Thesis on "Environmental Science Global Warming"

Thesis 6 pages (1964 words) Sources: 5 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Environmental Science

Global Warming

Over the last 200 years, the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, and deforestation has caused the concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases to increase significantly in our atmosphere. These gases prevent heat from escaping the earth, just like the glass panels of a greenhouse. Greenhouse gases are necessary because they keep the planet's surface warmer than it otherwise would be. But, as the concentrations of these gases continue to increase in the atmosphere, the Earth's temperature is climbing to dangerous levels. According to the experts the Earth's average surface temperature has increased by about 1.2 to 1.4°F over the last 100 years. The eight warmest years ever recorded have all occurred since 1998, with the warmest year being 2005. It is thought that most of the warming in recent decades is very likely the result of human activities. Other aspects of the climate are also changing such as rainfall patterns, snow and ice cover, and sea level (Climate Change, 2009).

If greenhouse gases continue to rise, many climate models predict that the average temperature at the Earth's surface could increase from 3.2 to 7.2°F above 1990 levels as early as the end of this century. Scientists are fairly certain that human activities are changing the composition of the atmosphere. They believe that increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases will change the planet's climate. What they are not certain about is how much it will change, at what rate it will change, or what the exact effects of the change will be (Climate Change, 2009).

Global warming is a major problem that we all face today and the longer that it continues the worse consequences that we are going to face. Greenhouse gasses are building in the atmosphere everyday causing the planet as a whole to get warmer. There needs to be a global wide effort to try and reduce greenhouse gas emission for the sake of everyone.

Greenhouse gases are gasses that naturally blanket the Earth and keep it warm. These gasses include: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorocarbons. Over the past century, the Earth's temperature has risen by about .5 degrees Celsius. Many scientists believe this is because of an increase in the concentration of the main greenhouse gases. The change that has been happening in the climate over the past century is being referred to as Global Warming. Fears are that if people keep producing these gases at increasing rates, the results of Global Warming will be disastrous. Some of the negative things they say that might occur include: more severe floods and droughts, increasing prevalence of insects, rising sea levels, and a disruption in the Earth's precipitation. It is felt that these changes to the environment will most likely cause negative effects on society, such as poorer health and decreasing economic development (Hopwood and Cohen, n.d.).

Naturally, if there are more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the greenhouse effect will become more significant and raise the temperature of Earth even more. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations (NOAA), there is no doubt that both land and ocean surface temperatures have gone up significantly in the last 100 years. This fact supports the trend of global warming, but does not recognize a source for it. The director of the NOAA's geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab, feels that there is no credible reason for the fact that the Earths surface temperature has warmed about one degree Fahrenheit in the last 100 years, other than the effects of greenhouse gases. The planet is heating up and the evidence suggests that human activities are a significant cause. The leading authority around the world on global warming is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is a United Nations sponsored organization made up of 2500 scientists from around the world. They have concluded that the evidence suggests that human influence has had a tremendous impact on the global climate. They have projected that global warming will have severe impacts on human health, natural ecosystems, agriculture, and coastal communities if it continues as its present pace. All of this evidence supports the common belief that Global Warming is occurring due to an increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere including carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and HFC (Hopwood and Cohen, n.d).

Cap and trade is an environmental policy tool that brings about results with a mandatory cap on emissions while providing sources flexibility in how they comply. Cap and Trade programs that have been successful reward innovation, efficiency, and early action and provide strict environmental accountability without inhibiting economic growth. Some examples of successful cap and trade programs include the nationwide Acid Rain Program and the regional NOx Budget Trading Program in the Northeast. Also the EPA has issued the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) in March 2005, in order to build on the success of these programs and achieve significant additional emission reductions (Cap and Trade, 2009).

These existing cap-and-trade programs provide important lessons about the need for robust design features. The first lesson is that a cap must be tight enough to achieve significant cuts in emissions. The second lesson is that the method regulators select for distributing emission allowances to firms is critical, and auctioning is gaining favor as the preferred approach (Existing Cap-and-Trade Programs to Cut Global Warming Emissions, 2009).

The European Union's Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) was the first cap-and-trade program put in place for reducing heat-trapping emissions. It was designed to help European nations meet their commitments to the Kyoto Protocol. The program includes 27 countries and all large industrial facilities, including those that generate electricity, refine petroleum, and produce iron, steel, cement, glass, and paper. The first phase of the EU ETS that ran from 2005 to 2007 drew a lot of criticism for not achieving substantial cuts in emissions, and for giving firms windfall profits by distributing carbon allowances for free. Even though these criticisms were valid, the EU viewed Phase 1 as a trial learning period. The point of Phase 2, which runs from 2008 to 2012, will be the true test of whether the program will help Europe fulfill its Kyoto commitments (Existing Cap-and-Trade Programs to Cut Global Warming Emissions, 2009).

Phase 1 of the program allowed countries to auction up to only 5% of allowances. Phase 2 permits slightly more auctioning; which experts believe will take place. The rules for Phase 3, which takes place from 2012 to 2020, were published in December 2008. This phase aims for a 20% reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. This target is considerably lower because of the large amount of offsets allowed from outside the capped region. Auctioning of allowances is not expected to play a major role. This experience supports the fact that the United States would be much more likely to win stronger commitments from the EU and elsewhere if it fulfilled its responsibility to lead the way on climate policy (Existing Cap-and-Trade Programs to Cut Global Warming Emissions, 2009).

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a cap-and-trade program that covers the sector of electricity generation. This covers 10 northeastern and Mid-Atlantic States. The program is looking to achieve a 10% reduction in emissions from power plants by 2018.

The program's most notable feature is that the states unanimously chose auctioning to distribute the vast majority of emission allowances. S ix of the ten states will auction nearly 100% of their allowances. The auctions of the other four states include fairly small portions of fixed-price sales or direct allocations (Existing Cap-and-Trade Programs to Cut Global Warming Emissions, 2009).

The program's compliance period began in 2009 and is scheduled to run for three years. The first multistate auctions occurred in 2008. The first auction, which incorporated allowances from only six states, raised $38.5 million, while the second raised $106.5 million. States and electric utilities will invest the vast majority of those funds in energy efficiency and renewable technologies, with an emphasis on reducing demand for fossil fuel -- based electricity and saving consumer's money (Existing Cap-and-Trade Programs to Cut Global Warming Emissions, 2009).

The RGGI auctions always set a reserve price, in order to ensure that CO2 emissions will always carry a minimum cost, and that the auctions will yield a minimum amount of revenue for these important programs. Many analysts fear that the states may have set the cap too high, because emissions have not grown at the rate expected when the cap was set in 2005. This sets up the idea that there is a possibility that the states could revisit the cap (Existing Cap-and-Trade Programs to Cut Global Warming Emissions, 2009).

Cap-and-trade programs which are also known as allowance trading can be best summed up as pollution credits. What happens is that overall air quality goals are set for an area such as the entire nation and specific sources of air pollution such as power plants and waste incineration facilities are given a certain number of… READ MORE

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