Facts About Climate Protection
The change in climate which can currently be observed is caused mainly by humans, and the scientific evidence leaves us in no doubt. The drastic effects of climate change are already easy to measure and prove. This realisation has also found acceptance in large parts of the world’s population. The will to curb climate change is huge. 2009 has been declared the «Year of Climate Protection» and in the form of a follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol, which will take place in Copenhagen in December, it is hoped that it will bring a breakthrough in worldwide climate policy.
The Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius had already estimated as early as 1896 that the average temperature could rise by four to six degrees if the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere were to double. However, it was not until the middle of the 20th century that attention was paid to the accomplishments of the Nobel Prize winner. Since the CO2 content in the atmosphere is measured regularly, the increase in emissions is detectable and highlights the importance of humankind in the climate system. Today the greenhouse gas concentration is greater than ever before in the past 850,000 years.
In the early 1990s international politics paid attention to climate protection. Long years of negotiation, which had their origin in the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, reached a peak in 1997 with the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Its follow-up, which is to be decided in December 2009 in Copenhagen, has been a hot topic of negotiation for months now.
An important pillar of the Kyoto Protocol is its flexible mechanisms – Emissions Trading, Joint Implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – which are designed as measures for achieving greenhouse gas emission reductions. They would have to play a significant role in the follow-up, since they have been established and tried and tested worldwide in the last few years.
The CDM, in the spirit of which all Swiss Charter climate projects are being carried out, permits industrial countries to implement climate protection projects in emerging and developing countries and to allow for the calculation of greenhouse gas emission reductions. Behind the CDM is the fact that it makes no difference to the atmosphere and consequently climate protection where greenhouse gases are reduced. Furthermore, through the CDM, environmental and technological know-how is transferred to the host country so that it can use it for its own projects.