2. Climate Change: What Is in the Name

Climate change is a very well-discussed phenomenon. Still, we appear to be shocked when we hear about it. By climate change, we understand detrimental effects in environment – emission of pollutants, temperature rise, precipitation change, sea level rise, flooding, intensified cyclones, abrupt frequency of events, ozone layer depletion, biodiversity loss, vegetation change, and drought – almost all negative impacts. Indeed, climate change is an umbrella concept. Scientific evidence that humans were changing the climate first emerged in the international public arena in 1979 at the First World Climate Conference (WCC) (Depledge J, Lamb R. Caring for climate: a guide to the climate change convention and the Kyoto protocol. Climate Change Secretariat (UNFCCC), Bonn, Germany. 27 pp, 2005). Since then, it did not take long to reveal the dreadful consequences of climate change. By 1988, when IPCC was formed, the dangerous consequences of climate change became clearer.