Životna sredina - opasnosti i pravna zaštita / Human Environment ‒ Risks and Legal Protection

Abstract

The most relevant factors that affect climate are astronomic cycles ant their effects on planet Earth and Earth’s orbit around the Sun. They have impact on the occurrence of glacial and interglacial periods at generally 100.000-year frequencies, which were affected by orbital shape variations and effects of greenhouse gases.
The youngest geological epoch of the geological history of Earth is Holocene (started with warming) that began approximately 11.000 years BP. In that epoch, the shape of Earth’s orbit around the Sun was nearly circular, close to a perfect circle, and the seasonal contrast was less severe, due to decreased tilt of Earth’s axis from the plane of its orbit around the Sun. However, most scientists are arguing that the causes of rapid climate change are rooted in human activity, and not in its internal orbital variations. The main causes of global warming are increased level of carbon dioxide, but also of methane and chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere. These gases are responsible for the greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion in stratosphere and rapid global warming.
In order to set up the legal framework of environmental protection, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment has adopted Stockholm Declaration in June 16, 1972. About twenty industrial states have ratified in 1987 the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which has undergone many revisions by London Convention (1990), Copenhagen Accord (1992), Vienna Convention (1995), Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Paris Agreement ‒ an international universal agreement on climate adopted at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP21).
Environmental protection in the European Union is provided for by its primary and secondary law, and the most EU environmental regulations were implemented in the Serbian legislation.