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Doing so would necessitate drastic changes to the use of fossil fuels due to which climate change quickly became an economic and energy policy issue. But in just the past few years, the language of climate change has shifted once again. Climate change is now being recast as a threat to international peace and security. Presently, the effects of climate change are being felt: temperatures are rising, icecaps and glaciers are melting and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more intense. The risks posed by climate change are real and its impacts are already taking place.
The CNN estimates that all but one of its emergency appeals for humanitarian aid in 2007 was climate related. In 2007 the UN Security Council held its first debate on climate change and its implications for international security. With advancements in technology, the science of climate change is better understood. The findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change demonstrate that even if by 2050 emissions would be reduced to below half of 1 990 levels, a temperature rise of up to ICC above pre-industrial levels will be difficult to avoid.
Such a temperature increase will pose serious security kiss that would increase if warming continues. Unmitigated climate change beyond ICC will lead to unprecedented security scenarios as it is likely to trigger a number of tipping points that would lead to further accelerated, irreversible and largely unpredictable climate changes. Investment in mitigation to avoid such scenarios, as well as ways to adapt to the unavoidable should go hand in hand with addressing the international security threats created by climate change.
The reference point of this paper is the effect of global warming on international security which today is best dewed as a threat multiplier that exacerbates existing trends, tensions and instability. The core challenge is that climate change threatens to overburden states and regions which are already fragile and conflict prone Scope: In order to understand the implications Of global warming, this paper will briefly explain the global warming phenomena, its causes, impacts, and subsequently its effects on internal security.
One of the first things scientists learned is that there are several greenhouse gases responsible for warming, and humans emit them in a variety Of ways. Most come from the combustion of fossil fuels in cars, factories and electricity reduction. The gas responsible for the most warming is carbon dioxide, also called CO. Other contributors include methane released from landfills and agriculture (especially from the digestive systems of grazing animals), nitrous oxide from fertilizers, gases used for refrigeration and industrial processes, and the loss of forests that would otherwise store CO.
Different greenhouse gases have very different heat-trapping abilities. Some of them can even trap more heat than CO- A molecule of methane produces more than 20 times the warming of a molecule of CO. Nitrous oxide is 300 times more powerful Han CO. Other gases, such as chlorofluorocarbons (which have been banned in much of the world because they also degrade the ozone layer), have heat-trapping potential thousands of times greater than CO. But because their concentrations are much lower than CO, none of these gases adds as much warmth to the atmosphere as CO does.