The Timeline of Climate Change

Climate change is an ongoing phenomenon that has been shaped by a long history of natural processes and human activities. I remember hearing about it as a kid, whether it was riding in the car and hearing a weather reporter talking about it, or overhearing my parents discussing how serious it really was. When I was younger, I never really knew just how serious and present it was. I thought, “Oh, nothing will ever really happen”, but boy was I wrong.

It’s been a constant feature of Earth's history since the day earth was a thing. Humans have been contributing to it, but we haven’t been around forever. Natural factors such as volcanic activity, changes in solar radiation, and shifts in the Earth's orbit have influenced global temperatures and climate patterns for millions of years.

But since we can only control what us humans contribute, let’s look at that.

The first sign of a turning point in climate change history was during the Industrial Revolution.The burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and later, gas) on a large scale led to a rapid increase in greenhouse gas emissions. This unprecedented release of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere intensified the natural greenhouse effect, trapping heat and leading to global warming. Of course, the people back then didn’t know what they were doing. They saw opportunities to change how the world functioned and ran with them, but the everlasting effects of their actions are undeniable.

As time continued on and the world turned from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, the beginnings of scientific understanding of climate change emerged. In the late 1800s, scientists like Svante Arrhenius made initial predictions about the link between CO2 levels and global temperature rise. Despite his conclusions, at this time, climate change was not a widely recognized issue.

Roughly sixty years later, concerns about the impact of human activities on the climate started gaining more attention. In 1958, Charles David Keeling, a renowned scientist, recorded measurements at Mauna Loa Observatory that showed the steady increase of atmospheric CO2. These measurements are now famously known as the Keeling Curve, and among scientists it is seen as a major warning for global warming. There is also the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was established in 1992. This was a real turning point, as it saw the beginning of global efforts to address climate change through international cooperation.

Advances in climate science during the late 20th century provided stronger evidence of the human influence on climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established in 1988, has been instrumental in synthesizing and disseminating scientific knowledge on climate change.

There were also many international agreements formed, such as the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and the Paris Agreement in 2015.

Despite all the prior efforts made to begin the combat of climate change, in more recent years the world has seen an acceleration of climate change impacts, including rising global temperatures, melting glaciers, more frequent extreme weather events, and sea-level rise. These issues have led to a growing urgency to address the issue on a global scale.

Transitioning to a low-carbon economy, increasing renewable energy adoption, promoting sustainable practices, and enhancing climate resilience are critical steps for combating climate change. One would think these are easy fixes, right? But the reality is, they aren’t at all. In order to properly succeed, we as a global community need to join together and find a solution that works for everyone, which is hard when there are 8 billion people in the world all living to serve their own interests. Because, no matter how much we say we will work together and put other people's needs first, we’re just human after all.