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.