Global Governance : Environmental

Question 1

Define Anthropocentrism

Answer 1

Belief that human needs and interests are of overarching moral and philosophical importance

Question 2

Define entropy

Answer 2

A tendency towards decay or disintegration occurs in all closed systems

Question 3

Define Ecocentrism

Answer 3

A theoretical orientation that gives priority to the maintainance of ecological balance

Question 4

Problems with Global Governance environmental

Answer 4

1. Richer countries are more likely to cut their use but developing countries need it to grow and develop economically
2. All need to cut it or it will not be effective
3. Industrialising nations e.g china, India etc refuse
4. Developing countries blame industrialisation caused by richer countries for climate change
5. Countries that produce high resources want compensation e.g saudia arabia and Nigeria’s oil
6. Countries can use exploitation i.e a rich country paying a poor country to do their pollution cuts

Question 5

Why is there a need for global governance environmentally ?

Answer 5

• this is beacause every state contributes
• every state is affected
• every state can make an impact in resolving

Question 6

Realist and Liberal views on environmental global governance

Answer 6

Realists

• most likely would not want to give up their state sovereignty to a supranational organisation

Liberals

• supranational organisations would aid to the decrease in the use of fossil fuels

Question 7

Explain the global commons

Answer 7

The UN defines the global commons as

‘Resources or areas that lie outside the political reach of any one nation-state’

Question 8

Examples of what global commons include :

Answer 8

• the High seas e.g BP Deepwater horizon spill in 2010
• the atmosphere e.g smog in China
• the polar regions e.g 2007 saw 2 Russian explorers planting their flag on the N.Pole
  -outer space e.g as many as 500,000 human debris

Question 9

What international laws are designed to protect the global commons ?

Answer 9

The UN Convention of the Laws of the sea [UNCLOS]

The Antarctic Treaty system

The UN Framework convention of climate change [UNFCCC]

Question 10

The tragedy of the commons

Answer 10

Economic problems that occurs when people attempt to maximise their money from a shared resource

It then becomes a tragedy for everyone as the resource is either neglected to the point where it is unattainable or not usable

Examples

• China accounted for 500,000 deaths via pollution, this contributed to them agreeing to the Paris agreement

Question 11

What is climate change ?

Answer 11

The increasing and decreasing global temperature of the earth, caused by both natural and human impacts

Question 12

Natural and Human causes of climate change

Answer 12

Natural

• sunspots (massive holes in the sun which allow heat to leave and enter / hotter or colder)
• the rotation of sun whilst orbiting changes temp
• the wobbling of the earth on its axis

Human causes

• agriculture
• pollution (air pollution, chemical pollution)
• deforestation as it causes for the removal of oxygen from the atmosphere

Question 13

Why is international cooperation difficult ?

Answer 13

1. Conflict between the collective good and national interest
2. Tensions between developed and developing states
3. Economic obstacles
4. Ideological obstacles

Question 14

Conflicts between the collective goof and national interests : explain

Answer 14

• each state try to pay as little into making the air / water cleaner
• states will benefit from other states making an effort - encourages them to be ‘free riders’
• states are therefore unwilling to agree to binding targets as they want to maximise benefits
• developed states will be affected (biggest losers) as they are focuses on economic growth concerns

Question 15

Tensions of developing and developed states : explain

Answer 15

• climate change serves to widen the north-south divide
• outsourcing means that target setting is unfair on southern states
• climate problems have mostly been caused by the north, therefore they should take more repsonsibility
• developing countries are mostly affected by climate problems and also lack mitigation and adaptation strategies to solve thesee

Question 16

Economic obstacles : explain

Answer 16

• northern countries cannot be held responsible for the ‘unknown consequences’ of emitting co2
• southern states have a right to develop as northern states were able to

Question 17

Ideological obstacles : explain

Answer 17

• radical / deep ecologists believe the response to climate change is inadequate and they need to go deeper and look at the structural problems
• capitalism is the problem and until profit maximising businesses are eradicated then there will always be environmental issues
• thee is a challenge to get all states to abandon their status quo and adopt a new system

Question 18

Differences between shallow and deep ecology

Question 19

Case study : trump administration in denial of climate change ? [2012]

Answer 19

• trump argued that china invented the notion of climate change in order to make the us manufacturing non-competitive

Question 20

United Nations framework convention on climate change [UNFCCC] (1992)

Answer 20

Initially agreed at the 1992 Rio summit [197 signed and 127 ratified

An international treaty that set up a process through which future international negotiations on climate change could take place. But rules for the UNFCCC are not legally binding

Direct result of the UNFCCC would be ..

Kyoto agreement 1997 - set legally binding targets
Paris agreement 2015 - pledged to keep global temp below 2 degrees

Question 21

Intergovernmental panel on climate change [IPCC]

Answer 21

This is a group of governnments (190), which collects data on the human causes of climate change. They help to set up policy that tackle and help change environmental policy

They have expert advice on :

• regular assessments of the impact and extent of climate change
• regular assessments of the causes
• possible solutions to reduce the amount of …

BUT CANNOT FORCE THE GOVERNMENT TO DO ANYHTING

Question 22

How many reports has there been since the IPCC was founded ?

Answer 22

5 reports

Question 23

Strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC

Answer 23

Strengths

-highly successful inclusive - helping scientists to build skills to help development
-pooling a wide range of expertise
- avoids a bias view from a group of people

Weaknesses

• repots are arguably out of date and need lengthy review
• has been accused of scaremongering (e.g using rising se levels to scare states into paranoia)

Question 24

What are the aims of international summits ?

Answer 24

• identifying and agreeing the problem and the need for collective action [e.g Rio earth summit 1992]
• agreeing specific action to be taken and making it a reality [e.g Kyoto 1997, Copenhagen 2009, Paris 2015]

Question 25

The Rio Earth Summit (1992)

Answer 25

This was the first international commitment to tackling climate change 172 governments attended
It paved the way for future discussions on climate change

• states environmental issues are best managed by participation of all citizens

Successes

• it locked signatory states to a process of annual negotiations and was ultimately legally binding

Weaknesses

• little was achieved, as the problem was identified it required collective action and continued commitment

Question 26

Kyoto summit and protocol (1997)

Answer 26

First one to introduce legally binding emission targets, to attempt to hold states accountable for their actions

Collective action was informed as the Kyoto protocol would not come into force until 55 states would ratify the treaty

Failures

• it did not come into force until 2005, nearly a decade after the summit so no longer valid
  -while states deliberates, emissions increased from around 40-50% between 1990 and 2009
• the agreement was not comprehensive with BRICS, this eventually led to USA rejecting the treaty due to confusion of if sttes were being asked to do enough
• Russia and china were not covered by legally binding targets. China did not sign the treaty and Russia took 7 years to ratify

Successes

• ## EU emissions decreased by 8% in appliance to the protocol

Question 27

Examples of the failures of Kyoto 1997

Answer 27

• China did not sign the treaty and its estimated their emissions has increased by nearly 300%
• USA rejected the treaty, leading to Canada revoking consent
• Russia took 7 years to ratify

Question 28

Why did USA rejecting Kyoto make it a failure ?

Answer 28

The Kyoto protocol did not include the worlds major polluter, the USA being responsible for around 35% of global emissions

Question 29

Copenhagen summit (2009)

Answer 29

Copenhagen seeks to tackle more inclusion of both developing and delvoeping states unlike the Kyoto 1997

• it goal was to limit global temp to less than 2 degrees

Strengths

• it was ambitious and set clear goals

Failures

• there were no legally binding targets both all states involved
• not clear didn’t carry the weight of int. law

Question 30

Paris Summit COP 21 (2015)

Answer 30

Hosted amid high security post the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, seeked to address :
- legally binding targets (Kyoto and Copenhagen has both failed)
- a comprehensive and unified approach

Succceses

• legally binding targets
• kept temperatures rises below 2 degrees and aimed for 1.5
• deal relied on peer pressure as there was not punishments
• developed nations promised to assist developing nations - a figure of 100 billion per year

Failures

-INDCs allows countries to set there own targets, rather to than making them agree to targets that might achieve the reductions needed
-president trump withdrew 2017, meaning the second biggest producer was not bound to cut emissions

Question 31

What were some of Paris summit 2015 policies / decisions ?

Answer 31

• a fund of 100 billion per year to 2020 in finance of developing countries
• you cannot exit the deal until a minimum of 3 years \
• INDCs required states setting there own goals and plans for cutting of emissions

Question 32

COP 26