The year 2020 was one of the three warmest on record, and rivalled 2016 for the top spot, according to a consolidation of five leading international datasets by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

              All five datasets surveyed by WMO concur that 2011-2020 was the warmest decade on record, in a persistent long-term climate change trend. The warmest six years have all been since 2015, with 2016, 2019 and 2020 being the top three. 

          Temperature is just one of the indicators of climate change. The others are: greenhouse gas concentrations; ocean heat content; ocean pH; global mean sea level; glacial mass; sea ice extent and extreme events

         India has formed a panel to implement India’s targets under the Paris Climate Agreement, which completes five years this month. While India is on target to achieve its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution — efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impact of the climate crisis — it needs to be more proactive in moving away from coal and stop investing in projects that erode its natural resource base; invest in climate-resilient infrastructure, green mobility, renewable energy; and ensure that planning, implementing and monitoring process is climate-resilient.  Building a climate-resilient future is not just a policy test; for every country, it’s now a moral test as well.

       LEARNING FROM HOME/ WITHOUT CLASSES/ BASICS

UNFCCC: It was concluded at Rio de Janeiro during the Earth Summit conference in June 1992. It was the first global attempt to control the green house emission of the developed countries. The convention also provided for holding annual conferences of parties (COP) in order to negotiate and conclude a legally binding convention. Kyoto Protocol was concluded in December 1997 during COP-3 meet. It was the first successful attempt made to impose legally binding obligations on the industrialized countries to cut down their green house emission by at least 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2009-2012.

        The Kyoto Protocol, was adopted in 1997, is an international agreement, which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC), that aimed to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and the presence of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere. The essential tenet of the Kyoto Protocol was that industrialized nations needed to lessen the amount of their CO2 emissions; recognizing that the developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of Greenhouse Gas (GHGs) in the atmosphere. 

            Since  UNFCCC seeks to stabilise Green House Gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would minimize interference with the climate system, the global community had in December, 2015 adopted another agreement in Paris which is meant for being operationalised post-2020 (end of the KP’s second commitment period).
            Unlike the KP which requires only developed countries to take mandatory actions, the Paris Agreement mandates all countries to take action to minimise the impact of climate change as per their voluntary commitments and individual capacity.

        CLIMATE CHANGE:  Climate Change refers to any change in climate over time whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity.             The term is commonly used interchangeably with global warming and green house effects and refers to increasing concentration of green house gases in the atmosphere that traps sun’s heat causes changes in weather pattern on a global scale.

         Greenhouse gases allow sunlight (shortwave radiation) to pass through the atmosphere freely, where it is then partially absorbed by the surface of the Earth. Greenhouse gases are able to trap heat (longwave radiation) in the atmosphere, keeping the Earth’s surface warmer than it would be if they were not present. These gases are the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. Increases in the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere enhances the greenhouse effect which is creating global warming and consequently climate change.
 So the more greenhouse gases you have in the atmosphere, the more heat stays on Earth. The principal forcing greenhouse gases are:

Carbon dioxide (CO2)
Methane (CH4)
Nitrous oxide (N2O)
Fluorinated gases

Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth’s climate system observed since the pre-industrial period (between 1850 and 1900) due to human activities, primarily fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere. The term is frequently used interchangeably with the term climate change, though the latter refers to both human- and naturally produced warming and the effects it has on our planet.