Climate Change

In the last decade or so, a 'new' environmental issue has cropped up and gained currency

What is it?

After many years of debate, it is now officially confirmed that there is a problem called Global Warming.

Its impacts are beginning to be felt in day-to-day life -,

sudden bursts of rainfall

fiery cyclones,

fewer rainy days,

fewer cold nights in short winters,

extreme heat wave conditions,

drought, floods, frequent and

extended winter fogs, and then

long summer hazes. One also hears of

melting polar ice-caps,

receding Himalayan glaciers, and

sea-level rise.

This understanding is the result of the studies by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC was established jointly by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in1988; and has since come out with reports on its scientific findings and understanding every five years or so. Its latest report, The Fourth Assessment Report, has come out recently in 2007.

What is the cause?

There are certain components in the Earth's atmosphere that help retain heat from the sun as it is reflected back from the earth's surface. This is the greenhouse effect - the warming of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, which allows life to evolve and keep it comfortable enough for human beings to survive. The components are called greenhouse gases. The naturally occurring major greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapour. Methane is also emitted by livestock, and in the course of certain agricultural practices, and carbon in the clearing of forests.

Since the industrial revolution, the concentration of some of these gases has gone up drastically. The use of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas are the major causes. And then there are synthetic gases -fluorinated gases, that are very powerful greenhouse gases. This is called human induced climate change, as distinct from the natural cycles of warming and cooling that take place over decades, hundreds and thousands of years. Human induced Climate Change is causing very rapid warming, and if left unchecked could even be beyond the capacity of human beings to deal with, or endure.

"Climate change factors There are a variety of factors which influence climate on both long and short time scales. For example, volcanoes emit CO2 sulphur compounds and dust during eruptions. Sulphur and dust emitted during the eruptions tend to form aerosols which block solar radiation from reaching the Earth's surface, and which therefore tend to produce a cooling effect. Carbon dioxide, however, is a so-called greenhouse gas. It tends to block radiation from the earth's atmosphere, and therefore tends to produce a warming effect.

Variations in the orbit of the earth, including its eccentricity, the precession of the Earth's angle of rotation and variations in its angle of tilt, all have a role to play in determining the amount of solar energy which falls on a particular spot on the earth's surface, as well as on the total amount of energy which is received by the Earth as a whole. In addition, variations in solar activity (such as that experienced during the regular 11-year sun-spot cycle, as well as longer-term variations in total solar luminosity) will have an obvious effect on terrestrial climate systems.

Changes in atmospheric composition can have a major effect on climate. This is where humanity may have a role to play in climate change.

Greenhouse warming arises from the release into the atmosphere of gases that absorb the infrared radiation emitted by the earth, thus preventing the escape of the radiation into space. Examples of greenhouse gases include CO2' CH4' NOx and HFCs. The fact is that humans have produced substantial quantities of these greenhouse gases, and the contribution of the cement industry has been substantial - and is likely to grow."

In 1992 the Earth Summit was a landmark gathering at Rio de Janeiro, at which it was agreed upon that the threat of global warming was real enough to warrant action, and most countries joined an international treaty -- the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) -- to begin to consider what can be done to reduce global warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable -mitigation of greenhouse gases and adaptation to its ill effects.

Since then officials and ministers representing these countries have been meeting every year to work out action plans to combat this impending disaster, if it is not to become a catastrophe.

The World Resources Institute has charted these emissions from different sectors of human activity.

If we are to reverse or slow down the process of Climate Change, it can only happen through tens of thousands of small and large initiatives the world over.

Climate change is an issue that has unified the world like no other... It has converged economic, social, environmental, political, gender, equity, and all other such concerns into one overarching concern-the well being of our planet. It has converged on the same platform, countries, communities and sectors that otherwise would not even see eye to eye, let alone work together. It has made the concern of an Eskimo living on the Artic Shelf the concern of the person in Papua New Guinea.