When I played my role in the policy exercise, I felt that I had a direct influence on the cooperation of nations that set aside some economic well being to do what was best for the world. As China, I felt that we had a responsibility as one of the world’s largest populations and economies to make changes that would be beneficial to the environment. After our initial proposal, which I felt good about, calls from other nations and nation blocs to cooperate allowed us to give more to the cause than we would have been willing to on our own. By making our goal to cap emissions 10 years sooner than our initial plan and increasing our rate of decreasing emissions, we joined other nations in making bigger changes sooner. While our plan looks admirable on paper, carrying it out in reality may prove difficult, especially in China. Since China is both developed in many areas and developing in others, the developing areas may begin increasing CO2 emissions as modern conveniences become more available to them. This puts more pressure on the developed areas to begin enacting environmentally friendly changes sooner, and developing technology that would allow the developing areas to enact sustainable growth policies. The cost would be large, but due to the size of the economy, it would not be impossible to commit the necessary funds to protect the environment. Catalyzing change in the United States may prove difficult due to the difficulty of motivated individuals to have much of an effect on the environment. However, companies and governments must lead the changes with technologies and policies that protect the environment and decrease CO2 emissions.
World Climate Simulation – Hailey Maxwell
When I played my role in the policy exercise, I felt both powerful and frustrated. As a member of the US delegation, our negotiating power was high; we had money that the other countries wanted, and we could bargain with that instead of having to promise to reduce our emissions. However, as a human who wants the earth to still be functional in 80 years, I was very frustrated, both with how slowly negotiations were progressing and with how little effect many of our changes had on the climate. My group became significantly more willing to decrease carbon emissions and to donate money as negotiations went on. We started with a goal of a 2040 peak year and essentially no donations, but we ended with 2030 and about 12 billion dollars. This change was prompted by seeing how little effect the changed we were forcing on the other countries had. We realized we and our ally, China, needed to also commit to a sooner peak year, and we were only able to get China to do so by offering to donate about as much money as they did. I think emissions can certainly be cut; however, I am not so optimistic that they will be cut by enough or soon enough to prevent irreversible change. Major costs and barriers to the implementation of proposals, at least on the part of the US, were that we were reluctant to do anything that might harm our economy in the slightest. Public opinion in the US is not as concerned with the climate as it is with matters of national security and the economy. In order to catalyze change in the US, we need to increase public concern for the climate so that politicians can fight for it without risking their positions.
Sam Greenwell Climate Change Simulation
When I played my role as China, I felt as if I was the middle ground for the developed and developing nations, and it was difficult to get other countries to negotiate. Being more developed than countries like India and other developing nations, we were expected to contribute more to global funds. However, being less developed than the United States, we were the largest source of carbon emissions in the world and we had to work to resolve that.
My stances didn’t change much on how the global temperature would stay within 2 degrees Celsius of what it is at now by 2100. I knew that because China was the largest emitter of carbon that we’d have to contribute in a variety of ways, but I figured that afforestation was not one of those ways, which I was correct about. Although it is portrayed in media as a key resolution to the problem of climate change, increasing our afforestation (which is not feasible in a land where so many people rely on agriculture) made a very little impact.
We did however change our ideas on the basis of peak year. We figured that China was going to peak in 2040 and then plateau with no changes, likely due to the fact that their population rates are slowing down as time progresses. So, keeping the peak year as 2040 and then working to reduce carbon emissions in the years following would work best and most plausibly. However, that didn’t make enough of an impact on the climate, so we bumped up the peak year all the way to 2020, which might not be completely realistic, but it was the weight that China had to carry to avoid increasing carbon emissions substantially over the next 20 years. Working on negotiations with the US allowed us to realize that we would need to do that.
We were able to witness the emissions that were cut out from this change. However, no matter what changes we made, we were always the leader in carbon emissions. The footprint that has been left from China is already impactful enough to keep the global temperatures rising at a rate that is more than what is ideal.
The barriers of the proposals we made were that we could not direct much effort towards prevention of deforestation or encouraging afforestation because of the population and emphasis on agriculture. However, we found that to not be very impactful anyways and we found that the impacts we were making as far as contribution to the global funds were much greater. Another barrier though was that the developing nations outside of China were asking for far too much and it was tough to negotiate with them.
We can catalyze change in the US by starting now to reduce carbon emissions. As the US group noted, the political situation in the US could be different in ten years from now, so making sure that this political landscape is focused reducing carbon in case leaders in the future stray from that idea is important.
Climate Simulation Blog Post Maddie Hamas
When I played my role in the policy exercise as a representative of India, I felt like we needed help since we were still a somewhat developing country and at first we were not getting the help we needed. I think the other groups didn’t understand that we needed help because we weren’t under the “Developing Countries” category.
When we started negotiating with other countries, I think they started to realize that even though we are not under that category, we still need help. We have so many people in our country and this contributes to our country’s carbon emissions and the other countries started to realize that our emissions were from our high population not necessarily each individual using an extreme amount.
After negotiations, our group was able to get money from China and the US, which was great considering the US was only going to give $17 at first. I think these other countries and ourselves realized after we played with the numbers on the chart that deforestation and afforestation aren’t going to do much and that its actually the rates that will affect the temperature. I think after these richer countries saw that they came to the conclusion that they need to help the more developing countries so that we have the resources to make this possible.
In the end, I think that we can cut emissions, but I don’t think it will be feasible in the next couple decades to cut it to the goal we had of only 2 degrees. Cutting emissions this dramatically would impact people’s every day lives and change their lifestyle.
Mentioned before, I think one of the major cost barriers was that at first the US was not giving any many, when India and the developing countries requested $230 billion combined and initially, there was a little over $100 billion. Eventually, the US contributed but not nearly as much as they should have.
I think we can catalyze change in the US by reducing our emissions now gradually and then we will adapt to it, and hopefully this will steadily decrease emissions over the years.
Climate Change Simulation – Will O’Neil
When I played my role as part of the country of India, I felt like it was hard for all of the countries to meet at a common agreement as well as get the 2100 predicted temperature below 2 degrees Celsius. It was difficult for the larger countries to get what they wanted while also helping the developing nations as well as us out.
At the beginning of discussions, I was optimistic about our chances to bring the 2100 predicted temperature down as well as help the country of India get rid of its poverty. As discussions went on, I became more and more optimistic because everything that we tried was either rejected by the larger nations or did not do enough to decrease the 2100 predicted temperature. At the end, I realized that it is almost impossible to prevent climate change due to the many factors that go into stopping it.
Our group changed our ideas about half way through the discussion. We decided that 2040 was pretty late for our peak emissions, so we changed to 2035 and changed our start of reductions to 2040 from 2050. We decided to keep our reduction rate at 1% as well as our $30 billion though. We had decently reasonable requests, so we did not have to change much throughout the discussion.
This change was prompted by the fact that all of the other countries were peaking around 2030, so we felt that , even though we were not a huge factor in the rise of temperatures, we needed to help out a little bit.
In the end, I think that we can cut emissions, but we can not cut them enough and continue to prosper. To get rid of climate change, we will have to get rid of everything that helps us live our lives as we do. If we cut emissions completely, we will lose all of the advancements we’ve made across the world the last hundreds of years.
The main cost barrier we encountered was the fact that the other developing nations wanted $200 billion as well as our request for $30 billion. However, the other nations were not willing to offer that much, so we had to discuss, and the other developing nations decided to eventually drop their request down a little.
We can catalyze change in the US by beginning to cut emissions sooner rather than later. As we learned in the activity, waiting to cut emissions does not help out at all. The earlier we cut emissions, the lower the temperatures will be in the distant future.
Climate Simulation- David Wang
When I played my role in the policy exercise, I felt that negotiations were extremely difficult. As the exercise went on, my views in regards to meeting the temperature goals became more radical. The fiscal and climate goals felt extremely difficult to reach, as all the countries also needed to satisfy their own needs, which made compromise extremely difficult. This caused me to believe that every country needed to compromise a lot more of their resources in regards to fighting climate change. Our group, which represented India, did not change our stance much because India itself does not contribute much to the rising carbon emissions. Initially, our group demanded for money in regards to fighting climate change, rather than contributing, because India is a poor country. However, we elected to not change this stance due to the lack of demand from other countries in regards to changing this stance. In the end, I believe that emissions can be cut. However, there are major costs and barriers that need to be overcome. Assuming the simulation matches exactly like the real negotiations, the high costs demanded by developing countries need to be overcome. The best way is through technological innovation, in which better access to more advanced technology will help increase efficiency and reduce costs. Furthermore, the US and China economic war needs to be overcome. Because the US and China contribute heavily to climate change, most notably China, negotiations are mandatory. Compromise is necessary. However, such discussions may be extremely difficult. In order to catalyze change in the US, everyone needs to encourage entrepreneurs with business ideas that combat climate change to step forth. This type of encouragement is most likely to meet bipartisan support from the government, as environmentally friendly businesses help the climate while bolstering the economy. Currently, there are many successful and creative inventions from such businesses that are combating climate change, such as carbon capture plants and solar panels.
Climate Simulation Reflection (Other Developing Countries) – Linda Cullen
When I played my role in the policy exercise I felt upset because other countries were very hesitant to donate money to us (other developing countries). We need the most money because of how high our carbon emission rates are and how little money we have to fix it. It was frustrating to see that other countries didn’t want to help us, considering that lowering our carbon emission rates would significantly help lowering world wide carbon emission rates.
At first I was frustrated, but after we expressed our point of view, other countries became more willing to give us the money we need. I realized that a lot of the reason why other countries didn’t want to donate to us was because we were asking for such a high amount of money ($200 billion), but once we explained that the steep amount was necessary, we started to get a lot more money from other countries.
Our group didn’t change our idea of how much money we wanted, but we did change our ideas on how we were going to use the money after negotiating with the other countries. At first, we had planned to use most of it to maintain the rainforest and plant more trees, but we then decided to allocate more money toward green energy.
The changes in where we decided to allocate our money was brought upon by talking to other countries, such as the US. We realized that, in order to get the money we want, we would need to use some of it on things that they wanted us to use it on, which included green energy.
I do believe that emissions can be cut, but the world needs to work together to make it happen. Focusing on your own country won’t solve the problem, because climate change will spread and affect the whole world if we don’t do more to fix it.
Green energy is much more expensive to invest our money into than afforestation, which means that the economy will go down. Each individual country would need to decide if it’s worth it to put money into green energy, which could lead to conflict if they don’t choose to do what other countries want them to do.
We can catalyze change in the US by focusing on decreasing carbon emission from large corporations and producers. We can also focus on lowering individual emission rates by educating people on the importance of reducing our carbon footprint. While people know that climate change exists, most people don’t understand the severity and how quickly it will soon affect the whole world.
Climate Simulation – Eric Miller
During the climate simulation, I was in the group of “other developed countries”. I was surprised to see that the majority of populations in these countries wanted to see government actions to help counteract climate change, as this is much more controversial in the US. This brightens my hopes about saving/improving the environment, as I now realize that there are other countries out there that are likely to make large contributions, even in the unfortunate possibility that the US does not start to take action.
I put myself in the shoes of government officials of developed countries in order to determine the first decision. As our populations believed in climate change, our group decided to focus a large amount of efforts on internal afforestation and preventing deforestation. However, we only contributed a base-level amount of money: $1 billion. As we started to see other countries pick up the pace of donations (especially in the EU), we started to realize that our coalition of nations could realistically afford to contribute at least $50 billion. This was further catalyzed by some of the “needier” countries, like India, who requested a monumental sum of money, but also had solid plans on how to spend it.
Even with the large contributions that were made in the second round, I felt somewhat disheartened by the fact that the simulation still showed above a 2-degree increase in the global temperature. However, I do have hope that in the real world, even though countries won’t change their minds as quickly as we did in class, the few initial contributions will have a large enough domino effect in order to get other countries to step forward (and end up reducing emissions enough to meet the goal of less than a 2 degree increase).
One of the largest barriers to this negotiation was the complex political relationships between nations. Many nations, in reality, would be hesitant to contribute money in fear that the receiving country would not use the funds for the intended purpose (other purposes, in the worst cases, could include weapon development). Additionally, even if these nations did make such an agreement, it would further promote a hierarchy where underdeveloped nations are forced to depend on the wealth and authority of the more-developed (which is one of the problems that got us here in the first place with colonialism).
My hope is that, along with increasing rallies of the US population to combat climate change, the internal pressure along with the pressure of other nations will eventually cause the United States to begin active contributions to stopping climate change. One of the major problems here is that climate change has turned into such a political issue. More people from all sides of the political spectrum should stand up for these issues rather than blindly following their parties’ platforms. This will take many different efforts, including improved education about climate change and well-formed budgeting proposals. If this is successful, as the US is one of the largest voices (and wealthiest nations) on the world stage, other nations will follow suit, and we will see dramatic changes.
Haden Jones – Climate Change Simulation
When I played my role in the policy exercise, I started off very confused and taken aback at all the countries trying to create deals/agreements so quickly. I was a part of the China team. This was challenging because China produces the largest amount of CO2 emissions. Even though this amount has decreased, we were still the leaders of CO2 emissions by a good amount. It seemed almost impossible to make a change that could better help the world’s problem of global warming and climate change.
Changes in emotion: My emotions did not change too much throughout this activity. I remained pretty overwhelmed throughout and unsure how to help solve this problem in an effective way.
Changes in ideas & what prompted this change: Considering China was largely at fault for this problem, it was inevitable we would have to share finances in order to gain deals. The money that we initially decided to give went up 3 billion dollars and our peak year went down 10 years. This change in money was due to United States agreeing they would also give the same amount.
Can emissions really be cut? Honestly, I do believe emissions can be cut; however, I do not believe there will be a time where there are no emissions. At the end of the day, we are not the real policy makers. Creating real change would most likely require more money and take a lot more time to find a deal all countries agree with.
Cost barriers: There was one problem with cutting emissions for China: afforestation. In China, there are many places that it would be hard to do this because farmland is a necessity in China, and trees cannot be planted in those areas.
Change in US: In order to catalyze change in the United States, we would need to somehow reduce the CO2 emissions. In order to do this, governmental change would need to be implemented. As one citizen, we could help by having more protests on climate change in the capital. Ultimately, the only way we can try to catalyze change is to spread the dangers of climate change.
Climate Simulation – Rowan Wiley
Acting as an important executive for the United States made me feel powerful and important and like I could make a major difference. However, after actually trying to negotiate with other world powers and address climate change, I felt confused and disappointed. I realized that the impact of my decisions was actually not as significant as I had hoped it would be.
I felt pretty confident about our ability to address climate change at the start of the exercise. I knew that the US contributed a great deal to global CO2 emissions and that we also have tremendous global power when it comes to negotiations, so I thought for sure that we could address the problem with a little effort. However, actually attempting to reduce emissions proved a lot harder than I expected, especially when other countries were unwilling to cooperate.
My group didn’t really change our ideas very much over the course of the exercise. We kept our deforestation and afforestation rates consistent throughout the entire exercise and we only added to our fund contribution in an effort to appease China. We did move our peak and reduction years forward, but once again that was in conjunction with China and India.
The most significant factor that led us to change our initial policies was the limited impact that our reductions had on climate change. In addition, the willingness of China and India to cooperate with us made things easier. We had a lot more trouble reaching agreements with the Other Developing Countries and Other Developed Countries.
I do think that emissions can be cut, but not by a significant enough margin to eliminate the effects of climate change. Based on the results of the exercise I think it is borderline impossible to truly minimize climate change before it is too late. Even with almost unanimous support and cooperation we were unable to reach the target of 2 ̊C.
Economic concerns and global competition seemed to be the biggest barriers to me. Reducing emissions and funding afforestation programs while reducing deforestation is an extremely expensive endeavor that will severely damage the economy, and most countries are unwilling to jeopardize their economic welfare. This doesn’t even take into account the money that other countries asked for in order to address climate change. Other groups were quick to jump on China and the US for not offering to donate very much money, but I don’t think they really understand how much it will cost to implement domestic changes that are significant enough to make a difference.
We can catalyze change in the US by ensuring that more people are educated about climate change and know how to address it. Doing little things personally isn’t going to make any difference whatsoever, massive industrial companies are the ones driving the emissions, so instead we should focus on bringing the problem to the attention of the government and high ranking officials in major companies. Only then can we hope to mitigate the damages of climate change.