Discuss global warming and mention its effects on the global climate. Explain the control measures to bring down the level of greenhouse gases which cause global warming, in the light of the Kyoto Protocol, 1997.

Global warming

• Solar short-wave energy reaches the surface; Earth emits long-wave infrared. Greenhouse gases absorb some of that infrared and re-radiate it, warming the lower atmosphere.
• Anthropogenic extra CO2 from fossil fuels and land-use change, CH4 from livestock, waste and leaks, and N2O from fertiliser thicken that blanket.
• IPCC-assessed warming relative to pre-industrial times is already more than a degree Celsius; the exact tenth is a moving measured quantity—do not invent a false precision here.
• Warming is uneven: land faster than ocean, Arctic faster than tropics.

Effects

• Cryosphere: glacier retreat (Himalayan water towers), ice-sheet loss, permafrost thaw that can release more methane.
• Oceans: thermal expansion and ice melt raise sea level; warmer water bleaches coral and lowers oxygen; CO2 itself causes acidification (a cousin problem).
• Weather: more intense heatwaves, shifting monsoon risk, heavier extreme rain, and compound drought–fire in some regions.
• Biosphere and food: crop heat stress, pest range shifts, fisheries moving poleward.
• People: coastal flooding, heat mortality, climate-related displacement, and security stress over water.
• Tipping elements (AMOC, rainforest dieback, ice sheets) are risks, not a calendar prediction.

Control measures in light of Kyoto 1997

• Kyoto (adopted 1997, entered into force 2005) bound Annex I parties to emission limitation or reduction over a first commitment period, with common but differentiated responsibilities relative to the 1992 UNFCCC.
• Flexible mechanisms: Emissions Trading, Joint Implementation, and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) so cuts could occur where cheaper, including projects in developing countries (India hosted many CDM projects: renewables, industrial gases).
• Domestic control toolkit consistent with that architecture: carbon price or trading, renewable standards, energy efficiency, forest sinks (Kyoto allowed land-use accounting with rules), and methane capture.
• Limits of Kyoto: the United States did not ratify; some targets were missed; aviation and much of shipping sat awkwardly; developing-country growth emissions were outside binding Annex I caps—hence Paris nationally determined contributions for all.
• India’s control path in that light: not an Annex I Kyoto cap, but CDM experience, later Panchamrit and non-fossil capacity, energy-efficiency missions, and a possible carbon market—Kyoto’s MRV and market tools without pretending India had a 1997 QELRC.

Continuity

• Measure, report, verify; put a cost on carbon; protect sinks. That is Kyoto’s lasting method. Paris changed who pledges, not the physics.