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.
