of moving to 15% renewable resources by 2020 compared to the UK who has only committed to 10%.[10]  Many developing nations have already made voluntary progress in emission reductions of 19% (300 million tons a year) or more.[11]

One of the most commonly cited weaknesses in the Kyoto Protocol is that it holds countries, not corporations, responsible for emission reductions. There is legitimate concern among developing counties about large, wealthy, international corporations moving their operations to their countries and greatly contributing to the emissions that they will later be responsible for.[12]  Poverty and third world debt has diverted resources from developing countries’ ability to use governmental funds towards alternative energy resources.  As the onslaught of companies from industrialized countries moving their operations abroad continues, there must be some accountability from large-scale corporations with international manufacturing facilities in terms of their assistance and financial responsibility to the developing nation they are polluting.  Because developing nations have only recently entered into the industrialized phases of development, they still must take care to avoid following in the same pollution footsteps as larger industrialized or developed countries. 

While there are many proven strategies and techniques that contribute to a decrease in global warming and other related problems, the global community has repeatedly failed to establish cooperation.[13]  It is time to move away from blaming and finger-pointing, and researching and debating the causes, to a place where every person on earth takes some action to reduce our contributions to global warming. In the end climate change will affect all people and all nations, so it is important for both developed and developing nations to change how forests are managed, fossil fuels are used, and waste is captured.