undermining the science and running campaigns aimed to confuse the public, appended as Annex
“E.”
2. Climate Change Impacts
Climate Change is “a change in climate that can be identified by changes in the mean
and/or variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period typically decades or
longer, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity.”42 Figure 1 depicts
both the natural greenhouse effect and human enhanced greenhouse effect. It is a widely
accepted fact that “human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic
emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history.”43 Carbon dioxide is acting on the
climate like a “performance enhancing drug.”44 According to a leading source of climate news,
“[a]ll that extra energy in the atmosphere increases the probability and intensity of extreme
weather events, making droughts, storms and wildfires…far more likely and far more
destructive.”45 The impacts of climate change can also be gradual and/or have a slow-onset.
The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have
increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide
concentrations in the atmosphere have increased by 40% since pre-industrial times.46 The
observed warming in the climate system is unequivocal and so far the global mean of earth
atmospheric near surface temperature has warmed by roughly 0.8 degrees during the period
1880-2012.47
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42
An Act Establishing the People’s Survival Fund to Provide Long-term Finance Streams to Enable the Government
to Effectively Address the Problem of Climate Change, Amending for the Purpose Republic Act No. 9729,
Otherwise Known as “Climate Change Act” and for Other Purposes, Republic Act No. 10174, § 3, ¶ d (2011).
43
IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A.
Meyer (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 151 pp., Summary for Policymakers at 2. Available at
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf (last accessed June 15, 2015).
44
Polar Bears International, Climate Change, http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/about-polar-bears/climatechange (last accessed on September 15, 2015).
45
Stephen Lacey, Climate Progress, Media Connecting The Dots On U.S. Storms, Heat And Wildfires: ‘This Is
What Global Warming Looks Like’, July 3, 2012, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/03/510481/mediaconnecting-the-dots-on-us-storms-heat-and-wildfires-this-is-what-global-warming-looks-like/ (last accessed Sept.
15, 2015).
46
Ciais, P., C. Sabine, G. Bala, L. Bopp, V. Brovkin, J. Canadell, A. Chhabra, R. DeFries, J. Galloway, M.
Heimann, C. Jones, C. Le Quéré, R.B. Myneni, S. Piao and P. Thornton, 2013: Carbon and Other Biogeochemical
Cycles. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M.
Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA at 467.
47
IPCC, 2013: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of
Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F.,
D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)].
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA at 4-5.
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