A simple definition of climate change is any long-term significant change on the “average weather” of the Earth or region. As awareness on the subject increase over the past decades, it is evident that human activity is significantly contributing to climate change, at a rate that might even be irreversible. As a result a framework convention, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on the subject matter was adopted in…  The convention limits the definition of climate change to that change which is attributed to human activity that alters the composition of the atmosphere.

Human Contribution to Climate Change
Since the beginning of industrialisation at the end of the 18th century, the burning of fossil fuels accelerated. This, together with other subsequent development activities, led to an alteration of the atmosphereric composition, in particular, greenhouse gases.

Greenhouse gases are those gases in the atmosphere that interact with energy in the thermal infrared range, with the net result being trapping heat within the Earth’s atmosphere, leading to global warming, and subsequently climate change.

Greenhouse gases, though a small proportion on the total atmospheric composition, play an important role in the Earth atmosphere. Without them the Earth temperature would be at an average of -18°C, a temperature that would not support life as we know it. The greenhouse gases that occur naturally include, among others: water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and oxides of nitrogen, Tropospheric ozone.

Human activity has added additional greenhouse gases such as Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). These additional greenhouse gases, together with the increase in naturally existing greenhouse gases result in an enhanced greenhouse effect and hence global warming.