The Search for a Global Solution Continues Introduction Changes in climate are not new. Over the last million years a sequence of ice ages and warmer interglacial periods like the current one has occurred naturally at roughly 100,000 year intervals. Consequently, the world's politicians are intensifying their efforts to solve the problem. This briefing examines the issue of man-made climate change, summarises the international and national responses and looks at the implications for the electricity industry.
Sunlight readily passes through the atmosphere to warm the earth's surface.
Human activities such as fossil fuel burning and some forms of agriculture are adding to the concentrations of these gases. At the same time some 'sinks' that absorb CO2, such as forests, are being destroyed. The net result is increasing atmospheric concentrations of GHGs, of which CO2 is the most significant of the anthropogenic additions. The IPCC's First Assessment Report in 1990 concluded that continued accumulation of anthropogenic GHGs in the atmosphere would lead to climate change whose rate and magnitude were likely to have important impacts on natural and human systems. If CO2 emissions continued at 1994 rates, the pre-industrial atmospheric concentration would be nearly doubled by 2100.