International Climate Change policies
Since the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, there have been successful international endeavours towards establishing a global framework to develop climate change mitigation policies. The main goal being to swap over to efficient green energy alternatives and thereby reduce the harmful emissions such as greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other pollutants which are now radically effecting our atmosphere and hence the entire biosphere.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
Under the UN’s Convention on Climate Change, international co-operation has been established whereby a pooling of international effort in all areas climate change mitigation and the future management of change brought about by climate change itself. This acceptance of the shared nature of our planet’s resources and its protective atmosphere has enabled both the establishment of international emissions targets and trading mechanisms for renewable energy certifications schemes.

The Kyoto Protocol
The recent ratification of the Kyoto Protocol with its emission reduction targets by the majority of the world’s political leaders demonstrates how the acknowledgement of the existence of human-induced climate change has infused deeply into the minds of many decision makers across the globe.

Local and national Mitigation Policies
The recent spate of weather induced trauma will hopefully alert those leaders who have hitherto shown reticence in accepting the notion of human-induced climate change, to the realisation that we are pushing the planet into a new and very different climate regime.

Climate Change Adaptation
Whether or not political measures will be enacted in a sufficiently timely and serious manner to slow down the rate of climate change impacts, there is a need to try to predict and manage our response to the inevitable impact that climate change will have on billions of people’s lives.

The change to temperature and rainfall regimes will affect agriculture and global food supply, rising sea levels will begin to threaten the viability of many coastal regions in terms of human populations. Environmental refugees will consistently outnumber those refugees fleeing the traditional worries of political strife and war.