Climate Change Influenced by Technologies: Legal, Social and Economic Implications

Abstract

The problem of global warming is a threat to humankind. A slow, steady and gradual increase in the average temperature on the planet is a systematic event directly related to the negative effects of climate change. This phenomenon contributes to the rise of the world ocean level, and, as a result, leads to flooding of large territories. The world community is concerned about the need for concerted action within the UN to develop common standards and principles to counter the negative effects of global warming and climate change issues have become the subject of legal regulation on international and regional levels. Climate change under discussion has been an important issue for more than a decade. However, at present, humanity is facing a real threat to its further existence, as the increase in the average planetary temperature threatens not only natural but also economic, social and political crises and disasters. In this paper, the authors analyze various effects of global processes, in which humans take part, on the prospects and directions of the development of civilization. The focus is on one of the most important problems – the negative impact of humans on the environment – the current situation and potential threats. The authors attempted to address the specific consequences of climate change from the standpoint of the existing international legal regulation, from the 1992 Framework Convention to the 2016 Paris Agreement, while highlighting the economic and political dilemmas faced by the international community, as well as various scenarios of development for different regions of the world. Naturally, the positions of the two antagonistic world powers, the Russian Federation and the United States of America, are discussed, as well as the conflict of interests of the international community as a whole and individual states. The authors also discuss a rather sensitive matter of protection of individual rights of people, mentioning certain achievements in this area due to the functioning of international human rights mechanisms, both of quasi-judicial and judicial nature. As a conclusion for the commentary, the authors formulated the consequences to which this trend can lead, considering both the economic, social and political aspects.