Should politicians plan ahead for the potential changes in the future on the basis of what is already known about the nature of our climate?The Earth's climate is constantly changing. In this essay I will be discussing whether different scenarios predicted for our future climate should be prepared for by politicians on local, national and international scales. There is much debate over whether the global phenomenon known as global warming is happening, whether it caused by anthropogenic activities, what the impacts could be and what courses of action should be taken. View points differ between countries, international institutions and individuals. For example Gerhaerd Schroder, Chancellor of Germany, vowed in 1995 to reduce Germany's carbon emissions by 21% by 2008 and had managed to cut emissions by 13% by 1999 (www.adenauer.spb.ru/files/publics/55/Germany Update) In contrast President George Bush rejected the Kyoto agreement for the USA, stating that it was "fundamentally flawed" (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20
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Carbon emissions from various global regions durin...01/06/20010611-2.html) and does not entirely accept evidence that anthropogenic activity is causing climate change, "we do not know how much effect natural fluctuations in climate may have had on warming. We do not know how much our climate could, or will change in the future"(11/06/01). In developing and newly industrializing countries the evidence of future climate change is accepted but no policies are enforced to decrease greenhouse gases or protective measures implemented because they don't want to damage their developing economy.
According to data collected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change global annual mean temperatures have risen gradually since 1911. Observations taken by Wigley et al in 1997 showed "an overall warming trend of about 0.5 C degrees, with marked shorter time scale variability from year to year". The pattern recognized here gave evidence not only for global warming but also for an accelerating trend of warming. As well...