What is being done about climate change?

Our responses to climate change can be grouped into two categories: adaptation and mitigation.

Adaptation means adjustment in natural or human behaviour in response to climate change, which moderates the harm or exploits beneficial opportunities. So, building flood defenses against rising sea levels is an example of adaptation.

Mitigation is simply any reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, or enhancement of greenhouse gas sinks, for example forests, which absorb CO2.

Mitigation, for example reducing a country’s use of fossil fuels, requires international cooperation for success but its effects are global. Adaptation, for example building flood defenses, is more local in its implementation and its benefits. Because climate change may be catastrophic beyond a certain point – causing changes that cannot be adapted to – mitigation should be the international political priority.

Both adaptation and mitigation are necessary elements of any climate policy as some climate impacts are inevitable, but reducing future impacts depends upon reducing levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

Global greenhouse gas emissions by sector in the year 2000. The main sectors responsible are electricity generation (power stations) and industrial processes, indicating that we should tackle these areas first.

International Frameworks

One thing all countries agree on is the need to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases at a global level. And because rich countries emit the most greenhouse gases, developing countries such as China and India have stated that rich countries (principally in Europe, and North America) must reduce their emissions first.

The Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol establishes commitments for the reduction of four greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride), and two groups of gases (hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons) produced by all member countries.

As of 2008, 183 parties have ratified the protocol, which was initially adopted in Kyoto, Japan. Under Kyoto, industrialized countries agreed to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% compared to the year 1990.

Kyoto includes defined "flexible mechanisms" such as Emissions Trading to allow industrialised nations to meet their greenhouse gas emission limitations by purchasing greenhouse gas emission reductions credits from other countries. In practice this means that non-industrialised economies have no emission restrictions, but have financial incentives to develop emission reduction projects to receive "carbon credits" that can then be sold to industrialised nations, thus encouraging sustainable development.

Kyoto 2

The Kyoto Protocol has not been very successful at reducing emisssions, and expires in 2012. To replace it, Kyoto 2 has been proposed as a new framework. It sets out to limit CO2 emissions by controlling their source: fossil fuels. By allocating permits to fuel companies, the total amount of carbon that we are allowed to extract from the Earth is limited. This market-based approach is endorsed by many leading environmental thinkers. It also takes into account the latest science which says a CO2 concentration level below what we have already reached is necessary for climate stability in the long term.

Contraction and Convergence

Contraction and Convergence (C&C) is another proposed framework which aims to solve the problem of deciding who should reduce their emissions. C&C proposes that everybody in the entire world is entitled to exactly the same amount of emissions. However, because current per-capita emission levels are unequal, there must be a clearly defined timescale by which countries must reduce their emissions. It is a simple way of allocating emission rights: If country A has double the population of B, it can emit double the amount of greenhouse gases, by a given date.

Idealised emissions from major global polluters under a C&C scenario that sets the target level of CO2 at 500ppm.

The truth is that unless we radically reduce the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere, by whatever means, adaptation will be impossible in the long-run. Thankfully, the technology, international frameworks and creativity already exist to live in a carbon neutral world. All that is needed now is political action to save the world.

National Response Resources

If you want to know more go to the Links page within Resources for useful websites and other material.

The UK climate change debate

The influential, government-commissioned Stern Review on the economics of climate change has given the UK an international reputation as a world leader. While the Climate Change Bill has received praise for its ambitious targets (an 80% cut in emissions by 2050), the government has also been accused of hypocrisy: the UK has continued to support a high-carbon infrastructure, and has resisted efforts by the European Union to make a strong climate policy. UK politicians advocate ineffectual ‘offsetting’ approaches to emission reductions and oppose the inclusion of flights in the EU emissions trading scheme. Given the public’s desire to act on climate change and the Climate Change Bill, the government’s record is contradictory. New coal-fired power stations, airport runways and motorway lanes are all incompatible with cutting CO2 emissions. There is a large gap between what government and businesses say and what they actually do. This has led to a new ‘mass movement’.

The outcome of the debate will depend largely on the interaction of those pushing for radical change (e.g. national carbon rationing, mass insulation of houses, diverting funds away from supporting non-renewable energy industries towards research into sustainable energy) with those who advocate more ‘business as usual’ responses (e.g. offsetting emissions, biofuels, and educational schemes).

Climate change and art

Climate change is generally seen through a scientific lens, but around the world, artists, cartoonists and film makers have turned to climate change as a theme for their work.

Through their work, artists are able to highlight the issues and express their views and feelings.

Get inspired by the examples in links below, and get out there and create your own!

Capefarewell map Capefarewell image