L'impact Du réchauffement Climatique Sur Les Relations Internationales (en Anglais)

Introduction:

In the 19th century, thanks to scientific discoveries about the global warming of two physicists, Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier with his Analytical theory of heat published in 1822 and Svante August Arrhenius with his article on The influence of Carbonic Acides in the Air upon the Temperature of te Ground published in 1896 in the Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, the humanity discover for the first time the greenhouse effect. But it's only in the 20th century that the environmental problems and in particularly the global warming, became a preoccupation for policies and states which leaded the international community to open the debate.

In this essay, we question about the consequences of this debate in the place of international relations if it create more cooperation and/or conflict between states?

The essay will be articulated in two parts, first I will explain what it's the global warming and the greenhouse effect, where this problem come from, and what are the impacts on the environment, and on human. Secondly I will demonstrate in which way this problem create cooperation and/or conflict between states giving example and conclude with an overview which answers to my problematic.

In order to be the more precise as possible, the entire essay is based on academicals resources, and reports of different international organizations.

Part I: The global warming, this origin and impact.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): “the global warming or climate change or global, is defined as the increase in the average temperature of the oceans and the atmosphere, globally and over several years ”. But what is the effect which leads to the increment of the average of temperatures? This effect it's called the greenhouse effect, the greenhouse gases as Water vapor (H2 O), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2 O), methane (CH4), and ozone (O3), which are the primary greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, keep a part of sun's rays, and help to the stability of temperature’s averages inside the atmosphere. Moreover there are a number of entirely human-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as the halocarbons and other chlorine and bromine containing substances. The problem starts when these gases are too present in the atmosphere, because they keep too much sun’s rays and leads to an increment of the temperatures.

As we said the causes of global warming are numerous, and both natural and anthropogenic, but what is the main cause of the acceleration of global warming this last years? According to the majority of scientists global warming is largely attributed to the greenhouse effect due to human activities. The concentration of CO2 reaches 380 ppm at the end of the last century when for over a two hundred years, it has varied between 200 and 280 ppm. This is certainly due to the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, petroleum, pollutant emissions from industry and transport as well as the destruction of the great equatorial forests. In 2007 the Working Group 1 contribution to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, says: “Global atmospheric concentrations of CO2, CH4 and N2O have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 (…) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations” . So we can say that the human activities are the main cause of the acceleration of global warming since the industrial revolution due to the massive use of fossil fuels, according to the IPCC report in 2007. These last 100 years (1906-2005) the trend of the increment of temperatures is around 0.74°C ³, scientists announce that if we don’t start now to reduce our greenhouse gases the consequences will be irreversible.

Concerning the environmental impact of global warming, the IPCC plans the extinctions of several plant and animal species, the increment and/or the decrement of crop productivity depending of the regions, the increase of the sea level including coastal erosion, the increase of intense tropical cyclone activities and basically the general changing of the climate (heavy rainfall, dryness…). Several impacts which would have, of course, consequences on the human health and his activities, like the massive movement of population due to the increment of the sea level, the growth of natural disaster (flood, cyclone, dryness…), on health as well with the increase of malnutrition and various diseases, and on the economy (scarcity of some product, general increase of prices…). The possibility of such catastrophic situation has lead the international community to open the debate and cooperate in implement a series of measures against the global warming based on several conventions and protocols.

Part two: The effects of environmental problems through internationals relations.

The international cooperation about the global warming starts with the establishment of several Protocols, Conventions such as the Washington Convention in 1973 or the Montreal Protocol in 1987 and the Earth Summit each 10 years. Trough the negotiation period we can distinguish three main periods. The first period called the Pre-Kyoto with the Rio de Janeiro’s Earth Summit in 1992, where the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted by 131 countries, the second period is the Kyoto Protocol signed in 1997 and ratified by 141 states, it’s known at this day as the most important agreement concerning the global warming because it commits the participants to reduce their emissions of greenhouse

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