ABSTRACT
Climate change has been a trending issue of major concern to all mankind. Change in the world climate system has affected virtually all aspects of human endeavours around the globe. The warming of the global system has increasingly occasioned a lot of natural and anthropogenic disasters ranging from melting of the polar ice caps to flooding, incessant earthquakes and landslides amongst other extreme events. Hence, the need to find lasting solutions to this intractable problem becomes necessary otherwise more devastating harms will occur and human beings who are the major causative agents and victims will continue to suffer. Recourse has been made to climate change laws and policies by setting up the same to either abate the rate of anthropogenic activities carried out by mankind through mitigation or cushion the effects of the climate change by adaptation. However, due to the soft nature of climate change laws and policies which makes them almost unenforceable, recourse has also been had to environmental law and policy by implications to complement or add flesh to the bone of climate change law and policies. Therefore, climate laws and policies which have been specifically devised or designated to control climate change have contributed little or nothing in mitigation of climate change. Environmental law and policy on its part have impliedly been resorted to for the control of climate change but unfortunately have not made any significant headway towards climate change mitigation. This research inter alia evaluates the impacts of environmental law and policy in climate change mitigation. The research also discusses the processes and procedures for climate change mitigation. This research finds out among others that climate change law and policies per se cannot achieve climate mitigation neither do environmental law and policies be sufficient enough to control climate change. We recommend inter alia that anthropogenic global warming and climate change should be incorporated expressly in all environmental laws for the consolidation and unification of both Climate and environmental law and policy as an effective measure to mitigate climate change.
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Climate change is a long-term shift in weather conditions identified by changes in temperature, precipitation, winds, and other indicators. Climate change can involve both changes in average conditions and changes in variability, including; for example, extreme events.[1] The earth’s climate is naturally variable on all time scales. However, its long-term state and average temperature are regulated by the balance between incoming and outgoing energy, which determines the Earth’s energy balance. Any factor that causes a sustained change to the amount of incoming energy or the amount of outgoing energy can lead to climate change. As these factors are external to the climate system, they are referred to as ‘climate forcers’, invoking the idea that they force or push the climate towards a new long-term state – either warmer or cooler depending on the cause of change.[2] Different factors operate on different time scales, and not all of those factors that have been responsible for changes in earth’s climate in the distant past are relevant to contemporary climate change. Factors that cause climate change can be divided into two categories Â- those related to natural processes and those related to human activity. In addition to natural causes of climate change, changes internal to the climate system, such as variations in ocean currents or atmospheric circulation, can also influence the climate for short periods of time. This natural internal climate variability is superimposed on the long-term forced climate change.[3]
1.1. Background of the Study
It is no longer news that that global climate system is warming uncontrollably due to anthropogenic activities of human beings. Unfortunately, human beings who are the major causative agents of climate are also the victims of its devastating effects. It is against this backdrop we seek to evaluate the causes and effects of this adverse change of our climate system and proffers some processes and procedures by which mankind that are also the causative agents can mitigate the effects of climate change and/or adapt to it. The path of environmental law has come to a cliff called climate change, and there is no turning around as climate change policy dialogue emerged in the 1990s, however, the perceived urgency of attention to mitigation strategies designed to regulate sources of greenhouse gas emissions quickly snuffed out meaningful progress on the formulation of adaptation strategies designed to respond to the effects of climate change on humans and the environment. Only recently has this “adaptation deficit” become a concern now actively included in climate change policy debate. Previously, treating talk of adaptation as taboo, the climate change policy world has begrudgingly accepted it into the fold as the reality of failed efforts to achieve global mitigation policy has combined with the scientific evidence that committed warming will continue the trend of climate change well into the future regardless of mitigation policy success. But we do not expect adaptation policy to play out for environmental law the way mitigation policy has and is likely to continue.
