Abstract
The phenomenon of climate change is as old as the planet earth itself. For ages, the temperature at the surface of the earth has varied, triggering many different climatic eras: Earth has hitherto known five ice ages, and the first of them is estimated to have happened around 2.4 to 2.1 billion years ago. However, the scientific community proved that mankind has now to face an unprecedented acceleration of such change. What is called in the public opinion "global warming" is the manifestation of such acceleration. The consequences are so far dramatic, and the examples numerous, the melt of the icecap being the most obvious. Finally, a consensus about the explanation of such change has been reached, albeit many skeptical theories also exist.
This is to be correlated with the technological explosion known by mankind during the 20th century, especially through a blossoming industrialization. Thanks to such progresses, the world is now globalized. However, such development was not uniform; some countries are still trying to catch up on the developed countries of the northern hemisphere. They are trying to improve their level of development as the developed world did earlier.
