Carbon dioxide continues to accumulate invisibly in the atmosphere, trapping heat.
-Courtesy of NASA
-Courtesy of NASA
Background:
Atmospheric CO2 concentrations of 0.04 percent may not seem like much but it is enough to have already raised the average global temperatures by a full degree Celsius. About 35 billion metric tons of CO2 are discharged into the atmosphere annually and is still rising. The waters of the global ocean have become 30% more acidic in the last few decades and the world has not been this warm in thousands of years. China, the European Union, and U.S.—the world's largest polluters, together responsible for more than half of global pollution—have agreed to limit future greenhouse gas emissions.
What is COP?
The international political response to climate change began at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where the ‘Rio Convention’ included the adoption of the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The purpose of this convention was to set and stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, to avoid human pollution interference with the climate system. The UNFCCC, which came into action on March 21, 1994, now has a near-universal membership of 195 parties. The United Nations is working with the French government towards forming a global climate agreement to curb carbon emissions, in Paris, at the COP 21 climate change conference in December 2015. After 20 years of discussing they came up with an agreement on climate, in which global warming will be kept below 2°C.