Climate change
Climate Change is the term used to describe changes to the Earth’s atmosphere and its weather patterns.
Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) help keep the Earth’s temperatures at habitable levels by trapping energy from the sun inside the Earth’s atmosphere. Without this “greenhouse effect” life on Earth would be impossible. However, as more GHGs are emitted into the atmosphere, the greenhouse effect strengthens and average temperatures rise.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that human activity is the likely cause of Global Warming. At present, just over 7 billion tonnes of CO2 is emitted globally each year through fossil fuel use and an extra 1.6 billion tonnes through deforestation and land use change.
The IPCC expects the mean global temperature to rise by 1.1 to 6.4 degrees C above 1990 levels by the end of the century.
This may not sound a lot but it will push sea levels higher, causing coastal erosion and flooding. It will also cause more frequent and intense large-scale climate events such as tropical cyclones, heat waves, floods, storms, wildfires and droughts. In turn, these effects will have a significant and detrimental impact on agricultural yields, freshwater supplies, trade routes, glacial movement, species extinction and disease.