The Climate Change Bill Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The Climate Change Bill - Essay Example The IPCC’s primary goal is to coordinate international commitment toward a formulation of strategies aimed at managing the issues that give rise to climate changes.4 This paper critically examines the UK’s Climate Change Bill and whether or not it effectively responds to the issues created by virtue of climate change. The IPCC organized sufficient interest in the dangers posed by climate change to compel the UN’s General Assembly to take the challenge a step further. The result was the organization of an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee which formed the basis for a number of Earth Summits from 1991 to the present.5 There are approximately 200 countries, including the UK that make up the resulting United Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).6 The definition of climate change can be gleaned from the primary goal of the UNFCC which is as follows: ...a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.8 Since the word anthropogenic in Article 2 of the UNFCC refers to human activity and Article 1 speaks directly to the impact of human activity on climate changes, the UK’s Climate Bill understandably seeks to regulate and modify human conduct. The focus is therefore on that aspect of human activity and conduct that creates the greatest challenges for the environment with respect to climate changes. As gleaned from Article 2 of the UNFCC, gas emissions was identified as the catalyst for climate change. It, therefore, follows that the UK’s Climate Change Bill would concentrate its efforts in that area. In a speech on the Climate Change Bill by Member of Parliament, the Right Honourable Hilary Benn, the MP noted the extent to which individual and collective responsibility is necessary to circumvent the harsh realities of climate change.