Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The problem with the functioning of the climate regime does not lie within
the regime system itself but with the factors that cause climate change. While
ozone depletion was caused by a few big companies that only operated in
some countries, there are much wider issues behind climate change. We could
say that one of the cornerstones of our modern lifestyle is the use of fossil fuels:
they provide a great deal of our heating and electrical energy but they also
produce enormous amounts of carbon dioxide. Although the drawbacks of
fossil fuels were discovered a long time ago, we have since become more
rather than less dependent on them.
A major cause of climate change is land use, especially the use of forests,
which are the most important carbon sinks for absorption of carbon from the
atmosphere through photosynthesis. When a forest burns or is burnt down,
the carbon is released back to the atmosphere. Logging forests for wood
production and planting forests are, therefore, decisive measures from the
climate change perspective.
The tropical rainforests are a focus of concern, because they grow rapidly,
absorbing much carbon - and because they are being destroyed at a colossal
rate in many developing and middle-income countries. One problem with
the original Framework Convention on Climate Change is that it does not
mention forests specifi cally. The climate regime is now devising various
methods of conserving tropical forests; the most signifi cant project is
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and
its varieties.
Considering such further problems as our modern deeply ingrained prior-
itization of continuous economic growth, population growth, and inadequate
technological development in the problems that the climate regime is facing,
we can quickly see that climate change does not compare with any environ-
mental problem we have experienced thus far.
To understand why the ozone regime is a success and the climate regime is
not, we do not even need the explanation of the loss of US leadership. The
truth is that the United States has, at least internationally, assumed a line that
emerges from its domestic political reality: the USA will not join in interna-
tional climate work until China and other rapidly developing economies
commit themselves to at least some binding emission reductions. The issue for
the USA and its businesses is about equality in competition: they fear that
countries that are not committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions could
overtake the USA even further (because their product prices do not have to
factor in the costs of reduction).
Connections between ozone depletion and climate change
Most gases that cause ozone depletion are also powerful causes of climate
change. The ozone regime has already greatly aided the climate regime by
eliminating the use of certain greenhouse gases. Experts estimate that the
ozone layer will recover by the middle of this century at the present rate.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search