Countries acting alone had to face a set of problems which challenge the conventional limits of a national state. In recent times, global risks got the focus of major attention. They constitute an uncertain condition which, should it develop without control, will have a negative impact able to cause serious damages for the next 10 years.
The recent Survey of the Perception of Global Risks (The Global Risks Report, 2016), edited by the World Economic Forum and including 29 global risks classified as social, technological, economic, environmental and geopolitical, in a time horizon of 10 years, put the absence of mitigation and adaptation measures to climate changes at the first place. In the last three years, climate change ranked in the fifth place. Today, it moves up to the first. Thus it proves to be the risk of major impact, above weapons of mass destruction (second place) and water crises (third place). Unintentional large-scale migrations and the impact caused by changes of energy prices (whether price increase or price decrease) follow. Economic risks, which include financial crises in leading economies and high structural unemployment or underemployment, ask for an analysis apart.
Among probabilities of chain risks, a scenario is highlighted in which climate change strengthens water crises with ensuing conflicts and social impacts, sparking off forced exoduses.
Depicted as a sort of imperative, resilience, i.e. the ability to overcome hardships, turned out to be a necessary condition in order to face threats to security through a mixed type cooperation which puts together the public and the private sectors.
In this context, resilience is fundamental in order to develop a special ability tending to recognize, analyse and answer to the challenges concerning global risks from the point of view of every specific actor.
The 13th Objective of the United Nations provides: “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impact”. Strengthening resilience and adaptation ability to the risks linked to the climate and natural disasters in each country, as well as the introduction of measures related to climate change in the national policies, strategies and plans, stand out among its goals.
Four years of feverish negotiations were necessary to attain the adoption of the 1/CP.21 Decision, which made possible the macro agreement to fight climate change within the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (CMNUCC), held in Paris on last December 12.
The agreement depositary is the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and it will be open for signatures in New York from April 22, 2016, to April 21, 2017.
This universal agreement obtained a large consensus: 196 Parties of the CMNUCC (195 States, Argentina and the European Union included) pledged to carry out actions to attenuate anthropogenic greenhouse gas releases, which cause global warming. It includes not only attenuation, but also adaptation to the climate change effects, as well as means of implementation which go from financing and training to technology transfer. All of them are necessary to take climate-related actions.
Climatic Change data. According to the United Nations, between 1880 and 2012 the global average temperature raised by 0,85 degrees centigrade. For each degree of temperature increase, the cereal crops are down by about 5%. Between 1981 and 2002 maize, wheat and other important crops decreased due to a hotter climate. In addition, the oceans got warmer. Snow quantity decreased and sea level subsided. In each decade, 1.07 million km2 of ice is lost. Since 1979, the sea ice expanse in the Arctic has been decreasing. Should the oceans warm, together with lasting thaws, an average increase of sea level from 24 to 30 cm (by 2065) and from 40 to 63 cm (by 2100) is forecast.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are perforating the ozone layer and since 1990 they have been increasing nearly 50%.
The Paris Agreement set the target to limit temperature increase of global warming to under 2ºC with respect to the pre-industrial levels. Each Party illustrated its Plan of Climate Action, together with pledges (the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs)) to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) according to its own realities.
Global problems of this big global village, our Earth, need global answers.
The day is TODAY. The time is NOW. This planet, our home, demands sustainability as a moral value.
Translated by Federica Cretazzo