Climate change is an environmental issue that is now recognized by almost the entire scientific community in the world. It affects the entire planet. The climate is influenced by both natural and human factors. However, it's been proven that human activities are responsible for a wide range of global warming caused by greenhouse gase emmisions associated with massive human activities, particularly transports and industries. The temperature has increased by 0.6% during the last century.
People are aware of the fact that if nothing is done to reduce global warming on global level, climate change could pose a serious threat to the population growth which could lead to an increase in the number of environmental disasters such as cyclones and storms and also result in significant meltdown of the glaciers that would cause a rise in the sea level from 10 to 20 centimeters.
Such a phenomenon would be sufficient to reduce a big part of the low-lying land masses and cause major floods. Some countries may even be wiped off the map because of these floods, "even a partial melting [of Greenland] would cause a one-meter (three-foot) rise. Such a rise would have a devastating impact on low-lying island countries, such as the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, which would be entirely submerged. " On the other hand, due to the rise in temperature, some other states could suffer from water penury.
We can predict the huge problems that would arise on the international level. These consequences could indeed lead to a massive amount of "environmental refugees" trying to move in other countries, and border conflicts. Not to mention the disappearing of entire nations and cultures because of their submersion.
Besides, storms would probably be more frequent, which would cause serious damages in numerous countries and the agricultural sector is more likely to be affected by this climate change. Another serious concern is that, the entire ecosystem could be destroyed. According to the magazine "Nature", by the year 2050, a million species could disappear .
As predictions about the consequences of global climate change have become more and more alarming, countries have started thinking about the ways to deal with it. The problem is that the fight against climate change requires the cooperation of every state in the world, which is obviously really hard to obtain, since each country has its own laws, rules and regulations.
One can wonder whether the international regulation on greenhouse gases emission could be implemented, because it is assured that each country is subjected to a supranational regulation. The current situation of the Kyoto protocol is a good example since the United States, which is the second largest polluter in the world, have still not have ratified it (though they have signed it). Unfortunately, it seems that it has turned into a dead-end.
[...] And finally, I will focus on what they are doing at an international levelto encourage countries to fight the climate change. The United States, France and India have different levels of commitment concerning the reduction of greenhouse gases released in the atmosphere. One of the ways to assess this commitment is to ensure that they comply with the Kyoto Protocol. This protocol was initiated in 1992 by more than 180 countries who were concerned about climate change and signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Rio de Janeiro's Earth Summit. [...]
[...] First, because it represents a real paradox with states and high personalities who want to lead the fight against climate change and others who are completely reluctant to reduce their greenhouse gases emissions. The second, for it has committed itself to fighting against global warming for more than ten years now and that French president Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to encourage other countries to follow the same path during his EU presidency. Finally, as one of the biggest emerging countries, it faces a great challenge: maintaining its economic growth in order to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. [...]
[...] But, on the other hand, they all have taken steps to tackle the problem of climate change by introducing specific measures regarding the promotion of green energy or technological change.In the U.S., California has taken the lead on the fight against global warming. It has implemented new technologies to reduce GHG emissions: it developed more technical expertise in controlling emissions of global warming than any U.S. state in the two years since it passed a law requiring its emissions to fall by about 15% in the next 12 years[6]”. [...]
[...] two nations agreed to fight global warming by modeling climate change, studying vulnerability arising from climate change, improving facilities for projection of climate change and its consequences and R&D of adaptive technologies.[12]” So we can see that India is willing to make more efforts to combat climate change maybe because its leaders have understood the possible damages that global warming could represent for India's agriculture in the near future.So we have seen that these three countries have started to change their national policies to tackle the issue of climate change. [...]
[...] As the Kyoto Protocol states: share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow to meet their social and development needs”, which means that India, China and other emerging countries don't have to abide by the same binding regulations because they were far from being the main responsible countries for GHG emissions during the industrialization period that occurred before the treaty. Moreover, similarly to what George W. Bush said in 2001, India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in 2007 that efforts concerning the fight against climate change could not get in the way of poor countries' economic development: “Like China and other emerging economies, India has long maintained that it bears little responsibility for climate change and that Western nations should be asked to make many of the sacrifices needed to combat global warming[5]”. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
