While the world's climate has always varied naturally, the vast majority of scientists now believe that rising concentrations of 'greenhouse gases' in the earth's atmosphere, resulting from economic and demographic growth over the last two centuries since the industrial revolution, are overriding this natural variability and leading to potentially irreversible climate change. The implications of "global warming" are far reaching, and include rises in sea levels, changes in rainfall patterns (increasing the threat of drought or floods in many regions) and a greater threat of extreme weather events, such as intense storms and heatwaves. Climate change could, therefore, have potentially dramatic negative impacts on human health, food security, economic activity, water resources, physical infrastructure and global biodiversity.

 

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 and came into force on 1994. The Convention set a non-binding goal for Contracting Parties to stabilise their greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. To this end, Parties were required to undertake necessary measures, including the submission of national inventories of greenhouse-gas emissions and removals, adoption of national programmes for mitigating climate change and developing strategies for adapting to its impacts, and promotion of technology transfer and the sustainable management, conservation, and enhancement of greenhouse gas sinks and 'reservoirs' (such as forests and oceans). In addition, Parties were required to take climate change into account in their relevant social, economic, and environmental policies; cooperate in scientific, technical, and educational matters; and promote education, public awareness, and the exchange of information related to climate change. However, in 1995 it was acknowledged that the commitment of Parties to take these measures was not adequate to achieve the aims of the Convention. As a result, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 to strengthen the obligations of the Convention. Under the Protocol, industrialized countries have a legally binding commitment to reduce their collective greenhouses gas emissions by at least 5% compared to 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012.

 

The UK ratified the Climate Change Convention in 1993 and the Kyoto Protocol in 2002. In November 2000, the UK Government published a national strategy for addressing climate change issues, providing details of how the UK plans to deliver its targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The UK's statutory nature conservation agencies and JNCC are considering the implications of climate change for nature conservation in the UK. The Inter-Agency Climate Change Group, formed by these agencies, works with partner organisations to identify and address the issues of significance for nature conservation.