When I played my role in this exercise, I felt like I had an important and that I could be able to add an impact to the climate change.
However, this changed as we started to negotiate. At first negotiations seemed to be an easy give and take. We receive money, and the countries providing the fund can monitor our progress and use of the fund. After negotiating with other developed nations and the European Union, we believed we had enough funding to plan out how we were to divide and use the given funding. But as time progressed, US came back to us, asking for our regions to raise our annual reduction rate. This frustrated me, as well as other group mates, because it did not seem fair to target us. After all, our high emissions rate was only due to the fact that half of the world’s land was within our jurisdiction. Despite this, US (and India) kept pressing that we still lower our emissions rate.
Our group changed how we approached our spending. After looking into the many countries in our jurisdiction, we realised that we could not just focus on the Amazon and needed to also look into spending the funding for Africa, as well as many other countries and regions. We also changed our projected years and looked into possibly limiting our carbon emissions. We were prompted to change these factors because other countries were pressuring us to contribute more.
Looking back, the total emissions for other developing countries may be able to be cut. Although the other developing nations can cut their emissions, I do not think the emissions can be cut as much as the other countries want it to be.
One major barrier as I mentioned before was the how large of an area our group covered. Because of the large area of information to resolve, it was hard to know how our carbon emissions could be reduced etc. It was also hard to pinpoint causes of the high carbon emissions and to address the needs of each country. Another major barrier is the condition of the country/ the region. Because the conditions of some countries are not ideal, the country’s main focus would be using the money to improve their situation. I think if we could also incorporate ways to improve conditions in a more environmental-friendly option, this could already cut some carbon emissions.
We can catalyze this change in the US through education and demonstration. I think if the restaurants started slowly integrating more eco-friendly options, then people will also spend a few extra dollars for more eco-friendly options.