Europe's environment: the third assessment - Climate change
Global and European average temperatures are increasing, sea levels are rising, glaciers are melting, and the frequencies of extreme weather events and precipitation are changing. Most of the warming can be attributed to emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities.
Climate change is expected to have widespread consequences including an increased risk of floods, and impacts on natural ecosystems, biodiversity, human health and water resources as well as on economic sectors such as forestry, agriculture (food productivity), tourism and the insurance industry.
Climate change is addressed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the Kyoto protocol set binding targets for industrialised countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The protocol is a first step towards the more substantial global reductions (about 50 % by the middle of the 21st century) that will be needed to reach the long-term objective of achieving ‘sustainable’ atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
Authors
Specifications
- Publication title
- Climate change
- Publication date
- 1 January 2003
- Publication type
- Publication
- Magazine
- In: European Environment Agency. Europe's environment: the third assessment. Copenhagen: EEA, 2003;91-111 (Environmental assessment report 10)
- Product number
- 90978