What is it?
As the name suggests, it is mainly the amount of Carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into the atmosphere including many gases that negatively influence the quality of the air subsequently increasing the greenhouse effect.
Though the greenhouse gases are extremely important to sustain life on Earth by maintaining a comfortable atmospheric temperature but a major fluctuation can have extreme weather changing effects that can be catastrophic for the life on this planet.
What causes it?
Fossil fuels take millions of years to form and the rate at which we are using them is alarming. We are depleting our natural resources by burning them at such a fast rate for transportation, power generation and heat that it is causing irreparable harm to the environment.
Not only will our future generations be left with handful of resources but our injudicious act might force them to go several years back in terms of technology and advancement than what we expect of them in the future. Or there might not be a future at all!
What has been done till now?
It’s not that the thought of preserving our natural resources has never crossed the minds of our governments or intellectuals.
There were many initiatives taken to regulate carbon emissions like the Kyoto Protocol which is linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
This is an international treaty that binds the countries to limit or reduce their Carbon emissions. But the drawback of this treaty is that the developed countries go ahead and buy the carbon emission limit from the developing countries which in response hinders the growth and development of the latter.
This trading has been termed the “carbon market” and is permitted according to the Article 17 of the Kyoto Protocol.
