Climate

One of the most important and defining issues of our time is the climate change. The climate is undoubtedly changing, and it is changing faster than many scientists thought it would, especially in the Arctic. The majority of developing countries are in tropical or sub-tropical areas, areas predicted to be seriously affected by the impacts of the climate change. The impact has to a large extent used up the resources of the earth; it has polluted the air and the water and has affected life on the planet; it has created a certain ecological imbalance too. It all started from the famous industrial revolution which lead to increased use of machinery and in turn populated the atmosphere. As we all know that it was the developed nations that started and benefited the most from this revolution so primarily the responsibility of tackling the issue now, should lie on their shoulders! Global warming is one of the factors affecting the climate change. Within the last century carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased dramatically, increasing global temperature by 0.6 Celsius. This again is an affect of the activities of the developed nations. On the other hand developing are often less able to cope with the adverse climate affects as poverty exacerbates, and is further exacerbated by the impacts of the environmental changes. Also because in developing countries, livelihood of the people is highly dependant on climate sensitive resources, thus further making it difficult for them to react to climate change. In addition minimizing the adverse affects climate change requires adaption, funds and modern technology. Unfortunately developing countries lack all of them. On the whole, there are some basic differences of perspectives on climate change policies between developed and developing countries which may bedevil future global agreements on climate change for quite some time. Among the reasons for these differences are the issues of historical responsibility for carbon emission, the need for lifestyle changes in both the developed and developing countries, suspicion in the developing countries about the motives of developed countries. So developed countries should indeed accept the responsibility of managing the problems of climate change.