Human-induced climate change is one of the gravest threats yet to the continued existence of people and the earth's many ecosystems. Last year is being coined as the "year of severe weather events" as regions were pummelled with hurricanes, floods, typhoons, wildfires and ice storms. A year earlier in Kyoto industrialized countries accepted the evidence for human-induced climate change and vowed to reach emission reduction targets laid out in the then newly minted Kyoto Protocol. However, implementation of the Protocol is posing significant challenges partly because it requires an unprecedented level of collaboration between governments, the private sector and the public.

Climate change highlights issues of equity. Most industrialized countries have high per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and need to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels as well as conserve and improve carbon sinks like forests and wetlands. Developing countries, whose per capita emissions are generally much lower, are concerned with meeting the immediate energy needs of their people rather than reducing their emissions. Overall emissions are rapidly rising in some developing regions, but their future participation in the Kyoto Protocol is expected.

Signatories to the Kyoto Protocol are trying to reach their targets at home. Strategies include an array of methods—mitigation through emission reduction at the source, incentives to business, research into new technologies, taxation and voluntary agreements with GHG emitters to name some. The Protocol also established three mechanisms to encourage international cooperation and action, though it is still not clear how these mechanisms will actually work.

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In Depth
	Rayner, Stever and Elizabeth L. Malone, eds. Human choice and climate change. Columbus, Ohio: Battelle Press, 1998. 4 v.
Virtual Ideas
	Centre for Science and Environment. Climate Change Web site IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin coverage of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process Weathervane: Digital Forum on Global Climate Policy

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