BEGINNER'S GUIDE for kids

BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO THE UN FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE - FOR KIDS

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1. Once upon a time, 65 millions of years ago in fact, a giant asteroid from space crashed into the earth. There was a huge explosion; the enormous impact threw a giant, thick cloud of dust into the earth's atmosphere. On the next day, the whole world was dark because the dust layer completely obscured the sun. It stayed like that for three years! Because the sun did not shine, plants died and animals had no food to eat. And the largest species ever to walk the earth, the dinosaurs, died off: wham, bam, extinct.

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2. 15,000 years ago, most of Europe and North America was covered by ice, in a very cold period when the earth's temperature was about 5 C lower than it is now. This is called an Ice Age. Ice ages are triggered by slow wobbles in the earth's orbit around the sun. About 10,000 years ago, the ice age ended and the earth warmed up. But around 800 AD, a Little Ice Age struck Europe, causing famines and uprisings, because it was too cold for many plants to grow properly. People didn't enjoy it much either. Natives of Greenland and Iceland had to move south, to a warmer place.

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*
3. These stories tell of huge shifts in climate. Climate is the average of the weather - the sunshine, how much it rains, the temperature, how windy it is. And 5 degrees may not sound like much, but if you think of the whole of Europe being covered by ice, you'll realise how freezing cold it was! Earth's climate changes naturally, and human beings adapt so that they can live. For example, people living in the Carribean are used to hot sunshine, beautiful clear blue seas, but also a hurricane season every year which could devastate their homes. Eskimos living in Alaska are used to fishing through holes in ice sheets.

We all live in different circumstances, and we adapt to fit our environment . . . . . .

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4. Things started changing, though, about 200 years ago. Human's brains had been growing smarter and smarter as they evolved. We had learnt to keep animals and cultivate land for food, to write books and poetry, to create music, and to paint. We also invented things, like tools to build houses. And suddenly , we invented industry. Newcomers invented the steam engine, James Watt improved it, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. And humans could do things they had never been able to do before. Simple tasks like spinning cotton, which had usually been carried out at home, were now performed by large machines in factories such as the one shown here.

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*
5. These early factories were powered by burning coal. This is also true of many power stations today that generate electricity. We need this energy to turn on lights, to power cookers, stereos and computers. We also need oil to make petrol, so we can drive cars and buses, and fly aeroplanes. Every aspect of human activity requires energy, and we get most of this from so-called 'fossil fuels' - coal, oil and natural gas . . . . .

*

*
6. 'Fossil fuels' earn this name because they come from ancient forests or sea creatures. Millions of years ago, the earth was covered in enormous ferns - primitive trees - which stood about 10 metres tall. But the surface of the earth is constantly moving and shifting, (although very, very slowly) and eventually these ferns became covered over with soil and rock. They were crushed by the huge weight of the earth above them, and over thousands and thousands of years of heat and pressure, formed coal. Oil and natural gas were originally the bodies of small sea creatures, crushed in the same way. These processes took place extremely slowly. The energy within them was originally from the sun. This is because plants take their energy from sunshine; then animals eat plants, and bigger animals eat smaller ones, and the energy is passed on. In fact, the energy in EVERYTHING - even you and me - was originally from the Sun. So we are very lucky it doesn't stop shining!

*

*
7. So, back to the story. The problem with the factories and manufacturing of the 1700's - a time which was named 'The Industrial Revolution' - was that burning fossil fuels spewed huge amounts of invisible gases into the air. Planting rice, keeping animals, making cement and chopping down trees also releases gases. These gases occur naturally in the air, but only in very tiny amounts. The air is made up mostly of nitrogen, and oxygen, which we need to breathe. The rest - less than one-hundredth - is made up of gases called 'greenhouse gases'. We can't see or smell them, but they are there. These gases are called carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.

*

*
8. Greenhouse gases are vital to our survival in small amounts. Imagine the sun shining on the earth. Some of this sunlight energy is reflected back to space by the clouds; the rest passes through the air and reaches the ground. Now, there is a law of nature that says: energy cannot be created or destroyed - it can only be changed into different types. So the earth has to send the sunlight energy back out. But the earth is much cooler than the sun. If you could sit on the surface of the sun, you wouldn't last very long, because you would fry to death in a millisecond, it's that hot. Since the earth is cooler, it sends energy back out in a different form, called infrared. Infrared is the heat given out by an electric fire before the bars begin to glow red.

(Diagram of the radiative system)

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*
9. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere absorb infrared energy like a sponge mopping up water. They act like a big fluffy blanket round the earth. The blanket warms the air near the earth's surface, and the surface itself. If there were no greenhouse gases, the earth would be about 30C colder than it is now - as cold as the North Pole winter, all over! Humans would not stand a chance. In fact life on earth would probably not exist. This is the situation on the barren red planet Mars. Mars is about the same size as the earth, and about the same distance from the sun, but it is so miserably cold that there is no liquid water - only ice - and no life. This is because it has a very thin atmosphere, with much less greenhouse gases. Another planet, Venus, has very thick 'air' made almost entirely made of greenhouse gases, with the result that it's 500 C hotter than it would be without the gases. Imagine a hot summer day on earth; the temperature on Venus is 25 times hotter than that! Which makes it too hot to handle. So it's a happy coincidence that earth has just the right conditions - and amounts of greenhouse gases - for us to live there.

*

*
10. This warming effect of greenhouse gases is called the Greenhouse Effect. These invisible gases warm the earth in the same way that heat from the sun gets trapped behind glass in a greenhouse. If you sit behind a closed window on a sunny day, you'll feel how much warmer it is behind the window than outside. This is because the sunlight energy becomes trapped behind the glass, in the same way as the sun's energy gets trapped in greenhouse gases. So the temperature of the air rises; it feels warmer.

*

*
11. But there is one BIG problem with greenhouse gases. Since the industrial revolution, and because of human demands for more energy, more powerful cars, better houses, and more space for building and farming, more greenhouse gases are being chucked into the air. Because there are ever-growing numbers of people in the world, we need more food; more rice, more animals - and so huge amounts of greenhouse gases are being released in to the air. What's more, this is happening so quickly that since the Industrial Revolution, the amounts in the atmosphere have nearly doubled. The earth's air is becoming thicker!

*

*
12. Now this is scary. Why? Because by making the air thicker, we make it warmer. We are altering the earth's climate, conditions which have been just right for humans for thousands of years. Before the Industrial Revolution, the climate changed humans. Now humans are changing the climate. Scientists predict the most direct result is 'Global Warming' of 1.5 to 4.5 C over the next one hundred years. This is in your lifetime!

*

*
13. What are the consequences? That is a hard question to answer, because the climate system is very complicated, and it's difficult to predict what might happen. It is hard enough to forecast the weather. Uncertain effects pile onto uncertain effects. But the changes in climate are likely to be severe. The most certain effect is more drought - which means it may not rain in some places. People depend on rain for water and farming. Drought will lead to even greater poverty and hunger for the poorest people in the world. On the other hand, it could rain more in some places - causing floods, which wash away homes and fields, and drown animals.

*

*
14. What else could happen? Global warming - a hotter world - could cause ice sheets near the north and south poles to melt. The huge amount of extra water would run into the sea, making the sea-level rise. This could submerge some low lying islands and coasts. A sea-level rise of only 60 cm - less than the height of a cricket bat - could flood the fertile land in Bangladesh on which huge numbers of people depend for food. Tropical storms which damage buildings, ruin crops and kill people could happen much more often. The possibilities are endless, and they COULD HAPPEN IN OUR LIFETIMES! We humans might end up the same way as the dinosaurs!

*

*
15. Still, in the 1970's and 80's, some people began to realise what was happening to our fragile and beautiful planet earth. This was a time when people began to wake up to the environment, how humans depend on it, and how they are polluting it. Since the Industrial Revolution, humans had been extracting minerals from the ground and throwing wastes into the seas, rivers, land and air so fast that the earth was in a danger of becoming a filthy rubbish tip. Not only that, but humans were directly affecting the climate in a very, very dangerous way. And suddenly, people understood that this could not go on.

*

*
16. The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was one of the results. Meetings were held in the 1980's with people from all over the world to talk about man-made climate change and what should be done to stop it. Scientists agreed that man-made climate change was, and is, happening, and that it is important to all of us. So a bunch of international diplomats banded together to meet the challenge. Together, they wrote an agreement to decide what should be done to stop greenhouse gases being released into the air. Finally, after months of hard work, the Climate Change Convention was signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. It was a triumph for Planet Earth!

*

*
17. A staggering 154 countries - from all over the globe - signed the Convention, to try to halt man-made climate change. But what does the Convention actually say?

The treaty aims to stop climate change by reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases which thicken the blanket around the earth. This means lowering the amounts of coal, oil and natural gas used, and protecting forests in which carbon dioxide is stored, so it can't escape into the air. It also means reducing our demands for energy, and finding ways of generating power that do not release greenhouse gases. One way of making electricity without burning fossil fuels is by harnessing renewable energy. Renewable energy means energy which comes from sources that will not run out. This includes solar power (from the sun), wind power and wave power. Scientists still have a lot of study to do in these technologies. In the future, all electricity could come from renewable energy.

*

*
18. The Climate Change Convention recognises that in the past, it was the rich countries of the world that polluted the air. But everyone, especially the poorer countries, will suffer the effects, because we all share the atmosphere. Now the poorer countries are creating their own industry. They have a right to provide food, jobs and schools for their people. The Convention is fair because it agrees that the rich countries should pay most of the bill to set the problem right. It also realises that in the future, once the poorer countries have solved some of their problems, they will reduce amounts of greenhouse gases too.

*

*
19. The Convention agrees to promote scientific study. We cannot protect the earth's climate until we know how it works. It also decides to share technology and ideas between countries. This helps countries to be friendly, and to help each other. The Convention also recognizes that some areas of the world are special - because they contain rare, beautiful or delicate natural habitats. These areas - such as island beaches, mountains and rivers - should be especially protected against man-made climate change.

*

*
20. So that's nearly the end of the story. But not quite. Because it is not enough to leave governments with all the action! WE SHOULD ALL GET INVOLVED TOO. Every time we use a bus or a bicycle instead of a car, every time we plant a tree, we help to improve the air. There is plenty we can do. Remember to switch off lights when you leave a room - use less energy. Don't leave the hot tap running when you wash. Turn the TV off when you have finished watching it. Plant trees in your gardens and schools. Re-use bottles and recycle foil, plastics and paper. Take the bus or train instead of using a car. There are 48, 000 TONNES of carbon dioxide being emitted by humans EVERY MINUTE! We can all help to lower this number. Because humans don't want to go the same way as the dinosaurs. We only have one chance, and one planet.

THE END
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The Convention - Info for Participants - Info for Media - Official Documents
Daily Programme - Special Events - Exhibits - List of Participants - Special Features
Kyoto Information - COP3 Links - COP3 Home Page - UNFCCC Home Page - Feedback - Sitemap

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*	1. Once upon a time, 65 millions of years ago in fact, a giant asteroid from space crashed into the earth. There was a huge explosion; the enormous impact threw a giant, thick cloud of dust into the earth's atmosphere. On the next day, the whole world was dark because the dust layer completely obscured the sun. It stayed like that for three years! Because the sun did not shine, plants died and animals had no food to eat. And the largest species ever to walk the earth, the dinosaurs, died off: wham, bam, extinct.	*
*	2. 15,000 years ago, most of Europe and North America was covered by ice, in a very cold period when the earth's temperature was about 5 C lower than it is now. This is called an Ice Age. Ice ages are triggered by slow wobbles in the earth's orbit around the sun. About 10,000 years ago, the ice age ended and the earth warmed up. But around 800 AD, a Little Ice Age struck Europe, causing famines and uprisings, because it was too cold for many plants to grow properly. People didn't enjoy it much either. Natives of Greenland and Iceland had to move south, to a warmer place.	*
*	3. These stories tell of huge shifts in climate. Climate is the average of the weather - the sunshine, how much it rains, the temperature, how windy it is. And 5 degrees may not sound like much, but if you think of the whole of Europe being covered by ice, you'll realise how freezing cold it was! Earth's climate changes naturally, and human beings adapt so that they can live. For example, people living in the Carribean are used to hot sunshine, beautiful clear blue seas, but also a hurricane season every year which could devastate their homes. Eskimos living in Alaska are used to fishing through holes in ice sheets. We all live in different circumstances, and we adapt to fit our environment . . . . . .	*
*	4. Things started changing, though, about 200 years ago. Human's brains had been growing smarter and smarter as they evolved. We had learnt to keep animals and cultivate land for food, to write books and poetry, to create music, and to paint. We also invented things, like tools to build houses. And suddenly , we invented industry. Newcomers invented the steam engine, James Watt improved it, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. And humans could do things they had never been able to do before. Simple tasks like spinning cotton, which had usually been carried out at home, were now performed by large machines in factories such as the one shown here.	*
*	5. These early factories were powered by burning coal. This is also true of many power stations today that generate electricity. We need this energy to turn on lights, to power cookers, stereos and computers. We also need oil to make petrol, so we can drive cars and buses, and fly aeroplanes. Every aspect of human activity requires energy, and we get most of this from so-called 'fossil fuels' - coal, oil and natural gas . . . . .	*
*	6. 'Fossil fuels' earn this name because they come from ancient forests or sea creatures. Millions of years ago, the earth was covered in enormous ferns - primitive trees - which stood about 10 metres tall. But the surface of the earth is constantly moving and shifting, (although very, very slowly) and eventually these ferns became covered over with soil and rock. They were crushed by the huge weight of the earth above them, and over thousands and thousands of years of heat and pressure, formed coal. Oil and natural gas were originally the bodies of small sea creatures, crushed in the same way. These processes took place extremely slowly. The energy within them was originally from the sun. This is because plants take their energy from sunshine; then animals eat plants, and bigger animals eat smaller ones, and the energy is passed on. In fact, the energy in EVERYTHING - even you and me - was originally from the Sun. So we are very lucky it doesn't stop shining!	*
*	7. So, back to the story. The problem with the factories and manufacturing of the 1700's - a time which was named 'The Industrial Revolution' - was that burning fossil fuels spewed huge amounts of invisible gases into the air. Planting rice, keeping animals, making cement and chopping down trees also releases gases. These gases occur naturally in the air, but only in very tiny amounts. The air is made up mostly of nitrogen, and oxygen, which we need to breathe. The rest - less than one-hundredth - is made up of gases called 'greenhouse gases'. We can't see or smell them, but they are there. These gases are called carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.	*
*	8. Greenhouse gases are vital to our survival in small amounts. Imagine the sun shining on the earth. Some of this sunlight energy is reflected back to space by the clouds; the rest passes through the air and reaches the ground. Now, there is a law of nature that says: energy cannot be created or destroyed - it can only be changed into different types. So the earth has to send the sunlight energy back out. But the earth is much cooler than the sun. If you could sit on the surface of the sun, you wouldn't last very long, because you would fry to death in a millisecond, it's that hot. Since the earth is cooler, it sends energy back out in a different form, called infrared. Infrared is the heat given out by an electric fire before the bars begin to glow red. (Diagram of the radiative system)	*
*	9. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere absorb infrared energy like a sponge mopping up water. They act like a big fluffy blanket round the earth. The blanket warms the air near the earth's surface, and the surface itself. If there were no greenhouse gases, the earth would be about 30C colder than it is now - as cold as the North Pole winter, all over! Humans would not stand a chance. In fact life on earth would probably not exist. This is the situation on the barren red planet Mars. Mars is about the same size as the earth, and about the same distance from the sun, but it is so miserably cold that there is no liquid water - only ice - and no life. This is because it has a very thin atmosphere, with much less greenhouse gases. Another planet, Venus, has very thick 'air' made almost entirely made of greenhouse gases, with the result that it's 500 C hotter than it would be without the gases. Imagine a hot summer day on earth; the temperature on Venus is 25 times hotter than that! Which makes it too hot to handle. So it's a happy coincidence that earth has just the right conditions - and amounts of greenhouse gases - for us to live there.	*
*	10. This warming effect of greenhouse gases is called the Greenhouse Effect. These invisible gases warm the earth in the same way that heat from the sun gets trapped behind glass in a greenhouse. If you sit behind a closed window on a sunny day, you'll feel how much warmer it is behind the window than outside. This is because the sunlight energy becomes trapped behind the glass, in the same way as the sun's energy gets trapped in greenhouse gases. So the temperature of the air rises; it feels warmer.	*
*	11. But there is one BIG problem with greenhouse gases. Since the industrial revolution, and because of human demands for more energy, more powerful cars, better houses, and more space for building and farming, more greenhouse gases are being chucked into the air. Because there are ever-growing numbers of people in the world, we need more food; more rice, more animals - and so huge amounts of greenhouse gases are being released in to the air. What's more, this is happening so quickly that since the Industrial Revolution, the amounts in the atmosphere have nearly doubled. The earth's air is becoming thicker!	*
*	12. Now this is scary. Why? Because by making the air thicker, we make it warmer. We are altering the earth's climate, conditions which have been just right for humans for thousands of years. Before the Industrial Revolution, the climate changed humans. Now humans are changing the climate. Scientists predict the most direct result is 'Global Warming' of 1.5 to 4.5 C over the next one hundred years. This is in your lifetime!	*
*	13. What are the consequences? That is a hard question to answer, because the climate system is very complicated, and it's difficult to predict what might happen. It is hard enough to forecast the weather. Uncertain effects pile onto uncertain effects. But the changes in climate are likely to be severe. The most certain effect is more drought - which means it may not rain in some places. People depend on rain for water and farming. Drought will lead to even greater poverty and hunger for the poorest people in the world. On the other hand, it could rain more in some places - causing floods, which wash away homes and fields, and drown animals.	*
*	14. What else could happen? Global warming - a hotter world - could cause ice sheets near the north and south poles to melt. The huge amount of extra water would run into the sea, making the sea-level rise. This could submerge some low lying islands and coasts. A sea-level rise of only 60 cm - less than the height of a cricket bat - could flood the fertile land in Bangladesh on which huge numbers of people depend for food. Tropical storms which damage buildings, ruin crops and kill people could happen much more often. The possibilities are endless, and they COULD HAPPEN IN OUR LIFETIMES! We humans might end up the same way as the dinosaurs!	*
*	15. Still, in the 1970's and 80's, some people began to realise what was happening to our fragile and beautiful planet earth. This was a time when people began to wake up to the environment, how humans depend on it, and how they are polluting it. Since the Industrial Revolution, humans had been extracting minerals from the ground and throwing wastes into the seas, rivers, land and air so fast that the earth was in a danger of becoming a filthy rubbish tip. Not only that, but humans were directly affecting the climate in a very, very dangerous way. And suddenly, people understood that this could not go on.	*
*	16. The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was one of the results. Meetings were held in the 1980's with people from all over the world to talk about man-made climate change and what should be done to stop it. Scientists agreed that man-made climate change was, and is, happening, and that it is important to all of us. So a bunch of international diplomats banded together to meet the challenge. Together, they wrote an agreement to decide what should be done to stop greenhouse gases being released into the air. Finally, after months of hard work, the Climate Change Convention was signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. It was a triumph for Planet Earth!	*
*	17. A staggering 154 countries - from all over the globe - signed the Convention, to try to halt man-made climate change. But what does the Convention actually say? The treaty aims to stop climate change by reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases which thicken the blanket around the earth. This means lowering the amounts of coal, oil and natural gas used, and protecting forests in which carbon dioxide is stored, so it can't escape into the air. It also means reducing our demands for energy, and finding ways of generating power that do not release greenhouse gases. One way of making electricity without burning fossil fuels is by harnessing renewable energy. Renewable energy means energy which comes from sources that will not run out. This includes solar power (from the sun), wind power and wave power. Scientists still have a lot of study to do in these technologies. In the future, all electricity could come from renewable energy.	*
*	18. The Climate Change Convention recognises that in the past, it was the rich countries of the world that polluted the air. But everyone, especially the poorer countries, will suffer the effects, because we all share the atmosphere. Now the poorer countries are creating their own industry. They have a right to provide food, jobs and schools for their people. The Convention is fair because it agrees that the rich countries should pay most of the bill to set the problem right. It also realises that in the future, once the poorer countries have solved some of their problems, they will reduce amounts of greenhouse gases too.	*
*	19. The Convention agrees to promote scientific study. We cannot protect the earth's climate until we know how it works. It also decides to share technology and ideas between countries. This helps countries to be friendly, and to help each other. The Convention also recognizes that some areas of the world are special - because they contain rare, beautiful or delicate natural habitats. These areas - such as island beaches, mountains and rivers - should be especially protected against man-made climate change.	*
*	20. So that's nearly the end of the story. But not quite. Because it is not enough to leave governments with all the action! WE SHOULD ALL GET INVOLVED TOO. Every time we use a bus or a bicycle instead of a car, every time we plant a tree, we help to improve the air. There is plenty we can do. Remember to switch off lights when you leave a room - use less energy. Don't leave the hot tap running when you wash. Turn the TV off when you have finished watching it. Plant trees in your gardens and schools. Re-use bottles and recycle foil, plastics and paper. Take the bus or train instead of using a car. There are 48, 000 TONNES of carbon dioxide being emitted by humans EVERY MINUTE! We can all help to lower this number. Because humans don't want to go the same way as the dinosaurs. We only have one chance, and one planet. *THE END*	*
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