International efforts to stop global warming are growing.
The effects of global warming have obvious international implications. Individual national efforts to thwart global warming, such as Germany's plans for an environmental competency center, are nearly as important as international efforts; however, world political and organizational leaders realize they must work together to find ways to prepare for and stop global warming.
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It is a treaty that was originally adopted in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan that commits its 37 international members to reduce greenhouse gases. The Protocol encourages and commits industrialized countries to reduce their greenhouse gases, because those countries are the countries who emit the most gases. Of the top five countries who release the most CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, the United States is the only country that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
The Earth System Science Partnership
The Earth System Science Partnership is a partnership under the International Council for Science. It studies the changes and implications of changes in the Earth's system of physical, chemical, biological, and social components. The ESSP partners with four other global change research programs: Diversitas, International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, World Climate Research Programme, and the International Human Dimensions Programme.
International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme works to research Earth System Dynamics and the implications of changes to those dynamics. The IGBP works to provide knowledge of its research to society so that it can respond to global environmental changes. The IGBP works on several initiatives but has three focused, fast track initiatives. Those initiatives are "Upper-Ocean Nutrient Limitation: processes, patterns and potential for change," "Regionalisation of the Nitrogen Visualisation Tool," and "Megacities and the Coastal Zone: air-sea interactions."
World Climate Research Programme
The World Climate Research Programme aims primarily to determine the predictability of the climate and to determine the effect of human activities on it. Some current projects of WCRP involve assessing and quantifying the impacts of climatic variability and change on the cryosphere, simulating the Earth's climate system, and studying the thermodynamic processes that determine the global and regional hydrological cycle and energy interactions.
International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change
The International Human Dimensions Programme works toward understanding the social dynamics that correspond to environmental change. The programme has ten projects, and its six core projects focus on the human-environment relationship, including environmental governance, industrial transformation, human security, and urbanization.
Diversitas
Diversitas professes that "Biodiversity underpins the life-support system of our planet." The program works to understand the inderdisciplinary sciences as they relate to the biodiversity of the planet, and offers strategic approaches toward reaching biodiversity goals when species decline due to human activity.
