ABSTRACT
While it is still too early to predict accurately the size and timing of climate change in specific regions, the impact on the global environment is likely to be significant. Sea levels are expected to rise causing flooding to low lying areas. Storms and other extreme weather events could become more severe and frequent. Climatic zones could shift towards the poles. Many natural habitats could decline or fragment and individual species become extinct. Water resources will be affected, some regions may experience food shortages and economic activities and human settlements will experience many direct and indirect effects. Climate change is also likely to have wide-ranging and mostly adverse impacts on human health, with potentially significant loss of life. (More information about the impact of climate change and recent developments in climate change science is to be found in the Meterological Office publication, Climate Change and its impacts and the UK climate impacts programme publication, Climate Change Screening for the United Kingdom. See also useful websites, p 201, below.)
This chapter considers the principal international sources of law on air and atmospheric pollution and in particular the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change and its 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 1979 Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) and Related Protocols. Reference is made to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer 1985 and the 1987 Montreal Protocol, although these instruments are not extracted. The Chapter also deals with EC law and domestic law, including responses to smoke pollution (The Clean Air Act 1993), road traffic pollution and the establishment of Air Quality Strategies in Pt IV of the Environment Act 1995.
