global warming essay in spanish

¿Cómo sabemos que el cambio climático es real?

Existe evidencia inequívoca de que la Tierra se está calentando a un ritmo sin precedentes. La actividad humana es la causa principal.

• Mientras que el clima de la Tierra  ha cambiado a lo largo de su historia , el calentamiento actual está ocurriendo a un ritmo no visto en los últimos 10.000 años.
• Según el Panel Intergubernamental sobre Cambio Climático ( IPCC , por sus siglas en ingles), "Desde que comenzaron las evaluaciones científicas sistemáticas en la década de 1970, la influencia de la actividad humana en el calentamiento del sistema climático ha evolucionado de la teoría al hecho establecido". 1
• La información científica extraída de fuentes naturales (como núcleos de hielo, rocas y anillos de árboles) y de equipos modernos (como satélites e instrumentos) muestra signos de un clima cambiante.
• Desde el aumento de la temperatura global hasta el derretimiento de las capas de hielo, abunda la evidencia del calentamiento del planeta.

La tasa de cambio desde mediados del siglo XX no tiene precedentes en milenios.

El clima de la Tierra ha cambiado a lo largo de la historia. Solo en los últimos 800.000 años, ha habido ocho ciclos de glaciaciones y períodos más cálidos, y el final de la última glaciación hace unos 11.700 años marcó el comienzo de la era climática moderna y de la civilización humana. La mayoría de estos cambios climáticos se atribuyen a  variaciones muy pequeñas en la órbita de la Tierra  que cambian la cantidad de energía solar que recibe nuestro planeta.

Obtén más información sobre los núcleos de hielo .

La tendencia de calentamiento actual es diferente porque es claramente el resultado de las actividades humanas desde mediados del siglo XIX y avanza a un ritmo que no se ha visto en muchos milenios recientes. 1  Es innegable que las actividades humanas han producido los gases atmosféricos que han atrapado una mayor parte de la energía del Sol en el sistema de la Tierra. Esta energía adicional ha calentado la atmósfera, el océano y la tierra, y se han producido cambios rápidos y generalizados en la atmósfera, el océano, la criósfera y la biosfera.

Los satélites en órbita terrestre y las nuevas tecnologías han ayudado a los científicos a ver el panorama general, recopilando muchos tipos diferentes de información sobre nuestro planeta y su clima en todo el mundo. Estos datos, recopilados durante muchos años, revelan los signos y patrones de un clima cambiante.

Los científicos demostraron la naturaleza de atrapar el calor del dióxido de carbono y otros gases a mediados del siglo XIX. 2  Muchos de los instrumentos científicos que usa la NASA para estudiar nuestro clima se enfocan en cómo estos gases afectan el movimiento de radiación infrarroja a través de la atmósfera. A partir de los impactos medidos de los aumentos de estos gases, no hay duda de que el aumento de los niveles de gases de efecto invernadero calienta la Tierra en respuesta.

La evidencia científica del calentamiento del sistema climático es inequívoca.

Grupo Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre el Cambio Climático

Los núcleos de hielo extraídos de Groenlandia, la Antártida y los glaciares de las montañas tropicales muestran que el clima de la Tierra responde a los cambios en los niveles de gases de efecto invernadero. También se puede encontrar evidencia antigua en anillos de árboles, sedimentos oceánicos, arrecifes de coral y capas de rocas sedimentarias. Esta evidencia antigua, o paleoclima, revela que el calentamiento actual está ocurriendo aproximadamente 10 veces más rápido que la tasa promedio de calentamiento después de una edad de hielo. El dióxido de carbono de las actividades humanas está aumentando unas 250 veces más rápido que el de las fuentes naturales después de la última Edad de Hielo. 3

La evidencia del cambio climático rápido es convincente:

La temperatura global está aumentando.

La temperatura promedio de la superficie del planeta ha aumentado aproximadamente 2 grados Fahrenheit (1 grado Celsius) desde finales del siglo XIX, un cambio impulsado en gran medida por el aumento de las emisiones de dióxido de carbono a la atmósfera y otras actividades humanas. 4  La mayor parte del calentamiento ocurrió en los últimos 40 años, los siete años más recientes han sido los más cálidos. Los años 2016 y 2020 están empatados como el año más cálido registrado. 5

El océano se está calentando

El océano ha absorbido gran parte de este aumento de calor, y los 100 metros superiores (alrededor de 328 pies) del océano muestran un calentamiento de más de 0,6 grados Fahrenheit (0,33 grados Celsius) desde 1969. 6  La Tierra almacena el 90 % de la energía adicional en el océano.

Las capas de hielo se están reduciendo

Las capas de hielo de Groenlandia y la Antártida han disminuido en masa. Los datos del Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment de la NASA muestran que Groenlandia perdió un promedio de 279.000 millones de toneladas de hielo por año entre 1993 y 2019, mientras que la Antártida perdió alrededor de 148.000 millones de toneladas de hielo por año. 7

Los glaciares están desapareciendo

Los glaciares se están retirando en casi todas partes del mundo, incluso en los Alpes, el Himalaya, los Andes, las Montañas Rocosas, Alaska y África. 8

La capa de nieve está disminuyendo

Las observaciones satelitales revelan que la cantidad de nieve primaveral en el hemisferio norte ha disminuido en las últimas cinco décadas y la nieve se está derritiendo antes. 9

El nivel del mar está aumentando

El nivel global del mar subió unas 8 pulgadas (20 centímetros) en el último siglo. Sin embargo, la tasa en las últimas dos décadas es casi el doble que la del siglo pasado y se acelera ligeramente cada año. 10

El hielo marino del Ártico está disminuyendo

Tanto la extensión como el grosor del hielo marino del Ártico han disminuido rápidamente en las últimas décadas. 11

Los eventos extremos están aumentando en frecuencia

La cantidad de eventos de temperatura alta récord en los Estados Unidos ha ido en aumento, mientras que la cantidad de eventos de temperatura baja récord ha disminuido desde 1950. Los EE. UU. también ha sido testigo de un número creciente de eventos de lluvia intensa. 12

La acidificación de los océanos está aumentando

Desde el comienzo de la Revolución Industrial, la acidez de las aguas superficiales del océano ha aumentado aproximadamente un 30 %. 13,   14  Este aumento se debe a que los seres humanos emiten más dióxido de carbono a la atmósfera y, por lo tanto, el océano absorbe más. El océano ha absorbido entre el 20 % y el 30 % de las emisiones antropógenas totales de dióxido de carbono en las últimas décadas (entre 7.200 y 10.800 millones de toneladas métricas al año). 15,   16

Referencias

• IPCC Fifth Assessment Report,  Summary for Policymakers B.D. Santer et.al., “ A search for human influences on the thermal structure of the atmosphere ,” Nature vol 382, 4 July 1996, 39-46Gabriele C. Hegerl, “ Detecting Greenhouse-Gas-Induced Climate Change with an Optimal Fingerprint Method ,” Journal of Climate, v. 9, October 1996, 2281-2306V. Ramaswamy et.al., “ Anthropogenic and Natural Influences in the Evolution of Lower Stratospheric Cooling ,” Science 311 (24 February 2006), 1138-1141B.D. Santer et.al., “ Contributions of Anthropogenic and Natural Forcing to Recent Tropopause Height Changes ,” Science vol. 301 (25 July 2003), 479-483.
• En 1824,  Joseph Fourier  calculó que un planeta del tamaño de la Tierra, situado a nuestra distancia del Sol, debería ser mucho más frío. Sugirió que algo en la atmósfera debe estar actuando como una manta aislante. En 1856,  Eunice Foote  descubrió esa manta, mostrando que el dióxido de carbono y el vapor de agua en la atmósfera de la Tierra atrapan la radiación infrarroja (calor) que escapan del planeta. En la década de 1860, el físico  John   Tyndall  identificó el efecto invernadero natural de la Tierra y sugirió que ligeros cambios en la composición atmosférica podrían provocar variaciones climáticas. En 1896, un artículo fundamental del científico sueco  Svante Arrhenius  predijo por primera vez que los cambios en los niveles de dióxido de carbono atmosférico podrían alterar sustancialmente la temperatura de la superficie a través del efecto invernadero. En 1938,  Guy Callendar  relacionó los aumentos de dióxido de carbono en la atmósfera terrestre con el calentamiento global. En 1941,  Milutin Milankovic  conectó las edades de hielo con las características orbitales de la Tierra.  Gilbert Plass  formuló la teoría del dióxido de carbono del cambio climático en 1956.
• Vostok ice core data; NOAA Mauna Loa CO 2  record Gaffney, O.; Steffen, W. (2017) " The Anthropocene equation ," The Anthropocene Review (Volume 4, Issue 1, April 2017), 53-61.
• https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/indicators.php https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/ http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp
• https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20170118/
• Levitus, S.; Antonov, J.; Boyer, T.; Baranova, O.; Garcia, H.; Locarnini, R.; Mishonov, A.; Reagan, J.; Seidov, D.; Yarosh, E.; Zweng, M. (2017). NCEI ocean heat content, temperature anomalies, salinity anomalies, thermosteric sea level anomalies, halosteric sea level anomalies, and total steric sea level anomalies from 1955 to present calculated from in situ oceanographic subsurface profile data (NCEI Accession 0164586). Version 4.4. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. doi:  10.7289/V53F4MVP https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/index3.html von Schuckmann, K., Cheng, L., Palmer, D., Hansen, J., Tassone, C., Aich, V., Adusumilli, S., Beltrami, H., Boyer, T., Cuesta-Valero, F., Desbruyeres, D., Domingues, C., Garcia-Garcia, A., Gentine, P., Gilson, J., Gorfer, M., Haimberger, L., Ishii, M., Johnson, G., Killick, R., King, B., Kirchengast. G., Kolodziejczyk, N., Lyman, J., Marzeion, B., Mayer, M., Monier, M., Monselesan, D., Purkey, S., Roemmich, D., Schweiger, A., Seneviratne, S., Shepherd, A., Slater, D., Steiner, A., Straneo, F., Timmermans, ML., Wijffels, S. (2020).  Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?  Earth System Science Data (Volume 12, Issue 3, 07 September 2020), 2013-2041.
• Velicogna, I., Mohajerani, Y., A, G., Landerer, F., Mouginot, J., Noel, B., Rignot, E., Sutterly, T., van den Broeke, M., van Wessem, M., Wiese, D. (2020).  Continuity of ice sheet mass loss in Greenland and Antarctica from the GRACE and GRACE Follow‐On missions . Geophysical Research Letters (Volume 47, Issue 8, 28 April 2020, e2020GL087291.
• nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/glacier_balance.html World Glacier Monitoring Service
• nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/snow_extent.html Robinson, D. A., D. K. Hall, and T. L. Mote. 2014.  MEaSUREs Northern Hemisphere Terrestrial Snow Cover Extent Daily 25km EASE-Grid 2.0, Version 1 . [Indicate subset used]. Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. doi:  https://doi.org/10.5067/MEASURES/CRYOSPHERE/nsidc-0530.001 . [Accessed 9/21/18]. http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/snow_extent.html Rutgers University Global Snow Lab,  Data History  Accessed September 21, 2018.
• R. S. Nerem, B. D. Beckley, J. T. Fasullo, B. D. Hamlington, D. Masters and G. T. Mitchum. Climate-change–driven accelerated sea-level rise detected in the altimeter era.  PNAS , 2018 DOI:  10.1073/pnas.1717312115
• https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/sea_ice.html Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS, Zhang and Rothrock, 2003) http://psc.apl.washington.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/ http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/projections-of-an-ice-diminished-arctic-ocean/
• USGCRP, 2017:  Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I  [Wuebbles, D.J., D.W. Fahey, K.A. Hibbard, D.J. Dokken, B.C. Stewart, and T.K. Maycock (eds.)]. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA, 470 pp, doi:  10.7930/J0J964J6
• http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification%3F
• http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification
• C. L. Sabine et.al., “ The Oceanic Sink for Anthropogenic CO 2 ,” Science vol. 305 (16 July 2004), 367-371
• Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate , Technical Summary, Chapter TS.5, Changing Ocean, Marine Ecosystems, and Dependent Communities, Section 5.2.2.3. https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/technical-summary/

Climate Change in Spain: Friend and Foe–Causes, Consequences and Response–

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Climate change is unequivocal and Spain is one of the most vulnerable countries within the EU. The consequences of global warming will bring about higher temperatures, average sea level rises and a reduction in water availability, among others. The consequences for the Spanish economy will vary depending on the sector analysed. Tourism, the construction sector and the insurance sector stand to lose if mitigation and adaptation are further delayed.

Spain’s international commitments in the fight against climate change after the UNFCCC, and more so after ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, have spurred a host of institutional responses. These responses are depicted along with the key opportunities and challenges for the post Kyoto period.

Available cost estimates of climate change are presented. Mitigation and adaptation costs are also analysed, highlighting the preliminary nature of current studies and the need to broaden the knowledge of the economic costs of our actions.

Introduction

Climate change can be loosely defined as the alteration in climate patterns. According to the UNFCCC[1] this phenomenon ‘means 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’ (UN, 1992, p. 3). The complexity of the climate system and the limitations in modelling imply that predictions are necessarily uncertain to an extent. There exists, however, a broad scientific consensus regarding the unequivocal warming of the earth. Global warming and its associated damages bring about the need to limit the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere in order to minimise the possibility of a dangerous interference with global climate stability. The EU’s recommendation is to limit GHG concentrations in the atmosphere to 550ppm[2] and limit temperature increases to 2ºC, as global average temperature increases above this will most likely imply irreversible effects (Abanades García  et al.,  2007). The Stern Review states that this stabilisation target will imply allowing GHG emissions to peak in the next decade or two and then ensuring a decline in GHG emissions of between 1% and 3% per year.[3]

Climate change has both positive and negative consequences.[4] The developed countries located in the North might benefit from higher agricultural yields (harvesting plant varieties that had hitherto been unable to grow in colder areas), reduced heating demands and a reduction in the number of cold-related deaths, among others. These countries are nevertheless exposed to temperature increases and sea level rises that can alter ecosystems, human health and economic activities. Damages from climate change will not be evenly distributed among countries. Developing countries and some developed countries located in the South of Europe such as Spain will suffer the consequences of more severe and more frequent extreme weather events, reductions in rainfall, increases in heat-related illnesses and deaths plus the displacement or decline of certain economic activities. Eastern and Mediterranean Europe is expected to suffer more floods and more frequent and severe droughts (EEA, 2007). Overall, the greater the rise in temperatures the more severe the consequences of global warming will be.

The problem we face is a global one in need of broad and deep international agreements that take into account each country’s responsibilities and damages. Countries will therefore have to make individual efforts to mitigate GHG emissions according to the principle of shared but differentiated responsibilities. Additionally, all countries will adapt to global warming to a greater or lesser extent depending on the damages caused to their territory and on their adaptation capabilities. This paper focuses on the causes and consequences of climate change in Spain as well as the actions taken and planned to mitigate and adapt to one of the greatest threats of the 21st century. The analysis will conclude with a presentation of the latest guidelines for the post-Kyoto negotiations.

Causes of Climate Change and the Main Consequences for Spain

In a nutshell, the process of anthropogenic climate change originates from human activities in the form of production, consumption and distribution processes and population growth. Human activity entails emitting greenhouse gases which trap heat, thus warming the Earth. In Spain, the main activities that contribute to GHG generation and accumulation in the atmosphere are mainly related to the production and use of energy, agriculture, stockbreeding and industrial activity. Graph 1 shows the breakdown of the main sectors’ contributions to GHG emissions.

The main sectors that contribute to energy derived emissions are: electricity (24.04%), road transport (21.66%), industrial energy consumption (16.33%), residential uses (6%), oil refining (3%) and services (2.8%).

The consequences of climate change in Spain are being analysed by a growing number of institutions. To date, the most comprehensive study[5] is is the one developed by Moreno  et al ., (2005) and the following analysis draws on this assessment as well as on the IPCC’s 4AR,[6] Martín Vide (2007), the EEA (2007), Abanades García  et al.,  (2007), and others. The overall impact of climate change throughout the 21st century will be increasing temperatures and average sea level rises. Temperature increases will be more severe during the summer and inland. Rainfall trends are harder to predict, but both past trends and projections show a reduction in expected rain and lower water availability that will be discussed below. Temperature anomalies will become more common with more days reaching maximum temperatures. These tendencies will be exacerbated the higher the concentration of GHG in the atmosphere. Different ecosystems and activities will be affected in Spain. The main consequences can be summarised as follows:

Terrestrial Ecosystems According to the IPCC (4AR), the resilience of many ecosystems is likely to be exceeded during the 21st century. Ecosystems will experience alterations in periodic and seasonal plant and animal behaviour (eg, birds will alter their migration habits). For example, in Spain, Catalonia has recorded tree leaves unfolding 20 days earlier compared with their sprouting period 50 years ago. The extent to which affected species will be able to adapt is uncertain. Changes in the interaction of species will take place and we can expect increases in plagues and invasive species which cause biodiversity losses (as invasive species can appropriate the niche of native species and thereby displace them). These effects will be more severe in previously vulnerable isolated areas and islands, among others. Given that preserving these ecosystems can run against the development of other economic activities (eg, preserving forests can run against land use planning decisions, for instance), the recommendations are to implement holistic management schemes in which competing interests are taken into account. The long-term follow-up of terrestrial ecosystems from a multidisciplinary stance is recommended, along with determining tolerance levels with regards to climate change.

Aquatic Ecosystems Both inland and marine aquatic systems will be affected by climate change. Lakes, rivers, coastal wetlands and lagoons will be among the most severely affected. In coastal areas the expected sea level rise is projected to be between 10cm and 68cm by the end of the century, with a 50cm average sea level rise as a reasonable forecast (Moreno  et al ., 2005). The main areas affected by floods include the Cantabrian Coast and the deltas of the Ebro and Llobregat and the coast of Doñana among others. Buildings and infrastructures in these areas will suffer the consequences of the expected rise in the sea level.

The productivity of certain commercial varieties is expected to decline, especially boreal species. Additionally, species such as the jelly fish are expected to become more frequent, especially in Catalonia, Mar Menor and the Canary Islands. Both warmer sea temperatures and increases in organic nutrients in the water are suspected to favour this. Theeffects of having more jelly fish in our beaches are as yet impossible to know with any degree of certainty but the phenomenon is expected to reduce tourism in the affected areas. On a brighter note, subtropical species such as the marlin will increase, partly offsetting the decline in other species.

Water Availability Reductions in water resources and a greater variability in the availability of water are both expected throughout the century. Simulations made by Moreno  et al ., (2005) tell us that for a 1ºC increase in temperature there will be a 5% drop in rainfall which will mean a reduction in water availability of between 5% and 14% by 2030. This reduction in water resources can grow to 20% by the end of the century. The Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands will be the most affected regions along with the Guadiana, Guadalquivir, Júcar and Segura river basins. Uncertainties in regional precipitation projections are still significant according to the IPCC (2007) and to Martín Vide (2007) and further research and modelling should emerge from ongoing research to provide better estimates in this area. In any case, the available data for Spain from 1875 to the end of the last century points to a drier south, no significant change in the central part of the peninsula and a slight increase in rainfall in the North-West (see Map 1).

Data from the National Meteorology Institute depict a statistically significant decrease in winter rainfall in Spain (which is the main component of our rainfall according to Ayala Carcedo, 2004) in the last half of the XX century (see Graph 2).

The expected trend throughout the 21st century will entail a reduction in annual rainfall, particularly during the latter part of the century and during the spring. The area to be most affected will be the South-Eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula. This tendency is however reversed in the North-West, where rainfall is expected to increase. Reduced rainfall and droughts have already caused damage to the Spanish economy, costing over €3 billion in losses in 1999 (EEA, 2007).

Biodiversity Although there are many definitions, according to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 1992, article 2) biodiversity is ‘the variability among living organisms from all sources including,  inter alia , terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems’. Spain has a large share of the EU’s plant diversity and it is also considered to be the richest in terms of animal diversity. Moreover, we also have a significant proportion of endemic species. Spain’s biodiversity losses are therefore relevant in terms of a wider geographical scope especially because of the phenomenon’s irreversible nature. The effect of less water availability and changes in rainfall patterns will lead to a more Mediterranean North and a more arid South in Spain. Forests in the South, mountain vegetation and coastal vegetation are among the most vulnerable. In addition to these effects, changes in migration and reproduction patterns are expected. This will affect different species in different ways thus leading to declining numbers in the most vulnerable species and to the displacement of other species towards the North.

Soil Resources, Forests and Agriculture The expected consequences of climate change in this area will include an increase in desertification (which already affects 31.5% of our territory, Abanades García  et al. , 2007), erosion, salinisation, changes in forest species and a higher risk of fires. The presence of organic carbon in our soils (essential to soil fertility) is expected to decrease between 6% and 7% for every degree in temperature increase, especially in more humid areas such as the North of Spain and in forests. Tree mortality is also expected to increase as the temperatures rise (EEA, 2007).

The agricultural sector presents a mixed picture with higher agricultural yields, due to greater photosynthesis in the North of Spain, and reductions in agricultural yields in the South. For higher emission scenarios, however, Spain’s agricultural yields are projected to exhibit significant reductions in most parts of our territory. According to EEA (2007), crop yields are expected to record reductions of between 15% and 30% for most parts of the country (see Map 2).

The Energy Sector Temperature increases of 3ºC are said to cause a 10% variation in energy consumption (Lloyd’s, 1999, in Moreno  et al ., 2005). Climate change is expected to lead to increases in the demand for electricity, oil and gas in Spain. Temperature increases and the reduction in water availability will reduce the production of hydraulic energy and biomass. Solar energy, which is said to hold the greatest potential, will furthermore be boosted by more hours of sun. Wind energy, that has seen the greatest growth in recent years, can also benefit from expected stronger winds. The EU’s determination to move towards a greater use of renewable energy and Spain’s vast potential in wind capacity make this strategic sector an attractive one. Table 1 compares the installed wind power across the EU.

Renewable energies, such as onshore wind power, are cleaner (compared with oil or gas, for example) in terms of GHG emissions. No energy source, however, is free from problems. For instance, onshore wind power has faced opposition due to the impact on certain bird species such as the Griffon Vulture. According to experts from CSIC[7] the overall impact on birds from onshore wind power is of low to medium intensity compared with the number of deaths caused by road collisions, for example. This, however, seems unsurprising given the lower number of wind generators compared with the number of roads and their length in kilometres. The design of models to predict which areas are used by the most vulnerable species, plus the search for scientific consensus and action protocols to help decide which areas should be avoided when planning wind power installations, is paramount to minimise the opposition to this renewable energy source.

The Tourist Sector Given the strategic economic relevance of the tourist sector for the Spanish economy (10.8% of Spain’s GDP in 2006)[8] it is important to be aware of the main consequences of climate change in this area. Global warming will entail changes in tourist activities mainly for ‘sun and sand tourism’ and for ‘snow-based tourism’. Climate change will mean more mountain trekking and less skiing, especially for resorts located below 2,000 metres. It will also bring about relative increases in inland stays  versus  coastal tourism.

In Madrid, for instance, the data available from one of the weather stations in Navacerrada show a significant reduction in the number of days it snowed between the 1970s and the end of the last century. This will affect the quantity and the quality of snow and is therefore expected to lead to a reduction in this type of activity.

The peak tourist season might be altered and more tourists might arrive during shoulder seasons (spring and autumn) and during the low season. Potential droughts and water supply problems, especially on the Mediterranean coast, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands, plus flooding of coastal areas, might hinder growth in this sector and, unfortunately, risk and sensitivity maps are still part of our collective wishful thinking in planning tourist and urban infrastructures. Overall, however, the picture is mixed –as it has been for other areas of analysis– since the damages to more vulnerable areas might be partially offset by the development of other tourist destinations. Protected natural areas, the Northern part of Spain and different activities such as inland sports and river sports may become increasingly attractive for tourists.

In any case, under high-emission scenarios, compared to other European tourist destinations, greenhouse emission increases and their related consequences are expected to reduce Spain’s attractive tourist profile in favour of Northern destinations. The PESETA project[9] estimates that high-emission scenarios will imply a worsening of tourist conditions for the last third of the present century. These would deteriorate from excellent (in red in Map 3 below), very good (in yellow) and good (in green) to mainly acceptable (in blue).

The Insurance Sector According to insurance companies and IPCC reports, both the frequency and extent of losses derived from climate-related events have increased. The data for Spain in this area are limited according to Moreno  et al . (2005) and thus both the information presented and the conclusions drawn are to be taken with caution. Extreme weather events such as floods, storms, rain, hail, high wind and damages caused by the sea have been the most frequent occurrences in Spain in the data analysed. Of these events, 80% are caused by floods and 40% of the damage has occurred in Valencia and Vizcaya, with an even spread of the damage between the two areas. Mitigation efforts and the adaptation of urban planning decisions to avoid particularly sensitive areas are recommended in order to limit future increases in insurance premiums and compensation payments. Despite other factors influencing the insurance sector, climate change is expected to increase potential losses. The European Environment Agency provides estimates of climate-related losses in 2004 and of expected losses for the EU, the US and Japan (see Table 2).

Table 2. Expected climate-related insurance losses

Source: EEA (2007), p. 43.

Health According to Moreno  et al.,  (2005, p. 707), ‘Climate changes can specifically affect temporal and spatial distribution, as well as the seasonal and interannual dynamics of pathogens, vectors, hosts and reservoirs’. Atmospheric pollution, heat waves and cold spells are related to higher rates of respiratory diseases, heart episodes and climate-related deaths. Pregnant women, young children, poor people and the elderly are considered the most vulnerable groups. According to the IPCC 4AR, with temperature increases of 3ºC or more, the expected burden on health services will rise. Examples of heat waves such as the one suffered in Europe in August 2003, which caused thousands of deaths, will become more frequent and intense. Added to these, some disease vectors such as dengue fever, malaria, West Nile encephalitis and ticks could increase, although other factors such as increased travel to areas where these illnesses are more common will also favour their spread. The preliminary nature of the analysis of the effects of climate change on Spain again calls for caution in the interpretation of the data presented above. The need for more research and more primary data seems to lie at the heart of good policy making in this area in order to minimise the most damaging consequences of climate change.

According to the EEA (2007), the development of information on the costs of climate change is still at an early stage and the figures presented below are likely to provide the lower bound estimates of the damages of global warming as many unquantifiable damages are left out of the analyses. This is due to the fact that accurately estimating the impacts of climate change is a complex endeavour. This is coupled with the difficulty in valuing these consequences in monetary terms, especially when non-use values, that can only be captured by stated preference techniques, are large. Simplified climate models and simplified ‘impact relationships’ lead to partial and uncertain outcomes. There are damages that are not adequately captured by the models, there is uncertainty about the exact damages and there may be losses that we are currently unable to predict. This wealth of limitations and uncertainties plus the different assumptions made by researchers might explain the disparity in the costs of climate change that are published in different academic and policy papers.

Tol (2005) reviewed the literature on estimates of the marginal damage costs of CO2 emissions and concluded that they are unlikely to exceed US$50/tC.[10] This figure contrasts with the Stern review that estimates the marginal damage of a ton of carbon at US$312/tC. The IPCC (2007) presents the figures for the social cost of carbon[11] to vary between US$-3 to US$95 per tonne of CO2 with an average value, among the peer-reviewed estimates analysed, of US$12. Differences in parameters and assumptions yield wide-ranging estimates and we are still far from a scientific consensus regarding the cost of emitting GHG. Regional differences in exposure to climate change and adaptation capabilities will imply damages are unevenly distributed and regional estimates are therefore vital in order to understand the full extent of the consequences of climate change for a given region.

At a global scale, the costs of inaction if temperatures rise above 2º-3ºC are expected to damage almost all countries. For rises in temperatures above 4ºC, global GDP losses are estimated at between 1% and 5% according to the IPCC. The costs of inaction on a global scale for the Stern review are significantly larger, causing an indefinite drop in global consumption ranging from 5% to 20% depending on the assumptions made. According to the Spanish Office for Climate Change, there are no overall cost estimates of climate change for Spain at present.[12]

Actions and the Cost of Actions for Spain

This subsection will present Spain’s most noteworthy actions to limit GHG emissions, the main adaptation actions and the expected cost of these actions whenever the data is available. The potential impact of climate change as well as the preliminary costs presented above are a powerful call for action. Spain agreed to be part of the international efforts to curb global warming. This commitment was put forth through its membership of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was the first multilateral milestone in the fight against global warming, and though its ratification of the Kyoto Protocol (KP). The KP was approved by the third Conference of Parties (COP) in 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005 after Russia’s ratification in November 2004. At a global scale, the KP’s goal is to reduce GHG emissions by 5.2% by the first commitment period (2008-12). As part of the EU bubble that agreed to reduce its GHG emissions by 8% of its 1990 emissions, Spain was allowed to increase its emissions by 15% for the first KP commitment period.

The evolution of GHG emissions in Spain from 1990 to 2006 shows a significant increase, well above its KP goal. The rise in GHG emissions has been coupled with an increase in economic growth. The trend in Spain’s GHG emissions started to change in 2006 and a 4.1% decrease in GHG emissions was reported along with a drop in primary energy consumption of 1.3% despite a 3.9% increase in economic growth (MMA, 2007, and Nieto & Santamarta, 2007). Graph 2 illustrates historical emissions in Spain as percentage increases compared to 1990 as well as the goal to be achieved by Spain according to its KP commitments. Except for a decline in 1993, 1996 and 2006, GHG emissions have soared, reaching 48.1% above 1990 levels. Population and economic growth, an increasing energy demand and changing lifestyles have all contributed to this trend.

Spain’s response to climate change has been articulated by multiple institutions. The former Ministry of the Environment was the institution in charge of developing and implementing climate change policies at the state level. Since March, the Ministry has been restructured. It now includes rural and marine environments within its competences at the central government level. The change has not altered the fact that nation-wide climate change policies will be dealt with by the Ministry. More specifically, the Spanish Office for Climate Change[13] is in charge of developing climate change policies and providing administrative and technical support for the National Climate Council.[14] The latter was established in 1992 to provide information about the potential effects of climate change in Spain, promote research in this area, provide policy guidance for the government on climate policies and develop the National Climate Plan. A further institution is the Coordination Commission for Climate Change Policies,[15] whose main task is to coordinate climate change initiatives between the central government and the autonomous communities (regions). Finally, the Inter-cabinet Group for Climate Change[16] was designed as a coordinating institution within the central government sphere. Its main task is to develop preparatory work for the government’s delegate commission for economic affairs.[17]

According to the Spanish Office for Climate Change (OECC, Pers. Comm., 2008) there are currently no final estimates of the cost of mitigating or of adapting to global warming in Spain. The costs of the latter are only expected to be available once adaptation measures are well under way. On a global scale, the IPCC acknowledges ‘much less information is available about the costs and effectiveness of adaptation measures than about mitigation measures’ (IPCC, 2007, p. 56). In what follows the main initiatives to mitigate and adapt to climate change will be explored and cost estimates will be offered when available according to official data published by the institutions in charge of climate change policies or by academic research when appropriate. These estimates will depend on the assumptions made (eg, expected economic growth, emissions growth, the evolution of the energy sector, the discount rate used, the policy instruments used, etc.) and therefore figures should be taken with caution.

Mitigation will be more costly the higher the emission scenarios from which we decide to reduce emissions and the more stringent targets we set. The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report estimates that the cost of reducing a tonne of CO2 equivalent ranges from slightly negative to US$100. A more wide-ranging summary of the costs of action under different stabilisation targets is provided in Table 3 below.

Table 3. IPCC’s (2007) estimates on the costs of stabilising GHG concentrations

Source: Abanades García  et al.  (2007), p. 5.

Available cost estimates of mitigation for Spain (see Labandeira and Rodríguez, 2004) point to the efficiency of early and continued action versus delayed and sudden cuts in GHG emissions. In their simulation for Spain, using a static applied general equilibrium model, the above mentioned authors find that annual reductions in GHG emissions of less than 6% would imply drops in GDP of less than 0.5% yearly. Although the figure is significant, especially with the current economic outlook, it is judged to be manageable compared to more drastic cuts (eg, a 16% cut in annual GHG emissions leading to drops in GDP of over 1.6% yearly).

On a global scale, the cost of meeting the KP’s goals in the first commitment period (2008-12) with emission-trading between Annex-B countries[18] will be lower than the range given by the previous IPCC report (the TAR), which expected GDP losses of between 0.1% and 1.1% in 2010. Other estimates endorsed by the Ministry of the Environment in the past estimated the cost of meeting Kyoto for Spain at between €500 million and €1,000 million annually. The cost of meeting our Kyoto Protocol target is significant, but less than 0.1% of Spain’s then expected GDP for 2010 (Philp, 2004). There have, however, been higher estimates of up to €3,800 million annually (Carvajal  et al. , 2004).

Mitigation can be achieved both by internal measures (national GHG reduction measures plus the use of carbon sinks) and by the use of the KP’s flexibility mechanisms (Clean Development Mechanism, Joint Implementation and Emissions Trading System). As described by Abanades García  et al.,  (2007), along with the National Allocation Plan 2008-12, in which emission rights were assigned to those sectors allowed to participate in the ETS (ie, those that were contemplated in Directive 2003/87/CE), other measures are ongoing to ensure Spain meets its KP goal. The measures and emissions reduction targets include:

• Using flexibility mechanisms by the government and the private sector. The government is expected to buy carbon credits in the global market to cover 31.8 MTCO2-eq per year. The private sector receives a limited amount of credits equal to 26.1 MTCO2-eq per annum.
• Carbon sinks are an additional tool to meet our GHG reduction goals and are expected to be able to capture 5.8 MTCO2 –eq annually.
• Using additional measures to limit GHG emissions from diffuse sectors which will mean reducing 37,6 MtCO2-eq annually.
• Plan of Urgent Measures with over 80 actions aimed at further reducing Spain’s emissions. These measures are expected to reduce our GHG emissions by up to 12.2MTCO2-eq per year
• Autonomous communities are expected to further cooperate in implementing regional and local measures in order to meet our KP goal. The expected reduction of these measures is 15.03MTCO2-eq annually.

The Spanish Climate Change and Clean Energy Strategy[19](part of Spain’s recently approved Sustainable Development Strategy) describes actions that are being implemented and planned plus indicators that will help monitor future progress. The strategy divides these actions into the climate change response and actions directed specifically towards promoting cleaner energy and improving energy efficiency. The main goals of this strategy include a further reduction of GHG emissions in order to help us achieve our KP targets, increasing carbon sinks and promoting R&D. Within the climate change actions being developed, the Spanish Climate Change and Clean Energy Strategy describes the main initiatives in energy consumption. These are summarised in Table 4.

Table 4. Examples of energy efficiency initiatives: goals, emission reductions and government investment

Source: MMA (2007).

In Spain the National Allocation Plan[22] (NAP) for the KP’s first commitment period maintains the burden sharing effort between the sectors[23] that are allowed to participate in the ETS and the other sectors. The annual amount of emission permits assigned to the sectors allowed to participate in the ETS is equal to 152,673 million tonnes, which are allocated for free.[24] This implies a 16% reduction with regards to the previous NAP (2005-07). The main goal of the current NAP is to help achieve the KP objective, to preserve Spain’s competitiveness and employment and to ensure economic and budgetary stability.

Within the remaining flexibility mechanisms, the CDM is considered a priority for Spain and particularly so in Latin America, where Spain is promoting projects to boost renewable energy development. Although the basic goal is to reduce GHG emissions within our national boundaries, the CDM is seen as an efficient facilitator to lead to a low carbon future and as a way of promoting growth in developing countries that host these projects. Table 5 below illustrates the main CDM programmes in which Spain is participating.

Table 5. CDM projects and carbon funds

A further strategic area for Spain in the climate change challenge is its involvement in international cooperation projects. One of the most significant landmarks in this area was the development of the Latin American Network of Climate Change Offices[29] as well as the Latin American programme on Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change.[30] The main goals of these initiatives have been to provide assistance in understanding the potential threats of climate change for Latin American countries as well as the development of strategies for dealing with it. Additional initiatives including bilateral climate change agreements included the Araucaria XXI programme to promote sustainable development in Latin America, reforestation projects in Latin America and Spanish cooperation programmes in the Mediterranean basin, among others.

With regards to multilateral aid, Spain has also contributed to projects designed to help developing countries adapt to climate change, foster technology transfer initiatives, help with the integration of developing countries in the global carbon markets and participate in CDM projects. Spain’s efforts in this area have included the contribution of more than €9 million in various projects, including the Carbon Finance Assist initiative, the UNDP-UNEP initiative (mainly directed to African and Latin American countries), the Fund for Less Developed Countries and the Special Fund for Climate Change. According to the former Ministry of the Environment, an estimate of the overall cost of using the flexibility mechanisms will range from €445 million to €613 million per year.

Efficient actions towards limiting GHG emissions will also bring about ancillary benefits, that again are hard to quantify. These benefits might well partially offset some of the GHG mitigation costs (IPCC, 2007). Co-benefits include improvements in air quality, that will reduce respiratory diseases, the reduction in Spain’s energy dependence, increases in competitiveness for those firms that innovate in the renewable energy sector and the creation of new employment niches. The agricultural sector and the tertiary sector are both expected to reap the economic opportunities brought about by an economy which is less carbon intensive.

Some climate change, as we have seen, is already under way. No matter how much we reduce GHG emissions in the future, we will suffer the damages resulting from past emissions, ie, from past inaction. Vulnerability to climate change depends on the level of exposure, sensitivity and adaptability (IPCC, 2007). Adaptation is a damage minimising strategy that has been used throughout human history, and more realistic projections include this behaviour in their analyses. Adaptation has come to the forefront of international climate talks and will remain among the higher priorities on the climate policy agenda as the consequences and damages of climate change become increasingly visible.

Global warming will hit poorer people the hardest, affecting those that are already under stress due to floods, droughts, food shortage and diseases, among others. Helping vulnerable people to adapt is an issue of inter- and intra-generational equity that is on the table.[31] As necessary and inevitable as adaptation strategies might be, they will not be able to cope with the consequences of unlimited GHG emissions. Designing a balanced and efficient mix of mitigation and adaptation efforts is therefore the best strategy to deal with global warming. Equity considerations in adaptation strategies are therefore of paramount importance. Asymmetric responsibilities in past emissions provide strong arguments to advocate for transferring funds from developed to developing countries.

Stern (2008) suggests that funds to ensure aid could be raised by auctioning emission permits rather than allocating them for free among polluters allowed to participate in ETS. Even though this might be attractive in theory (in that an approach that ensures that a polluter pays can serve to improve the industry’s public image), the stakeholders’ resistance and pressures might have to be overcome in order to implement this idea. Although cost estimates for adaptation remain very uncertain, the UNFCCC estimates the cost of adaptation for developing countries will be between US$28 billion and US$67 billion annually by 2030. The UNDP’s estimates are higher, at around US$86 billion a year by 2015 ( ibid. ). On a global scale the main recommendations in terms of adaptation according to the IPCC are summarised in Table 6 below along with the policy framework in which adaptation will have to be integrated and the main opportunities and barriers to implementation.

Spain is among the most vulnerable countries within the EU and therefore the following part of this subsection will briefly introduce the main areas and issues within Spain’s adaptation strategy.

Spain’s planned response to adaptation has been to develop the National Adaptation Plan. The main goals of our adaptation strategy include: to provide information and guidance; to design mechanisms to cope with change that is already under way; to gather information on regional and sector-wide impacts; to determine the most pressing needs in R&D; and to include all stakeholders in the information and decision-making framework plus to evaluate the measures implemented.

The main areas in which the adaptation plan is to thrive are biodiversity, the agricultural sector, water availability, coastal areas and marine ecosystems, forests and mountain areas, the fishing sector, transport, health, tourism, energy, the insurance sector and the building industry. These sectors are the same as those analysed earlier, on the impact of climate change for Spain and, once again, the main source in the development of our adaptation strategies is Moreno  et al ., (2005). A concise and insightful summary of the main adaptation strategies to be followed in Spain is presented by Abanades García  et al.,  (2007). Accurate information on the assets at risk is lacking in many areas. Research and development efforts need to be decisively advanced. Valuation studies are still at an early stage and there is an increasing need for information if we want to allocate scarce funds optimally.

Table 6. IPCC’s selected examples of adaptation strategies by sector

Source: IPCC (2007), p. 57.

Ecosystems and biodiversity at risk are said to have limited adaptation capabilities and therefore the advice is to try to reduce the pressure exerted by activities such as construction, infrastructure development, livestock, water pollution, overfishing, etc. Designation of new protected areas plus ensuring there are enough resources to manage these areas is also recommended in order to increase ecosystem resilience.

Analysing adaptation options for water resources is considered essential for Spain. The main recommendation in order to adapt our water resources is to ensure we have adequate management systems that take into account climate change in their planning and implementation. Efficiency in the use of water and clear priority setting in the use of water resources are believed to be profitable long-term goals. For coastal areas such as the Cantabrian Sea and the Canary islands the main recommendation is to increase the weight of docks between 10% and 25% to ensure their stability. Additional measures would also entail considering vacating areas that will be flooded and building coastal defences as part of broader adaptation strategies.

With regards to agriculture, the main adaptive strategy is to tailor sowing, cultivation and harvesting to the new climate patterns. Stockbreeding is also seen as a threat to pastures and reducing its pressure to ensure higher quality grazing land is the main adaptation measure recommended in order to minimise damages. Fisheries are also expected to see declining catch numbers. Fishing businesses on the continental shelf are thus expected to take this into account in the future, diversifying their activity or relocating to other areas. Forests are also at risk of more frequent wildfires and the adaptation advice in this area is to avoid risky monocultures and to ensure adequate maintenance.

Health adaptation strategies should include early warning messages and prevention programmes for the Spanish population, especially those who are considered more vulnerable to climate-related diseases. Finally, other adaptation strategies for the energy sector, the tourism sector and the insurance industry are explored. The energy sector is encouraged to further increase its efficiency, reduce demand and promote renewable energy, provided the government encourages a stable and efficient regulatory framework. The Spanish tourism sector will inevitably see higher infrastructure deterioration in certain areas, a shift in seasonal visitors and a decrease in traditional tourist destinations and activities. To counteract this, civil engineering might alleviate infrastructure damages. Complementary services such as SPA’s or funfairs can be encouraged as an artificial and less vulnerable alternative. The environmental impacts and stakeholder opposition to these artificial options might hinder their widespread implementation. The insurance sector is expected to adapt to more adverse weather conditions through increased preventive strategies, increases in risk premiums and possible reductions in the coverage of damages.

The main criticisms to our adaptation plan as well as to Spain’s climate change strategy come from various stakeholders and NGOs. These agents believe that Spain’s response is a somewhat vague and shallow attempt to face climate change. According to these groups, Spain’s response is in need of more information, further specific measures and benchmarks against which achievements can be gauged. The specific measures suggested by these agents include: a long term and stable policy framework to ensure renewable energies are continuously incentivised; further promotion of public transport; a greater use of fiscal measures to ‘green’ production and consumption processes; the increasing the use of production standards; and ensuring climate policies permeate across all government departments. We still have a long way to go and future negotiations for the post-Kyoto era are not going to be easier.

Post-Kyoto: The New Global Deal Sir Nicholas Stern has released a policy guidance paper in which the main challenges of the Post-Kyoto era are unravelled and advice for the Copenhagen Conference of Parties (COP15) is put forth (Stern, 2008). Future efforts in the quest for a stable climate are going to be greater than those required by the Kyoto Protocol. This endeavour is expected to be significant but the positive outlook provided is that it is achievable if action is taken now. The message that a greater effort is needed first from the developed countries but soon after from the developing countries is similar to that voiced by the IPCC in 2007 and by the Stern Review in 2006. Being prepared to face forthcoming commitments is paramount if we are to ensure a bearable climate system. The present subsection will present the main ideas discussed by Stern (2008) as well as the recommendations for Spain in the post-Kyoto era.

The relevance of a stable and strong policy framework that builds on the existing institutional setting is seen to lie at the heart of effective action in the climate-change arena. Achieving environmental goals in a cost-effective manner plus taking into account how actions and policies affect different groups of people is considered fundamental if we are to ensure we all walk towards a tolerable climate scenario. Stern estimates this will require greater cuts in emissions to limit GHG concentrations to a ‘critical threshold’ of 500ppm.

At a global scale, this more stringent target will require GHG emissions to be cut by 50% by 2050 compared with 1990 levels. Developed countries are expected to reduce by 80% their GHG emissions by 2050, proving that decoupling growth and emissions is possible minimising harm to the former. This should be accompanied by wide-ranging technology transfers and the provision of adaptation funds for developing countries in order to provide them with adequate incentives to engage in GHG emission limits. Developing countries are expected to agree to binding emission cuts by 2020 if benefits of binding constraints outweigh the expected costs. These countries are to reap the benefits of CDM in terms of technology transfer and lower emission paths in the meantime. Additionally, sectors that are particularly exposed to international competition should face equivalent regulatory requirements in order to minimise carbon leakage and competitiveness concerns. On an individual basis, per capita emissions should be reduced drastically to 2 tonnes per capita. Note that Spain’s per capita emissions were 9.59 tonnes per capita in 2006 (versus 11 tonnes per capita in the EU in 2006 and countries such as the US reaching 20-25 tonnes per capita) and that current KP commitments entail a reduction in per capita terms to 7 tonnes per capita (Nieto & Santamarta, 2007).

The policy mix that has been developed world-wide to face climate change is also examined by Stern (2008).[32] Little new advice is given and further expansion of the emission trading system to cover more sectors and countries is seen as the way ahead to ensure environmental goals are met, costs of meeting our commitments are minimised and developing countries can benefit from lower emission paths. Expanding the emission trading system could reduce costs by 70%. One of the major players in the climate challenge, the US, is showing an increasing interest in the use of cap and trade emission trading schemes. The presidential candidates support the future implementation of this market-based instrument and thus it is highly likely that we will see a US scheme in the near future.

Additional market mechanisms that put a price on carbon emissions and more traditional command and control policies are also considered in the mix. The weight and implementation of these tools will depend on the specific conditions of the country/sector analysed. International experience and success stories can help develop these tools in different settings. In order to send the correct signals to investors these tools are again expected to be implemented over the long run so that investors face stable policy frameworks and incentives. Spain is, according to MMA (2007), considering the further use of green fiscal policy measures but stakeholder resistance, coupled with the current economic outlook, might well delay or reduce the widespread development of this initiative.

On a more specific level, the report provides advice on halting deforestation. Biodiversity losses and deforestation are at present inextricably linked. Tropical rainforests hold a high percentage of the world’s remaining biodiversity and act as a global carbon sink. Deforestation is furthermore acknowledged to potentially cause over 17% of GHG emissions world-wide. Halting deforestation seems to be an attractive strategy in the struggle against global warming. All efforts in this area are welcome, but the geographical location of forests brings equity issues again to the forefront of the analysis. Less developed countries hold a wealth of species and a high percentage of remaining forests. They also have access to these resources and incentives to reduce forest cover according to immiserisation and frontier model explanations (Hanley  et al.,  2001). In order to provide incentives to halt deforestation, Stern (2008) advocates an annual payment of US$15 billion and extending carbon trading to fully account for forest services. It seems that time to compensate developing countries for the opportunity cost of forest preservation is here to stay and this will mean a push for international initiatives such as the Global Environmental Facility (GEF).[33]

A further step towards a low carbon future is the development, adoption and diffusion of new technology. Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is presented as one of the main future alternatives due to the increasing energy demand and the abundance of highly polluting coal. Safety concerns in terms of large-scale leakage and the current cost of capturing and storing carbon are the main concerns with this technology.

Renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and second generation bio fuels are considered to hold a great potential in the future global energy mix. Adequate incentives can ensure that countries like Spain retain a significant share of the renewable pie. Spain’s climate makes it one of the best locations for investing in renewables. This value is demonstrated and captured by our energy companies who have thrived in this competitive field. We are the second-largest wind energy producer, with our energy companies leading the wind power market world-wide. Solar power is also a blooming business in Spain. In 2007 we were second in Europe in the use of solar power. These energy sources are believed to be able to reduce GHG emissions by 10GT by 2030. This is a significant amount given that in 2005 world-wide emissions were estimated at 45GT and the goal proposed by Stern (2008) is to emit 20GT by 2050 and to halve that figure in the following decades in order to stabilise GHG emissions.

The final milestone is the institutional setting in which the post-Kyoto agreement will develop. In the absence of a World Environmental Organisation, agreements will happen under the auspices and using the research potential of various institutions such as the UNFCCC, UNEP, the IPCC, the EEA, NGO’s, universities, etc. The scope and depth of climate change could, however, lead to the development of an ‘International Climate Change Organisation’ (Stern, 2008). In any case, no matter the exact setting in which future climate plans thrive, the fundamental goal seems to be to ensure the provision of a stable, proactive, flexible and efficient setting for action.

IPCC experts agree that citizen involvement in all the above mentioned initiatives can contribute to meeting climate change goals (IPCC, 2007). For Spain, the good news in this area comes from the survey conducted by the Centre for Sociological Research ( CIS  in its Spanish acronym) in November 2007. According to the results obtained in this survey the majority of the people in Spain would be willing to change their lifestyle and habits if this can help fight climate change. These changes may come from choosing energy providers with greater investments in renewables, walking and using bicycles for short distances, using public transport whenever this option is feasible, keeping car tyres properly inflated, buying energy efficient appliances, separating waste so it can be adequately recycled, buying local products, etc. Warm glow effects and other biases aside, whether these intentions are good predictors of behaviour remains to be seen especially if we have to pay extra for it. Further efforts to inform, involve people and remind us all of how we can contribute to climate change mitigation in our daily activities are, according to the available data, beneficial strategies in the medium and long term.

Conclusions

Climate change is unequivocal and existing scientific consensus points towards the need to curb global warming if we want to minimise the possibility of dangerous interference with the climate system. The currently available data point to broadly comparable estimates of costs and benefits of mitigation, but according to the IPCC we do not as of yet have unambiguous emission pathways for which benefits will outweigh costs. It is, however, important to note that the longer mitigation decisions are postponed, the higher the damages of climate change. Thus, minimising maximum losses will in all likelihood imply acting sooner rather than later.

Spain’s geographical location and some of our most important economic activities, such as tourism and the building sector, are particularly sensitive to temperature increases, sea level rises and more frequent extreme weather events. Our international commitments in the fight against global warming plus our vulnerability are strong incentives to act. Mitigation strategies for Spain are seen not only as a liability but as an opportunity. These opportunities include reducing our energy dependence through our thriving renewable energy sector, reaping co-benefits through cleaner air and reduced health hazards, improving land use planning, etc.

Emission trends until 2006 have been coupled with economic growth and thus the gap between our KP commitment and our GHG emission reductions has grown. In order to close this gap Spain has developed and is implementing various measures within its national boundaries. Within Spain’s Sustainable Development Strategy, Spain’s Climate Change and Clean Energy Strategy was presented along with some of its salient measures and plans. These measures include, among others, the Action Plan for Energy Saving and Energy efficiency (E4), the Technical Building Code, the Plan for Renewable Energies and the promotion of carbon sinks through reforestation initiatives. Additionally, the use of KP’s flexibility mechanisms, especially through the ETS and the CDM, are seen as vital in the quest for a low carbon future. The costs and benefits of the policies implemented are to date uncertain although the available figures have been provided by official estimates and academic publications.

Mitigation and adaptation strategies are complementary and choosing only one of them would come at a great cost for the environment and for socio-economic structures. Some climate change is, however, unavoidable and adaptation strategies are increasingly important in order to minimise the most damaging consequences of global warming. Spain should be particularly mindful of the developments in this area as it is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change within the EU. The advancement of the National Adaptation Plan is the first planned move in this area. Further analysis of the potential economic, social and environmental costs and benefits of these actions will help us engage in efficient strategies avoiding piecemeal and expensive maladaptation.

The remaining challenges are to effectively reduce GHG emissions, making sure there is a long term decoupling of Spain’s economic growth and its emissions. Citizens seem, theoretically at least, willing to act. Incentives for firms, further R&D, stable policies securing our leadership in renewable energies and horizontal wholehearted involvement of institutions could be the way forward in the winding road to Spain’s Kyoto goals.

Lara Lázaro-Touza London School of Economics

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MMA (2006) Medio Ambiente en España 2006. Available on-line at:  http://www.mma.es/secciones/info_estadistica_ambiental/estadisticas_info/ memorias/2006/pdf/mem06_3_1_1_cambioclimatico.pdf

MMA (2007), ‘Estrategia española de cambio climático y energía limpia’,  http://www.mma.es/portal/secciones/cambio_climatico/documentacion_cc/ estrategia_cc/pdf/est_cc_energ_limp.pdf

MMA (2008), ‘Primer barómetro CIS sobre medio ambiente. Los españoles están dispuestos a modificar sus hábitos para luchar contra el cambio climático’,  Ambienta , January, p. 42-47.

Martín Vide, J. (Coord.) (2007),  Aspectos económicos del cambio climático en España , Estudios Caixa Catalunya,  http://www.caixacatalunya.es/caixacat/es/ccpublic/particulars/publica/pdf/estudi04.pdf

Moreno, J.M. (Dir.) (2005),  Evaluación Preliminar de los Impactos en España por Efecto del Cambio Climático. Proyecto ECCE – Informe Final , MMA and UCLM, http://www.mma.es/portal/en/secciones/cambio_climatico/areas_tematicas/ impactos_cc/pdf/evaluacion_preliminar_impactos_completo_2.pdf

Nieto, J., & J. Santamarta, (2007), ‘Evolución de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero en España 1990-2006’,  http://www.cincodias.com/5diasmedia/cincodias/media/200704/17/economia/ 20070417cdscdseco_1.Pes.PDF.pdf

Pearce, D. (2004), ‘Environmental Market Creation: Saviour or Oversell?’,  Portuguese Economic Journal , p. 115-144.

Philp, L. (2004), ‘Pero, de verdad, ¿cuánto cuesta Kioto?’,  Ambienta , July, p. 26-33.

Rodríguez Ruiz, J., & A. Martínez Palacio (2008), ‘Energía eólica marina: una solución a considerar para un abastecimiento energético sostenible’,  Ambienta , March, p. 52-55.

Stern, N.,  et al.,  (2006), ‘Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change’,  http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate _change/stern_review_report.cfm

Stern, N. (2008), ‘Key Elements of a Global Deal on Climate Change’,  http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/climateNetwork/publications/KeyElements OfAGlobalDeal_30Apr08.pdf

UN (1992), ‘United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’,  http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf

World Bank (2007), ‘Carbon Finance for Sustainable Development’.

[1] UNFCCC is the acronym for United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

[2] Ppm means parts per million.

[3] For additional information see Lara Lázaro (2007), ‘Climate Change: Cherry-picking Alarmists or Time to Eat at the Table?’, ARI nr 72/2007, Elcano Royal Institute.

[4] For a limited temperature increase (2-3ºC).

[5] To the author’s knowledge.

[6] IPCC (4AR) is the acronym for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report.

[7] CSIC is the Spanish acronym for Higher Scientific Research Centre.

[8] Data updated by Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE inits Spanish acronym) on 20 December 2007.

[9] The PESETA project is devoted to developing projections of the economic impact of climate change in sectors of Europe based on a bottom-up analysis.

[10] According to EEA (2007, p. 18), 1tC = 3.664tCO2, so a value of 100GBP/tC would be equivalent to GBP27/tCO2.

[11] Defined as the global discounted net economic damages of emitting GHG.

[12] Current references on the latest estimates, although partial and uncertain, are in  http://www.ingurumena.ejgv.euskadi.net/r49-435/es/contenidos/nota_prensa/markandya/es_prensa/indice.html (for estimates of the cost of climate change in Bilbao) and the PESETA project ( http://peseta.jrc.es/index.htm ).

[13] The Spanish acronym is OECC ( Oficina Española de Cambio Climático ).

[14] The Spanish acronym is CNC ( Consejo Nacional del Clima ).

[15] The Spanish acronym is CCPCC ( Comisión de Coordinación de Políticas de Cambio Climático ).

[16] The Spanish acronym is GICC ( Grupo Interministerial de Cambio Climático ).

[17] For further information on the specific goals and tasks of the above institutions see  www.mma.es .

[18] Which according to the KP include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, the European Community, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the UK and the US (see  http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.pdf ).

[19]  Estrategia Española de Cambio Climático y Energía Limpia  ( EECCEL ).

[20] Not Available.

[21] According to Abanades García  et al.  (2007) thebreakdown of the contribution of the different energy sources to Spain’s energy demand in 2006 was: 48.5% oil, 20.8% gas, 14.4% coal, 10.3% nuclear energy and 5.9% renewable energy.

[22]  http://www.cne.es/cne/doc/legislacion/RD1370_2006-PNA(1).pdf .

[23] These currently include the refinery sector, iron and steel, cement and lime, ceramic industry, glass, paper and cardboard.

[24] This free allocation will apply in principle to all permits distributed. Auctioning may only be considered for those permits that are reserved to new entrants to the market.

[25] ADC is the acronym for Andean Development Corporation( CAF   Corporación Andina de Fomento ).

[26] LCI is the acronym for Latin American Carbon Initiative(ICC Iniciativa Iberoamericana de carbono ).

[27] EIB is the acronym for European Investment Bank.

[28] EBRD is the acronym for European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

[29]  Red Iberoamericanas de Cambio Climático.

[30]  Programa Iberoamericano de Impactos, Vulnerabilidad y Adaptación al Cambio Climático.

[31] See IPCC (2007), Stern (2006) and the main conclusions and recommendations agreed at the Bali conference in December 2007 which resulted in the Bali Roadmap:  http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop_13/application/pdf/cp_bali_action.pdf .

[32] See, for example, Lara Lázaro (2008), ‘Climate Change: Policy Mix for a Brave New Kyoto?’, ARI nr 12/2008, Elcano Royal Institute.

[33] For an insightful analysis of market creation initiatives to preserve environmental assets see Pearce (2004).

Cuale River after Hurricane Lidia in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

New Initiative Based at YSE Provides Timely Climate News in Spanish

A news site launched by Yale Climate Connections, YCC En Español, is providing coverage in Spanish of climate change and extreme weather events to Latino and Hispanic communities.

In October, when Tropical Storm Max and Hurricane Lidia, a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 140 mph, were both bearing down on Mexico’s southern Pacific Coast within 48 hours of each other, YCC En Español, an initiative of Yale Climate Connections at the Yale School of the Environment, provided news and information about resources to residents in the path of the storms. Several weeks later, YCC En Español , also reported on Hurricane Otis, which made landfall near Acapulco at Category 5 intensity, and, last spring, the site covered Hurricane Hilary, the first tropical storm to directly hit San Diego in nearly a century.

The Spanish news stories are part of a new initiative by YCC to provide news and information on climate issues to Hispanic and Latino communities. YCC launched YCC En Español in September 2022 with the goal of publishing 30 articles and conducting 10 digital campaigns in Spanish to attract 100,000 pageviews to its news hub by the end of 2023. It has since published 90 articles, conducted 43 digital advertising campaigns on Facebook and Google alerting Spanish-speakers to storms and other severe weather events and garnered more than 500,000 page views.

“The project and demand for our content far exceeded our expectations,” said Pearl Marvell, features editor at YCC En Español. “Altogether, our articles received over 530,000 pageviews, more than five times our goal. Most importantly, an audience survey we conducted this fall found that the project has impact. A majority of respondents reported that our Spanish-language articles inspired them to take action on climate change and prepare for extreme weather.”

The initiative grew out of studies conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) that gauge concern about climate change across age, race/ ethnicity and gender. The studies found that a majority of Hispanic and Latino adults (64%) in the U.S. are concerned about global warming and are more likely to be “Alarmed” or “Concerned” than white adults. A recent YPCCC study also found that residents of Puerto Rico are among the most worried about climate change in the world.

“Latinos are one of the fastest growing demographics in the U.S., with a growing influence in American politics, economics, and culture. Our research has found that Latinos in the U.S. are very engaged with the issue of climate change. They are more likely to know it is happening and that it is human caused. They are more worried about it, more supportive of climate policies, and are willing to get personally involved,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of YPCCC and YSE senior research scientist. “And interestingly, primarily Spanish-speaking Latinos are even more engaged with the issue than English-speaking Latinos.”

The Spanish-language breaking news content has been produced with the help of YCC’s Jeff Masters, a hurricane scientist who co-founded Weather Underground, and Bob Henson, a meteorologist and journalist. Marvell has been in charge of translating the site’s content from English to Spanish. Volunteer translators from Climate Cardinals, a youth-led nonprofit aimed at making information about the climate movement more accessible to non-English speakers, also have contributed to the project.

Our research has found that Latinos in the U.S. are very engaged with the issue of climate change. They are more likely to know it is happening and that it is human caused. They are more worried about it, more supportive of climate policies, and are willing to get personally involved.

In the next phase of the project, which was seed funded by CO2 Foundation, YCC will continue to produce articles about the causes of climate change and the link between climate change and specific weather events. It also will report on the consequences of climate change, climate solutions, and actions individuals can take to protect themselves and their communities. The site has partnered with La Red Hispana, a Spanish-language media outlet that helps to distribute YCC’s stories, Climate Central, which works with a network of Spanish-speaking meteorologists, Latino Verde , and Factchequeado .

While the news site is aimed at the Spanish-speaking communities in the U.S., readership includes residents of the Caribbean, Mexico, and other Latin America countries.

Marvell said YPCCC studies have been invaluable in helping to discern and communicate the climate content readers are seeking. The news site is an initiative of the Yale Center for Environmental Communications , which is directed by Leiserowitz along with YPCCC.

“Through our relationship with YPCCC, we have an incredible tool about how to effectively communicate climate change,” she said.

YPCCC’s groundbreaking study, “ Global Warming’s Six Americas ” identified six different audiences in the U.S. who respond to global warming in different ways. The study found that 35% of the Hispanic/ Latino population surveyed are “Alarmed” about climate change and 29% are “Concerned.”

“So many people that speak Spanish either work, live, or have loved ones who are essentially on the front lines of climate change, such as those who live in Puerto Rico where Hurricane Maria was a huge wakeup call,” Marvell noted.

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This year, YCC is seeking to deepen its relationship with readers to become a trusted site on climate science and solutions among Spanish-speakers, Marvell said. The site has brought in four Spanish-speaking contributors, including Rafael Méndez Teresa, an atmopsheric scientist at the University of Puerto Rico who is an expert on Carribbean climate change, and will start publishing articles written originally in Spanish and some content only for Spanish-speaking readers.

“We’ve learned to treat the Spanish-language news hub as a media channel in its own right, rather than merely a translated version of our English-language work. We heard feedback, for example, that readers value seeing stories written by Latinx writers, as opposed to only translated versions of articles by writers with Anglo names,” Marvell noted.

Sara Peach, editor-in-chief at YCC, said the site will also be inviting readers to pledge to take action on climate change.

“We have a goal that 50% of our stories will point readers toward a solution,” Peach said. “We want to know whether the content helps move people to take action.”

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Announcing two spanish-language reports on climate impacts in washington.

Warmer temperatures, more severe floods, intensifying wildfires — the impacts of a changing climate are already being felt across Washington, and affect some communities disproportionately. We must engage and mobilize all communities to make real progress in preparing for the effects of climate change. Increasing the accessibility of climate change impacts science is critical to mobilizing all of our communities, especially those that have been historically marginalized from the adaptation field. The UW Climate Impacts Group and our partners hope that the Spanish translations of these reports will support efforts to engage with Spanish-speaking communities on the issues of climate change and climate impacts across our state.

Sin Tiempo Que Perder summarizes the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C and answers questions such as: What are the anticipated global consequences of additional warming? What are the implications for Washington state? And, What are the options for limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C?

The Spanish translations of these reports were a team effort. The process was spurred by Elisa Lopez, project director of the Wenatchee-based Team Naturaleza, who reached out to the UW Climate Impacts Group with an interest in partnering to create Spanish translations for Shifting Snowlines and Shorelines . Isabel Carrera Zamanillo, assistant director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Stanford University School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences (and formerly of the UW College of the Environment), provided the original translations. Additionally, Elisa Lopez provided a community review of the translation; Heidi Roop, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota (and formerly science communications lead for the Climate Impacts Group), offered proofreading support on both reports; and Monique Heileson, an independent visual designer, re-created the original layout of the reports for the Spanish translations. The UW CIG is thankful for the support and efforts of our partners who made this project possible.

The English-language versions of these reports —  No Time to Waste and Shifting Snowlines and Shorelines — are also available on the Climate Impacts Group website.

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Yale Climate Connections

Researcher helps U.S. Spanish speakers better understand life-saving weather warnings

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[ En Español ]

Climate change is causing more extreme weather than ever, but Spanish-speaking U.S. residents don’t always understand weather warnings because of language barriers.

Joseph Trujillo Falcón, a graduate researcher at the NOAA and University of Oklahoma Cooperative Institute for Severe and High Impact Weather Research and Operations , is changing that.

More than 40 million people in the United States speak Spanish at home . Trujillo Falc ó n studies how these communities receive, comprehend, and respond to life-threatening weather and climate hazards. His goal: making sure that lifesaving information about dangerous weather is reaching the country’s Spanish-speaking population.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Yale Climate Connections: Climate change is bringing more extreme weather. So can you talk about how important and critical it is to provide weather information and warnings in Spanish?

Joseph Trujillo Falcón: You know, I always link the conversation back to the Weather Service mission statement , and that is to protect life and property. And I want to make sure that all life and property is taken into account here — no matter what your cultural or language background is.

So especially as our climate begins to make different types of disasters a lot more concerning, we need to make sure that everyone’s included in disaster preparedness and response. And this is why it’s so important that Spanish speakers are integrated into this process.

YCC: And it’s correct to say this is already an issue now, right?

Joseph Trujillo Falcón: Yeah, this is not something new. It’s actually been documented within the National Weather Service and it traces back all the way to 1970, when about half of the fatalities from a tornado in Texas were of Spanish-speaking individuals.

And ever since then, we’ve repeatedly seen instances where language disparity is an issue when it comes to disasters. In California last year, we saw record-breaking wildfires, and you could see the language inequities present there, where people did not know of the incoming threat and did not know what to do.

And so it’s an issue that traces back decades, and it’s becoming ever-more important.

Listen: National Weather Service revises Spanish terms for severe storms

YCC: How does familiarity with different types of weather events come into play?

Joseph Trujillo Falcón:   Let’s face it: Here in the United States, we face hazards that other people from different parts of Latin America may not have ever experienced. And so a word has not been developed. And we can’t encourage people to take action if they don’t know — or we can’t even describe the threat to them.

For example, I’m from Lima, Peru. And I grew up getting used to — at least adjusting — to earthquake threats. I had generational knowledge of it. My grandma would tell me stories about significant earthquakes in the area and what sort of actions to take. My school, for example, had earthquake drills. And our infrastructure in Peru is better suited for those given hazards.

But then when I moved to the United States, I moved to Dallas, Texas — the heart of tornado alley — and I was not aware of tornado sirens.

And so I think it’s so important to acknowledge that when people immigrate to the United States, they might face different hazards and emergency systems altogether. And that’s something that we have to take into account, especially as we’re trying to raise awareness of the different hazards that climate may be exacerbating in the future and making sure that everybody stays safe.

YCC: What are some of the challenges to providing standardized Spanish language translations?

Joseph Trujillo Falcón:   I always like to link it back to the example of ‘weather’ versus ‘climate.’ In English, we have a distinction: ‘Weather’ represents everything in the short term, and ‘climate’ represents everything in the long term. There is no such distinction in Spanish, and different areas in Latin America use ‘weather’ and ‘climate’ interchangeably. That’s why you’ll sometimes hear people talk about ‘el estado del clima’ and they’re actually referring to the weather forecast, because they use those words interchangeably.

And of course, coming from different places in Latin America, Europe, and Africa, Spanish speakers have different ways of speaking — these regional differences or dialects of language. A fun example for my Puerto Rican friends out there: They learned the word ‘thunderstorm’ as ‘tronada.’ But when they moved to the [mainland] United States, they realized that other than Puerto Ricans, not a lot of people are using that word in their language. And so they have to adjust to the word ‘tormenta.’

And so it’s finding not only the translations that don’t exist, but also making sure that they’re universal across all Spanish-speaking groups. And that’s definitely a concern when we’re trying to communicate risk and encourage people to take action.

Read: Why climate change matters to Latinos

YCC: Describe the work you’ve been doing on this issue — specifically about the Spanish-language risk categories that were recently adopted by the NOAA Storm Prediction Center.

Joseph Trujillo Falcón: Sometimes you can literally translate a word, but it might not fully capture the message. You’re translating the word rather than the message itself. And I think that’s super critical to emphasize, especially in risk communication.

And so the Storm Prediction Center did have some established categories [for identifying the level of risk posed by a particular storm] in Spanish. And we worked hand in hand with linguistic experts and different social scientists to find better terminology that was able to at least engage more Spanish-speaking communities.

For example, Level Two [risk] in Spanish was “leve.” And the linguistic experts told us that word was only really used in Europe in that way, and not really in Latin America, so a lot of people were confused. 

And so we found universal ways to communicate risk from Levels One through Five: mínimo, bajo, moderado, alto, and extremo – or, in English: minimum, low, moderate, high, and extreme.

And then we tested it with a representative sample [of] 1,050 U.S. Spanish speakers and found that they were able to understand what the categories meant in terms of urgency significantly better than the [previous] translations.

And so as a result, our agency adopted them this past summer and they’re now being used nationwide across all bilingual stations in the United States.

YCC: It sounds relatively simple, but this change can have a profound impact. Can you talk about the significance?

Joseph Trujillo Falcón: Whenever we’re trying to engage our Spanish-speaking communities, we have to make sure that we tailor our messages to them. You know, somebody that is bilingual might look at previous translations and understand that people are trying, but they’re not speaking or tailoring the message towards them.

So I think this is a great first step, and let me emphasize that — a first step — in engaging these communities, so that we can make sure that they know that we are willing to reach out to them, and we are willing to incorporate them in this emergency preparedness process.

And of course, it goes far beyond language. We have to connect better with community leaders that have trust within these communities.

And so we’ve been working with bilingual broadcast meteorologists because they’re the frontline communicators in this and they’re able to engage our communities. They’re very well trusted among our community.

And research shows that Hispanic and Latinos overall are more willing to talk about climate change. Recent surveys show that global warming is important to eight in 10 Latinos. So I think it’s just a matter of making sure that we can all be part of the conversation.

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• Several hypotheses for global warming have been suggested .
• Scientists fear that global warming has gone beyond the point of no return .
• Yesterday's paper had a double-page feature on global warming .

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• Open access
• Published: 12 May 2023

The Spanish population’s interest in climate change based on Internet searches

• Olaya Álvarez-García   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6554-0409 1 ,
• Jaume Sureda-Negre 1 ,
• Rubén Comas-Forgas   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8885-753X 1 &
• Miquel F. Oliver-Trobat   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6279-8941 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  10 , Article number:  231 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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• Cultural and media studies

The climate crisis is one of the most important global problems facing humanity. Analyzing the search for information on climate change (CC) on the internet can be a predictor of public interest in this problem and, therefore, of the degree of concern exhibited by citizens. This study analyzes the interest in CC among the Spanish population and identifies some variables that may influence this interest. The methodology involves the collection and analysis of data obtained from SEMrush and Google Analytics. We analyzed the search trends of four key descriptors related to CC (“climate change,” “global warming,” “climate emergency” and “greenhouse effect”) during two periods of time, and the relationship between these searches and three relational variables (volume of news in the media, occurrence of extreme weather events and CC-related events). The results indicate that the Spanish population’s interest in CC via the Internet has increased in recent years and is directly influenced by variables such as media coverage of CC, events related to CC, and social pressure exerted by social movements for CC. Some proposals are discussed and presented in relation to the concern for this problem.

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Introduction.

The scientific evidence on climate change (CC) and its consequences has been highlighted in numerous reports released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2018 , 2019a , 2019b , 2023 ). The subject has also been debated and discussed in different international forums (Conferences of Parties, COP), with the Paris Agreement of 2015 being the greatest milestone in terms of limiting greenhouse gas emissions and fighting CC worldwide. This international treaty is legally binding, and the members, after its ratification, had to propose different strategies, plans, programs, and regulations through which they would limit global warming to 1.5 °C based on preindustrial levels (United Nations, 2015 ).

For the achievement of the proposed goal, public pressure is essential (Phillis et al., 2013 ). Bold decisions that the climate situation requires are difficult to assume without a citizenry aware of the consequences of not making such decisions. Hence, it is of great importance to explore the interest of the population in environmental issues in general and the climate crisis in particular. In this sense, there have been recent investigations that address these issues: Eurobarometer (European Commission, 2019 , 2020 , 2021 ), reports released by the Pew Research Center (Pousther and Huang, 2019 ; Tyson and Kennedy, 2020 ; Tyson et al., 2021 ) and studies by the Yale Program on Climate Change (Leiserowitz et al., 2021a , 2021b ). These surveys established, among other things, that in 2021, a 18% of European citizens positioned CC as “the single most serious problem facing the world ” just ahead of other problems commonly reported by citizens, such as poverty, hunger, and lack of clean water (17%) or the spread of infectious diseases (17%) (European Commission, 2021 ) and that 64% of the American population believe that reducing the effects of CC should be a “top priority to ensure a sustainable planet for future generations, even if that means fewer resources for addressing other important problems today” (Tyson et al., 2021 ).

To understand public opinion and the informative interests of citizens regarding CC approaches such as the analysis of data derived from information searches on the subject on the internet have been used. These data are primary indications of the interests, opinions, and doubts of the population about CC. This approach is particularly relevant because, for nearly half of the European population, the Internet and social networks are the main sources of information regarding the environment (European Commission, 2020 ).

Studies based on metrics derived from internet searches have become an effective approach to track citizen interest in various topics, being, in some cases, even more useful than traditional surveys (Ripberger, 2011 ; Vosen and Schmidt, 2011 ). Google Trends has become the most used tool for this type of approach (Vosen and Schmidt 2011 ; Mellon, 2014 ), whose advantages include access to a large sample at a low cost, guaranteed anonymity, and analyses of long periods of time (Zhu et al., 2012 ; Mellon, 2014 , Orduña-Malea and Aguillo, 2015 ).

Some researchers have used Google Trends to understand the interest of the population in issues related to biodiversity conservation (Ficetola, 2013 ; McCallum and Bury, 2013 , Proulx et al., 2014 ; Burivalova et al., 2018 ; Zieger and Springer, 2021 ; Nghiem et al., 2016 ) and various aspects of CC. An increase in internet searches on the subject coinciding with international COP climate meetings and their media coverage has been reported (Hartwell et al., 2020 ). Likewise, the positive influence of various celebrities (Leonardo Di Caprio, for example), documentaries on CC ( Before the Flood , for example), and the climatic protests of the student movement Fridays for the future (Mavrodieva et al., 2019 ) on public interest in the issue has also been analyzed and described. Other studies suggest that extreme weather events also have a positive effect on internet search behavior in relation to CC (Lang, 2014 ; Lang and Ryder, 2016 ). Signs of concern shown by elites, media coverage and, to a lesser extent, public access to accurate scientific information are also influential factors related to public concern regarding CC (Brulle et al., 2012 ).

This study addresses the issue of public interest in the CC phenomenon, so as to provide evidence regarding the interest about this issue among the Spanish population. The objectives of this study are as follows:

1. Identify, analyze, and classify the descriptors used in organic searches on the internet conducted in Spain about CC between April 2020 and March 2021;

2. Analyze the volume of activity and internet search trends for descriptors related to CC in Spain between April 2020 and March 2021;

3. Compare search trends for and interest in CC in Spain for the period between April 2016 and March 2021; and

4. Analyze the relationship between public interest on issues related to CC in Spain and various variables: (a) volume of news on the subject in the media; (b) extreme weather events; and (c) CC-related events of great importance (for example, world summits on climate, demonstrations, and strikes).

This work focuses on the Spanish context, and the proposed objectives are more relevant if one takes into account that in 2019 the public debate on CC was especially prolific in Spain. Climate-related student movements (Youth for Climate Footnote 1 ) and homologous movements among teachers ( Teachers for Future España Footnote 2 ) and among mothers ( Mothers by climate Footnote 3 ) put the climate emergency at the center of the debate and probably accelerated the promulgation of climate emergency declarations in some of the Autonomous Communities (regions in which Spain is administratively divided) as well as at the national level. In all cases, these are government commitment agreements for the design of actions to address the climate crisis. Furthermore, the celebration of COP25 in Madrid between December 2 and 13, 2019, could have increased the interest in CC among citizens. Additionally, in some Autonomous Communities, this debate has already been initiated with the development of regional climate laws (for example, the law of Catalonia or the Balearic Islands), and the process to approve a state law on CC and energy transition has also begun.

In 2019, the vast majority of the Spanish population (89%) considered CC to be a “very serious” problem, an increase of three percentage points compared with that in 2017 (European Commission, 2019 ). Material damage and economic losses caused by extreme weather events (in Spain, the storms Odette or Filomena and the storm Gloria) could influence this perception. Similarly, phenomena such as increases in episodes of high temperatures or heat waves, which cause more deaths in Spain than other natural disasters, could also influence the phenomenon (Government of Spain, 2021 ). More recent data (Ideara, 2021 ) indicate that 93.5% of the Spanish population considers CC to be real and that 73.3% believe that CC is being given less importance than needed. In fact, this concern, due to the low importance given to it, has increased by 16.1 percentage points since 2012 (Meira et al., 2013 ).

As previously shown, the search for information on CC on the internet is a predictor of public interest in this problem and, therefore, of the degree of concern of the public. An analysis that focuses on internet searches on CC in Spain was found in one study (Fernández-Reyes, 2015 ). Other studies adopted an approach that focuses more on assessing the quality of the information disseminated by the media than on considering the interest that the population may have in seeking information on this problem (Fernández-Reyes and Mancinas-Chávez, 2013 ; Pérez and Perales, 2018 ). In this context, identifying interest in CC as well as the variables that may influence it can improve the level of knowledge and evidence regarding the degree of awareness of CC among the Spanish population. In addition, it could also provide guidance on how the effectiveness of proposed actions to raise awareness can be improved. Additionally, an increase in citizen concern for CC would entail greater social pressure, which could influence political actors. To this end, authors such as Miléř and Sládek ( 2011 ), point to the importance of basic climate literacy to drive this engagement and public pressure, so that policies for climate action can be developed. This literacy aims to understand climate science in order to make informed decisions that improve our quality of life (Dupigny-Giroux, 2010 ) and aim to help the public better understand the climate system (Damico et al., 2018 ).

This study involves the collection and analysis of two sets of data from searches carried out on the internet in Spain on CC. First, the “Keyword magic tool” function of SEMrush was used to generate, from keywords and descriptors, a list of related keywords used for organic searches in Google . SEMrush is an online marketing and visibility analysis tool that uses Google Analytics data and allows examining, among other aspects, the grouping, management, and traffic generated by keywords. Following a previous study by Nanda et al. ( 2021 ) these keywords are the search terms used as a search engine in Google and are then used to list websites in the results pages that are returned. Data analysis is based on the Google search engine which is more precise and has better quality than any other search engine (Kostagiolas et al., 2021 ). From SEMrush we used the following features: (1) Keyword Search Volume: the average number of monthly searches of a particular keyword over 12 months and (2) Keyword Trend: the level of interest in a search query over 12 months.

For this study, an initial search of concepts related to CC was applied, considering the keywords “climate change,” “global warming,” “climate emergency” and “greenhouse effect.” Notably, the terms “greenhouse effect” and “climate change” are not scientifically synonymous because the greenhouse effect is a phenomenon that occurs naturally in the atmosphere; an increase in the greenhouse effect is the cause of global warming, and the consequence is CC. However, they are terms that are used interchangeably by the media and the general public when referring to this problem (Caballero et al., 2007 ). These misconceptions were already identified among citizens in the 1990s (Kempton, 1991 ; Löfstedt, 1991 ) and persist nowadays (Leiserowitz et al., 2010 ; Crosman et al., 2019 ). Unfortunately, are part of the common heritage of CC.

Thus, the consideration and inclusion of “greenhouse effect” among the terms analyzed are relevant for this study. From these initial searches, a first list of 55,280 keywords was obtained for searches carried out in Spain on CC. Given the large volume of keywords located in the first search, something intrinsic to this methodological approach as stated by Lillo and Ruggieri ( 2021 ) is the impossibility of counting all queries, especially when dealing with a long distribution queue; therefore, to set up a cut-off point only the terms that had monthly organic search averages equal to or >100 were considered. This cut-off point is quite significant as represents 87% of the total searches performed in Spain for the keywords considered during the period analyzed. The four keyword lists with 100 or more monthly searches were downloaded as a single search. An Excel spreadsheet was created with the following data from SEMrush using the “Keyword magic tool” option: (1) monthly volume of searches in Google for each keyword (provides the average monthly searches using a given keyword in a 12-month period, in our case from April 2020 to March 2021); and (2) trend data that measure the interest in a specified keyword during a 12-month period (the metric is based on the changes in the number of queries per month).

Once all the keywords were downloaded in a single data matrix in Excel, the descriptors that were duplicates and keywords that had no relationship with the organic searches clearly associated with CC were eliminated (for example, “Trump climate change”, “climate change girl”, “Bill Gates climate change”, and “polar bear global warming”). The final list of 200 keywords comprised the final sample for the first dataset of the study. All 200 keywords were classified into categories based on the purpose of the search. To do so, one of the authors analyzed the 200 terms and generated initially six categories with them and submitted this to the rest of the authors that had to review the initial clustering generated. After a triangulation process, the other authors generated two new categories and a consensus was achieved and a set of 8 categories were generated to classify the sample constituted by the 200 keywords.

To develop the second dataset, metrics from Google Trends on search trends in the search engine were obtained; these data illustrate how often a search for a particular term is performed in various regions and countries of the world and in several languages. Google Trends helps to detect moments when the popularity of a term increases and provides the average value of the relative interest in a selected time range. In this phase of data collection, the terms “climate change”, “global warming”, “climate emergency” and “greenhouse effect” were again applied for the period between April 2016 and March 2021 (both inclusive). For each term, the data for the weekly trends were downloaded for the entire period analyzed. The values were transformed to a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 indicated the week with the highest frequency of searches in proportion to the total number of queries; 50 and 0 indicated the weeks where the popularity of the term was half in relation to the maximum value or in which there were not enough data for the calculation, respectively.

For this study, we also obtained information on a series of variables related to the searches to find potential associations between variables. Thus, the following were considered: (a) the volume of news in the media between April 2016 and March 2021 (for this variable, the data related to the daily number of news stories appearing in RTVE newscasts and the Spanish public television and radio station, using the Civio search engine https://verba.civio.es , were considered), from which two values were established, i.e., (1) weeks during which the number of news items on CC was below the total average and (2) weeks during which the number of news items on CC was above the total average; (b) extreme meteorological phenomena that occurred weekly between April 2016 and March 2021; these data were obtained from monthly reports released by the Annual Climatological Summary of the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET, in Spanish) from 2016 to 2020 and for the year 2021 ( https://bit.ly/3g0JmgE ); (c) events of great importance on CC between April 2016 and March 2021, such as world summits on CC and COPs promoted annually by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC https://bit.ly/3fPVOQc ) and climate-related demonstrations and strikes promoted by the student movement Fridays for Future —España ( https://juventudxclima.es/ ); and (d) reports by the IPCC ( https://www.ipcc.ch/reports ).

Data processing and analysis

Data processing and analysis were carried out using the statistical analysis program SPSS V.22, and the following statistics were used: frequency analysis, Student’s t -test to compare means, and one-way ANOVA.

Keywords used to search for information related to CC and search volume in a 12-month period

In relation to the first of the objectives of this research (Identify, analyze, and classify the descriptors used in organic searches about CC between April 2020 and March 2021), from the list of 200 keywords generated with SEMrush , monthly search volumes averages varied among the 33,100 organic searches for the keyword “climate change” (see Table 1 , which presents the 20 keywords with the most monthly searches, on average), and 100 searches that accumulated 110 of the keywords (the analysis limit an average equal to or >100 monthly searches for the period between April 2020 and March 2021). The total volume of monthly searches for the 200 analyzed terms was 146,830 searches. These data, converted to an annual average, indicate that during the period considered, more than 1,750,000 searches were carried out in Spain with the 200 descriptors analyzed. As seen (Table 1 ), the terms “climate change”, “greenhouse effect” and “global warming” had the highest search frequency throughout the year, with greater relevance of the term “climate change” among these first 20 keywords. However, the term “climate emergency” is also relevant, occupying position 11 in the ranking.

The 200 keywords were coded into eight categories, classified, and counted based on the types of searches performed. As seen in Fig. 1 , the greatest volume of searches was focused on locating general information about CC (for example, “what is climate change”, “climate change definition”, “climate change in Spain”, and “global warming definition”). Second were searches aimed at finding news and resources, using terms such as “global warming news,” “climate change for children,” and “images of climate change”. Third (with very even figures) were searches for the causes and consequences of CC. The categories that generated a lower volume of searches were denialism (for example, “climate change does not exist” or “climate change denial”) and events related to the topic of interest (for example, “International Climate Change Day”, “climate change protest”, and “climate change summit”). The category legislation, strategies, and plans were relevant among these searches in the last year because of the interest in the Spanish CC law (in fact, most of the search terms of this category correspond to “climate change law”).

Please note that eight search categories were determined.

Monthly search trends across a 12-month period

Regarding the second research objective (Analyze the volume of activity and internet search trends for descriptors related to CC between April 2020 and March 2021), SEMrush provides metrics that measure trends in searches using each keyword based on the changes in the number of queries per month. The values range from 0 to 1, which we multiplied by 100. This parameter allowed establishing the monthly trends for searches using the categorized keywords in Spain for the 12 months analyzed (see Fig. 2 ). April, June, and November 2020 were the months with the highest search trends for the set of keywords analyzed, and the lowest trends occurred in August and September of that same year.

Please note that the data legend in certain values of the categories highlights the variations in the searches. Dates of important events have also been highlighted in boxes.

Variations in the level of interest in certain organic searches can be noted. For example, in April 2020, Solutions (90.3 points), News and Resources (87.35 points), Generic Searches (82.5 points), and Consequences (82.11 points) were popular categories. Subsequently, in May 2020, there was an increase of ~52 points in interest in the Legislation, Strategies, and Plans category (from 34.09 points on May 20 to 86.64 points on June 20). On May 19, 2020, the draft law for CC and energy transition in Spain was approved by the Council of Ministers. There was also a considerable increase in interest in the events category in October 2020, with an ~69-point difference between October (15.8) and November (84.7). On October 24, 2020, the International Day against CC was celebrated. It is striking that the interest related to the International Day against CC and the searches related to Denialism exhibited parallel increases (from ~16 points in October to 84.7 and 88.3 in November for Events and Denialism, respectively). Between January and February of 2021, there was also an increase in interest in Denialism, but not as substantial as that observed in October 2020.

Annual search trends across the 5-year period

To achieve the third objective, focused on comparing the search trends for CC in Spain between April 2016 and March 2021, one-way ANOVA was performed. The existence of significant differences in the annual means of search interest in the four keywords was calculated using data from Google Trends (see Table 2 ). The results indicated that there were statistically significant differences in the interest in CC in the 5-year period for the keywords “climate change” ( p  = 0.000), “global warming” ( p  = 0.011), and “climate emergency” ( p  = 0.006). In general, beginning in 2016, there was an annual increase in searches using the four keywords analyzed. In 2019, searches peaked, with a significant difference with respect to the other years.

Relationship between internet searches for CC and media coverage of CC between 2016 and 2021

Regarding the relationship between the volume of news appearing in RTVE newscasts on topics related to CC and internet searches for this environmental problem (the fourth objective of this study), the results obtained for the four keywords analyzed indicate that there are statistically significant differences in all cases; the greater the number of news items, the greater was the interest in searching for the concepts analyzed: “climate change” ( p  = 0.000), “global warming” ( p  = 0.000), “climate emergency” ( p  = 0.000) and “greenhouse effect” ( p  = 0.018) (Table 3 ).

Relationship between internet searches for CC and extreme meteorological phenomena that occurred between 2016 and 2021

The second of the variables studied for the fourth objective was the relationship between searches for CC and extreme meteorological phenomena, such as heat or cold waves, isolated high-level depression (DANA in its Spanish acronym), torrential rains, etc., that occurred during specific weeks in the last 5 years. That is, the aim was to analyze whether the occurrence of these phenomena influenced internet searches for CC. The statistical tests carried out indicated that there were only statistically significant differences between extreme meteorological phenomena and searches using the keyword “greenhouse effect” ( p  = 0.008) (Table 4 ).

Internet searches and CC-related events between 2016 and 2021

The last of the relationships investigated in objective four was between internet searches for CC and “events.” This analysis included all weeks in which there was a climate demonstration or strike, a climate summit, or the release of an IPCC report. The results indicate a statistically significant relationship between CC-related events and an increase in internet searches using the keywords “climate change” ( p  = 0.000), “global warming” ( p  = 0.000), and “climate emergency” ( p  = 0.023); the association was not significant for “greenhouse effect” ( p  = 0.820) (Table 5 ).

Discussions and conclusions

The results from this study reflect the public interest in CC in Spain in recent years based on internet search trends. The data obtained allowed us to identify which words and concepts are the most used by Google users in Spain to seek information related to CC and to determine the number of searches that this problem generates, which is substantial because the average monthly number of searches between April 2020 and March 2021 was 34,750. The first noteworthy observation regarding the search trends is how interest in CC increased in the last 5 years (2016–2021) among the Spanish population. A trend was also observed between 2017 and 2019 in relation to concerns about CC (European Commission, 2019 ). The year 2019 was a milestone regarding the number of searches. This trend can be explained by the student climate movement that began worldwide in 2019, with repercussions in Spain and with two school climate strikes (March and September 2019). In addition, in 2019, the COP25 was held in Spain. However, this interest decreased with the emergence of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. This was the time of global lockdowns, which banned demonstrations and delayed summits such as COP26. What is more, COVID-19 increased the need for public information about the coronavirus (Bento et al., 2020 ; Vijay et al., 2021 ), reducing the space and interest for information on other issues. For example, compared to 2019, in 2020, there was a decrease of 23% in the appearance of news about CC in media worldwide (Fernández-Reyes and Jiménez-Gómez, 2021 ).

The monthly search trends for 2020 and 2021 in Spain fluctuated, coinciding with various key events. For example, in May 2020, there was an increase in searches for terms in the Legislation, Strategies, and Plans category. This likely occurred because a CC and energy transition bill was approved by the Council of Ministers of Spain (May 19, 2020), generating great interest among the Spanish population. In October 2020, there was also a considerable increase in searches using terms in the Events category, probably because October 24 was the International Day against CC. What is more, this data, compared with those from the Media and Climate Change Observatory—ECCO (Fernández-Reyes and Jiménez-Gómez, 2021 ) on media coverage of CC indicates an increase in the number of publications in the main Spanish newspapers in October and November 2020 compared to the two previous months. This fact could also explain the surge in Internet searches by the Spanish population on this event, given the positive relationship shown in this study between these searches and media coverage of the CC. Searches related to denialism peaked in some months (October and November 2020 and January and February 2021); however, this does not necessarily indicate that Spanish society doubts the existence of CC. In our study, there was a low number of organic searches using terms in this category (see Fig. 1 ), and the demoscopy in this sense indicated that such beliefs are residual and have gradually decreased since 2010, from 8.5 points (Meira et al., 2011 ) to 3.5 points (Ideara, 2021 ). Relationships between internet searches for CC and media coverage of CC, the occurrence of extreme weather phenomena, and CC-related events were analyzed in this study to establish statistically significant differences among the searches using the four keywords analyzed. The results obtained indicate that the increase in news stories about CC in the media implies an increase in interest by the population in information on the internet about CC, a finding also found in previous studies of written press for Spain (Fernández-Reyes, 2015 ). However, it is striking, and to some extent worrisome, how this positive relationship is also established with the keyword “greenhouse effect.” This is not an isolated fact; the confusion and interrelation between CC, the greenhouse effect, and the hole in the ozone layer are common in the existing scientific literature (Bozdogan, 2011 ). Thus, as stated by Meira ( 2007 ), this erroneous conceptualization has become part of the common culture, and the “greenhouse effect” is extensively used as a synonym for CC.

Unlike the results obtained in previous studies (Lang, 2014 ; Lang and Ryder, 2016 ), the occurrence of extreme weather events did not increase the interest of the Spanish population in CC, at least not for three of the four keywords analyzed. This trend could indicate, therefore, that the Spanish population considers these phenomena as isolated events and not as consequences of CC or as having no influence on their interest or concern for this problem. This variation in searches on CC seems to coincide, precisely, with the data reported by studies on the perception of CC in Spain: in 2019, 66.5% of the Spanish population considered that CC was being given less importance than it should (Valdor et al., 2019 ), and in 2020, this percentage increased by 6.5 points (Ideara, 2021 ). However, this argument is controversial because this relationship has been observed with searches using the keyword “greenhouse effect.” Therefore, we understand that the erroneous relationship between CC and the greenhouse effect continues to be perpetuated throughout society.

The occurrence of CC-related events, the last of the variables analyzed in this study, influenced the interest in CC among the Spanish population, especially during weeks in which these events recur. Previous research in this regard has yielded similar results: positive associations between interest in CC and student climate movements (Mavrodieva et al., 2019 ) or international climate meetings (Hartwell et al., 2020 ; Fernández-Reyes, 2015 ). Notably, this relationship is observed for the keywords “climate change,” “global warming” and “climate emergency” but not for “greenhouse effect.” This finding may be due not only to the use of these words during these events, underscoring the importance and gravity of the problem, but also to the fact that the language and concepts used at such events invoke a greater degree of climate literacy.

In light of the results obtained in this study, it could be concluded that the interest of the Spanish population in CC has increased on the internet in recent years and that some of the variables that may influence this interest are media coverage of CC, CC-related events and the social pressure exerted by climate-related social movements. The interest of citizens in CC could indicate the degree of social concern for this problem and even serve as a factor of public pressure for effective solutions against CC. However, we cannot determine that greater interest in CC is necessarily related to support for the cause. In fact, people’s support for the cause depends more on their values, ideologies, and political orientations than on other factors (Hornsey et al., 2016 ). Nevertheless, this does not obviate the need for the public to be properly informed about a problem such important as is CC. The results obtained, especially if we consider the errors of the concept identified in this study, do not allow us to affirm that searches for this information imply correct climate literacy, even considering the importance of this literacy for making informed decisions regarding the problem.

The Spanish population’s knowledge of the causes of the problem is not in line with the science of CC, and conversely, much of it does not demand more information on the subject (Ideara, 2021 ). To improve climate literacy, we believe that it is important to strategically communicate information related to CC because a better-informed public opinion will not perpetuate erroneous ideas regarding CC. Therefore, we believe that interest in topics related to CC should be encouraged and that evidence-based results managed by the scientific community and CC professionals should be presented to the public as accessible, attractive, and data-driven information. We consider fundamental, for example, the Decalogue elaborated by the Spanish Communication of Climate Change Observatory (OCCC, acronym in Spanish), in collaboration with communication professionals (Ecodes, 2022 ), which underlines actions as necessary from the journalistic profession as communicating the information of the IPCC reports or disseminating the specific concepts and terms necessary for a correct understanding of the problem. But we also appeal to the need for the development of specific websites that facilitate citizens’ access to information related to CC, as stated in the Spanish legislation on CC ( Law 7/2021 ). However, it is not only access to information that is important but also the message that is disseminated with this information. We also believe in the importance of CC communication which equally influences the dissemination of the causes, impacts, and solutions of CC. For this, new ways of communicating the results of studies should be found, for example, through collaboration with key actors for scientific dissemination, such as environmental journalists, environmental disseminators, and environmental educators.

In any case, we would like to point out that the results presented in this study are not without certain limitations. Firstly, because they are not generalizable, as this is a study in a country where it is estimated that 96% of households have access to the Internet (Instituto Nacional de Estadística [INE], 2021 ). Secondly, because the sources used to compare certain variables, such as media coverage or the occurrence of extreme weather events, are national in scope.

Data availability

Due to its proprietary nature, supporting data cannot be made openly available. Derived data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Álvarez-García, O., Sureda-Negre, J., Comas-Forgas, R. et al. The Spanish population’s interest in climate change based on Internet searches. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 231 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01736-5

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Climate Change: What Must Be Done, Now

Writers argue for eating less meat, relocating to safer zones, promoting nuclear energy and passing a carbon tax.

To the Editor:

Re “ Adults Are Failing Us on Climate ,” by Greta Thunberg, Adriana Calderón, Farzana Faruk Jhumu and Eric Njuguna (Opinion guest essay, Sunday Review, Aug. 22):

I’m upset. I’m worried. I am angry because the adults have ruined Earth for my generation! You have trashed this world; you have polluted it. The fact that I, a 10-year-old, have to write this letter is proving your failure.

But if you believe that we can save the planet, then you can embrace change. You can vote for world leaders who will stop climate change! There are billions of children around the world, and all of us deserve to live in a world with clean oceans, clean air and a healthy planet.

Our lives are already being affected by climate change. Think about how horrible life could be for the next generation if we don’t act now. Heat waves would be so terrible they could actually make parts of the planet unsafe for us. And rising sea levels would be so serious that some coastal areas could become uninhabitable. We are at the beginning of a mass extinction; it’s been estimated that up to 200 species of plants and animals go extinct every single day , and that isn’t acceptable.

We must push world leaders to act on climate change so that life can continue. Change is coming, and only we can fix the future.

Lily G. Haussamen Las Cruces, N.M.

It is time to get serious. The conclusions of the sixth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on climate change are devastating, and, unfortunately, not surprising. It’s too late to stop the natural disasters, conflicts and resource shortages that are coming.

For those of us who cannot afford to colonize space, here is my dead serious advice: Plan immediately to relocate to a buffer zone — the Great Lakes region or the Northeast — and buy property. Stake yourself on high ground and purchase flood insurance, sewer backup insurance and every kind of insurance. Hook yourself up to solar panels and a backup generator. Build swales and retention ponds to collect excess floodwater. Grow your own food.

If you haven’t already, scrap plans to have (or have more) children. Use the energy you would put toward nurturing a family into nurturing your community and fighting for survival on an increasingly inhospitable planet.

Demanding action from politicians is not enough. Run for office and get other climate activists to run for office. We need a government that actually protects our air, water and soil. Soon it will be a matter of life or death, if it is not already.

Clara Fang Detroit The writer is founder of Climate Diversity.

Re “ Humanity Must Take a Stand on Climate ” (editorial, Aug. 15):

There is no doubt about The Times’s commitment to climate change. So it’s very hard to understand how your editorial can entirely neglect agriculture, which causes roughly one third of direct emissions .

The United Nations predicts a steady increase in meat consumption over the next three decades, and with that increase will come huge increases in carbon emissions, plus methane and nitrous oxide, which are 30 and 300 times more warming than carbon. Education has not stemmed the tide, but making meat from plants and cultivating meat from cells could. No one is coming for anyone’s burger. These technologies create products that are indistinguishable from the meat Americans love, but with a fraction of the direct and indirect adverse climate impact .

We can’t keep ignoring the contribution of agriculture to climate change. If we really believe that climate change is “code red for humanity,” the climate community should support government funding for research as well as private sector incentives for plant-based and cultivated meat.

Bruce Friedrich Washington The writer is the founder and chief executive of the Good Food Institute.

As you say, the industrial world has known about this problem for decades but has done little. The science is clear-cut, but the politics are anything but. Any meaningful actions in the United States are met with stiff resistance from mainly one political party.

Having been concerned about this for a long time, including teaching about the problem at the University of California San Diego, I’m left wondering if before the planet can return to prehumanity conditions, humans have to cease to exist.

Jeffrey Bada Encinitas, Calif. The writer is professor emeritus of marine chemistry, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego.

Yes, a hotter future for this beautiful Earth is now locked in. And yes, we can and must act immediately to prevent the worst effects and preserve a livable world for our children, grandchildren and all beings.

However, the measures you recommended for mitigating this crisis left out one crucial tool: putting a price on carbon. Prominent economists agree that pricing carbon is the quickest and most effective way to immediately begin to bring down greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and stop escalating temperatures. Returning revenues to American households would help pay for the rising costs of goods and energy, and spur innovation in renewable energy.

Linda Reichert Chester Springs, Pa.

The editorial calls for big investments in wind, solar and nuclear power to move away from fossil fuels and get to zero net carbon emissions by 2050. Although unpopular, nuclear power will play a vital role that must not be undervalued.

While it’s been comforting to see the adoption of renewable power sources (hydro, wind and solar) and the grass roots efforts by citizens’ groups to get a carbon fee and dividend program passed by Congress, it’s not enough. Projections by the Energy Information Administration show that renewables will only cover about 42 percent of our demand for power by 2050. Nevertheless, we must fully phase out fossil fuels by then.

The only way to fill the gap is to accelerate the adoption of nuclear power. After high-profile incidents like Fukushima, the world has been moving in the other direction. We need to reverse this trend and rapidly deploy newer, safer and more cost-effective fourth-generation nuclear power technology . This is essential to halt the accelerating effects of climate change and buy us enough time to implement long-term power solutions.

William L. Bain Bellevue, Wash.

Re “ G.O.P. Shifts on Climate, but Not on Fossil Fuels ” (front page, Aug. 14):

The minuscule changes in policy positions of Republicans acknowledging that climate change is, at least in part, human-caused are an example of cynicism on steroids. It is not because they now understand the science better. It is because the position of denial is so out of step that it’s untenable, even for Republicans comfortable with the Big Lie.

They remain comfortable with another big lie — that we can continue burning fossil fuels and still be OK. They will trot out glib phrases meant to dismiss concern about emissions. They will try any spin to protect fossil fuel interests. Now that they are acknowledging the reality of human-caused climate change, protecting Big Oil is a stunning display of callous cynicism toward the citizens facing climate disasters.

Republicans already know that a carbon tax would reduce emissions and avoid an economic downturn, but they won’t support it until public opinion gives them no choice.

Gary M. Stewart Laguna Beach, Calif.

In an unintended way, Senator Bill Cassidy is absolutely correct when he says, “We cannot live without fossil fuels or chemicals, period, end of story.”

If this level of policy analysis continues to prevail on Capitol Hill, it is “end of story.” Of course we can’t shut down the petrochemical industry overnight, but we must transition quickly to a clean energy economy. The technology exists to do this. What doesn’t exist yet is the political will of the majority of our representatives, Republican and Democrat, to break away from their corporate benefactors and move quickly toward power generation that does not burn fossil fuels.

People, you and I, must get involved to get the message through to our politicians. Otherwise, “end of story” is an apt characterization for our planet.

John Burr Jacksonville, Fla.

• ENVIRONMENT

How global warming is disrupting life on Earth

The signs of global warming are everywhere, and are more complex than just climbing temperatures.

Our planet is getting hotter. Since the Industrial Revolution—an event that spurred the use of fossil fuels in everything from power plants to transportation—Earth has warmed by 1 degree Celsius, about 2 degrees Fahrenheit.  

That may sound insignificant, but 2023 was the hottest year on record , and all 10 of the hottest years on record have occurred in the past decade.  

Global warming and climate change are often used interchangeably as synonyms, but scientists prefer to use “climate change” when describing the complex shifts now affecting our planet’s weather and climate systems.  

Climate change encompasses not only rising average temperatures but also natural disasters, shifting wildlife habitats, rising seas , and a range of other impacts. All of these changes are emerging as humans continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gases , like carbon dioxide and methane, to the atmosphere.

What causes global warming?

When fossil fuel emissions are pumped into the atmosphere, they change the chemistry of our atmosphere, allowing sunlight to reach the Earth but preventing heat from being released into space. This keeps Earth warm, like a greenhouse, and this warming is known as the greenhouse effect .  

Carbon dioxide is the most commonly found greenhouse gas and about 75 percent of all the climate warming pollution in the atmosphere. This gas is a product of producing and burning oil, gas, and coal. About a quarter of Carbon dioxide also results from land cleared for timber or agriculture.  

Methane is another common greenhouse gas. Although it makes up only about 16 percent of emissions, it's roughly 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide and dissipates more quickly. That means methane can cause a large spark in warming, but ending methane pollution can also quickly limit the amount of atmospheric warming. Sources of this gas include agriculture (mostly livestock), leaks from oil and gas production, and waste from landfills.  

What are the effects of global warming?  

One of the most concerning impacts of global warming is the effect warmer temperatures will have on Earth's polar regions and mountain glaciers. The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet. This warming reduces critical ice habitat and it disrupts the flow of the jet stream, creating more unpredictable weather patterns around the globe.  

( Learn more about the jet stream. )

A warmer planet doesn't just raise temperatures. Precipitation is becoming more extreme as the planet heats. For every degree your thermometer rises, the air holds about seven percent more moisture. This increase in moisture in the atmosphere can produce flash floods, more destructive hurricanes, and even paradoxically, stronger snow storms.  

The world's leading scientists regularly gather to review the latest research on how the planet is changing. The results of this review is synthesized in regularly published reports known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.  

A recent report outlines how disruptive a global rise in temperature can be:

• Coral reefs are now a highly endangered ecosystem. When corals face environmental stress, such as high heat, they expel their colorful algae and turn a ghostly white, an effect known as coral bleaching . In this weakened state, they more easily die.  
• Trees are increasingly dying from drought , and this mass mortality is reshaping forest ecosystems.
• Rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns are making wildfires more common and more widespread. Research shows they're even moving into the eastern U.S. where fires have historically been less common.
• Hurricanes are growing more destructive and dumping more rain, an effect that will result in more damage. Some scientists say we even need to be preparing for Cat 6 storms . (The current ranking system ends at Cat 5.)

How can we limit global warming?  

Limiting the rising in global warming is theoretically achievable, but politically, socially, and economically difficult.  

Those same sources of greenhouse gas emissions must be limited to reduce warming. For example, oil and gas used to generate electricity or power industrial manufacturing will need to be replaced by net zero emission technology like wind and solar power. Transportation, another major source of emissions, will need to integrate more electric vehicles, public transportation, and innovative urban design, such as safe bike lanes and walkable cities.  

( Learn more about solutions to limit global warming. )

One global warming solution that was once considered far fetched is now being taken more seriously: geoengineering. This type of technology relies on manipulating the Earth's atmosphere to physically block the warming rays of the sun or by sucking carbon dioxide straight out of the sky.

Restoring nature may also help limit warming. Trees, oceans, wetlands, and other ecosystems help absorb excess carbon—but when they're lost, so too is their potential to fight climate change.  

Ultimately, we'll need to adapt to warming temperatures, building homes to withstand sea level rise for example, or more efficiently cooling homes during heat waves.  

For Hungry Minds

Related topics.

• CLIMATE CHANGE
• ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION
• POLAR REGIONS

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10 (page 173) p. 173 Conclusion

• Published: November 2008
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The ‘Conclusion’ confirms that global warming is the major challenge for our global society. There is very little doubt that global warming will change our climate in the next century. So what are the solutions to global warming? First, there must be an international political solution. Second, funding for developing cheap and clean energy production must be increased, as all economic development is based on increasing energy usage. We must not pin all our hopes on global politics and clean energy technology, so we must prepare for the worst and adapt. If implemented now, a lot of the costs and damage that could be caused by changing climate can be mitigated.

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Global warming.

The causes, effects, and complexities of global warming are important to understand so that we can fight for the health of our planet.

Earth Science, Climatology

Tennessee Power Plant

Ash spews from a coal-fueled power plant in New Johnsonville, Tennessee, United States.

Photograph by Emory Kristof/ National Geographic

Global warming is the long-term warming of the planet’s overall temperature. Though this warming trend has been going on for a long time, its pace has significantly increased in the last hundred years due to the burning of fossil fuels . As the human population has increased, so has the volume of fossil fuels burned. Fossil fuels include coal, oil, and natural gas, and burning them causes what is known as the “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s atmosphere.

The greenhouse effect is when the sun’s rays penetrate the atmosphere, but when that heat is reflected off the surface cannot escape back into space. Gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels prevent the heat from leaving the atmosphere. These greenhouse gasses are carbon dioxide , chlorofluorocarbons, water vapor , methane , and nitrous oxide . The excess heat in the atmosphere has caused the average global temperature to rise overtime, otherwise known as global warming.

Global warming has presented another issue called climate change. Sometimes these phrases are used interchangeably, however, they are different. Climate change refers to changes in weather patterns and growing seasons around the world. It also refers to sea level rise caused by the expansion of warmer seas and melting ice sheets and glaciers . Global warming causes climate change, which poses a serious threat to life on Earth in the forms of widespread flooding and extreme weather. Scientists continue to study global warming and its impact on Earth.

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Essay on Global Warming

• Updated on  
• Apr 27, 2024

Being able to write an essay is an integral part of mastering any language. Essays form an integral part of many academic and scholastic exams like the SAT , and UPSC amongst many others. It is a crucial evaluative part of English proficiency tests as well like IELTS , TOEFL , etc. Major essays are meant to emphasize public issues of concern that can have significant consequences on the world. To understand the concept of Global Warming and its causes and effects, we must first examine the many factors that influence the planet’s temperature and what this implies for the world’s future. Here’s an unbiased look at the essay on Global Warming and other essential related topics.

Short Essay on Global Warming and Climate Change?

Since the industrial and scientific revolutions, Earth’s resources have been gradually depleted. Furthermore, the start of the world’s population’s exponential expansion is particularly hard on the environment. Simply put, as the population’s need for consumption grows, so does the use of natural resources , as well as the waste generated by that consumption.

Climate change has been one of the most significant long-term consequences of this. Climate change is more than just the rise or fall of global temperatures; it also affects rain cycles, wind patterns, cyclone frequencies, sea levels, and other factors. It has an impact on all major life groupings on the planet.

Also Read: World Population Day

What is Global Warming?

Global warming is the unusually rapid increase in Earth’s average surface temperature over the past century, primarily due to the greenhouse gases released by people burning fossil fuels . The greenhouse gases consist of methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, carbon dioxide, water vapour, and chlorofluorocarbons. The weather prediction has been becoming more complex with every passing year, with seasons more indistinguishable, and the general temperatures hotter.

The number of hurricanes, cyclones, droughts, floods, etc., has risen steadily since the onset of the 21st century. The supervillain behind all these changes is Global Warming. The name is quite self-explanatory; it means the rise in the temperature of the Earth.

Also Read: What is a Natural Disaster?

What are the Causes of Global Warming?

According to recent studies, many scientists believe the following are the primary four causes of global warming:

• Deforestation 
• Greenhouse emissions
• Carbon emissions per capita

Extreme global warming is causing natural disasters , which can be seen all around us. One of the causes of global warming is the extreme release of greenhouse gases that become trapped on the earth’s surface, causing the temperature to rise. Similarly, volcanoes contribute to global warming by spewing excessive CO2 into the atmosphere.

The increase in population is one of the major causes of Global Warming. This increase in population also leads to increased air pollution . Automobiles emit a lot of CO2, which remains in the atmosphere. This increase in population is also causing deforestation, which contributes to global warming.

The earth’s surface emits energy into the atmosphere in the form of heat, keeping the balance with the incoming energy. Global warming depletes the ozone layer, bringing about the end of the world. There is a clear indication that increased global warming will result in the extinction of all life on Earth’s surface.

Also Read: Land, Soil, Water, Natural Vegetation, and Wildlife Resources

Solutions for Global Warming

Of course, industries and multinational conglomerates emit more carbon than the average citizen. Nonetheless, activism and community effort are the only viable ways to slow the worsening effects of global warming. Furthermore, at the state or government level, world leaders must develop concrete plans and step-by-step programmes to ensure that no further harm is done to the environment in general.

Although we are almost too late to slow the rate of global warming, finding the right solution is critical. Everyone, from individuals to governments, must work together to find a solution to Global Warming. Some of the factors to consider are pollution control, population growth, and the use of natural resources.

One very important contribution you can make is to reduce your use of plastic. Plastic is the primary cause of global warming, and recycling it takes years. Another factor to consider is deforestation, which will aid in the control of global warming. More tree planting should be encouraged to green the environment. Certain rules should also govern industrialization. Building industries in green zones that affect plants and species should be prohibited.

Also Read: Essay on Pollution

Effects of Global Warming

Global warming is a real problem that many people want to disprove to gain political advantage. However, as global citizens, we must ensure that only the truth is presented in the media.

This decade has seen a significant impact from global warming. The two most common phenomena observed are glacier retreat and arctic shrinkage. Glaciers are rapidly melting. These are clear manifestations of climate change.

Another significant effect of global warming is the rise in sea level. Flooding is occurring in low-lying areas as a result of sea-level rise. Many countries have experienced extreme weather conditions. Every year, we have unusually heavy rain, extreme heat and cold, wildfires, and other natural disasters.

Similarly, as global warming continues, marine life is being severely impacted. This is causing the extinction of marine species as well as other problems. Furthermore, changes are expected in coral reefs, which will face extinction in the coming years. These effects will intensify in the coming years, effectively halting species expansion. Furthermore, humans will eventually feel the negative effects of Global Warming.

Also Read: Concept of Sustainable Development

Sample Essays on Global Warming

Here are some sample essays on Global Warming:

Essay on Global Warming Paragraph in 100 – 150 words

Global Warming is caused by the increase of carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere and is a result of human activities that have been causing harm to our environment for the past few centuries now. Global Warming is something that can’t be ignored and steps have to be taken to tackle the situation globally. The average temperature is constantly rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius over the last few years.

The best method to prevent future damage to the earth, cutting down more forests should be banned and Afforestation should be encouraged. Start by planting trees near your homes and offices, participate in events, and teach the importance of planting trees. It is impossible to undo the damage but it is possible to stop further harm.

Also Read: Social Forestry

Essay on Global Warming in 250 Words

Over a long period, it is observed that the temperature of the earth is increasing. This affected wildlife, animals, humans, and every living organism on earth. Glaciers have been melting, and many countries have started water shortages, flooding, and erosion and all this is because of global warming. 

No one can be blamed for global warming except for humans. Human activities such as gases released from power plants, transportation, and deforestation have increased gases such as carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other pollutants in the earth’s atmosphere.                                              The main question is how can we control the current situation and build a better world for future generations. It starts with little steps by every individual. 

Start using cloth bags made from sustainable materials for all shopping purposes, instead of using high-watt lights use energy-efficient bulbs, switch off the electricity, don’t waste water, abolish deforestation and encourage planting more trees. Shift the use of energy from petroleum or other fossil fuels to wind and solar energy. Instead of throwing out the old clothes donate them to someone so that it is recycled. 

Donate old books, don’t waste paper.  Above all, spread awareness about global warming. Every little thing a person does towards saving the earth will contribute in big or small amounts. We must learn that 1% effort is better than no effort. Pledge to take care of Mother Nature and speak up about global warming.

Also Read: Types of Water Pollution

Essay on Global Warming in 500 Words

Global warming isn’t a prediction, it is happening! A person denying it or unaware of it is in the most simple terms complicit. Do we have another planet to live on? Unfortunately, we have been bestowed with this one planet only that can sustain life yet over the years we have turned a blind eye to the plight it is in. Global warming is not an abstract concept but a global phenomenon occurring ever so slowly even at this moment. Global Warming is a phenomenon that is occurring every minute resulting in a gradual increase in the Earth’s overall climate. Brought about by greenhouse gases that trap the solar radiation in the atmosphere, global warming can change the entire map of the earth, displacing areas, flooding many countries, and destroying multiple lifeforms. Extreme weather is a direct consequence of global warming but it is not an exhaustive consequence. There are virtually limitless effects of global warming which are all harmful to life on earth. The sea level is increasing by 0.12 inches per year worldwide. This is happening because of the melting of polar ice caps because of global warming. This has increased the frequency of floods in many lowland areas and has caused damage to coral reefs. The Arctic is one of the worst-hit areas affected by global warming. Air quality has been adversely affected and the acidity of the seawater has also increased causing severe damage to marine life forms. Severe natural disasters are brought about by global warming which has had dire effects on life and property. As long as mankind produces greenhouse gases, global warming will continue to accelerate. The consequences are felt at a much smaller scale which will increase to become drastic shortly. The power to save the day lies in the hands of humans, the need is to seize the day. Energy consumption should be reduced on an individual basis. Fuel-efficient cars and other electronics should be encouraged to reduce the wastage of energy sources. This will also improve air quality and reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Global warming is an evil that can only be defeated when fought together. It is better late than never. If we all take steps today, we will have a much brighter future tomorrow. Global warming is the bane of our existence and various policies have come up worldwide to fight it but that is not enough. The actual difference is made when we work at an individual level to fight it. Understanding its import now is crucial before it becomes an irrevocable mistake. Exterminating global warming is of utmost importance and each one of us is as responsible for it as the next.  

Also Read: Essay on Library: 100, 200 and 250 Words

Essay on Global Warming UPSC

Always hear about global warming everywhere, but do we know what it is? The evil of the worst form, global warming is a phenomenon that can affect life more fatally. Global warming refers to the increase in the earth’s temperature as a result of various human activities. The planet is gradually getting hotter and threatening the existence of lifeforms on it. Despite being relentlessly studied and researched, global warming for the majority of the population remains an abstract concept of science. It is this concept that over the years has culminated in making global warming a stark reality and not a concept covered in books. Global warming is not caused by one sole reason that can be curbed. Multifarious factors cause global warming most of which are a part of an individual’s daily existence. Burning of fuels for cooking, in vehicles, and for other conventional uses, a large amount of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, and methane amongst many others is produced which accelerates global warming. Rampant deforestation also results in global warming as lesser green cover results in an increased presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which is a greenhouse gas.  Finding a solution to global warming is of immediate importance. Global warming is a phenomenon that has to be fought unitedly. Planting more trees can be the first step that can be taken toward warding off the severe consequences of global warming. Increasing the green cover will result in regulating the carbon cycle. There should be a shift from using nonrenewable energy to renewable energy such as wind or solar energy which causes less pollution and thereby hinder the acceleration of global warming. Reducing energy needs at an individual level and not wasting energy in any form is the most important step to be taken against global warming. The warning bells are tolling to awaken us from the deep slumber of complacency we have slipped into. Humans can fight against nature and it is high time we acknowledged that. With all our scientific progress and technological inventions, fighting off the negative effects of global warming is implausible. We have to remember that we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors but borrow it from our future generations and the responsibility lies on our shoulders to bequeath them a healthy planet for life to exist. 

Also Read: Essay on Disaster Management

Climate Change and Global Warming Essay

Global Warming and Climate Change are two sides of the same coin. Both are interrelated with each other and are two issues of major concern worldwide. Greenhouse gases released such as carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other pollutants in the earth’s atmosphere cause Global Warming which leads to climate change. Black holes have started to form in the ozone layer that protects the earth from harmful ultraviolet rays. 

Human activities have created climate change and global warming. Industrial waste and fumes are the major contributors to global warming. 

Another factor affecting is the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and also one of the reasons for climate change.  Global warming has resulted in shrinking mountain glaciers in Antarctica, Greenland, and the Arctic and causing climate change. Switching from the use of fossil fuels to energy sources like wind and solar. 

When buying any electronic appliance buy the best quality with energy savings stars. Don’t waste water and encourage rainwater harvesting in your community. 

Also Read: Essay on Air Pollution

Tips to Write an Essay

Writing an effective essay needs skills that few people possess and even fewer know how to implement. While writing an essay can be an assiduous task that can be unnerving at times, some key pointers can be inculcated to draft a successful essay. These involve focusing on the structure of the essay, planning it out well, and emphasizing crucial details.

Mentioned below are some pointers that can help you write better structure and more thoughtful essays that will get across to your readers:

• Prepare an outline for the essay to ensure continuity and relevance and no break in the structure of the essay
• Decide on a thesis statement that will form the basis of your essay. It will be the point of your essay and help readers understand your contention
• Follow the structure of an introduction, a detailed body followed by a conclusion so that the readers can comprehend the essay in a particular manner without any dissonance.
• Make your beginning catchy and include solutions in your conclusion to make the essay insightful and lucrative to read
• Reread before putting it out and add your flair to the essay to make it more personal and thereby unique and intriguing for readers  

Also Read: I Love My India Essay: 100 and 500+ Words in English for School Students

Ans. Both natural and man-made factors contribute to global warming. The natural one also contains methane gas, volcanic eruptions, and greenhouse gases. Deforestation, mining, livestock raising, burning fossil fuels, and other man-made causes are next.

Ans. The government and the general public can work together to stop global warming. Trees must be planted more often, and deforestation must be prohibited. Auto usage needs to be curbed, and recycling needs to be promoted.

Ans. Switching to renewable energy sources , adopting sustainable farming, transportation, and energy methods, and conserving water and other natural resources.

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Digvijay Singh

Having 2+ years of experience in educational content writing, withholding a Bachelor's in Physical Education and Sports Science and a strong interest in writing educational content for students enrolled in domestic and foreign study abroad programmes. I believe in offering a distinct viewpoint to the table, to help students deal with the complexities of both domestic and foreign educational systems. Through engaging storytelling and insightful analysis, I aim to inspire my readers to embark on their educational journeys, whether abroad or at home, and to make the most of every learning opportunity that comes their way.

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This was really a good essay on global warming… There has been used many unic words..and I really liked it!!!Seriously I had been looking for a essay about Global warming just like this…

Thank you for the comment!

I want to learn how to write essay writing so I joined this page.This page is very useful for everyone.

Hi, we are glad that we could help you to write essays. We have a beginner’s guide to write essays ( https://leverageedu.com/blog/essay-writing/ ) and we think this might help you.

It is not good , to have global warming in our earth .So we all have to afforestation program on all the world.

thank you so much

Very educative , helpful and it is really going to strength my English knowledge to structure my essay in future

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Global warming is the increase in 𝓽𝓱𝓮 ᴀᴠᴇʀᴀɢᴇ ᴛᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴀᴛᴜʀᴇs ᴏғ ᴇᴀʀᴛʜ🌎 ᴀᴛᴍᴏsᴘʜᴇʀᴇ

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