Introduction
In this exercise I will carry out a synthesis of the main agreements for the fight against climate change, in relation to the international commitment and its applicable regulations, exercising a critical vision of them and placing them under the light of possible economic interests and politicians. For a better understanding I have taken into account environmental, international legislative and political criteria. Then I proceed to develop each aspect individually.
Natural appearance
Before entering the maelstrom of international regulations, it seemed appropriate to expose what you want to protect, from an environmental point of view.
The intrinsic concept of "climate change" is relatively new, taking into account the millions of years of existence on the planet and the centuries of evolution of the different legal systems, including those of international relations.
This meaning comes to refer to a violent increase in global temperature and its effects, supposedly devastating for it and, therefore, for us humans.
Next, I will extract key ideas from the environment in general and from climate change in particular.
Searching in various documents, and thanks to the help on the internet, I have been able to find out that the peak of global warming occurred in 1940 while, throughout the decades after World War II (period in which it occurred the massive industrialization of the world), the Earth's climate suffered a cooling. First paradoxical data.
Legislative aspect
From the legislative point of view, object of this exercise, the beginning of international concern about climate change, and therefore the beginning of normative creation, I find in 1983, when the United Nations created the Commission on Environment and Development (UNCED). A few years later, in 1988, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which was created in 1950 and became the United Nations specialized agency for meteorology, convened the World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere, a meeting at which it was urged Participating countries to seek urgent solutions to the problem of polluting gas emissions. Two months after the aforementioned meeting, in response to that "urgent" call, at the United Nations General Assembly,Discussion of a draft proposal for Climate Protection for Present and Future Generations of Humanity began. Parallel to this fact, WMO and UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) established the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). This Panel was created with the purpose of evaluating the scientific and socio-economic aspects for understanding the risk of human-induced climate change and mitigation and adaptation options.This Panel was created with the purpose of evaluating the scientific and socio-economic aspects for understanding the risk of human-induced climate change and mitigation and adaptation options.This Panel was created with the purpose of evaluating the scientific and socio-economic aspects for understanding the risk of human-induced climate change and mitigation and adaptation options.
The first report of the aforementioned IPCC was issued in 1990. In it, three working groups carried out a scientific evaluation, an impact study and response strategies on climate change, which in turn led to the preparation of a complementary report aimed at providing updated references for the treatment of the draft convention that will constitute the so-called United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
IPCC publications have become widely used reference widely used by policy makers. Its conclusions also served as the basis for approving, in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change, which mainly requires industrialized countries that have ratified it to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The Protocol represents an advance with respect to other international instruments of the environment, since it establishes certain and quantifiable obligations, and an advanced system of control of its compliance. Consequently and truly, the Protocol is the agreement par excellence on the concrete measures to be adopted to combat climate change. However, the effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol,it is seriously affected by the fact that the two main emitters of Greenhouse Gases in the world, the United States and China, do not have reduction commitments; the first for not being linked to the aforementioned agreement and the second for not appearing among the UNFCCC countries.
The following is a brief outline of the main regulations following the first IPCC report and meetings:
Climate change, origin and regulations
Political aspect
Digging deeper into documentary political history, I dare relate Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, as the first leader to declare war on climate change. It was the character that introduced concern to world politics on this matter.
Actually, the main interest, far from environmental awareness, was the strict economic one. Allow me to remember that, in the 1980s, the prime minister had economic interests and political agreements in the country to develop nuclear energy, it was true that the coal miners unions, an important energy source, were causing her many problems politicians. It is then when, for the first time, the need arises to produce nuclear energy and to externalize the problem to the international community since, clearly, nuclear power plants did not produce CO2, an argument that was directly linked to the proposal of two alternatives: nuclearized the country or assumed the "devastating" consequences of CO2 caused by burning coal,arguments that were fed back instigated by their government in the previously commented meetings.
conclusion
From the international normative point of view, there are many efforts to protect the environment and specifically to fight against the so-called “climate change”, in the same way that women or children and their rights have been protected; through international treaties carried out by international organizations. However, as it happens in the majority of transcendent treaties and decisions of the UN in particular, the USA and China are the two powers that direct most of feasible initiatives, clearly favoring their internal interests, regardless of the correct internal functioning linked to the rules of the United Nations Charter. The truth is that the entire legislative framework and its organizations and summits have become, in my opinion, a true economic and political interested business.Let us think only of the millions of jobs, direct and indirect, that originate in the world the studies of change, protection, control agencies, world summits, etc.
The IPCC has recently had to make modifications to its reports, which have been shown to be based on very unreliable data, for example, the claim that they made that the glaciers of the Himalayas would thaw in 2035.
An important element, provided by renowned scientists cited in the bibliography of this exercise, is that human-made Co2 emissions represent 5% compared to the rest, the rest being understood as volcanoes, the decomposition of animal carcasses and by the plants. This means that volcanoes produce more Co2 than all human activities combined. An aspect that, from my understanding, the IPCC is now trying to justify and manipulate to continue this deception and maintain the network of interests, which are subtly used by the countries involved.
It should be said that on this occasion, International Law and in view of the data provided in this exhibition, standardize and regulate this protection based on erroneous elements and data, producing obligations and consequences for the affected countries new until now, favoring new industries and interests of new production companies and energy sources, more costly economically and that slow down the development of the poorest countries, making them inaccessible, due to international legal imperative, access to this false clean energy, depriving them of their historical period of industrialization necessary for their leap to the group of developed countries.
Since Margaret Thatcher exported awareness of climate change and urged to make it an international problem, masking the real reasons that led to it, the legitimacy of the countries involved and the ability to compromise, a necessary element in the change, has varied considerably. scope of international law. The Kyoto Protocol is, as I have already stated above, the basic mechanism for understanding and sharing concrete measures by sensitized countries, despite the refusals of the two powers to meet the objectives set for reducing polluting gases, for the reasons that I have already stated. This example shows the complexity of international relations and decision-making, when these affect a wide variety of transcendent aspects,moving to the logical idea of how complicated it is to establish agreements between different countries with different degrees of industrialization and operations of economic sectors. In finding this common, International Law is developed, using customs and treaties that serve as tools for the use that, rationally, the states involved should make.
Bibliography
- WEB Secretariat of the Convention on Climate Change. https://unfccc.int/Iranzo Martín, JE (2007). The cost of the alleged climate change. Economists, 25 (113), 102-105. About twenty Ibero-American journalists. Coordination Arturo Larena, EFEverde (2009). Guide for journalists on climate change and international negotiationJames Trefil (2005). Let's manage nature. Antoni Bosch.Manuel Vargas Yáñez, et al. (2008). Climate Change in the Spanish Mediterranean. Spanish Institute of Oceanography.William F. Ruddiman (2008). The Three Horsemen of Climate Change, Lohmann, L. (2001). Democracy or carbonocracy ?. Intellectual corruption and the future of the climate debate. Inguruak. Journal of Sociology, (31), 37-66. The international economic dimension in the fight against climate change. Pablo Cascón Salgado,Pedro Hinojo González Spanish Commercial Information, ICE: Magazine of economy, nº 847, 2009.How to finance climate change. Álvaro Pastor Escribano. ICE Economic Bulletin, Spanish Commercial Information, nº 2982, 2010, pages. 23-31.Possible future global scenarios of CO2 emissions and removals and compliance with the Kyoto agreements. José Juan de Felipe Blanch. Doctoral thesis directed by Josepe Xercavins i Valls. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. (2004).The prevention of climate change: Technological or political limits? Cristina Narbona Ruiz. Environmental Observatory, nº5, 2002 pp. 9-18 The cost of the alleged climate change. Juan Emilio Iranzo Martín. Economists. Year nº25, nº 113, 2007. pp. 102-105. Green Book of the European Commission on greenhouse gas emission allowance trading.Video Channel 4 British TV.
