Abstract
Climate change is an environmental issue that is now recognized by almost the entire scientific community in the world. It affects the entire planet. The climate is influenced by both natural and human factors. However, it's been proven that human activities are responsible for a wide range of global warming caused by greenhouse gase emmisions associated with massive human activities, particularly transports and industries. The temperature has increased by 0.6% during the last century.
People are aware of the fact that if nothing is done to reduce global warming on global level, climate change could pose a serious threat to the population growth which could lead to an increase in the number of environmental disasters such as cyclones and storms and also result in significant meltdown of the glaciers that would cause a rise in the sea level from 10 to 20 centimeters.
Such a phenomenon would be sufficient to reduce a big part of the low-lying land masses and cause major floods. Some countries may even be wiped off the map because of these floods, "even a partial melting [of Greenland] would cause a one-meter (three-foot) rise. Such a rise would have a devastating impact on low-lying island countries, such as the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, which would be entirely submerged. " On the other hand, due to the rise in temperature, some other states could suffer from water penury.
We can predict the huge problems that would arise on the international level. These consequences could indeed lead to a massive amount of "environmental refugees" trying to move in other countries, and border conflicts. Not to mention the disappearing of entire nations and cultures because of their submersion.
Besides, storms would probably be more frequent, which would cause serious damages in numerous countries and the agricultural sector is more likely to be affected by this climate change. Another serious concern is that, the entire ecosystem could be destroyed. According to the magazine "Nature", by the year 2050, a million species could disappear .
As predictions about the consequences of global climate change have become more and more alarming, countries have started thinking about the ways to deal with it. The problem is that the fight against climate change requires the cooperation of every state in the world, which is obviously really hard to obtain, since each country has its own laws, rules and regulations.
One can wonder whether the international regulation on greenhouse gases emission could be implemented, because it is assured that each country is subjected to a supranational regulation. The current situation of the Kyoto protocol is a good example since the United States, which is the second largest polluter in the world, have still not have ratified it (though they have signed it). Unfortunately, it seems that it has turned into a dead-end.
