Transcript The Environment, Global Warming

The Environment:
Global Warming
Politics of Everyday Life POL771
[email protected]
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Global Warming
• Today, global warming looms in
many people’s minds as one of the
biggest threats facing the planet
• Issues about the environment affect
us in our everyday lives
• Virtually all environmental issues are
linked to the dynamics of globalized
political and economic processes
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The Greenhouse Effect
• Joseph Fourier, French physicist,
theorised 1827 the earth’s
atmosphere acts like the glass of a
plant-breeder’s hothouse
• Man-made emissions account for
just under 4% of all greenhouse
gases
• Glaciers of the last ice-age were
triggered by a fall of two degrees C
in the average summer temperature
around 115,000 years ago
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Useful Terms
• OECD member states (Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and
Development)
• Global commons (Resources shared
by the international community)
• Annex 1 nations
• Annex 1 Expert Group
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC): a group of scientists
who present policy options on the
environment
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Environmental Awareness
• In the 60s international concern
about preservation of the natural
environment rapidly developed
• Carson, Rachel (1962) Silent Spring
• In the 70s international
environmental politics matured
further, and
• Green movements, environmental
and industrial NGOs, international
organisations became key actors in
environmental politics
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The Stockholm Conference 1972
• UN Conference on the Human
Environment held in Stockholm 1972
• Established the principles for further
development of international
responses to trans-national
environmental problems
• Common Heritage of Mankind –
whereby common resources should
be collectively managed and
preserved
• UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
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World Commission on Environment
• UN established a World Commission
on Environment and Development
• Chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland,
who promoted the concept of,
• ‘Sustainable development’ –
considers long term implications in
our decisions, and gives equal
weight to environmental, social and
economic dimensions of
development
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1992, the spirit of Rio
• Since Rio, political processes have
linked issues of development and
environment and the contested
notion of sustainable development
• Dominance of G8 nation states
• Southern nations often lack
international attention and funding
• Any treaty is likely to set national or
regional limits to the release of CO2,
the chief suspect in any global
warming
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Consequences of change?
• CO2 is also an inevitable by-product
of burning fuels – coal, oil and
natural gas – that make an industrial
way of life possible
• Rich countries might have to change
their comfortable existences in order
to consume less energy
• Developing countries, trying to
enrich their lives might see their own
aspirations confounded
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The Kyoto Protocol is an amendment
• to the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change, an international
treaty on global warming
• 141 countries have ratified the
agreement, agreeing to reduce
emissions of CO2
• Negotiated in Kyoto 1997
• Came into force on 16th Feb 2005
• If implemented will reduce average
global temperature by 0.02 and 0.28
degrees C by 2050
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Kyoto Protocol
• In recognition of differential
capacities and forms of energy
stocks, not all nations have the same
targets for reducing emissions
• For example, the EU as a whole has
a target of 8% below 1990 levels
• Norway is allowed to increase
emissions by 1%
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Kyoto; a divide
• JUSCANZ nations insist developing
countries limit emissions and want
opportunities to develop alternate
approaches
• EU argued for serious cuts
• Poorer nations appealed to the
principle of justice
• OPEC nations opposed any moves
viewed as a threat to their
economies
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Opposition to Kyoto
• Two major countries opposed to the
treaty are the USA and Australia
• Sceptics argue that Kyoto is a
scheme to cut the growth of the
industrial democracies, or to
transfer wealth to the third world in
what they claim is a global socialism
initiative
• In 2000 the US announced its
withdrawal from the process
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Why would the US not ratify?
• Perceptions of national interest
• Division of powers in the political
system requires any international
convention to be agreed by Senate
• Reluctance on the part of US citizens
to stop their high consumption
• Energy production and motoring
lobbies – known as the Global
Climate Coalition, form an extremely
successful lobbying organisation at
domestic and international levels
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Search for a just solution
• Southern nations demand an equal
share of global atmospheric
commons
• The Global Commons Institute has
developed a plan, ‘contraction and
convergence’
• Every person should have an equal
emission quota
• All emissions quotas are marketable
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Latest news on greenhouse emissions
• Research carried out by the US
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration reveals a new high of
CO2 emissions
• The new figures are likely to be a
powerful tool in the battle to
convince the United States, the
world’s biggest polluter, that it
urgently needs to join efforts to slow
down emissions
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