Abstract
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which aggregates international research efforts on climate change, “global atmospheric concentrations of CO2, CH4 and N2O have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and in 2005 exceeded by far the natural range of the last 650,000 years” (IPCC 2007), with an increase of 70 % of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions due to human activities between the two periods.
Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems.
The 5th Report of the IPCC (2014)
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Notes
- 1.
The recognized GHGs are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydroflurocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). Despite its influence on climate, water vapor is not listed among the GHG gases, due to its ability to absorb infrared radiation.
- 2.
On November 19th, 2009 the email server of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (one of the most prominent research outlets on the issue of climate change) was hacked and email correspondences among its researchers were publicly disseminated. Dubbed “Climategate” by the press, the incident has revealed the bitter acrimony among most of the climate scientists and the climate skeptics, and has forced additional statements to reaffirm the existence of uncertainty in scientific evidence and results.
- 3.
Carbon dioxide equivalence is a quantity that describes, for a given mixture and amount of greenhouse gas, the amount of CO2 that would have the same global warming potential. It is measured over a specified timescale, generally 100 years.
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Chesney, M., Gheyssens, J., Pana, A.C., Taschini, L. (2016). The Issue of Climate Change. In: Environmental Finance and Investments. Springer Texts in Business and Economics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48175-2_2
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