Environmental Crisis

Environmental crisis

It was relatively difficult to choose one ecological issue at the time when ecological crisis acquired an international character. So I’ve chosen an issue that has a global impact and is caused by overall climate changes as a result of development in human behaviour, and the theme is glacial melting. I realise that such a case is nothing new to write about, nevertheless, if we’re thoroughly conscious of this problem, why aren’t we more anxious? I believe that people should be more aware of this issue and as a consequence, avoid certain behaviours that indirectly cause melting of glaciers.

Naturally, there is a policy on climate change which is engaged with several climate change strategies, where reducing greenhouse gas emission is a priority objective. I’ll be talking primarily about European Union plans for monitoring those emissions, specifically carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide etc. The purpose is to reduce the production of gases by 20% until year 2020 and thus prevent the global warming. The best way to avoid the emissions of CO2 is to have cleaner and better balanced transport. Not only to reduce impact of road and air transport but also to build up rail, maritime and waterway transport and it’s intermodality. Another step towards reducing emissions is to induce companies to cut down the impact of their activities on the environment. The main international legal instrument how to accomplish that is The Kyoto Protocol through which we can combat the climate change. It applies to EU member states which use market-based instruments to diminish the economic costs of reducing emissions. The state is obliged to fulfil the duties and objectives arising from the Kyoto Protocol, but the mechanism as such is not as efficient as planned, the governments must do much more to attain more satisfactory results.

Equally important is the issue of livestock. Effect of carbon