ABSTRACT

This study focusses on the fight against climate change in Cameroon, Climate change has been identified as a contemporary legal issue with wide spread effects on the environment. Climate change is caused by natural occurrence but now our days its mostly caused by human activities. Theories of climate change date back as far as the 18th century with the advent of industrial revolution . Climate change have been identified as a contemporary environmental and public health concerned in the 21st century with wide spread effects on the environment like flooding, rise in sea level. Change in precipitation patterns, extreme weather events. Despite the measures adopted by the state of Cameroon to fight against climate change, climate change is still suffering from this problem. The objective of this study is to examine the extent to which the measures out in place by the state of Cameroon are effective, the specific objective is to examine the nature of climate change , to examine the legal and institutional mechanisms, to critically examine how effectiveness of the mechanism put in place to fight against climate change and propose policy recommendations. This study adopts a qualitative research methodology based on the fact that its void of numerical data , the study is also going to make use of doctrinal methods, unstructured interviews and primary and secondary sources of data . Finding on this study reveals that climate change is a contemporary legal issue in our world today whose effect are felt at the nations, international and at the regional level. This study also reveals that despite the fact that the state of Cameroon has attained a certain level of success in the fight against climate change , the state of Cameroon has equally faced several challenges. Like lack of financial assistance to overcome the effects of climate change, inadequate laws . To overcome these challenges, the state of Cameroon needs, to mobilize domestic and international funding, strengthen its institutional capacity and develop comprehensive national climate strategy.

CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTROUDUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Since the industrial revolution human activities have released large amounts of carbon dioxide and
other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which has changed the earth’s climate. Natural
processes, such as changes in the sun`s energy and volcanic eruption, also affect the earth`s climate.
However, they do not explain the warning that we have observed over the last century1. Tackling
global climate change and tracking greenhouse gas emission has become an all-hands-on deck
endeavor. The world bank recently launched an initiative, in collaboration with NASA and the
European Space Agency, to collect and organize satellite-based measurement of concentration of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere2. Back on Earth`s surface, companies around the world are
also tracking greenhouse gas emissions the once produced by their businesses and value chains.
Some are using software tools to gauge their progress in achieving reduction in carbon emission
to meet ESG goal and adhere with environmental regulations. While the urgency surrounding
climate change mitigation is greater than ever, the understanding and awareness that inspired such
urgency took some two centuries to develop. Climate change has evolved from a little-known
concept to a widely accepted phenomenon prompting actions around the globe3 Theories on climate change date back to the 19th century. An early observation of what eventually
became known as the greenhouse effect came from French mathematician and physicist Joseph
Fourier. In 1824, Fourier wrote that gases in earth`s atmosphere trapped heat, making the planet
warmer than it otherwise would be. Also in 1856, through experiments with various gas
combination, Amateur American scientist Eunice Newton Foote identified water vapor and carbon
dioxide then called carbon acid as the heat trapping culprits, writing that atmosphere of the gas
would give our earth a high temperature4. Ironically it was curiosity about ice ages rather than
global warming that prompted further advancement in the understanding of modern climate
change .Irish physicist John Tyndall set out to determine whether earths changing atmospheric
composition contributed to prehistoric ice age .Kike Foote , Tyndall experimented with different
gases .In the 1860s, he demonstrated that the gas produced from heating coal which consisted of
carbon dioxide , methane and volatile hydrocarbons absorbed large amount of energy5.
Furthermore, building on Tyndall’s findings, in 1896 Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius
developed a climate model showing how different concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide
could impact global temperature. Like Tyndall, Arrhenius started out theorizing what conditions
might have led to earths ice ages, including emotions from eruption. Arrhenius also considered the
modern sources of fossil fuel during the Second Industrial Revolution and the increase in average
temperature that they could cause. he also predicted that it would take 3000 years for atmospheric
CO2level to double, leading to an increase of 5 to 6 degrees Celsius. In contrast to today’s attitudes, however, Arrhenius wasn`t certain of such potential changes to earth’s climate. Rather he predicted
that as the average temperature rises, people will ‘’live under a warmer sky and in a less harsh
environment than we were granted’’6
During the 1930s English steam engineer and amateur scientist Guy Callender gathered and
analyzed historical temperature information and carbon dioxide measurement from around the
world, finding that there has been a0.3-degree Celsius rise in surface temperature and 6% increase
in atmospheric carbon dioxide between 1880and 1935. so, to link the two trends Callener improved
on Arrhenius`s equation and performed his own calculations. Ultimately, he concluded that
changing level of carbon dioxide caused by fossil fuel combustion, accounted for half of the
increase in Earth`s temperature between 1880 and 1935.But like Arrhenius, Callender’s outlook
on the changing climate was rosy: He predicted that increased crop production in the northern
hemisphere and the prevention of future ice age.
By the 1950’s, however, some scientists were adopting a distinctly different tone. At a
presentation before the American Geophysical union in 1953, physicist Grill Plass made headlines
when he warned the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission were raising Earth’s surface
temperature at a rate of 1.5 degrees per century7. Later that year, American oceanographer and
climate scientist Roger Revelle showed that the oceans considered to have a moderating effect on the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere was absorbing gas far slower than previously
thought. Revelle’s colleagues, Charles David Keeling, built a carbon dioxide monitoring station in
Hawaii. His measurement on the Mauna Loa volcano led to the eponymous keeling curve, a long
term data series showing increasing carbon dioxide level that was later praised for setting “the
stage for today’s profound concerns about climate change8.
The late 20th century and beyond brought a lot of technological advancement and propelled
discoveries in the domain of climate change. The 1950s and 60s ushered in an era in which
computer models became a pivotal for climate scientist one of the most influential was the model
created by researchers Syukuro Manabe and Richard Wetherald at the Geophysical Fuild
Dynamics Laboratory, part of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In a
11967-paper documenting their model’s results, Manabe and Wetherald concluded that if
atmospheric C02 doubled from existing levels, such an increase of 2.3 degrees Celsius9. their
predictions, made in digital computing’s early days, provide surprisingly close to later findings
delivered by many advanced models. In 1969, the technology used to study climate change
advanced on an additional level, with the launch of NASA’s Nimbus III satellite. Equipment on
the weather satellite provided unprecedented temperature measurement for different parts of the
atmosphere, giving scientist a more hostile picture of the planet’s temperature changes. Today,
satellites continue to be a critical tool for gathering climate change; NASA began to collaborate
with IBM to use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to extract insights from satellite data.