Understanding Climate Change: Causes, Impacts, Policies and Actions

Climate change is already happening in the world today. Global warming leading to melting of polar icebergs and snow covers is seen today and causes the sea level to rise. Extreme weather conditions have also become the new norms. Consequently, life on earth is affected, mostly with negative outcomes. Human activities that emit three primary greenhouse gases (GHG), namely carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are found to be the principal causes of climate change. As such, there is an urgent need for concerted efforts by mankind to limit and abate the emission of these gases in order to slow down climate change. At the international level, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which is a UN based institution, has been setting up policies and actions to abate climate change. It is presently coordinating actions to limit a global temperature rise to below 1.5oC. Malaysia is a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) climate treaty in 1992 and is doing her part to contribute to this agenda. In this respect, Malaysia has pledged to maintain at least 50 per cent of the landmass perpetually under forest cover. Malaysia also pledged to reduce the GHG emissions intensity of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 45 per cent by 2030 relative to the emissions intensity of GDP in 2005 for the country at COP21 (Conference of Parties) in 2015. Keywords: Climate change, greenhouse gas, global warming, sea level rise, El Nino, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change