The climate change sometimes
is used to refer specifically to change caused by human activity, as opposed to
changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earth's natural processes. In
this sense, especially in the context of environmental policy, the term climate
change has become synonymous with anthropogenic global warming.
Within scientific journals, global warming refers to surface temperature
increases while climate change includes global warming and everything
else that increasing greenhouse gas levels will affect.
Climate change is
a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns
over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in
average weather conditions, or in the distribution of weather around the
average conditions (i.e., more or fewer extreme weather events).
Climate change is
caused by factors such as biotic processes, variations in solar
radiation received by Earth, plate tectonics, and volcanic eruptions.
Certain human activities have also been identified as significant causes of
recent climate change, often referred to as "global warming".
Flooding, storm
surges, droughts and heat waves are among key risks of global warming that will
pose growing threats to humans in the future due to rising temperatures.
Violent conflicts,
food shortages and infrastructure damage were also forecast to become more
prevalent over coming decades, while a growing number of animals and marine
species will face increased risk of extinction.
The warnings were
published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working
Group II report on Monday, the 31st March, 2014 which was
compiled by more than 300 authors from 70 different countries with
contributions from thousands of global experts.
The report is the
first of its kind to examine rising temperatures as a series of comprehensive
global risks caused by increasingly perilous levels of carbon dioxide emitted
by traffic, power stations and other fossil-fuel burners as well as methane
from deforestation and farming.
We live in an era of man-made climate change. In many cases, we are not
prepared for the climate-related risks that we already face. Investments in
better preparation can pay dividends both for the present and for the future.Extreme weather
patterns, including a higher risk of flooding, were cited as a growing
consequence of rising greenhouse gas emissions, with Europe, Asia and small
island states highlighted as being vulnerable, while droughts were also
forecast to become more common.
Urban communities
would also face “many global risks”, as a result of growing issues related to
heat waves, extreme rainfall, flooding, landslides, air pollution drought and water
shortages, it warned.
The growing scarcity
of freshwater sources and shrinking crop yields would lead to violent conflict,
such as civil wars, the report warns, alongside the displacement of numerous
communities, referred to as “climate refugees”.
A “large fraction” of
animals and marine creatures also faced an increased risk of extinction over
the coming decades if global warming continued as projected.
Rising carbon dioxide
concentrations were forecast to acidify oceans, destroying coral reefs and
threatening shelled marine creatures, impacting communities reliant on the sea
as a food source.
However, scientists
behind the report also stated that by taking immediate steps to reduce carbon
emissions over the coming decades, there could be a reduction in potential
consequences by the end of the century.
Governments, firms,
and communities around the world are building experience with adaptation. This
experience forms a starting point for bolder, more ambitious adaptations that
will be important as climate and society continue to change.
The report prompted a
string of global calls for stronger government initiatives to tackle the issues
that are causing temperatures to rise in order to minimize the future dangers
outlined by scientists.
The same panel of
global experts behind the study, which has issued four previous “assessment
reports” over the past 25 years, will issue a third volume on April 13 in
Berlin, in which it will unveil its strategies for tackling carbon emissions.
The latest study is
the most in-depth to date, in terms of forecasting the impact of global warming
in specific details in addition to emphasizing the social consequences in terms
of conflicts and displacement.
It was seven years
ago that the IPCC issued its last major report, which was widely attributed
with fuelling a shift in global climate change policies leading up to the 2009
UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
A summit in Paris in
2015 will focus on the creation of new international climate treaty to replace
the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the first phase of which came to an end in 2012.
