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Positive and negative impacts of global warming
Negative effect of global warming
Importance of global warming
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On average, the temperature on the Earth’s surface has increased at 0.6°C over the last two centuries (greenfacts). Statistics show that in 2100 the Arctic temperatures as high as 7°C above pre-industrial levels (greenfacts). Global sea level rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last century (NASA). Climate change is probably the most urgent problem facing our society today. Canada, as an active member of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), has played an effective role in dealing with global warming to reduce the rate of climate change. Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and joining UNFCCC, the Paris climate agreement, and helping Canadians adapt to climate change.
Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and joining the UNFCCC. Canada is formally withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol. Many people were
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The Kyoto Protocol was an international agreement on climate change. It was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on December 11,1997. Kyoto Protocol is designed to help countries adapting to the harmful effects of climate change. Under the Protocol, countries must be monitored on their emission use. Germany keeps an international transaction log to make sure that transaction are logical with the rules of the Protocol. The decision was to save the government an estimated $14 billion in penalties. Environment minister Peter Kent argued that the Kyoto Protocol does not cover the world’s largest two emitters, the United States and China and that is why the Kyoto Protocol would not work. Withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol and joining the UNFCCC was a big move by Canada. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the key international forum for global efforts to address the challenges posed by climate change. Canada Joined the UNFCCC in 1992 along with other nations. The agreement came into force in 1994 and now has near universal membership with 194 other countries.
The Kyoto Protocol is a binding international agreement, which began in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. As of June 2013, there were a total of 192 parties participating in the Kyoto Protocol, Canada was no longer one of them. Canada was one of the first to sign the agreement, in 1998; more than 4 years later, Canada formally approved the Kyoto Accord, in 2002 ("CBC.ca - Timeline: Canada and Kyoto"). This meant Canada would have to decrease its emissions, by 6% in comparison to 1990 levels (461 Mt), by the year 2012. Despite some efforts, Canada failed to meet these requirements and in fact increased total emissions by roughly 24% by the year 2008. Canada formally withdrew from the Kyoto Accord in 2011, avoiding penalties and future detriments ("CBC News in Depth: Kyoto"). The withdrawal of Canada from the Kyoto Protocol was a good decision, the decrease in emissions was an unattainable goal, considering the cost, time, unfairness, dependency and technological advancement.
First, global warming has an immense impact on Arctic Sovereignty as the rise of greenhouse gases thrive in Canada along with other countries. Within 20 years, the polar ice caps of the Arctic have melted twice as fast compared to before. The loss of Arctic ice can furthermore pose a threat to shipping, as navigating the Arctic becomes increasingly challenging. Finally, climate change threatens the extinction of numerous animal species, namely the polar bear. Hence, global warming poses a major challenge to Arctic Sovereignty and Canada along with other members in the Arctic Council must prevent it.
Climate change is a long term shift in weather conditions identified by gradual changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other natural indicators. According to the lecture, Earth is 5 million kms closer to the sun at its orbital point that is making the earth’s crust warmer day by day. Canada has taken various steps to slow the rate of climate change both locally and internationally. Over the years the average temperature of Canada has increased by 1.6 degrees Celsius. The gradual change in climate is the most important factor in changing the environment and the availability of resources.
The Kyoto Protocol was developed in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 and came into full force on the 16th of February 2005 in an effort to compact climate change (“Kyoto Protocol Reference Manual,” 2008). By targeting green house gas emissions, the Kyoto Protocol created an effort to “promote sustainable development (“Kyoto Protocol To The United Nations,” 1998).” The protocol’s goal was to reduce green house gas emissions from 1990 by 4.2% by 2008-2012, which 37 developed countries signed and pledged to (Schiermeier, 2012). With such a specific target, the goal was clear and quantifiable, making it easy to measure, when the time came, whether or not the Kyoto Protocol’s goal had been reached. Also, the involvement of these 37 countries was crucial in obtaining the goal. Without international cooperation the goal of reducing carbon emissions would never be effective as green house gasses effect the entire globe’s atmosphere not one local
...lain Canada is headed in the wrong direction, with projections for growing emissions and no stated plan to prevent the increase. While it could be argued that the increase in global temperatures will make places such as the Hudson Bay- Arctic Lowlands more habitable, Canada as a whole must think on what matters more: material gain or a healthy and survivable planet.
Canada is great economic superpower that has yet to reach its potential. As the second largest nation by area, we possess vast natural resources. We are a massive importer and exporter on the world stage, who a play a vital role in the stability of the northern hemisphere. Through Canada’s international trade, we export vast quantities of many different foods stuffs, minerals and manufactured goods like cars, while we tend to import lots of Iron, Aluminum and Steel. Our relations with neighbouring nations have been integral in the success of our trade. In 1994 Canada became a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA with the US and Mexico. NAFTA reorganized Canada’s and America’s trading systems to work as one. The trade issue of recent months is about the rising costs of energy in Canada and in the United States. Newly elected President George W. Bush now is proposing a North American energy initiative for a continental power grid. This proposal puts Canada in a very uncomfortable situation. On the one hand we would love to share our resources and appease our super-power to the south. But on the other we prefer to leave our pristine land alone. The growing trend nowadays is that politicians are the ones wanting to please the Americans by giving away our resources, while it is the activist who is concerned about the vast environmental damage this energy legislation could entail.
Novak, Mary H. (1998, July 24). Kyoto Treaty A Giant Leap into the Economic Abyss. Houston Business Journal, 29 (10), p. 27A. [Online]. Available: http://insite.palni.edu/WebZ/Authorize:sessionid=0.
Canada’s arctic has evidently suffered from substantial climate change, resulting in devastating impacts on all systems in the north. Many climate models indicate that these significant changes will only progress in the future. The monitoring of temperatures in the Arctic have demonstrated that, over roughly the past 50 years, there has been a warming of about 2 to 3°C as of 2009. The average temperature in the arctic has increased almost twice as fast than the rest of the world. In 2020, the projected increase is up to 4°C as well as 8°C by 2050. A numbers of studies have shown that, based on previous climate records, there has been issues of rising sea levels, alterations in sea-ice dynamics, and permafrost degradation. Though there have been multiple strategies posed and adopted, the government of Canada needs to develop an arctic strategy that is more proactive and systemic than previous actions. This strategy needs to be global in its goals for mitigation while still monitoring social, cultural, and economic aspects
The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), aimed at fighting global warming to lessen climate change. The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty with the goal of achieving the "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’’
According to the protocol, overall global reduction must be at least five per cent in 1990 levels of greenhouse gases by 2008-2012. However, the Kyoto Protocol is not a simple document because both of the commitments and the mechanisms on how the developed country Parties can achieve the target are extremely complex. Although all countries recognized the need to cut global emissions of greenhouse gases, but since many developed countries are depend on the fossil fuel industry for their economy, they refused to agree with the limitation of their domestic greenhouse gas emission. This resulting the failure of the Protocol in protecting the earth from climate change, which is supposed to be the reason of its
Suraje, Dessai, and Nuno S. Lacasta, Katharine Vincent. International Political History of the Kyoto Protocol: from The Hague to Marrakech and Beyond, International Review for Environmental Strategies Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 183 ? 205, 2003
Our world is always changing, so is our climate. Some changes are apparent, others not so much. Climate change is an important issue of concern in the twenty-first century. Environment, if it changes at all, evolves so slowly that the difference cannot be seen in a human lifetime (Wearth, 2014). Mostly all scientists predicted that it would take thousands of years for the planet to warm up due to emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels called greenhouse gases. But in the past 200 years, things began to change. The rate and the amount of warming that is happening on this planet are unprecedented. Wearth says, “People did not grasp the prodigious fact that both population and industrialization were exploding in a pattern of exponential
The Kyoto Protocol is one of the most ambitious international environmental agreements to date. Adopted on 11 December 1997 by negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the treaty’s aim was to commit countries to a 5% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their 1990 levels (Prins and Rayner, 2008). These commitments in GHG reduction, CO2 emissions in particular, were to begin in 2005 with goals expected to be reached by 2012. A total of 191 parties ratified the protocol, with 38 industrialized nations and the European Community with binding commitments to reducing their emissions, while developing countries, including India and China remained exempt. United States did not ratify the protocol, while Canada renounced its commitments in 2011. In order to monitor the CO2 flux of each country, actual emissions
It is an unquestioned fact that the climate is changing. There is abundant evidence that the world is becoming warmer and warmer. The temperature of the global land average temperature has increased by about 8.5 degrees centigrade from 1880 to 2012 (Karr, et al 406). The one or two degrees increase in temperature can cause dramatic and serious consequences to the earth as well as humans. More extreme weather occurs, such as heat waves and droughts. The Arctic Region is especially sensitive to global climate change. According to the data in recent decades, the temperature in the Arctic has increased by more than 2 degrees centigrade in the recent half century (Przybylak 316). Climate change has led to a series of environmental and ecological negative
Whether Kyoto protocol was unsuccessful, but, there are some countries that has been successful in implementation of Kyoto protocol. There are Germany, Sweden, and United Kingdom, as well as United Nations members. Besides, it was indicates that European Union (EU) have agree in joining a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1994 (UNFCCC, 2014). In addition, EU was strongly support the establishment of Kyoto protocol into the convention and, makes recognition of Kyoto treaty as the competitive international instrument and politic agenda in addressing any emerging issues of climate change (Lal Kurukulasuriya, A, N., Gilbert, and et al., n.d.).