User:Camilleheneine/sandbox

Power in climate action
question: How does the concept of power within the discipline of International relations, sociology and economics makes it difficult to coordinate global action against climate change?

Introduction
Just introduce in three sentences the three disciplines we are going to talk about (for now: IR, economics, sociology or social sciences)

Power play between nations in IR
(my part)

Nowadays, we can say that the world is split in two, the Northern hemisphere, usually viewed as the developed part, containing countries like France, Germany, the United States of America, and the Southern hemisphere, viewed as the developing part, with countries like Mexico, Brazil, African nations and India.

Concerning climate change, we have seen that well developed countries have had their industrialisation and enriched themselves at the expense of the environment, and now they are pressuring the developing countries to go environmental friendly.

However, some of the large emerging economies like the BRICS are catching up. China, the world's factory, is the second largest economy in the world by nominal GDP (Gross Domestic product) and has the world's second-highest number of billionaires with total wealth of $996 billion. Thus, they feel it is their turn to enrich themselves and are more reluctant to place hurdles to economic growth in the shape of environmental regulations.

The power struggle between nations is illustrated by all the failed environmental treaties and negotiations such as the 1992 Kyoto Protocol or the 2009 Copenhagen Summit

It took 40 years for the global community to reach a common accord on climate actions, which culminated in the 2015 Paris agreement

As Laurie Laybourn-Langton, as associate fellow at London's Institue for Public Policy Research says :" No country on Earth is doing what is required to make sure we get toward an economic system capable of confronting the twin challenges of ecological collapse and climate change"

Power in sociology
not developed yet (maybe removed)

Cultural differences: The rural from the urban people: they have different views on it Ex: rural people are more affected by the urban people actions and are more pro climate actions.

Education: Education is a powerful tool and effective with younger generations because it's happening at school: Young people are more keen on changing our way of life because they are more affected by climate change and want to change their future vs. older generations that don't really want too change anything, they feel they will be gone before major climate change impact

Power of politics
(not developed yet, maybe removed)

There is on one side: big corporations that pay or convince congressmen (trough lobbies) to reduce the environmental regulations in order for them to continue their business without losing money

On the other side: the extinction rebellion actions trying to convince people to join their movement (it is a kind of lobbying) they are trying to mobilise voters

Power of political demonstration and actions. The power of voters

Power of economics/ money
(my part)

Economics is the most powerful factor linked to climate change. It is a real arm wrestling between money and the environment. Protecting the environment costs money through regulations on fossil fuels (carbon tax ) for example, policies and norms such as the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act.

For some countries, the regulations can be even more costly because of their geography. Indeed, some can be blessed with ample hydro electric resources while others sit on a massive pile of cheaply extracted coal. It goes as well for countries that naturally have more sun, wind... For example, it will be incredibly costly and inefficient if Russia goes for a solar source of power.

The ultimate dilemma would be the Saudis that have the world sunniest location and at the same time, they sit on top of the world's largest oil reserve.

Those costs are designed to alter people's behaviour. Doing so voluntarily because of one's conviction about climate action is much harder, because it consists eventually of reducing the consumption of various goods such as plastic, or even living in colder room temperature at home or giving up on air conditioning during summer. As Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of global investment manager GMO wrote "We face a form of capitalism that has hardened its focus to short-term profit maximisation with little or no apparent interest in social good".

Economics is at the base of all decision making. It is hard to convince people that additional cost today should be seen as an investment for the future generations, it is also utopic to believe that large corporations will trade their quarterly profits for a badge of honour on climate action. It is equally difficult to expect emerging economies trying to pull their population out of poverty to start acting in a noble fashion to protect the environment.

Conclusion
(not fully developed yet)

We could summarise by saying some people think that we should change our habits and way of living to help this crisis, but others, like Peter Diamantis in his book Abundance, say that we should not worry about the scarcity of our resources, since in a near future, technological advancements will resolve all our problems. (I think it is a quite interesting opening to the subject)

+ finish other parts (Cordelia or Stella) +images

-Group Thinking/ Final touch: removing the sociology and politics part. My addition: Talk about Stella's ethnicity/racial problems (indigenous people having no/little voice) into a new sub-chapter/ discipline called social sciences. Stella's post-colonialism part: talk about it in the IR sub-chapter (with the two sides = enough)