THE CLIMATE CHANGE PHENOMENON
The Link with Anthropogenic Activities
The fact that global climate conditions have been changing beyond natural variability is now well established. Evidence accumulated over the last several decades indicates that this change has intimate links with anthropogenic – that is, human-induced – activities that are essentially responsible for substantially enhanced levels of emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established in 1988, has conducted several assessments, which show that unless deliberate steps are taken to reduce GHG emissions in the coming decades, irreversible changes will occur in the global climate system. Most vulnerable to change are
Global and regional temperature precipitation and other parameters
Soil structure and moisture
Global mean sea levels
Frequency of extreme events associated with changes in absolute temperatures
The changes will, in turn, lead to a number of adverse effects, on, inter alia
Ecological systems
Health and epidemiological patterns
Hydrological and water resource balance
Food and fiber production
Coastal and marine systems
Human settlements
Other socioeconomic sectors
This clearly poses an enormous challenge for international and domestic governance.
THE GLOBAL FRAMEWORK
The Climate Change Convention
Confronted with the evidence, the international community has, in the last decade, been involved in discussions about the steps necessary for mitigating or facilitating orderly adaptation to these changes and impacts. An agreement was eventually reached at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992 for a convention to define the strategies necessary for collective intervention into the climate change phenomenon.