Climate change and trace gases

2007 ◽  
Vol 365 (1856) ◽  
pp. 1925-1954 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Hansen ◽  
Makiko Sato ◽  
Pushker Kharecha ◽  
Gary Russell ◽  
David W Lea ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Climate Forcing ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Positive Feedbacks ◽  
Arctic Ice ◽  
Earth’S Climate ◽  
Ice Water

Palaeoclimate data show that the Earth's climate is remarkably sensitive to global forcings. Positive feedbacks predominate. This allows the entire planet to be whipsawed between climate states. One feedback, the ‘albedo flip’ property of ice/water, provides a powerful trigger mechanism. A climate forcing that ‘flips’ the albedo of a sufficient portion of an ice sheet can spark a cataclysm. Inertia of ice sheet and ocean provides only moderate delay to ice sheet disintegration and a burst of added global warming. Recent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions place the Earth perilously close to dramatic climate change that could run out of our control, with great dangers for humans and other creatures. Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) is the largest human-made climate forcing, but other trace constituents are also important. Only intense simultaneous efforts to slow CO 2 emissions and reduce non-CO 2 forcings can keep climate within or near the range of the past million years. The most important of the non-CO 2 forcings is methane (CH 4 ), as it causes the second largest human-made GHG climate forcing and is the principal cause of increased tropospheric ozone (O 3 ), which is the third largest GHG forcing. Nitrous oxide (N 2 O) should also be a focus of climate mitigation efforts. Black carbon (‘black soot’) has a high global warming potential (approx. 2000, 500 and 200 for 20, 100 and 500 years, respectively) and deserves greater attention. Some forcings are especially effective at high latitudes, so concerted efforts to reduce their emissions could preserve Arctic ice, while also having major benefits for human health, agricultural productivity and the global environment.

On the Ethics of International Religious/Spiritual Gatherings and Academic Conferencing in the Era of Global Warming: A Case Study of the Parliament of The World’s Religions Melbourne 2009 - Part 1

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-195
Author(s):  
Almut Beringer ◽  
Steven Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
Peak Oil ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Academic Events ◽  
Special Responsibility

Global climate change and its impacts have ethical dimensions, for instance carbon footprint equity concerns. World issues, including the state of the ecosphere and biodiver­sity, regularly see political leaders, NGOs, business representatives, religious/spiritual orga­nizations, academics, and others engage in international aviation-dependent meetings to address critical challenges facing humanity and the planet. Yet, climate scientists and advocates call for an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 to cap the increase in global temperatures to 2ºC. Aviation emissions resulting from international meetings raise questions that are not silenced by GHG emissions offsetting. The era of climate change and ‘peak oil’ poses ethical challenges for holding international in-person religious and academic events, especially when the events propound an environmentalist concern and when aviation use is assumed. This paper raises ques­tions regarding the ecological impacts of large international events and focuses the ‘inconvenient truths’ associated with international aviation in the era of global warming. The Parliament of the World’s Religions, the largest multifaith gathering in the world, serves as a case study. The paper emphasizes the view that faith-based/faith-inspired organizations have a special responsibility for leadership in policy and praxis on the moral imperatives of sustainability, sustainable development and climate justice.

scholarly journals Climate Inaction in Business Management: An Exploratory Review of the Literature

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Alan F. Rodriguez-Jasso ◽  
Arturo Briseno ◽  
Ana L. Zorrilla
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Broad Perspective ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
Management Literature ◽  
Business And Management

Climate change is considered as one of the major threats for the international community due to its negative consequences in the financial, social, and environmental issues. Companies, who are considered as an essential element in the mitigation process, have exerted corporate inactivity to address climate change that has led to the increment of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, contributing to climate change over the last decade. The objective of this review is to explore, summarize, and analyze the state of knowledge in the business and management literature about climate inaction that guides future researches to diminish this corporate inactivity, enhancing the practices aimed to reduce such emissions. The review was developed through the narrative method in order to acquire a broad perspective of the phenomenon through the examination of 24 articles from the Web of Science from 1998 to 2018. Our findings indicate that climate inaction is nascent and fragmented literature where the company is identified as one of the main actors, being this approach developed from different perspectives that guide to decrease such corporate inactivity, and motivating the corporate action. The inclusion of the concept of climate inaction might lead to an understanding of the mechanisms for climate mitigation, providing a guide for future research in the field of environmental performance.

Climate Change Law: Encounters with Aesthetics and Art

Climate Law ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 279-319
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Aesthetic Values

Climate change has multifaceted aesthetic dimensions of legal significance. Global warming alters the aesthetic properties of nature, and further aesthetic changes are precipitated by climate mitigation and adaptation responses of impacted societies. The social and political struggles to influence climate change law are also influenced by aesthetics, as environmental activists and artists collaborate to influence public opinion, while conversely the business sector through its marketing and other aesthetic communications tries to persuade consumers of its climate-friendly practices to forestall serious action on global warming. This article distils and analyses these patterns in forging a novel account of the role of aesthetics in climate change law and policy, and it makes conclusions on how this field of law should consider aesthetic values through ‘curatorial’ guidance.

India’s New Stance on Global Warming

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Neha Arora
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Carbon Tax ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Corporate Sector ◽  
Indian Government ◽  
Project Report ◽  
Low Carbon Development ◽  
Policy Mechanisms

India ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in November, 1993 and is a non-Annex party to the UNFCCC. Accordingly, as a Non Annex Party, India is not liable to legally reduce its Greenhouse gases under the convention. However India has taken a responsible stance towards Global warming and Climate change. Recent measures and developments at the governmental front and initiatives undertaken by the private sector have paved the way for sustainable development. The present paper studies the recent financial and market based mechanisms and the underlying policy environment for low carbon development in India undertaken by Indian government and the Indian corporate sector. The various policy mechanisms initiated include the Coal Cess, Carbon tax, Issuance of Masala bonds and Subsidies on solar enabled appliances. The Indian corporate sector has attracted commendable admiration by the Global leaders owing to the integration of sustainability into business activities. The issuance of Green bonds, voluntary GHG emissions disclosure in the Carbon Disclosure Project Report and establishment of Greenex are the various recent sustainable steps taken by industry leaders to fight global warming.

scholarly journals Climate predictions: the influence of nonlinearity and randomness

2012 ◽  
Vol 370 (1962) ◽  
pp. 1007-1011 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Michael T. Thompson ◽  
Jan Sieber
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Statistical Properties ◽  
Gradual Change ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
The Public ◽  
Systematic Biases ◽  
Earth’S Climate ◽  
Public Demand

The current threat of global warming and the public demand for confident projections of climate change pose the ultimate challenge to science: predicting the future behaviour of a system of such overwhelming complexity as the Earth's climate. This Theme Issue addresses two practical problems that make even prediction of the statistical properties of the climate, when treated as the attractor of a chaotic system (the weather), so challenging. The first is that even for the most detailed models, these statistical properties of the attractor show systematic biases. The second is that the attractor may undergo sudden large-scale changes on a time scale that is fast compared with the gradual change of the forcing (the so-called climate tipping).

scholarly journals All change for climate change

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony R Walker
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New York ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Ipcc Report ◽  
Single Use

Governments, corporations and individuals all need to take immediate action to help change the global economy toward a circular economy. A circular economy which uses fewer resources and based on renewable clean technologies to help limit global warming to 1.5 °C. The 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warned that limiting global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels would require current greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions to be cut in half by 2030. Yet actions by governments, corporations and individuals are lagging behind. Many countries are failing their obligations made under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Even the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency set a 50% reduction target of GHG emissions for global shipping by 2050, but this falls short of the IPCC target by 20 years. The United Nations climate summit in New York this week (September 2019) needs to send a strong wake up call to the entire world for us all to change. Change makers like Greta Thunberg has already done that. Individual actions to change consumer behaviour can play a major role to help reduce GHG emissions. Even reducing use of single-use plastics (a petroleum derivative) and incineration can help reduce GHG emissions. GHG emissions from plastics could reach 15% of the global carbon budget by 2050 if not curbed. In Europe, plastic production and incineration emits an estimated ~400 million tonnes of CO2 per year. Therefore, reducing single-use plastic use could curb GHG emissions.

scholarly journals The Holocene dynamics of Ryder Glacier and ice tongue in north Greenland

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (8) ◽  
pp. 4073-4097
Author(s):  
Matt O'Regan ◽  
Thomas M. Cronin ◽  
Brendan Reilly ◽  
Aage Kristian Olsen Alstrup ◽  
Laura Gemery ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Late Holocene ◽  
Sediment Cores ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Greenland Ice Sheet ◽  
Sedimentary Facies ◽  
Climate Forcing ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Middle Holocene ◽  
Vulnerability To Climate Change

Abstract. The northern sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet is considered to be particularly susceptible to ice mass loss arising from increased glacier discharge in the coming decades. However, the past extent and dynamics of outlet glaciers in this region, and hence their vulnerability to climate change, are poorly documented. In the summer of 2019, the Swedish icebreaker Oden entered the previously unchartered waters of Sherard Osborn Fjord, where Ryder Glacier drains approximately 2 % of Greenland's ice sheet into the Lincoln Sea. Here we reconstruct the Holocene dynamics of Ryder Glacier and its ice tongue by combining radiocarbon dating with sedimentary facies analyses along a 45 km transect of marine sediment cores collected between the modern ice tongue margin and the mouth of the fjord. The results illustrate that Ryder Glacier retreated from a grounded position at the fjord mouth during the Early Holocene (> 10.7±0.4 ka cal BP) and receded more than 120 km to the end of Sherard Osborn Fjord by the Middle Holocene (6.3±0.3 ka cal BP), likely becoming completely land-based. A re-advance of Ryder Glacier occurred in the Late Holocene, becoming marine-based around 3.9±0.4 ka cal BP. An ice tongue, similar in extent to its current position was established in the Late Holocene (between 3.6±0.4 and 2.9±0.4 ka cal BP) and extended to its maximum historical position near the fjord mouth around 0.9±0.3 ka cal BP. Laminated, clast-poor sediments were deposited during the entire retreat and regrowth phases, suggesting the persistence of an ice tongue that only collapsed when the glacier retreated behind a prominent topographic high at the landward end of the fjord. Sherard Osborn Fjord narrows inland, is constrained by steep-sided cliffs, contains a number of bathymetric pinning points that also shield the modern ice tongue and grounding zone from warm Atlantic waters, and has a shallowing inland sub-ice topography. These features are conducive to glacier stability and can explain the persistence of Ryder's ice tongue while the glacier remained marine-based. However, the physiography of the fjord did not halt the dramatic retreat of Ryder Glacier under the relatively mild changes in climate forcing during the Holocene. Presently, Ryder Glacier is grounded more than 40 km seaward of its inferred position during the Middle Holocene, highlighting the potential for substantial retreat in response to ongoing climate change.

scholarly journals Conversion of internal combustion engine car to semi-autonomous electric car

2021 ◽  
Vol 2070 (1) ◽  
pp. 012203
Author(s):  
Jeffin Francis ◽  
Aby Biju Narayamparambil ◽  
Anupama Johnson ◽  
Jeswant Mathew ◽  
Vishnu Sankar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Internal Combustion Engine ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Combustion Engine ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Autonomous Driving ◽  
Internal Combustion ◽  
Electric Car ◽  
Transportation Sector

Abstract Climate change, Green House Gases (GHG) and global warming are well-known terms in the world today. Global research efforts are focused towards increasing efficiency and reducing GHG emissions from various emitters to deal with climate change. Since the transportation sector accounts for a large share of global GHG emissions it is justifiable that curbing global warming should transpire in this sector. Worldwide there are large number of research taking place in the electrification of transportation sector and autonomous vehicles. In the footsteps of this global trend towards electrification, autonomous driving and automation of the transportation sector, a research to convert an existing internal combustion engine car to an electric car and implementation of few features found in SAE level 1 autonomous vehicles are explored through this project. These features include controlling vehicles remotely, collision detection, parking assistance, etc.

scholarly journals Litigating Climate Claims in India

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 45-50
Author(s):  
Shibani Ghosh
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Global South ◽  
International Negotiations ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Near Future

Jacqueline Peel and Jolene Lin's informative assessment of climate litigation in the Global South is a vital and timely contribution to the growing literature on the issue. It relies on a definition of climate litigation that allows the authors to draw on a much larger set of cases from the Global South by including cases in which climate concerns are “at the periphery.” This essay examines climate litigation in India. Although the term “global warming” started appearing in Indian environmental judgments in the 1990s, climate litigation in India is of relatively recent provenance, and with a few exceptions, climate concerns are peripheral to other, more mainstream environmental issues. Peel and Lin analyze five Indian cases as part of their Global South docket; I expand this set by including fourteen more cases that I believe fit their article's chosen definitional ambit. I classify these cases into four categories based on the use of climate language—reference to climate change, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, or the international negotiations—in the courts’ judgment. Drawing from case law analysis and Indian environmental litigation, I make observations about what we can interpret from the current set of climate cases, and I predict that while conditions are favorable for climate litigation in India to grow, in the near future climate claims are likely to remain peripheral issues.

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