62: The International Community Flashcards
What are the 2 main strategies to deal with climate change?
mitigation and adaptation
What is mitigation?
Trying to lower/reduce the significance of the problem
- reducing greenhouse gas emissions
- enhancing atmospheric CO2 removal
What is adaptation?
learn to live with climate change but reduce the harmful effects
- building infrastructure
- changing behaviors
- dealing with the refugee crisis
What occurred in 1992?
UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro Brazil
- the UN decided to address climate change by creating the Framework Convention on Climate Change
What occurred in 1997?
delegates from 160 nations signed the Kyoto Protocol in Japan and draft a climate change treaty
- industrialized countries committed to lower their emissions by certain percentages below 1990 levels
What is the Paris Agreement?
UN Climate Change Conference 2015 resulted in the Paris Agreement
- legally binding international treaty on climate change
- obligated to adopt certain policies in terms of emissions
- commits countries to support each other
What is the goal of the Paris Agreement?
limit global warming to below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels
When was COP27 established?
2022, Egypt hosted the 27th Conference of the parties of the UNFCCC (COP27) in the city of Sharm el-Sheikh
What is the big issue with COP27?
Who will pay for climate change?
What is the tragedy of the commons?
when a resource is shared by many individuals (common), each individual acts on their own best interest
- as a result, the resource is depleted in the long run
What countries are the top CO2 emitters in history?
- country (1750-2020): US (biggest)
- country (2019): China (biggest now)
What are the countries that are the top CO2 emitters per capita?
Saudi Arabia (biggest) and US (second biggest)
What do people in LDCs want?
to develop: better houses, cars, computers, discardable goods, medical devices, to eat meat (MDCs got these by burning fossil fuels)
Are countries meeting their goals?
no, most are insufficient
Are countries meeting their financial obligations?
shortfall, billions of dollars have been pledged but not produced
