Global warming : state responses

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Global Warming: State Responses

Updated 3/11/2011, published online 11/29/2010

To combat global warming, states are using scientific scenarios outlining possible climate changes. Since the 1990s, a number of international summits have enabled them to work towards coming up with a concerted response to climate change. Commitments made by states then translate into concrete measures applied at regional or national level.

170 countries attended the Kyoto summit in December 1997 to agree on the Kyoto Protocol aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
© AFP / Juan Barreto

Anticipating the Future Climate to Combat Global Warming More Effectively

There is still a lot of scientific uncertainty about the future development of the earth’s temperature and the intensity of global warming from one region to another.

Researcher forecasts are very useful for political and economic policymakers.

In its 2007 report the IPPC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) predicted a rise in average temperatures on earth of between 1.8 and 4°C for the period 1980-2099¹. These values relate to various greenhouse gas emission scenarios postulating different concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (in 2007, the concentration of CO₂ , the most common of all the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, was about 0.04%).

These scenarios are drawn up while taking account of various factors:

• Fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) will continue to dominate up to 2030-2040 in meeting growing energy demand. However, burning these fuels emits high levels of CO₂;

• Ongoing deforestation could exacerbate the greenhouse effect by reducing the capacity of ecosystems to absorb CO₂;

• Global warming could melt the Siberian permafrost (the ground in Arctic regions that are permanently frozen over depths of several hundred meters). If this happens 70,000 million tons of methane, another greenhouse gas, could be released into the atmosphere;

• In contrast, widespread adoption of measures to combat global warming could offset some of these developments.

Greenhouse gas emission and concentration scenarios are indispensable when drawing up climate models using extremely powerful supercomputers. These are tools used by scientists to estimate climate change and its consequences according to various parameters.

Researcher estimates are valuable for political and economic policymakers: they provide guidance in the fight against global warming. However, given the complexity of climate phenomena, there is a certain margin of error in the interpretation of scientific data, which means these predictions must be treated with caution².

As soon as greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, temperatures on earth will fall.

False. None of the phenomena affecting climate change have an immediate effect. So, even if current greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere were stabilized, average temperatures would continue to rise for another few decades, mostly because CO2 has a minimum life span of 100 years in air. The sea will continue to heat up for a long time to come. This is because the oceans heat up at a slower pace due to their size and to mechanisms that transport heat to reach the deepest ocean depths.

International Measures Adopted...

In 2008, 29,381 million tons of CO₂ were emitted worldwide, meaning that emissions had risen by 40.1% on 1990 levels³. Not all countries have the same CO₂ emission levels:

• In 2008, the United States was responsible for 19%⁴ of CO2 emissions.

• In 2008, within the European Union, Germany had the highest CO2 emissions (803.9 million tons), followed by the United Kingdom (510.6 million tons). France ranked fourth (368.2 million tons), just behind Italy (430.1 million tons)⁵. This is mostly due to the differential between the electricity production systems.

Nevertheless, global warming caused by CO₂ emissions and other greenhouse gases is by its nature a global issue. Solutions must therefore be found on a global scale. This is why the international community kicked off the fight against global warming in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro at the second Earth Summit. 166 countries signed the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), which acknowledges that human activity causes global warming and encourages states to take measures to combat this phenomenon. In 2007, 192 countries finally ratified this Convention (i.e. they adopted it so that it entered into force on their territory).

By January 2009, 184 countries had ratified the Kyoto Protocol⁶ Kyoto protocol6, signed in 1997 at the third annual UNFCCC conference. Through this international agreement, 38 industrialized countries, with the notable exception of the United States, committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 5% between 2008 and 2012 compared to 1990 levels⁷.

By 2009, only 4 countries or territories worldwide had refused to sign either the UNFCCC or the Kyoto protocol (Andorra, the Vatican, Iraq and Somalia)⁸.

In 2008, European countries also committed to further reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 20 % and increasing the use of renewable energies by 20 % by 2020 through the energy and climate change package. This is a series of legislative measures adopted in December 2008 to set up a common European energy policy.

In December 2009, at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, the 192 countries that had already ratified the UNFCCC met to agree a new convention to follow on from the Kyoto protocol. The point for the governments was to agree on quantified targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit global warming to 2°C by 2100. Most scientists agree that above this level, the consequences of climate change would be disastrous in both environmental and economic terms.

However, the states taking part in this summit were unable to define any common target due to a number of disagreements between groups of countries:

• Emerging countries (China, India, Brazil and Russia) believe that the fight against global warming is necessary. Nevertheless, they also hold that measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should not impede their economic development, based on growing energy consumption. Energy consumption per capita was significantly less than in OECD countries. On the one hand, for these countries, the increase in greenhouse gas emissions results from past activities in developed countries that need to accept responsibility for it. On the other hand, a proportion of their own production is tied to the production of goods being sent to consumers in these developed countries. China, India, Brazil, and Russia also want the most developed countries to give them financial assistance to combat climate change.

• With the world still in the grip of economic crisis, aid packages to combat global warming are no longer the main priority of the most industrialized states.

The states have therefore agreed to submit their CO₂ emission commitments by January 2012. All of their combined commitments lead to a rise in emissions that, currently, cannot expect to limit global warming to 2°C. The negotiations to decide on what will follow the Kyoto protocol and the steps to further greenhouse gas emission reduction are set to continue.

…Concrete measures

To combat global warming, the European Union carries out awareness campaigns aimed at businesses and individuals to promote a less energy-intensive development model. In June 2005, its Green paper on energy efficiency showed that a 20% reduction in European energy consumption by 2020 was possible by changing behavior to make better use of the energy available. This objective was part of the energy and climate change package.

To achieve this objective, the EU has targeted a number of areas for action:

• Energy production and distribution still have enormous scope for improving energy efficiency. Energy transport from points of production to points of consumption generates losses of about 30% of primary energy consumed in Europe (this is the raw energy material converted into electricity or mechanical energy as with crude oil, natural gas or coal, or radioactivity as with uranium).

• In residential or tertiary sector buildings, the implementation of new insulation standards, room orientation and less energy-intensive appliances can all help reduce energy consumption. By 2020, these new principles could provide savings of 11% of all energy consumed in the EU. Ecodistricts in France, Germany and the United Kingdom are pioneering this approach through the use of positive energy buildings that produce more energy than they consume thanks to renewable energy resources.

The development of renewable energy sources is also a key issue in the fight against global warming as using these resources generates few greenhouse gas emissions. Through the energy and climate change package, the EU is committed to covering 20% of its energy needs through renewable energy by 2020, compared to 8.5% in 2008⁹. This objective is currently on track to succeed.