After attending this talk, I have taken in plenty of enlightening knowledge about the relationship between climate change, science, law and politics. It corrected a lot of my inaccurate assumptions regarding this topic.
I have never thought about the relationship between law and climate change since they don’t seem to be affiliated, but once we think deeper, they are interlocked together in many different aspects.
The greenhouse effect is the reason why Global warming is happening, and unfortunately, human beings are responsible for creating an excess amount of greenhouse gases. Human activities such as generation of electricity, agricultural activities and industrial activities produce an immense amount of Greenhouse gases, leading to the deteriorating situation of climate change.
Back in 1992, leaders of countries realised that they must take immediate action if they wanted to minimise the impacts of climate change. Therefore they started formulating new laws and agreements. In 1992, the United Nations held the framework convention on climate change, focusing on avoiding dangerous anthropogenic climate change, this agreement was legally binding but it was rather ‘soft’. Therefore I think this was a rather flaccid agreement. Then, in 1995, there was the Kyoto protocol, legally binding emission reductions for 2008-2012, but it only applies to developed countries. The Kyoto Protocol can be considered successful, but compared to the worsening situation of climate change, this is clearly not efficient enough. The truth is, that politicians and many companies in the world do not wish to follow the laws minimising climate change. They will lose an abject amount of money and damage their financial and economic interest because they make their money out of fossil fuels or activities causing climate change.
If we really want to reduce the harm of climate change to planet earth, our generation should not hesitate to take action immediately. The fate of our Earth is in our hands and if we don’t take action, we will be the ones suffering from the consequences.