DID YOU KNOW? The UK’s Climate Change Committee website is a fantastic resource. See theccc.org.uk
IT’S GETTING HOT IN HERE
With the Glasgow climate change summit still fresh in our minds and the environmental impact of everything we do under scrutiny, Shire takes a look at what is at stake and how we can help avoid a climate catastrophe
WHAT IS CLIMATE CHANGE? Planet Earth has seen many climate changes in its 4.55 billion years. For example, 27,000 years ago most of Britain was covered in ice and glaciers. Although changes to the climate are natural, current changes are a result of increasing human populations and activities. When talking about climate in relation to human activities, climate change can be said to mean the build-up of man-made gases in the atmosphere which trap the sun’s heat, causing unnatural alterations in weather patterns around the world.
A
t the end of last year climate change was the hot (excuse the pun) topic on everyone’s lips. The COP26 summit brought all things environmental to the forefront of the media and nations united in pledging to do more to help avert a natural disaster. But many of us still don’t really understand what it was all about and exactly what is at stake. Over the next few pages we’ll look at how the climate is changing and what it could mean for our area, as well as thinking about what changes we could all make to help the situation. First of all, let us explain more about the COP26…
money available to deliver on these aims. The ‘Paris Agreement’ was born. Countries committed to national plans setting out how much they would reduce their emissions – known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs. They agreed that every five years they would come back with an updated plan, and COP26 was the first time this would happen.
HOW IT WENT In general, COP26 was seen to be a success, with over 100 nations pledging to end deforestation by 2030. Some 28 countries signed up to the new forests, agriculture and commodity trade ‘road map of action’ and 45 governments pledged urgent action to protect nature and shift to more sustainable ways of farming. Over 100 countries pledged to reduce methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030. It was generally agreed that work to keep climate increases to 1.5 degrees at most was vital and most countries reaffirmed their pledge to do this. But it’s not just up to governments to make a difference – every one of us can make small changes that have a big impact on the future of our planet.
“Every one of us can make small changes that have a big impact on the future of our planet”
SUMMIT GOING ON COP26 was the 2021 United Nations climate change conference. For nearly three decades the UN has been bringing together almost every country on Earth for global climate summits called COPs, which stands for ‘Conference of the Parties’. In that time, climate change has gone from being a fringe issue to a global priority. Last year’s summit, held in Glasgow, was the 26th annual summit – hence COP26 – and it had a unique importance thanks to a previous summit, COP21, which took place in Paris in 2015. Something momentous happened at the Paris conference. For the first time, every country agreed to work together to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees and to aim for 1.5 degrees, to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate and make
WHAT IS CAUSING IT? Greenhouse gases are the cause of climate change, the most well-known being carbon dioxide or CO2. Others are methane, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide and water vapour. These substances are not all bad – we need some of them to survive – and without them the world would be 33°C colder than it is now. Life would not be possible. The trouble now is that the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is higher than it would be naturally, and this is changing the world’s climate. In general, the planet is getting hotter. In some places it is also getting wetter. Others are getting windier, or drier. For example, the Sahara Desert is expanding and it is likely that this will continue due to climate change.
42 SHIRE MAGAZINE | January/February 2022
Feature Climate Change JanFeb 2022 FINAL.indd 1
23/12/2021 09:22
