Negotiating climate change: The search for joint risk management

Abstract

That human activities play a role in climate warming is well known worldwide. It is the subject of global public opinion building and debate, intergovernmental decision making, and international negotiation. The widely shared concern about this issue is due to the negative, often catastrophic, consequences that are expected to result from climate warming. Atmospheric temperature increases may certainly improve living conditions for people in some parts of the world-for example, improving growing conditions for certain crops in some areas of northern Scandinavia. However, many more people are expected to be affected by climate-driven disasters. Rising water levels will, for example, put large areas of land under water; redistribution of precipitation will increase the likelihood of serious floods in some parts of the world and ofmore severe droughts in others; or there will be a growing frequency of storms and hurricanes. The secondary effects of such changes in weather conditions will be decreasing harvests and increasing health problems. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.