POL101Y1 Midterm: POL101 Midterm Exam Review-
Main Concepts
Please write whatever you feel is relevant about these main concepts. (e.g: what they
are, how they are connected to the readings, the angles from which the concepts were
examined, definitions of related key terms not included in the list below, a summary of
your notes from the corresponding lectures, etc.)
Climate Science (basics)
The basics:
Greenhouse effect: good, warms atmosphere / the greenhouse effect increases the
temperature of the earth by trapping heat into our atmosphere, its good in the sense
that it keeps warmth into the atmosphere.
Greenhouse gases: gases that make greenhouse effect work; some natural, some
industrial/manmade (e.g. methane, water vapor,Co2, etc.)
Global warming: increas bed heat around planet b/c of increased ghg emissions
Climate change: the implications of global warming; ex: rising sea levels, changing
storm frequencies
We know: Warming fast b/c of humans (extremely likely that human influence has been
the dominant cause of observed warming since mid 20th century); Impacts are already
being observed
Uncertainties: Variability in magnitude, timing, and place of effects
Headlines of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 5th
Assessment Report: warming is unequivocal; many observed changes are
unprecedented on time scales of decades/millennia; human influence on the climate is
clear; climate will continue to change in the future
Future climate depends on: inherent variability, social + economic choices (largest
variability depending on how much ghg humanity emits), response of the Earth system
Characteristics of Climate Change Complex issue; global issue; century time frame
hence difficult to comprehend some examples of these co2 emissions in the
atmosphere and residence period is long therefore reductions wont make a difference
until later in the century, similarly emission cuts right would not benefit until few decades
down in the the future. Then there is the inequality feature regarding who is responsible
who pays and who is affected. Majors emissions up till now done mainly by developed
countries but many developing nations suffering due to their lack of wealth education
and dependency on agriculture. Where as most of the developed countries lie in the mid
or high latitudes thus have cold temperatures and are not so much dependent on
agriculture(Steffen article, Oxford handbook).
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Uncertainty: Do not know the potential impacts of CC in different areas, its
regularities and level of damage
International Politics The international community is divided among North-South and
Precautionary vs. business-as-usual lines; the global north seeks to alleviate/deflect any
and all attempts by the global south for tech transfers or monetary support. The global
north consists of industrialized states in Western Europe, North America and Japan.
The global south consists of lesser industrialized states in Africa, Central America, Asia,
Oceania, and South America. These states seek monetary concessions and technology
transfers from the global North in order to obtain resources to sustain their
development. Countries
Treaty-Making (Over Time)
Kyoto Protocol, Copenhagen 2009, Paris Agreement. There were other policies on
other issues but those issues were more tame and not as complex as climate
change (?). People tried applying strategies from other policies to deal with
climate change but it did not work because climate change is wicked meaning
that it is unpredictable
Toronto Conference, 1988 the first time the political world acknowledged climate
change
Nation states responded to climate change through the United Nations and founded the
IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change). The IPCC is not a scientific bodyit
merely catalogues information produced on climate change by the scientific community.
Science informs politics, but science is not political in itself. The problem is that it is very
difficult to come to agreement with 150 different people. Perhaps a better idea would
have been to hold a conference between the 6-8 largest emitters.
1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
The UNFCCC is still the dominant environmental agreement. It is still enforced today.
Essentially, negotiations for the UNFCCC included bargaining over whether or not to
take action. The European Union took the precautionary principle. The
US/Japan/Canada/Russia adopted a no regrets policy. The large countries in the global
South consider it to be a problem to be dealt with by those who caused it. Politics is
driven by ideas, interests and power. (from B&N) (<--- actually this was taken word for
word from the Hoffmann lecture on this topic) There are no binding restrictions in the
UNFCCC but there is a non-binding goal of keeping emissions at 1990 levels by 2012.
However, countries are legally bound to report their emissions.
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Did the UNFCCC really have an impact?
Yes and no. The UNFCCC did define the framework for modern climate change, but it
did not set the groundwork for future climate change negotiations.
Kyoto Protocol, 1997
Domestic politics are very relevant for international politics. The US position on climate
change changed after Bill Clinton was elected, and the nation state now had the stance
that we should cut a little but now, but that everyone should cut together. The Kyoto
Protocol contained a binding 5% cut on emissions by 2012. It also contained the clean
development mechanism. Ideally, the Kyoto Protocol should have worked out, but the
US didnt ratify the agreement before it was finalized, and in 2001, they withdrew their
signature from the protocol. Without US support, other countries followed suit. The
participating countries met the goals of the Kyoto Protocol, but because of the countries
that did not participate, it is considered to be one of the biggest failures in climate
change politics.
2008-2009
Obama was elected during this time period, and the US stance on climate change once
again changed. Many people hoped for a breakthrough with COP15 in 2009. The
Obama administration did not have sufficient support for a Kyoto-like protocol, so a top-
down approach was rejected in favour of a bottom-up approachevery nation state
would tell the United Nations what they are capable of doing, and the United Nations
would act as a monitoring body. This was a massive shift, and many countries in the
global south saw this as a betrayal as it was a much less collective process. As a result,
COP15 was branded brokenhagen, even though the bottom-up approach is now
considered the status quo for these types of negotiations.
Will Paris Save Us?
The Paris Agreement let countries set their own goals. The Paris Agreement presents
the first time in the history of climate change where every participant signed on. It is a
bottom-up treaty. The binding aspect of the Paris agreement is that every nation state
must submit a pledge. Meeting this pledge is non-binding. Paris is a much more self-
enforcing agreement, but there is a lot of uncertainty about the fact that states dont
have to actually do anything. The fact that every country signed onto this agreement is
ground-breaking, and means naming and shaming will become a more effective
strategy.
Regimes- By protecting states sovereignty in climate change policies, treaties and
regimes are often signed; in order to do so, there will be agenda setting, bargaining,
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Document Summary
Greenhouse effect: good, warms atmosphere / the greenhouse effect increases the temperature of the earth by trapping heat into our atmosphere, it(cid:1685)s (cid:1688)good(cid:1689) in the sense that it keeps warmth into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases: gases that make greenhouse effect work; some natural, some industrial/manmade (e. g. methane, water vapor,co2, etc. ) Global warming: increas bed heat around planet b/c of increased ghg emissions. Climate change: the implications of global warming; ex: rising sea levels, changing storm frequencies. We know: warming fast b/c of humans (extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of observed warming since mid 20th century); impacts are already being observed. Uncertainties: variability in magnitude, timing, and place of effects. Headlines of the ipcc (intergovernmental panel on climate change) 5th. Assessment report: warming is unequivocal; many observed changes are unprecedented on time scales of decades/millennia; human influence on the climate is clear; climate will continue to change in the future.
