Global warming is the phenomenon of rising temperatures, caused by both natural factors and human industrial activity. Natural factors include changes in the Earth’s orbit and volcanic activity, but research shows that humans’ burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and rapid increase in greenhouse gases are the main causes. Global warming is causing sea level rise, extreme weather, ecosystem destruction, and human health problems, and in response, the international community has signed several agreements aimed at reducing greenhouse gases.
According to climatology, global warming is an increase in the temperature near the Earth’s surface. The current use of the term “global warming” refers to the increase in temperature due to the increase in greenhouse gases caused by the effects of industrialization that began in the 1970s.
There are two main reasons for global warming: natural causes and human industrial activities. Let’s start with the natural causes of warming. Natural causes require a long period of research and observation, but it is difficult to fully understand them since the international community has recognized the problem of global warming for less than 40 years. Despite the short time frame, research so far suggests that the Earth’s changing axis of rotation affects its orbit, changing the area that receives energy from the sun and contributing to warming. The type of gases released during volcanic eruptions and the size of the eruption can also affect warming. There are also claims that changes in solar activity increase the average global temperature, but this is still controversial.
The causes mentioned in the previous paragraph are only secondary factors, and research so far suggests that human activities are the most likely cause of global warming. The anthropogenic factors can be divided into two main categories: the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations due to industrial development and the slowdown in greenhouse gas sequestration due to deforestation. First, let’s take a look at the process of increasing greenhouse gases due to industrial development. Since the Industrial Revolution, the use of fossil fuels has increased rapidly, leading to an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, which has accelerated global warming. In the process of burning fossil fuels to obtain energy to run engines or generate electricity, carbon-containing fossil fuels react with oxygen to produce carbon dioxide. Furthermore, the development of multiple modes of transportation has led to a surge in automobile use, which has contributed significantly to the increase in greenhouse gases. Originally, greenhouse gases are necessary to keep the Earth’s temperature warm, but their rapidly increasing concentrations are preventing some of the sun’s radiant energy from escaping the atmosphere, causing abnormally high average global temperatures.
Land use also changed dramatically around the 1970s. Land that was primarily used to grow crops until the 1960s was deforested as a result of land use changes driven by industrial development. For example, much of the Amazon forest, the “lungs of the earth,” has already been lost. This land use change is important because plants and trees absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, and convert it to oxygen during photosynthesis. The loss of forests doesn’t just remove carbon dioxide, it also reduces the amount of photosynthesis that converts carbon dioxide into oxygen, leading to rising greenhouse gas concentrations.
This rapid industrialization and overdevelopment of land has contributed to global warming. Global warming is more than just an increase in temperature that makes life uncomfortable; it threatens human life in three main ways. First, let’s take a look at geographical changes. So far, global warming is happening faster at higher latitudes than at lower latitudes. In particular, rapid warming at high latitudes is causing glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise. This is expected to submerge one-third of the Pacific’s many coral reef islands. In fact, two islands in India’s Sunderbans Natural Park, a world heritage site, have been inundated by rising sea levels.
Secondly, global warming is causing severe natural disasters. As the average global temperature rises, so does sea surface temperature, which increases the potential energy in the ocean, making typhoons and hurricanes more intense. According to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study, the intensity of typhoons and hurricanes has increased by about 50% since the 1970s. In fact, Hurricane Katrina killed 1,500 people and displaced 800,000 in New Orleans in 2005. In South Korea, Typhoon Rusa in 2002 caused over $3.6 billion in property damage, and Typhoon Mae-mi in 2003 caused damage equivalent to 1% of South Korea’s GDP. With rising sea surface temperatures, which have the greatest impact on typhoon intensity, large-scale typhoons are expected to become more frequent in the future. Global warming has led to an overall increase in precipitation, but there are large regional variations. In one part of the world, flooding is causing damage, but in the Sahel and Mediterranean-Southern Africa regions, precipitation is decreasing, and Lake Chad in central Africa has dried up. Rising temperatures can cause more rainfall due to evaporation of ocean water, but they can also cause moisture in the soil to evaporate, fueling desertification.
Finally, in addition to the loss of islands to desertification and sea level rise, global warming has serious implications for ecosystems and human health. As the average global temperature rises, plants and animals are gradually migrating to higher latitudes, and wildlife is at risk of extinction due to environmental changes. The loss of species doesn’t just mean the disappearance of individuals, it affects the entire food chain, which in turn negatively impacts humans. Furthermore, rapid temperature changes pose a direct threat to human health. According to the WHO, deaths from heat waves and droughts continue to rise, and water shortages are expected to become more severe. Higher temperatures are expected to increase the death toll by expanding the range of disease-causing bacteria and the insects that carry them. In fact, in Africa, the steady rise in temperatures over the past 30 years has led to an increase in mosquito populations, which has led to higher rates of malaria.
Global warming is far more serious than we realize. To combat this, the international community is working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through agreements. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international environmental agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, and was formally adopted at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. However, the agreement was non-binding as it was simply a mutual commitment, so the Kyoto Protocol was created to complement it. The Kyoto Protocol is a practical agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, targeting industrialized countries that led the industrial revolution to reduce their emissions by an average of 5.2% from 1990 levels. To limit the temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, the international climate change negotiations set a target of 25-40% reduction from 1990 levels for industrialized countries and 15-30% reduction from BAU for developing countries.
Given the severity of global warming, not only do we need immediate mitigation policies, but we also need adaptation policies to address the problems that have already occurred and those that will intensify in the future. The environment is not just for humans, and we must address global warming for the sake of future generations.
