Climate Change And The Quest For Clean Energy

Dr James Hansen’s argumentative essay, “A Solution to the Climate Problem,” discusses his premise that it is imperative for humankind to deal with carbon dioxide emissions, which he believes needs to be phased out by the mid-21st century. He begins with the current paradigm in government efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and claims that so far it has been a lot of talk and action in the other direction. Dr Hansen argues that while governments pay lip service to agreements such as the Kyoto Accord, they are going full steam ahead with projects that will result in increased carbon dioxide emissions, such as going forth with coal-fired power plants, coal-to-liquids, hydraulic fracturing, and tar sands oil extraction. Dr Hansen believes

Climate change has become a major issue in global environmental politics as it has been shown to have a correlation with issues such as deforestation, biodiversity loss, and desertification. As Chapter 45 states “The 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found consensus in the scientific community that greenhouse gas emissions have significantly increased because of human activity and, further, that the modest temperature increases we have already experienced are “very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” Due to this report awareness was brought to almost everyone of how serious human activity was to the global climate. In 2009, it was declared that “If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of two degrees C. above preindustrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly”. To me this sounds foreboding and it is something that deserves our full attention immediately. To try and get a better understanding of how serious climate change is, I’m going to try and interpret chapter 45 which deals on climate change through 5 different paradigms of International Relations.

One of the most unique aspects of climate change is its ability to impact every person in every nation across the world. Its omnipotent presence calls for, what I predict will be, the largest global initiative and

The climate change impacts of greenhouse gases threaten the economic development and environmental quality. These threats indicate that all nations regardless their economic growth should work collaboratively to reduce the emission to a certain level. Hare et al. (2011) argued that “climate change is a collective action problem” thus requires a global coordination from all countries. This indicates that actions from several countries would never be sufficient to address the climate change problem. If a global target to limit warming to 2°C or below is about to achieve (UNFCCC 2010, p.4) a broad range of participation is required (Hare et al., 2011). However, the increasing complexity of negotiation processes is inevitable. Each country will pursue its own interests during the

Last week at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Ms. Christiana Figueres, the charismatic Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since 2010, gave a talk highlighting the great outcome presented at COP-21 meeting last December in Paris. She referred to the

Climate Change is an important topic that everyone should be well versed on. Global warming was denied as being a real problem for many years, but the proof cannot be hidden anymore and countries around the world are acknowledging that global warming does exist. It is my pleasure to know that our country will participate in the United Nations Climate Summit. As the CEO of an environmentally conscious company, it is my honor to represent the United States of America at the Summit.

The Guardian published an editorial in October claiming that the Climate Change Summit held this month is a reason to be cheerful about the advances we see countries making to combat the effects of climate change. On Dec. 1, 2015, Beijing issued their first Red Alert for air pollution. It came after watching the particulate matter rise steadily to 2.5 since November 28. This is 40 times the limit recommended by the World Health Organization. The Chinese government issued the official alert on their Twitter account from the state news agency. That same time the whole world watched as 129 people were shot down by terrorists in Paris. Obviously the summit

In order to fight against climate change we need to develop a universal agreement, and that we need to work together in a collaboration to mobilize the capital and investment needed for low-carbon emissions, and climate-resilient development.

Elias D’Angelo’s book Global Climate Change: International Perspectives and Responses examines the global response to climate change. It provides a history of climate change, discusses perspectives of various nations and policies that have been implemented in order to reduce greenhouse gases, and the results of these policies. The book also covers the Kyoto Protocol, including the agreement itself and the aftermath. D’Angelo examines the technological, economic, and ecological aspects of climate change. While it is a little old, this book provides a

Climate change is a phrase that has recently become a household topic. Now, it’s being discussed on a global level. In December of 2015, 196 countries gathered together to discuss the future of the global environment and the impact humans have left on it (Falkner). The result was the Paris Agreement, an agreement in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change aiming to reduce carbon emissions and the global temperature. With the global climate rapidly changing, the main goal presented in the Paris Agreement was to prevent any human action that will interfere and damage the current climate. Focusing specifically on climate change, the Paris Agreement calls all countries to reduce carbon emissions in order to halt global warming. They decided upon a goal of reducing the global temperature by 2030 (Manolas).

In December 2015, 197 nations convened in Paris to sign an agreement to help shrink the effects of climate change. The main goal all of these nations agreed to was to reduce the global temperature below two degrees Celsius. Lowering Carbon emissions is the best way for countries to go about reaching their goal. This of course is a lofty one considering the current temperature levels, which have reached around half of the target already (1.5 degrees) (Domonoske). The key to reaching their two-degree limit was to have each individual country set certain goals based on their CO2 emissions. For example, countries

Combatting climate change requires international commitment and participation. However in the modern day, nature has become a commodity. Natural resources are something that you can use, buy and sell within the global economy rather than their scarcity being a focus of concern. The competition between individual states for these resources (such as water and minerals) further enforces the survivalist nature of neo-realism and the state-centric system. In this sense, the current approach to climate change conforms to the realist notion of state-centricity but if anything is to be done about it, climate change must challenge the status quo as it is a global problem. This is mainly a consequence of the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) which saw states regarded as the major actors within the international system. Moreover, this saw the emergence of

On December 12 of 2015, 195 countries made history by committing to the first truly global international climate change agreement (Paris Agreement, 2015). This agreement took place in Paris and was adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The outcome of the Paris Conference on Climate Change was described as “revolutionary” (Venezuela) “marvelous act” (China) and as “a tremendous collective achievement” (European Union) that introduced a “new era of global climate governance” (Egypt) while “restoring the global community’s faith of accomplishing things multilaterally” (USA) (Paris Agreement, 2015).

One of the greatest threats to humankind present in the 21st century is climate change. Human behavior, especially since industrial revolution led “over 600 thousand tons of carbon to be emitted into the atmosphere from fossil fuels” which thus enhanced greenhouse affects, and alters the natural cycle of global warming and cooling. The consequence of such alteration has devastating effects globally as drastic “temperature increases experienced in the recent years are causing widespread damages” . Effects of climate change not only helps deteriorate the biome as “quarter of all species could be pushed to extinction by 2050” , but also poses a large threat to “living conditions and challenges existing patterns of energy use and security” Given that climate change is one of the most pressing issues experienced in the modern era “there has been little progress in the United Nations (UN) led climate negotiations” . The reason as to why states cannot come to a consensus on international climate change policy is because states reside in an anarchic international system in which states are by nature: conflictual, self-interested and focused on attaining relative gain as shown through neo-realist theory. In ability for states to negotiate a climate change action plan will be shown through states’ pursuit of relative gains in the Kyoto Protocol, the role of economic growth in terms of relative gains, and climate change lag/ state’s personal agendas, which have led to numerous

Nowadays, climate change has become an increasingly crucial problem for the whole world. To figure out this problem, the United Nations holds an annual climate summit which discusses how to respond to global climate change, and promote world-wide actions to promote the progress of Copenhagen and Kyoto Protocol. In the Copenhagen conference, 2009, a framework for climate change migration beyond 2012 was to be agreed.