The Guardian website has a portal that allows users to search the Wikileaks database for particular US embassy cables regarding issue areas or specific countries. A search for “climate change” turns up 14 cables — and 4 recent Guardian stories about those particular cables.
This blog went silent again for a few months and I’m very sorry about that. I taught International Security this term and spent a lot of time thinking about the war in Afghanistan and the prospects of Iranian proliferation. And not much time thinking about climate change politics.
International relations scholars are self-described pessimists — at least the realists among us speak in this way. However, it would appear IR realists are not alone, at least on the question of international cooperation on climate change.
Anyone who follows climate change politics knows that China’s coal consumption is a huge concern. As this chart from the U.S. Department of Energy reveals, Chinese production has doubled in the last decade
The potential “experiments” imagined in the geoengineering literature will be overtly designed to alter the climate. By contrast, the carbon buildup experienced this past century was the unintended byproduct of energy production. Obviously, very difficult (but interesting) global politics problems are associated with both pathways.
At my home institution, I’m involved in a project to reduce carbon emissions via individual behavioral changes. A relatively small group of scholars and administrators have been looking at some interesting theoretical and empirical social science research to bolster our efforts.
The May/June 2010 Utne Reader has a brief piece on science versus religion that reframes classic tensions in terms of climate change. By the way, I’m sorry for disappearing for so long. I originally agreed to blog through the Copenhagen meeting, but I later decided to post regularly through this year. I’ll aspire to do better.
Just over a year ago, Obama’s climate negotiator Todd Stern gave an important speech at a U.S. Climate Action Symposium. He’d been on the job for fewer than three weeks, but he nonetheless offered 10 fairly detailed principles that he said would underpin U.S. participation in the Copenhagen process.
The Copenhagen conference occurred during the final days of my fall semester. Then came the holiday break and several paper deadlines. Hence, I’ve been quiet here. Sorry about that. This past week, however, I participated in a campus “Teach-In” on climate change.
The ongoing negotiations in Copenhagen, which are slated to end Friday, are apparently at a “critical juncture” according to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The United States inched closer to the views of its European allies today.
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