The Australian Greenhouse Challenge programme: a perspective from a participating university

For more than a century it has been known that atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) traps outgoing infrared radiation, thereby maintaining the Earth’s temperature at a higher level than would otherwise be the case. The term ‘greenhouse effect’ was in fact coined by Arrhenius (1896), who first suggested that combustion of fossil fuels, by increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration, could lead to global warming.