Climate change regulation and policy frameworks

Climate Change Regulation

Climate Change

Climate is referred to as the weather patterns of a particular area over a long period. Earth climate can be divided into five main groups, which are as follow:

Tropical Climate

Dry Climate

Warm Moderate Climate

Cold Moderate Climate

Cold Climate

Areas close to equator are the hottest as they get regular sunshine while areas close to poles are the coldest as they receive minimum amount of sunshine. There are two main factors that affect the climate which are natural and man made. Natural factors include change in climate patterns, atmosphere, rock, ocean, ice sheets and human beings as well. The factors that affect the weather are as follow:

Ocean:

Oceans currents are responsible for carrying the warmth to different parts of the world.

Atmosphere:

Air is part of the atmosphere and it is either dry or humid in both cases it is moving some time by heating up and some time by cooling down without the presence of atmosphere there will be no water on Earth and without water there will be no life.

Earths Orbit:

Earths orbit is continuously changing this change in orbit affects the distance between the Earth and the Sun, which therefore decides the amount of sunlight entering the Earths hemisphere.

Volcanoes:

Volcanic activity also affects the weather as it eruptions causes ashes and gases which acts as a sheet and blocks the sunlight from entering the earth.

Greenhouse Effect:

If the Greenhouse effect is not present the Earth would cease to exist it is essential for regulating temperatures (Karling, 2011). Sunlight that travels through space towards the Earth when reaches Earths hemisphere and touches the ozone layer results in the good sunlight to pass through and harmful sunlight to be reflected back. Ozone layer also helps in trapping the sunlight by not letting it escape after being reflected from the objects, which provides balance to the Earths temperature and encourages the process of photosynthesis.

The factors discussed above are the factors that cause change in weather and which in the end leads to change in climate.

Reason behind these changes:

So what causes changes in these factors that ultimately results in changes in the climate? They are as follow:

Human Activities:

With the passage of time, human population has increased but what is more, important to note over here is that the rate by which the population is increasing at an alarming rate and it is estimated that in 2030 the Earth population would reach to 9 billion, which is mammoth total. It is therefore understood that the increase in population has increase the demand for resources that has resulted in the following:

Setting up of Industries:

In order to meet the demand of ever-growing population it is very important to setup industries, which can supply these people with never ending supply of products, which leads to the consumption of resources and its wastage during the production process.

Power generation:

Power, which is often referred to as electricity, is an essential part of our daily lives as it comforts us from our home to our work place. It is required to keep the industries running and human beings have become heavily dependent on it. With increase in population and industries, demand for power has also increased and has resulted in setting up of more and ore power plants (Archer, 2011). These power plants produce 30% of the worlds total carbon dioxide emissions that is very harmful for the atmosphere and has already caused great amount of damage to the atmosphere. Despite this, the percentage is expected to increase as the population is increasing at an alarming rate and so is the demand for electricity.

Waste Materials:

Lot of resources is being wasted instead of being recycled and used again. This would not only help save resources but will also help in reducing methane and carbon dioxide emissions from these wastes as both of them have adversely affected the atmosphere.

Transportation:

Increase in population has led to increase in automobile which means that more resources would be required to produce them and more fuel would be required to keep them running. These transportation units are responsible for producing 20% of the world total carbon dioxide and other emission that harms the Earth hemisphere.

Farming and Deforestation:

As the population is increasing, it needs more and more area to do farming and to settle down. More wood and wood products are required which has resulted in significant amount of deforestation. Trees and plantations play a vital role in recycling carbon dioxide oxygen, which is not harmful for atmosphere, but with the trees missing this recycling process has stopped and thus adversely affected the atmosphere. On the other hand, animal wastes used for farming also produce carbon dioxide, which is again harmful for the atmosphere (Archer, 2011).

Natural Activities:

Natural activities like change in Earths orbit and volcanic eruption has led to increase emission of carbon dioxide, which has harmed the Earths atmosphere.

Following were the natural and human factor responsible for altering the factors that are directly responsible for change in climate.

Methods to control Earth Environment:

There are two ways to control factors that are aversely affects Earths climate. First being the Regulatory-based policy and second being the Incentive-based policy.

Regulatory-based policy:

These policies have been used for long time in United States, which is responsible for regulating every institution to abide by these policies on reducing the risk of factors that can adversely effect the change in climate, and failure to do so will result in imposition of heavy fines. However, there are pros and cons to this policy.

Pros:

This policy has a clear outcome and thus helps in regulating and monitoring the compliance process as failure to do so will result in heavy fines.

Cons:

This policy is very costly in terms of monitoring and ensuring compliance and despite this it, still light fail to reach its objectives, as it requires information from its sources and the information provided may be incorrect or false. This policy is not cost effective. In addition, it offers no help or creativity of ideas to help reduce emission rate.

Incentive-based policy:

This policy enables the people to choose and move towards better production techniques and better low cost equipments that not only reduces emission but also are also quite effective in fulfilling their needs. Government can encourage by offering incentives and subsidies on these machines and increase taxes on less environment friendly products and machines thus discouraging its use. This system also has pros and cons.