Essay on “Global Warming Scenario” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.
Global Warming Scenario
Global Warming is defined as the increase of the average temperature on earth. As the earth is getting hotter, disasters like hurricanes, droughts and floods are getting more frequent. Over the last 100 years, the average temperature of the air near the earth’s surface has risen a little less than 1° Celsius. On first look, this does not seem all that much? However, the fact is that this little increase is responsible for the conspicuous increase in Storms, floods and raging forest fires we have seen in the last ten years.
Data collected by the scientist’s shows that an increase of one degree Celsius makes the earth warmer now than it has been for at least a thousand years. Out of the 20 warmest years on record, 19 have occurred since 1980. The three hottest years ever observed have all occurred in the last ten years.
The earth is already showing many signs of worldwide climate change:
-Average temperatures have climbed 0.8 degree Celsius around the world since 1880, much of this in recent decades.
– The rate of warming is increasing. The 20th century’s last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia.
– The Arctic is feeling the effects the most. Average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada and Eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average.
– Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the region may have its first completely ice-free summer by 2040 or earlier. Polar bears and indigenous cultures are already suffering from the sea-ice loss.
– Glaciers and mountain snows are rapidly melting-for example, Montana’s Glacier National Park now has only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910. In the Northern Hemisphere, thaws also come a week earlier in spring and freezes begin a week later.
– Coral reefs, which are highly sensitive to small changes in water temperature, suffered the worst bleaching—or die-off in response to Stress-ever recorded in 1998, with some areas seeing bleach rates of 70 per cent. Experts expect these sorts of events to increase in frequency and intensity in the next 50 years as sea temperatures rise.
– An upsurge in the amount of extreme weather events, such as wildfires, heat waves, and Strong tropical storms, is also attributed in part to climate change by some experts.
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012.
The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that while the Convention encouraged industrialized countries to Stabilize GHG emissions, the Protocol commits them to do so.
Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of _“common but differentiated responsibilities.”
The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on December 11, 1997 and entered into force on February 16, 2005. 184 Parties of the Convention have ratified its Protocol to date. The detailed rules for the implementation of the Protocol were adopted at COP 7 in Marrakesh in 2001, and are called the “Marrakesh Accords.”
The Kyoto Mechanisms
Under the Treaty, countries must meet their targets primarily through national measures. However, the Kyoto Protocol offers them an additional means of meeting their targets by way of three market-based mechanisms.
- Emissions trading-known as ‘the carbon market’.
- Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). 3. Joint Implementation (J1).
The mechanisms help Stimulate green investment and help Parties meet their emission targets in a cost-effective way.
Under the Protocol, countries’ actual emissions have to be monitored and precise records have to be kept of the trades carried out.
The Kyoto Protocol, like the Convention, is also designed to assist countries in adapting to the adverse effects of climate change. It facilitates the development and deployment of techniques that can help increase resilience to the impacts of climate change. The Adaptation Fund was established to finance adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. The Fund is financed mainly with a share of proceeds from CDM project activities.
Copenhagen Accord
The Copenhagen Accord, the first global agreement of the 21st century to comprehensively influence the flow and share of natural resources, was agreed upon by 26 most influential countries in the wee hours of December 19, 2009, in the capital of Denmark. The US led the pack of architects with the BASIC four-China, India, Brazil and South Africa (in that order)working as sometimes reluctant and sometimes willing, but always key partners in framing the agreement.
The accord demands that increase in global temperatures be kept below 2 degrees on the basis of equity It requires global emissions as well as all national emissions to peak at a certain time but is mindful of concerns of economic development. It asks industrialized countries, except the US, to take emission cuts in future, but not necessarily under the Kyoto Protocol. It lays out up to $30 billion of quick-start finance and $100 billion starting. 2020, using all the routes of transfer possible. It requires mitigation actions from developing countries for the first time to be listed in an international agreement.
The rules of multilateral engagement got re-written as new alignments created a coterie of the powerful that brokered deals in closed rooms: each working at the end to preserve, if not improve its immediate economic status.
The pact they forged did cause heartburn as less powerful economies felt left out. Tuvalu and Sudan said it was too weak, while Venezuela and Bolivia were upset because it had not been negotiated in the open by all the 192 countries attending the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference. The low-ambition deal was seen as a triumph of the US which defied estimates to influence the outcome. But the negotiations also saw the Chinese leveraging their clout in the resource-rich African continent, at a multilateral forum.
For India though, the Accord came out of hard bargaining lasting almost 20 hours among Heads of governments of some of the most influential countries in the world. At the end of the day, when the battle was over, India appeared to have ceded ground on some issues but blocked intrusion on other redlines.
With stakes too high and the rich countries making abjectly clear that they were not playing to the rules, but to change the rules altogether, the four emerging economies decided to instead scratch up a low-ambition deal-a pact that would lower the pressure on them by lowering the demands off the rich countries in parallel.
Finally the Copenhagen Accord took a morphed form of the US-backed schedules approach of ‘pledge and review’. The Copenhagen Accord is n0t what the US or Europe would have wanted it to be, but it still contains some elements India would have to, at best, fight to defend again in coming years or those that could be titled a lost battle by the end of the talks.
India, along with the other three emerging countries, fought hard and won the battle to retain the reference principle of common but differentiated responsibility which creates the firewall between the commitments of the rich countries and the actions of rest. India was also able to wrest the creation of a green climate fund as well as fight back the attempt to force emission cuts through the backdoor.
But, fighting a defensive battle, evidently wanting not to be labelled obstructionist by the US, India, along with the Other three partners loosened up its stance on some key issues. This loosening of stance may not hit home immediately but it left the window open for growing inequitable burden falling on India’s head to prevent climate change.
Major Highlights
– The final draft after the Copenhagen summit has agreed to cuts in emissions and hold increase in global temp below 2°C
– A proposal attached to the accord calls for a legally binding treaty by the end-2010.
– Developed countries to provide adequate financial resources and technology to support developing countries. A goal of mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries has been set.
– Details of mitigation plans are included in separate annexure, one for developed countries and one for voluntary pledges from developing countries. These are not binding, and describe the current Status of pledges ranging from ‘under consideration’ for the United States to ‘adopted by legislation’ for the European Union.
– Emerging economies have been asked to monitor their efforts and report the results to the United Nations every two years, with some international checks to meet transparency concerns of West but ‘ensure that national sovereignty is respected’.
– The accord agrees to provide positive incentives to fund afforestation with financial resources from developed world
– Carbon Markets are mentioned in the accord, but not in detail. The deal promises to pursue various approaches, including opportunities to use markets to enhance the cost-effectiveness and promote mitigation actions.