There is little time left to avoid a global disaster that threatens the whole planet.

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There is little time left to avoid a global disaster that threatens the whole planet.

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Members of the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement promoting an energy-saving campaign on Feb. 15 at Seoul Station to encourage people to lower indoor temperatures by 1.5 degrees centigrade. The group launched the campaign to mark the second anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol to prevent climate disaster caused by global warming.

Temperatures around the globe will escalate sharply in this century and the human race will likely suffer from natural disasters such as droughts and heat waves, a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned. Released on Feb. 2, this was the fourth assessment report by the panel, which was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program to study the problems associated with potential global climate change.

Global warming
Frequent climate disasters have occurred around the world recently. About 50 people died during unusual snowstorms and cold temperatures in the northeastern region of the United States this winter. Due to the unexpectedly cold winter, property damages amounted to about $1 billion. In southern Germany, the heaviest rainfalls in 100 years flooded cities.
International scientists said these natural disasters were caused by the climate changes triggered by global warming. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s assessment report, the average global temperature rose by 0.74 degrees centigrade (33F) over the past 100 years due to global warming. Eleven out of the 12 warmest days since 1850 have taken place in the last 12 years.
The Korean Peninsula is no exception. According to the Korea Meteorological Administration, Korea’s winters in the 1990s were about a month shorter than those in the 1920s. Subsequently, springs and summers got longer.
The average temperature in Korea has risen by 1.5 degrees centigrade over the last 100 years, particularly in the late 20th century.
Why is the Earth getting hotter?
Global warming can be attributed to the “greenhouse effect.” The greenhouse effect is the process that causes the surface temperature of the Earth to rise. Certain gases in the atmosphere block the radiated energy from leaving the atmosphere; without these “greenhouse gases” the Earth’s temperature would be as much as 30 degrees centigrade cooler.
The greenhouse effect can be caused by naturally occurring greenhouse gases or by gases emitted by human activities. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change listed six greenhouse gases ― carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6). These gases largely result from burning fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum and natural gas.
The amount of carbon dioxide emissions has grown particularly sharply in recent centuries. Before the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century, carbon dioxide emissions were about 280 ppm (parts per million) per year, but the annual amount grew by 35 percent, reaching 379 ppm in 2005. The increase corresponds to the rise of the average global temperature.

Aftermath of global warming
The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the continuous massive use of fossil fuels is expected to increase the average global temperature by 6.4 degrees centigrade by the end of this century. The sea level will rise by 59 centimeters due to melting ice caps. In East Asia, temperatures will likely go up by three to four degrees centigrade while the amount of precipitation will fluctuate widely, the report warned.
One of the major problems associated with global warming is the expected catastrophic rise in sea levels. Many of the world’s major cities are located on seashores, and one third of the human population resides in coastal areas; thus, the anticipated rise in sea levels is a serious issue.
Aftermaths such as droughts, floods, the subsequent spread of tropical diseases like malaria and increased human stress from heat waves are other dangers posed by global warming.
Sir Nicholas Stern, a British economist, last month released a report, “The Economics of Climate Change,” forecasting, among other things, that at least 300,000 people will suffer from diseases related to climate changes when the annual average global temperature goes up by 1 degree centigrade. He said the tropical forest of the Amazon will be ruined by a 3-degree-centigrade temperature rise. He warned that all ice caps will melt and half of the living organisms on the planet will face danger of extinction when the annual average global temperature goes up by 6 degrees centigrade.

How to stop global warming
Even if all countries around the world stopped emitting greenhouse gases right now, global warming will continue for a while due to the greenhouse gases still existing in the atmosphere at this point. Global warming is not an issue that can be resolved by individuals or by nations ― facing up to it is a task that the world will have to tackle together.
Hong Yoon, head of the climate bureau at the Korea Meteorological Administration, said systematic measures should be prepared through scientific researches and assessments on climate changes. Based on such studies, the world must do its best to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Mr. Hong said.
Saving energy and resources, promoting environmentally friendly consumption, recycling and reforestation are the keys to preventing worse global warming, Mr. Hong said, adding that such methods must be carried out continuously.

Kyoto Protocol and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
The members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change formulated the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 to amend the international treaty on climate change. The protocol assigned each signatory nation its mandatory target for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol now covers more than 160 countries globally and over 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Many of the developed industrial countries in the world, including South Korea, are members of the Kyoto Protocol. The United States, the world’s largest economy, was a signatory, but never ratified it. The Kyoto Protocol treats South Korea as a developing nation.
On March 29, 2001, the Bush administration withdrew the United States from the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, claiming it does not provide a long-term solution to the problem, a move that was severely criticized by the international community.
At the time, the Bush administration claimed that “the goals of the Kyoto Protocol were established not by science, but by political negotiation, and are therefore arbitrary and ineffective in nature. In addition, many countries of the world are completely exempted from the Protocol, such as China and India, who are two of the top five emitters of greenhouse gasses in the world.”
The Bush administration said it is committed to pursuing a practical and sustainable plan to address the problem of global warming, adding that “the United States hopes to find a workable solution to this serious problem that affects all of us in the global community.”
On Feb. 17 this year, leading economists said at the United Nations that the United States and China must take decisive action to cut greenhouse gas emissions to save the world from the global warming disaster. The economist Jeffrey Sachs urged the two largest emitters to make more serious efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions. “It’s a mistake to let either China or the U.S. think they are doing a lot,” Mr. Sachs, head of the UN Millennium Project, said. “We have to look at the numbers all the time, not just the direction, not the sentiment, not the announcements. We have to look at the numbers because that’s all that counts in the end.”


By Ser Myo-ja Staff Writer [myoja@joongang.co.kr]
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