WHAT IT IS?

Global warming is no longer regarded by scientists as merely hypothetical. It has been established that the planet is getting warmer and the most probable cause is unregulated emissions of so-called greenhouse gasses, which due to mankind´s rapid industrialization over the last 100 years have become far more predominant.

Global warming refers to the warming of the earth´s surface, encompassing both land and sea, and thus leading to an increase in air temperature. This warming effect has caused climactic phenomena ever more intense and devastating: desertification, changes in rainfall patterns, melting of glaciers and the rising of sea levels. There are several scientific schools of thought regarding the consequences of global warming. There are those who believe that climate change could happen dramatically, as portrayed in the film The Day After Tomorrow. On the other hand, there are those who believe that changes will occur but at a slower rate. Presently, the sole global initiative to combat global warming is the Kyoto Protocol, which set reductions in greenhouse gas emissions for signatories over a determined period.

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These are gasses released into the atmosphere that have an insulating effect preventing the earth from cooling too rapidly, but which in excessive quantities can intensify the greenhouse effect and lead to global warming. Among greenhouse gasses we can site CO2 (Carbon Dioxide), Nitrous Oxide and CFCs (chlorofluorocarbon). 

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Finding means to meet society´s present social and economic demands and guarantee that future generation´s demands continue to be met- all the while taking into account environmental preservation for this generation and those of the future. 

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The greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon that serves to regulate the earth´s temperature. It is the greenhouse effect that retains a proportion of the heat the earth receives from the sun. Without it, the earth´s temperature would plummet by an average of 33 degrees, making life on earth virtually impossible. However, the intensification of the greenhouse effect leads us to the opposite extreme of global warming.   

Components that contribute to the greenhouse effect include water vapour, CO2 (Carbon Dioxide), Nitrous Oxide and CFC gasses (chlorofluorocarbon). These are all known as greenhouse gasses. Water vapour and CO2 have always been released into the atmosphere by natural fires, volcanoes, and the evaporation of seas, rivers and lakes. Whilst being a natural phenomenon, the greenhouse effect has been aggravated by human beings. 60% of the greenhouse gasses that lead to global warming are from human CO2 emissions. Through industrialization and above all by the burning of hydro carbonates to obtain energy, CO2 emissions have reached peaks that warrant the global debate on how to reduce them. 

The planet is getting constantly hotter and the resulting global warming is having a disastrous effect on the biosphere. 

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The alarming prospect of a planet ever increasing in temperature gave rise to the Kyoto Protocol, which effectively serves as recognition on the part of the international community that something must urgently be done. The Kyoto Protocol was approved and opened to signatories by the participants of the third convention on climate change in 1997. It is an international accord aiming to regulate greenhouse gasses.  Through the protocol, 39 developed countries are obliged to reduce their emissions of Carbon dioxide and other harmful gasses to 5.2% lower than respective 1990 global emission rates.  The document is a complement to an UN convention on climate change, signed at the United Nations conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992- Eco92. The protocol divides countries into two groups: those who need to reduce their emissions and those not obliged to. Brazil belongs to the second group that would receive financial aid to both reduce its emissions of greenhouse gasses and remove, through woods and rainforests, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere produced by the selfsame financiers.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is one idea disseminated by the Kyoto Protocol in order to lessen the impact caused by the vast quantities of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gasses being produced by specific countries. CDM´s objective is to encourage the production of clean energy through initiatives such as solar energy and biomass, thus removing Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere. The treaty came into force on the 16th February 2005 following Russia´s decision to ratify it. For it to come into force it was necessary to have the approval of countries that together represented 55% of the world´s greenhouse gas output. It was ratified in Brazil on the 19th of June 2002, and sanctioned by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso on the 23rd of July the same year.

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