over decades. The atmosphere and the oceans have warmed which is reflected, for
example, in a combined land and ocean surface temperature as calculated by a
linear trend of about 0.85 °C [0.65; 1.06 °C] over the period 1880–2012, along with
a set of extreme events such as a decreasing of snowfall and ice, a rise in sea level,
and rural wildfires and hurricanes that took an unprecedented expression.
In addition to the disruption of ecological systems, it is important to acknowledge the heavy economic and social consequences that have been hitting today in
various parts of the globe. To cite an example among many already available today,
it is noted that in the US the estimated costs attributable to climatic events in 2017
reached an amount of the order of $ 360 billion (Jackson et al. 2018).
Global climate change takes place when the earth–atmosphere system responds
to counteract the radiation flux changes. As early as the beginning of the twentieth
century, Svante Arrhenius suggested with precocious wit that the Earth could be
warmed due to an anthropogenic increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Today’s knowledge shows that human influence on the climate system is clear, and
recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history.
Awareness, sentiment, and regulatory action related to climate change have
accelerated over the last years, and there is a common sentiment that it is time for
governments, business leaders, and society to step up and put climate risks at the
forefront of their strategy and ensure that they could address the challenges that will
be central to all the world for the future. Embodying this feeling, the Paris
Agreement (November 2016) built upon the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) brought all nations in a common cause to
undertake efforts to combat climate change and to strengthen the global response to
keeping the global temperature rise in this century well below 2 °C above
pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even
further to 1.5 °C.
Being a global threat, and considering regional and socioeconomic differences
among countries, the Agreement was not specific on regional thresholds, meaning
that regional climate shifts and extreme events will not follow the global mean
(Perkins-Kirkpatrick and Gibson 2017).
COP26 (to be held in Glasgow in November 2020) marks the 5-year anniversary
of the Paris Agreement and is expected to accelerate change in the way governments think and regulate around climate change. Countries will be assessed on how
they are meeting their global warming mitigation targets agreed in Paris. The Paris
Agreement was the culmination of a long trajectory that can be traced back to 1988
with the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
through the cooperation between the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Its mandate was
to assess scientific information related to climate change, to evaluate the environmental and socioeconomic consequences, and to formulate realistic response
strategies.
Since its inception, IPCC has played a major role in assisting governments to
adopt and implement policies to address climate change and gave authoritative
advice of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework
268
8 Fundamentals of Global Carbon Budgets and Climate Change
example, in a combined land and ocean surface temperature as calculated by a
linear trend of about 0.85 °C [0.65; 1.06 °C] over the period 1880–2012, along with
a set of extreme events such as a decreasing of snowfall and ice, a rise in sea level,
and rural wildfires and hurricanes that took an unprecedented expression.
In addition to the disruption of ecological systems, it is important to acknowledge the heavy economic and social consequences that have been hitting today in
various parts of the globe. To cite an example among many already available today,
it is noted that in the US the estimated costs attributable to climatic events in 2017
reached an amount of the order of $ 360 billion (Jackson et al. 2018).
Global climate change takes place when the earth–atmosphere system responds
to counteract the radiation flux changes. As early as the beginning of the twentieth
century, Svante Arrhenius suggested with precocious wit that the Earth could be
warmed due to an anthropogenic increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Today’s knowledge shows that human influence on the climate system is clear, and
recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history.
Awareness, sentiment, and regulatory action related to climate change have
accelerated over the last years, and there is a common sentiment that it is time for
governments, business leaders, and society to step up and put climate risks at the
forefront of their strategy and ensure that they could address the challenges that will
be central to all the world for the future. Embodying this feeling, the Paris
Agreement (November 2016) built upon the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) brought all nations in a common cause to
undertake efforts to combat climate change and to strengthen the global response to
keeping the global temperature rise in this century well below 2 °C above
pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even
further to 1.5 °C.
Being a global threat, and considering regional and socioeconomic differences
among countries, the Agreement was not specific on regional thresholds, meaning
that regional climate shifts and extreme events will not follow the global mean
(Perkins-Kirkpatrick and Gibson 2017).
COP26 (to be held in Glasgow in November 2020) marks the 5-year anniversary
of the Paris Agreement and is expected to accelerate change in the way governments think and regulate around climate change. Countries will be assessed on how
they are meeting their global warming mitigation targets agreed in Paris. The Paris
Agreement was the culmination of a long trajectory that can be traced back to 1988
with the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
through the cooperation between the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Its mandate was
to assess scientific information related to climate change, to evaluate the environmental and socioeconomic consequences, and to formulate realistic response
strategies.
Since its inception, IPCC has played a major role in assisting governments to
adopt and implement policies to address climate change and gave authoritative
advice of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework
268
8 Fundamentals of Global Carbon Budgets and Climate Change