In my diagram, I mainly focused on the interactions between the US and other countries involving the Copenhagen Accord. I first started off my diagram with the issue of climate change. The burning of fossil fuels and the releasing of greenhouse gas emissions contributed to climate change. There was not a plan to find ways to stop climate change, so the US created the Copenhagen Accord. Therefore, seeking negotiation chips, the US state department sent a secret cable in 2009 seeking help from UN diplomats across a range of issues, including climate change. In order to pass the Accord, the US needed to gain support from other countries. The US thought by spying, hacking, and sending death threats to other countries that they’ll gain their support. Their plans did not work. The communications of these bribes and threats were released to the public when the cables were released. The countries that were against the Accord, were upset with the ways the US were trying to negotiate. After the cables were released, other countries demanded the US to pay high amounts of money to gain their support. Therefore, the US paid the demanded money. This led to 116 countries associating themselves with the accord and also 26 others having intentions to. I personally think this wasn’t the best solution for decreasing climate change. I did not agree with how the US used threats and bribes to handle things. However, the Accord did make an impact and led to decrease in climate change.

There was a lot of information to take in after reading this article. Prior to reading this article, I have never heard of the WikiLeaks Cables and the problems that have occurred. Climate change is a very important topic and needs to be addressed in the right way in order to solve it. Human activities have contributed to climate change by adding CO2 and other heat trapping gases to the atmosphere. Climate change is already starting to transform life on Earth. As I stated before, I do not agree with some the methods the US used to get support from other countries. Threatening other countries is absolutely not the right way to go about things.  I’m sure the US could have thought of different approaches to gain support and help other countries. For example, the US could have tried to convince other countries in favoring for the Accord or set up conferences with other countries and try to come to a conclusion together. The US did however raise awareness of how important climate change is and how it’s affecting Earth. In my opinion, I think the State Department Cables should have been publicized and notified to the public. As a person, you have the right to know what’s going on where you live. From module 4, the collection action problem was discussed. I believe this article falls under this problem. Collective action problems are widespread throughout environmental issues such as climate change. Climate change is a challenging collective action problem due to its massive scale.

ClimateChangeWesleyPhipps

In my Diagram I wanted to start with climate change as this is the whole reason all these events came about.  From Climate Change we get world wide attention on this issue and so nations from all over the world come together at the Copenhagen summit.  i thought it was really important to point out why a country like the U.S. would be so for something like the Copenhagen accord and why a lot of countries were not.  The U.S. is already developed and therefore can look to do other things with its vast resources, such as becoming a greener more sustainable country.  As well the U.S. really gains nothing from countries growing more wealthy and powerful through industrialization.  Countries who oppose the bill simply realize that if stricter regulations come about the will struggle to grow at the same rate they have been and thus will take longer to become more industrialized and more wealthy.  Also investing in taking your country that is built to use fossil fuels and now switch it over to new renewable resources is quite expensive.  The U.S. therefore needed to persuade these opposing countries to agree to the accord.  The do this through spying, false emails meant to hack info, basically anything they could do to dig up dirt on foreign dignitaries so they will be forced to sign the bill.  The large switch to support of the accord drew the attention of the Guardian newspaper.  After some digging they uncovered the dirty political games the U.S. had been playing and exposed them.  This lead to the WikiLeaks articles we are reading now.

I personally think that what the U.S. is doing is okay.  We are facing a global crisis that has scientific backing and something needs to be done.  So I am fine with the U.S. using its power and resources to manipulate other nations into addressing and dealing with this issue.  This is a collective action problem and the whole world needs to get involved.  With that being said The U.S. is the largest polluter in the world co it cannot just simply bully countries into the accord. The U.S. needs to be the example for all countries on how to change from a fossil fuel dependent country to a clean, efficient, and climate friendly one.  The time for the U.S. to make its moves is now because as they said in the ted talk scientist believe we have already reach our threshold and something is bound to give.  As for making the tactics of the U.S. public, I think its great.  I like exposing the government and politics for what they are, its a cutthroat game.  We as citizens need to be exposed to this so we can see what’s going on, what’s at stake, and why decisions are being made.  I think the Guardian did a service to everyone as the bring so much attention to an issue that affects all of us.  Lastly I’ll just say that even though I believe strongly its gonna come down to governments making policies to help the climate.  We as individuals can all make a difference as well.

2. As you can see according to the chart, climate change is definitely connected to the wiki leaks situation.  The thing that started it was the over emission of green-house gases. This led to the gradual onset of climate change, which has been talked about for years already.  This climate change being as serious as it was, led to officials creating the Copenhagen Accord Plan, which was an attempt to cut back a lot of greenhouses gases and other harmful products that may have been hurting the environment.  However, not every nation had signed this bill to protect the environment.  When all these other countries heard of the secret negotiations that the US and its allies were involved in from the leak, they were obviously upset.  This forced the United States to pay hundreds of other countries to participate in this act, which in the end cost the United States thousands of dollars.  If the wiki leaks had never happened, these secret documents would never have made the public which would would have allowed us to continue our ongoing negotiations, without having to pay thousands to all other countries.  This is where the bad comes in from these leaks.

3.  I still think that everyone has a right to see these documents, no matter how much money it may cost the government.  The people of this country are the ones who pay taxes, and if we can’t even be informed on what our government is doing with this money the citizens will start to revolt.  This is somewhat related to the idea of sustainability, where we the government has to give us information in order to keep us happy, but also wants to keep as much as they can away in order to save money.  The way that wiki leaks does this however, should not be allowed because it is breaching the trust of every employee in the government.  If nobody in our government can even trust each other, there is no way that our country can continue to thrive and develop.  I believe information should be free for all, but if you have to break the law to obtain this information than you are just as bad as the people trying to hide it from everyone.

My diagram starts with fossil fuels and deforestation, which is causing global warming and climate change. Because of the climate change we are in need of a global cooperation and agreement that climate change is an issue and impacts all countries. The flow chart then points to The Copenhagen Accord with is an adaptation of the Kyoto Protocol, which was a treaty to reduce effects greenhouse gas emission impacts on climate warming. The Copenhagen Accord was developed to help reduce deforestation and emissions, as well as assist developing countries to adapt to cleaner technology and do their part in the reduction of global warming. With anything, it comes down to it, politics and money are generally the main drivers for countries to adapt policies, and this was no different. The Accord did help countries more than others, thus in the flow we have supporters and opposition to the plan. With the U.S. being a huge supporter of the Copenhagen Accord, and needed more supporters to the plan. As indicated in the flow chart, the U.S. would take any measure to find ways to get opposing countries on board. To gain more support the U.S. sent cables to try to dig up dirt on other countries using spying techniques to threaten countries, bribing countries and making promise to countries. In this day in age everything can be tracked and traced, a journalism from the Guardian helped Wikileaks with the cable leak. Even after Wikileaks revealed how the US manipulated the Accord, a majority of the countries did sign, if fact in total there will be 140 countries that adopt the accord. Those 140 countries contribute 80% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. With so many countries associated with the Accord, did the U.S. even need to do any of their shenanigans? Did the U.S. impact either side of the results, make some countries not agree because of the U.S. deception and we could have had an higher adoption rate, or is the adaption rate so high because of what the U.S. did?

I have mixed reviews on whether or not the State Department Cables should have been made public because I think it really puts the U.S. in a terrible and non-trusting light. Being a U.S. Citizen I think having this information public could impact world relationships as a whole. On the other hand, having some transparency can be good to really know that the U.S. government can be manipulative. I guess being a little naive; I had no idea that we would play so dirty. I do not condone the actions taken by the United States to persuade other countries. I understand the importance of a global focus on Climate Change, because I do feel that it is real issue in our world today. The areas that the Accord focuses on are emissions, deforestation and encouraging countries using clean technology, which area important and a global collective action is what it is going to take to make it work, but taking such drastic actions such as bribery and spying is bullying the world. The United States should not be conducting diplomacy in this self-interested manner. Every country is looking out for their her own countries WIFM’s (what’s in it for me) to any policy, rather than taking a negative approach, the U.S. should try to sell it to the world in how it benefits everyone. What should be done? For those country’s that are not going benefit as much as others, changes should be made to the agreement for countries to adapt the proposal. There will probably never be total agreement among countries on any plan or proposal, but coming up with a solution that benefits at least 80-90% of the countries should be considered. The UN should revisit the topic of a Global Climate Change, but not allow the US to drive the policy, but rather have an open forum where the policy is developed collaboratively.

Climate Change

2. I had difficulty uploading my google doc and inserted a pdf.  My diagram outlines some of the issues regarding climate change negotiations. Due to the increased release of greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution, we have seen a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions. In an attempt to combat the issue on a global scale, the UN proposed a convention to discuss this issue. The US was in support of the Copenhagen Accord which would bypass the majority support required by the UN and streamline the political process. In order for the plan to succeed, the United States needed support from many other nations. To get this support they used political power and the promise of aid and money to get more countries on board. They also engaged in hacking and threats that were all exposed during an information leak. The US met the demands of the other countries in order to get the plan approved in order to reduce greehouse gas emissions.

3. In my opinion, the US did what was necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Although the ethics behind it are questionable, the end result was a benefit for all. In agreeing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, many countries received aid and money they needed (or wanted). The problem with collective action issues is that you ultimately depend on others to do the right thing. The US garnered their power in the world community to strong-arm nations who may have been unwilling to reduce their footprint. Unless everyone willingly jumps on board to “right the ship”, we will be in similar circumstances in the future.

My systems diagram begins with the burning of fossil fuels at a faster rate in which they can regenerate. Over the past several years, we are becoming reliant on fossil fuels as a source of energy. Whether it is to heat our homes or to drive our car, people around the world are burning fossil fuels each and every day. This is a major problem because we are burning them at a faster rate so eventually we will run out and also because these gases are being emitted into the atmosphere. They are being trapped and this ultimately leads to Climate Change. Often times, global warming is the only topic that comes to mind but we fail to recognize the change in precipitation patterns as well. Noticing that issue needs to be addressed, the United Nations Climate Change Conference proposed the Copenhagen Accord. The Copenhagen Accord is an upgraded version of the previous document known as the Kyoto Protocol, which focuses on bettering the Climate Change issue worldwide. Since the United States is by far the leading country in the amount of fossil fuels burned, ultimately resulting in the country that has the largest impact on climate change, they were a big catalyst to get this bill passed. Originally, many countries were not in favor of the Copenhagen Accord so they went beyond legal measures to try to persuade them to approve. The first tactic that they used was money. The poorer countries were promised financial aid to help repair the global warming that they did not cause. Next, they spied on several countries that originally opposed to access information from them and give them reasons as to why they should sign the proposed treaty. Lastly, they used a little hostility to threaten countries like Ethiopia by saying if they would not sign, the United States would not longer aid them in anyway. With these three tactics that many question whether or not they are ethical, 140 countries signed the treaty. That is 75% of the world agreed. Coming together to fight the Climate Change problem as a whole is known as Climate Mitigation.

In my opinion, I think the State Department Cables was wrong to keep this information secret. If they publicized this information, they would not have been exposed by WikiLeaks. One other problem that I have with this issue is that I have never heard of the Copenhagen Accord or any of the components of the treaty. The reason I think this is a major issue is because Climate Change will only be achieved through collective action. It is great for individuals to ride their bike or walk to work instead of driving a car, but there will not be a noticeable difference unless a collective action is taken. We learned a few units back about the impact Copenhagen as a city had by encouraging the people to ride their bikes everywhere in the city. Many people adapted this practice and they were aware of the positive impacts both on their health as well as the benefits on the environment. Since this Accord was kept secret, the people had no say in how they would go about Climate Mitigation. The State Department should have informed the public about possible ways that the country could go about these changes and possibly had an open brainstorm or vote as to what we the people believe will be the best option. Furthermore, I think the United States needs to lead this charge. Instead of worry about what other countries are doing, we need to focus on ourselves first. We are the leading country in greenhouse gas emissions. If we show other countries that we can adapt sustainable practices that better the environment, they will follow. This is a large complex issue around the world that can be broken down by country, to state, all the way down to an individual person, that all need to come together to fight against Climate Change.

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2)  This systems diagram outlines the issues associated with climate change negotiations occurring around the world. The main driver of this diagram is climate change, which is caused by greenhouses gasses trapping radiation in the Earth’s atmosphere. The core idea behind this systems diagram is the principle of collective action being used to lessen the effects of global warming around the world. The logistics of solving this problem are very difficult. Figuring out ways to manage seven billion people and negotiate among differing countries can be very hard to do. This diagram outlines the negotiations among many different nations regarding a solution to climate change. Unfortunately, there is a lot of political mistrust surrounding the Copenhagen Accord. As mentioned before, it is very difficult for so many nations to come to an agreement, a core reason behind the mistrust among countries. The Accord is designed to create a plan for each nation for greenhouse gas emission cuts. It also intends to give financial aid to poorer countries who are affected by climate change, but are not necessarily the largest contributors to the problem. Most of the mistrust is among richer, larger countries like the United States. Nations must balance the negotiations between environmental benefit and financial feasibility. Solving climate change calls for the redirection of billions of dollars due to moving the global economy to a low carbon model. Despite the mistrust among the many countries, the negotiation talks have results in about 140 countries associating themselves with the Copenhagen accord. While this does not completely solve the problem, it brings the world one step closer to finding a solution to climate change.

3) I personally believe that climate change is an issue that can only be solved by every country on the world cooperating with one another. This is a collective action issue as well as an individual action problem. We must collectively work together, but also must take it upon ourselves to do whatever we can to help solve climate change. That being said, I do not believe the United States has been handling the issue of global warming very well. I do not think that we as a country are taking as much responsibility as we should for the damage we have caused. The United States is one of the largest greenhouse gas producing countries, making it our responsibility to compensate for the damage we have done. It is not ethical for the US to make other countries suffer for our actions. The concept of distributive justice explains the tradeoff between poorer and richer nations when it comes to climate change. Regardless of responsibility, the entire world’s population needs to shift from an anthropocentric view to one that focuses on ecocentrism. We must put the future of our Earth ahead of our immediate human needs. In regards to the negotiations between political entities, I am somewhat conflicted on whether or not the cables should have been made public. When it comes to making a decision and coming to an agreement, I think that the politicians would be able to come to a quicker solution if they were able to work without the pressure from the public on them. On the other hand, this is a world issue that affects all of us, so the public also has a right to know what different nations are thinking in regards to the negotiations. I think in order to solve the issues of climate change, we need to have more trust among each other and act less in self-interest and more for the benefit of all.

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2. The WikiLeaks article was a little confusing to me, but I did my best to dissect the article to get the main points out.  Looking at my diagram, it starts with the green boxes, then the blue, then either red or yellow, then the purple boxes, and it ends back up at the blue box.  This article describes how the whole problem originated with an increasing release of greenhouse emissions due to fossil fuels and other things that are bad for the environment.  All of these things are coming together to create climate change throughout the world.  In order to fix this, the UN had a convention for climate change, and there was the creation of Copenhagen Accord plan.  The goal of this plan was to help with climate change, and reduce the amount of greenhouse emissions.  The US was in favor of this plan, but not many other countries were.  The US needed allies with them to be in favor of this plan so they started secretly negotiating that included threats, hacking, and more.  Eventually the information was leaked and there was distraught brought on by the other countries.  They demanded a large amount of money in order to be in favor of this plan.  Since the US was focused on getting their way, they paid the large amounts of money to the countries.  Once the US did this, then those countries would be in favor of the Copenhagen Accord plan.  In total, there were 146 countries that were going to be in favor of the plan, as well as 26 countries that had the intention of joining.  All in all, the US bribed these countries to be in favor of the Copenhagen Accord plan so that green house emissions could be reduced, and climate change could hopefully be reduced as well.
3. In my opinion, I do not think that the United States went about this issue correctly.  In this class we have discussed the concept of ethics, and I believe that what occurred was unethical.  The US was just focused on creating their end means that they did not care about the route taken to get there.  I understand that greenhouse emissions and climate change is a serious problem, but I do not think they went about this the right way.  I also do not think that the negotiating should have been leaked.  There are a lot of foreign affairs go on that most of the world does not know about.  These negotiations or whatever else goes on should be kept private, and between the parties involved.  On the same note, climate change is a collective action problem.  All of the countries that eventually were in favor of the Copenhagen Accord plan are contributing to climate change.  If together each country owned up for their contribution to this issue, a change could have been made.  Instead, United States was worrying about themselves, and switched the problem from collective action to individual action.  They did this by only being concerned about what they wanted, and tried to solve the problem on their own when in fact a lot of other parties should have been involved.  I don’t think that the United States should have been conducting the climate change diplomacy in the way that it did.  But I also do not think that there is a simple solution.  There are many different countries involved in this problem, and until the UN has a better solution to come up with it, I think this is where our world will remain.  Every participant in the UN should be in some type of agreement of a plan to follow in order to fix this ongoing problem of climate change.

I found all of the WikiLeaks articles very difficult to understand.  What I know is that most of our world agrees that carbon emissions have pushed our Earth close to a “Planetary Boundary” and humans have got to agree on what to do so as not to reach that “unsafe state.”  To reach such an agreement, many “treaties” have been developed, argued, and voted on, but none agreed upon globally.  The US found the “accord” developed at Copenhagen in 2009 to be very advantageous to its personal welfare.  As a result, the US set out on a mission to get all other UN countries to agree on this “Copenhagen Accord”.  During this mission, US politicians and ambassadors, among other things, offered “grants”, financial incentives, gave ultimatums, and implied that they were the targets of a “phishing” scam in order to get countries (big, small, wealthy, and poor) to agree to this accord.  What happened next was not anticipated by US authorities; WikiLeaks cables revealed how the US manipulated countries and “offered negotiating chips” to get this accord passed.  In the end, approximately 75% of the UN countries have backed this Copenhagen Accord.  Was the US morally corrupt in its actions?  I believe so, because it had been using its huge finances to accomplish its own goals.  Is it good that the “WikiLeaks” occurred?  I think yes because even though it has been embarrassing, it showed the public (both domestic and foreign to the US) how US politicians work and will stop at almost nothing to accomplish it own ends.  
Without a doubt, the US is one of the, if not the, biggest producers of toxic “greenhouse gases.”  Also, without a doubt, many people do not conduct “individual mitigation”! So many of us, and I include myself in this, believe that it is “everyone else’s” problem to lessen greenhouse emissions.  I believe many Americans ask themselves why we should have to reduce our standard of living just so others are not overcome by increased water levels, extreme weather events, and the negative impacts of global climate change.  Unless we are directly affected by global warming (either physically or financially), I believe the average American will not change their ways in order to prevent us from reaching a “planetary boundary”.   Yet I believe that we who are the primary “emitters” should be the people who monetarily pay for greenhouse mitigation.   Should the residents of small, poor countries who add very little to greenhouse emissions have to change their way to prevent global warming?  I believe yes.  Anything that anyone can do to increase individual mitigation should be done!  On my individual end, I can help by eating locally grown produce because that is definitely available to me and I can make sure that I recycle every can and bottle that I use, not just the ones that are easy for me to recycle.  For that matter, I need to use refillable drink containers whenever possible!  These might seem like very small actions, but they keep me mindful of the precipice that which our Earth sits.  As I stated above, I think it was good that the State Department cables were made public, because it served as a check as to how American and others do business.  It is so easy for wealthy individuals and governments to push their weight around so they can get what they want.  Truthfully, I do not know what is right in this realm of global warming. Certainly this course has opened my eyes and mind to the footprints that I leave here on Earth.  The only tenets that I can adhere to are those of individual mitigation (recycling my wastes, using reusable containers, eating low on the food chain, buying locally).

My systems diagram shows the connection between the leak of the cables to climate change. It starts off with how humans have started releasing more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere as time has progressed. This is bad for the environment as it can cause the climate to rise. With this serious problem on the rise the world came together and had the United Nations climate change convention. At this convention, no solid plan was developed to solve global warming, so the US created the Copenhagen Accord, which was a plan developed to mitigate climate. The accord needed to gain support from many countries in order for it to pass. To gain support, The US started using bribery, threats, and violence in order to convince other countries to sign up to support the accord. The communications of these threats and bribes were released to the public when the cables were released. When these cables were released the public and other powerful countries, who were against the accord, were upset with how the US was negotiating. Even after the cables were leaked, countries were still demanding high amounts of money in order to support the accord. With the United States needing support, they paid the other countries and gave in to their demands. This led to 116 countries joining the accord with 26 more saying that have intentions to. With all of these countries supporting the accord, it puts into place a plan to help mitigate climate change. It is not the best solution, but it is something that will help for now until the United Nations can come together again and form a better, strong plan of action against greenhouse gasses and global warming.

I do not agree that the State Department cables should have been made public. The way our country talks to other countries should be kept private. The public does not know about government affairs and how to interact with other countries. Also, by only leaking a portion of the cables, the whole conversation between some of the countries was not seen. By only seeing parts of the conversation the wrong message can be received. Before the United States created the accord, the United Nations was in the middle of a collective action problem. If all of the countries worked on reducing their greenhouse gasses emissions, it would help the entire planet, however it is easier for individual countries to not change anything they are doing. If they all came together with one plan, the Earth would benefit, and that’s what the US was trying to accomplish with the accord. Also, I believe this is a matter that can be related to something we learned earlier in the year, which talks about ethics. This is an example of how the ends can justify the means. The United States wants a system in place to help mitigate climate change and protect the Earth. To accomplish this, they took some questionable measures to get the support they need, but in the end they gained enough support to start doing something about the climate changes. The means of bribing and using threats justify the end of having a system to place to help fight/reduce global warming.

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2. My diagram starts off with the burning of fossil fuels which is the key contributor to climate change. I showed how fossil fuels create greenhouse emissions which lead to climate warming and ultimately a transformation in climate. Since climate change is the single most important issue in civilization today, an agreement needed to be made to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale. Subsequently, I showed how the UN Climate Change Conference created the Copenhagen Accord. Many countries that were involved in the climate change initiative were initially not in favor of this political agreement. The accord could not guarantee the global greenhouse gas cuts needed to prevent dangerous warming from occurring. The Accord also threatens to bypass the UN’s Kyoto protocol, in which many rich nations have liability. Due to these reasons, many of the most vulnerable and poorest countries were not in favor of the accord. However, the United States supported the agreement. I created an arrow pointing from the United States to Needs Allies because the United States benefited from this agreement. They wanted to gain allies for a majority vote. In order to gain allies they manipulated countries that didn’t have a large carbon footprint, with financial aid. Many of these countries are impoverished and agreed to the accord just because they were in need of financial assistance. The United States also threatened countries with various ultimatums and secret cables for spying purposes.They mounted a secret global diplomatic offense to overwhelm opposition. Furthermore, the United States persuaded and encouraged 140 different countries to support the Copenhagen Accord.

3. Although it is extremely difficult to negotiate a climate treaty to reduce greenhouse emissions, I believe the way the United States gained allies for the Copenhagen Accord was unethical. There are better ways to handle the situation. Sending the secret cables was an invasion of privacy to the other countries. I also do not like the fact the US threatened innocent countries for selfish reasons. Although our method was effective, I believe there are more ethical means to handle this situation. I strongly believe the Copenhagen Accord could be very beneficial on a global scale. It is steering countries in the right direction of mitigation which will ultimately reduce greenhouse emissions. Nevertheless, I do believe other countries should have the right to decide whether they oppose or support an agreement. I also felt like it was very dishonorable for the United States to use aid to gain political backing. Brazil’s vice-environment minister stated that the United States could advertise its new commitment to bettering climate change by contributing to the Amazon Fund. Instead of contributing, we basically decided to use subversion and manipulate the country to agree to the document. Donating to different causes is just one of the many ways we are capable of getting our voice heard. Using our money to threaten and manipulate is not an ethical option to climate diplomacy. The United States could have also created a presentation or document about mitigation and sent it to the other countries. I believe disclosing the numerous social and environmental benefits of the the Copenhagen accord could ultimately convince others to collectively re-engineer the global economy. 

Climate Change

2. On my diagram, it shows how the discovery of fossil fuels created both positive and negative things for humanity.  It helped us improve our health and our wealth. It brought upon us the Industrial revolution, which would pave the course of our planet from that point on. Although health and wealth were the most positive outcomes of the industrial revolution, the massive amounts of released CO2, better known as greenhouse gases, were by far the most negative outcome of the Industrial Revolution. These greenhouse gases are crucial to the increase of climate change in recent history. Because of so much greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it does not allow the radiation from the sun to go back out to space, making the surface of the earth much warmer. The release of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere created a great change in the earth’s climate. These changes could possibly go beyond the planetary boundaries, which will bring about great problems not only for the planet we live on but for humanity itself. Humanity thrived because the planet was in stable conditions, a lot of research backs this up. If we were to go beyond the planetary boundaries, it is not believed that our race would survive on this planet. Everything that we grew knowledgeable until now would change, especially in the agricultural fields. It would change the way we grow things and other various factors that play an important part of how we live. In other words, all of this would be catastrophic for mankind.

3. Personally, all of this information is terrifying to me. Climate change is a huge problem in today’s society. Essentially the change in climate could bring the end of humanity. Because of this climate change, it could change drastically our agricultural fields. What is even worse is the fact that we are the ones who are responsible for the climate change that the earth is experiencing. I think it is a great thing that the U.S. State Department cables were leaked. This helps us open our eyes to what is really going on in our world. The only way that we may be able to save our planet and ourselves is by working together as the human race to clean up our planet as much as possible before it is too late for all of us. I see this happening already all around us. It is easy to tell that as the years go by we experience much hotter summers and much colder winters. All of this I think is due to how rapidly climate is changing. Another reason why all of this information is very concerning is because climate change isn’t something that can be changed quickly. As stated in the module, it will take a very large amount of years for us to be able to fix it. This would also only work if everyone in the world would take action, which may never happen. The unfortunate truth of it all is we may very well not be able to save our planet, and we are slowly killing the chances for future generations to continue thriving in this world.

1. I wanted to try my best here to show how climate change was the initial cause for political action. Personally I found the information provided by the leaks to be difficult to include in the assignment but I believe I have a grasp on how the information was meant to be used here. The key points here being that the Kyoto Agreement and the Copenhagen Accords were a function of climate change and in order to address the issues and to ensure that action was taken, there was some what I like to call, political maneuvering. As it turns out the real world does not work where you can rouse all nations with bolstered speech and rhetoric, but the world is a very complicated place where something that is seen as a necessity for the entire world, or for the human population can be used as leverage to get some sort of means to an end. For example like discussed in the article, some countries such as the Maldives which backed the Accords after financial aid was introduced as a resource. Then there is the more harsh view of the negotiations with the leader of Ethiopian Prime Minister which served as a sort of ultimatum to withdraw support for the country (The Guardian 2010). These actions are examples of how the United States was determined to gain support for the Copenhagen Accords and how the necessity for action was determined by the looming threat of climate change. Overall it should show progress and shows positive action from climate change, and ideally if the Accords are enacted and followed, could show significant impact towards climate change.
2. These actions shown in the leaks come down to ethics and show a determination to make positive changes. Climate change is a significant factor in determining the future of the human race, I do not believe that these leaks show a lack of ethics and honestly do not have an opinion whether they should have been released or not. There is a necessity for transparency in government, that is something most people today will agree upon, however these seem to be normal political dealings and do not imply unethical behavior. These leaks are not damaging and do not affect my opinion of the US government. The dealings themselves are how I believe political dealings to occur. That may be a slightly sardonic view of political dealings but the world is a complicated place, perhaps financial backing for foreign countries to entertain the idea of furthering renewable energy projects is something that the US government should invest in, and maybe not, but I see this as a means to very noble end. Now perhaps if there was something more sexy and thrilling like political intrigue like an assassination attempt or something of that nature that you could see in a movie, I would be singing another tune, but I believe the actions were ethical and just, and this is the way international politics occur. As far as what should be done, the only thing this article shows me is that something has to be done, leadership shows making hard decisions and the United States is a world leader, you lead from the front and pick your metaphorical battles hoping to get the right (calculated) outcome.

References

The Guardian. “WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord.” Last Updated December 3, 2010. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-us-manipulated-climate-accord

This article includes many aspects information. However, for my diagram, I mainly focus on the interactions between the cables sent by U.S, the Copenhagen Accord and other countries. I started my diagram with Global Warming and Greenhouse gases problems, and it is the cause of the creation of the Copenhagen Accord. Based on the article, the United States wanted as many nations as possible to accept the Copenhagen Accord for reducing greenhouse gases. In order to achieve this purpose, U.S used several methods to make other countries sign the accord. So I divided countries into different groups with different issues and solutions. First of all, it is easy to bind to rapidly growing countries and rich countries. However, the accord will cause a great loss for those poor countries that do not contribute to Greenhouse emissions. For these countries with financial issues, the record promised to send $30 billion to change their opinions, and I classified these countries as one group. Second, some countries having trust issue such as Ethiopia can be classified as one group. The other countries like Saudi Arabia are willing to show their positive attitudes toward the Copenhagen Accord but they do not want to make too much change on their economy can be defined as the third group. Because of the U.S government, even though there have 26 countries still not associated with the Copenhagen Accord, most of countries associated themselves with it. Finally, I draw the diagram with the achievement under the U.S’s hard working.

I believe the climate change problem is related to two concepts we discussed before, which are ethics and individual & collective action. When we talk about climate change, we are dealing with virtue and action ethics. I think most people believe protecting environment is the right thing, and they are always taught what they should do. These can be defined as virtue ethics. However, how many people will real put this into action? Do they turn virtue ethics into action ethics? Moreover, this situation also can goes in to individual & collective action problem. To be honest, U.S and some other developed countries released most of pollutions during their developed period. However, now they developed with the greenhouse gas level rose, and then those developed countries says to other developing countries that “you are responsible for greenhouse gases release, and you need to make sacrifice to reduce.” We admitted we have responsibility to change the situation, so at least, after the Copenhagen meeting, my country’s government asked us to set AC temperature no lower than 22℃. The United State, which is still one of the largest polluters, asked other countries to change their economy and reduce their greenhouse emissions, but what did it do? When I came to here, I noticed people always set AC to 18 ℃, and the lights always keep on even no one in the room. In addition, I believe the State Department cables should be made public because U.S needs to be the model and lead the other countries to make actions. In conclusion, climate change is not a personal thing. We all need to work together on these issues to make real changes in the world.

This diagram illustrates the process behind the Copenhagen Accord, beginning with the overarching problem of global climate change. Climate change fosters the need for global and diplomatic change, which happens at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in 2009. At this summit, the Copenhagen Accord is created to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but that cannot be guaranteed, which is why the term “target” was appropriate here. Signing a global treaty on climate was a difficult task, and many countries needed persuading. The accord ultimately worked in the United State’s favor, which is why the US provided financial aid to countries who were affected by climate change. This either caused mistrust and skepticism on whether this compensation would actually happen, or it resulted in political support. 140 countries declared association to the treaty, which falls in favor of their 100-150 country target.

In my own opinion, I am someone who cares deeply about climate change and understands the urgent need for solutions. It concerns me that some people still believe climate change is a myth. Although I do not necessarily agree with the threats, spying, and overall corruption that seemed to take place under wraps, I’m not entirely surprised. Negotiating a solution to climate change with over one hundred countries in the mix is bound to cause issues. I think it is beneficial that the cables were made public because it is very eyeopening to see how countries behaved in this situation, especially the United States. I’m not surprised by the United States policing other countries in order to reap the benefits since we are a huge influence on global diplomacy. I agree that it was crucial for this accord to be signed, but threatening, hacking, spying, and promising money that may or may not be seen is not the most ethical way to go about it. It may be extremely unrealistic, but negotiations should be genuine and made with purpose to benefit all countries involved. For example, in order to get a country to sign the treaty, the US could have provided solar or wind energy sources to that country. If the US was going to provide millions of dollars in financial aid, they could put that money towards something that would help solve climate change. This problem ultimately comes down to ethics, and I think the US handed this in an unethical way.

The first section in the diagram mention Wikileaks cables (leaked cables revealing communications between US and other countries regarding Copenhagen Accord). These cables reveled how US used unfair means of spying on other countries and then using threats and money to get them on board with the Copenhagen Accord on Climate Change as the treaty was not adopted by the UN but was very beneficial to US in solving a lot of problems specifically regarding cut down in emissions. We can see from the information revealed that US misused its power by bribing other countries especially with offers of financial support and aid to poor countries and if they would still not agree, used spying and blackmailing to get them to agree. Though whatever the means, it was successful in gaining support from both developed(rich) and developing (poor) countries for the accord to pass. At the end there were a total of 140 nations who intended on associating themselves with the accord. The 140 nations represent almost 75% countries that are parties to the UN climate change convention and are responsible for well over 80% of current global greenhouse gas emissions. Now, looking into how Copenhagen Accord had ways in decreasing climate change. The diagram shows two major ways. First explaining how US gained support and then specifies the Copenhagen accord let to decrease in greenhouse gases which then leads to decrease in climate change. Secondly, the Accord also led to forcing all the countries to work together and reduce dangerous threats to climate change for example decrease in pollution creating factories, burning of fossil fuels etc. (mitigation), which then over time would make individuals get used to new atmosphere (adaption), and this new less polluted atmosphere leads to increased sustainable development, hence resulting in decreased climate change. Therefore, all in all, linking the Wikileaks cables to climate change, I would say, even though it revealed the truth of US decreasing trust between countries and misusing its power, it did lead to some decrease in climate change although the change was not very significant.

As the diagram explained the situation and revealed misuse of power, according to me, this issue is a great example of politics and also, a situation where ethics comes into play. As we learnt earlier, I would say US practiced action ethics (took charge of the situation) and decided that the consequences of the actions was more important, making this an example of distributive justice. Also, environmental ethics come into play as anthropocentrism was practiced as every country acted selfishly, agreed to accord for reasons such as money, aid and did not see the problem as a whole and how it was damaging our ecosystem. In my opinion, it was right to leak those cables, as public has the right to know how each country’s government was acting. As we live in a democratic world and cutting down emissions would effect all citizens as well, everyone should at least have had a right to know about the issue if not have a say in it. We’ve learnt that “ With great power, comes great responsibility” and this was definitely demonstrated in this situation. The US misused its power and hence ended up losing its trust over economic gains. We also learn that in order to improve the situation and protect the world from further deterioration by climate change, we need to have a collective action on climate change mitigation. Rather than concentrating on what should’ve been done or as of now looking out for selfish concerns, we should use all the intellectual power we have across the world and come up with something better than Kyoto protocol and Copenhagen accord, and the countries responsible for the most emissions, should definitely work more on this and together we can look forward to a better future. US did wrong somewhere as being the largest in emissions, it should take responsibility for that rather than being selfish, although it did have a slight positive effect as there was a slight change, hence I would say the Copenhagen Accord was bit of a boon but more of a bane.

2.  My diagram follows how systematic the entire outcome of climate change is. It starts at the beginning, which follows the module, introducing the industrial revolution, which then increased human consumption. The rise of human consumption paired with the increased emission of greenhouse gases shows the direct correlation between human activity and global climate change. Furthermore, my diagram then shows how following the idea of climate change, the United States still put greed above all and constructs a treaty which will manipulate and essentially discredit other countries who do not follow the Copenhagen Accord. My diagram also displays how some countries were not on board with the Copenhagen Accord, and how they were subjected to manipulation as well, thus creating overwhelming support of this act. Countries like Saudi Arabia are huge in the oil industry, and they are a huge competitor for us, which made it extremely important to get them on our side. We used various angles to give us leverage. After the United States became successful in convincing the necessary countries, we see now that most other countries that aren’t involved almost have no choice but to jump on board as well at this point. Now, we have over 116 countries who support, and a lot more who are planning to actively support the accord as well. This ultimately ends with the US being in control, just as they wanted. The United States’ main goal was to anchor global trade, and we now can continue to off shore oil drill and explore more drilling sights in other countries, thus increasing greenhouse gas emissions, worsening climate change.

3. When thinking critically about climate change, I would say that ethics heavily influence why we do the things that we do. From Module 3, we learned about distributive justice, showing that we think about the consequences after they happen, and we focus on what benefits one half, and disadvantages the other. I feel the same way about global climate change. Making this a global scale, the United States is in control, and we continue to warm the troposphere. I will not place all blame on the United States, but I will put the majority of the causes on our country since we are in total control now. We as Americans are collectively individualistic, and we tend to do things for gain. I personally am happy that information like Wikileaks is available to me. When thinking about the total population, I can’t say that I disagree with others having the information readily available to them as well. I think in order to close the information gap, we need to spread information like this. I think we have a right to know what is happening in the world, despite the corrupt nature of most actions put in place. I do not think that the United States should be going about the Copenhagen Accord this way, but at the end of the day, we want money and control over everything. At this point, I feel like way too many hands are in the cookie jar, and just like our module states, we would essentially be redirecting tons of money into other things, which will disrupt the majority of the economic circulation and change lifestyles totally and indefinitely.

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2. For my diagram I tried to show the flow of how things occurred in order for support to be gained for the Copenhagen Accord. I began at the beginning, the problem, fossil fuels. As we all know burning of fossil fuels create greenhouse gases that result in climate change. That was the first thing I decided to list in my diagram. I put the fossil fuels in a sun to symbolize burning, there was no flame shape other than that. I put the climate change in a circle to symbolize the globe. Next I went on to mention the result of climate change, the Copenhagen Summit in which the Copenhagen Accord was created. A lot of countries initially weren’t in favor of the Accord, however the US was. It would greatly benefit the US if the Accord was accepted so the worked to gain allies and supporters. The US did this in several ways; cables, threats, and financial aid. Countries that were most severely affected by climate change not caused by themselves were promised money if they supported the Accord. Maldives is a small island country that was in need of money so they agreed. Bolivia also agreed, though they did not want to support the Accord, they needed money. Threats came, like that to Ethiopia, that communications with them would end if they did not support the Accord and the threats worked. Ethiopia agreed to support it. Finally cable were sent out that resulted in Wikileaks tapping the cables and leaking information on the aid, threats, and cable spying US was doing in order to gain support for their cause. In the end the efforts of the US and our allies allowed for support of the accord from 140 out of 193 countries involved in the climate change initiative. I illustrated that by having my flow chart end with the results of the US efforts.
3. I don’t like how the US conducted some of its negotiations. By spying and threatening countries I believe they crossed some ethical boundaries. I don’t think it’s right the spy on people or make threats because you aren’t getting your way. However at the same time, thinking about action ethics and if the end justifies the means, what the US did may be ok. There needs to be a plan in place to attack climate change, one where everyone on board is doing their part and working towards a better future. The US was able to make a large jump in that direction by getting so many countries to jump on board. Maybe there was a better way to accomplish this than the methods the US implemented, but in the end 140 of 193 countries are not following the accord, so maybe the means of getting to the end are justified, I don’t know who is entitled to be the judge of that. We will have to see how it works. The bullying and secretive ways of the US in this instance may, short-term, result in a group effort, but long-term we may see countries backing out, doing the bare minimum to say they are following the according, or just pretending to do so. I think I is up to the individual person and country to decide to do something, in order for any progress to actually be achieve.

2. In regards to climate diplomacy, the system diagram that I created is an illustration of a possible solution to the numerous challenges facing collective action as it pertains to climate change. Since climate change is a global issue, political negotiations are required, including and especially international diplomatic relations. This system diagram illustrates the cause and effects of the U.S.’s private diplomatic cables on global climate negotiations. The diagram is initiated by the series of evens stemming from the observed global climate change. As a result of such climate change, monetary and political negotiations are required in order to reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses. This led to the implementation of spying and cyber warfare by the Untied States via communication cables. The communication cables released by the U.S. served to understand the overwhelming opposition from other countries in response to the controversial “Copenhagen Accord”, which the U.S. strongly supported. Ultimately, various news outlets exposed the United State’s secret, but after much controversy, negotiations were in place for a new climate treaty. Today, 116 countries have associated themselves with the accord and 140 nations represent about 75% of the countries that are involved in the United Nations Climate Change Convention. As mentioned in the article, negotiations surrounding the implementation of a climate treaty prove to be difficult in terms of compromising multiple views on the issue. In addition, a climate treaty would alter the existing global economy to a “low-carbon model” which would require billions of dollars in funding. So, although the WikiLeaks Cables released by the U.S. caused a great deal of controversy, the accord and the UN Climate Change Convention are the necessary stepping-stones required to achieve sustainability.

3. Prior to reading this article I had not heard of the WikiLeaks Cables and the surrounding controversy that they caused. I of course had heard of climate change, and considered myself to be somewhat knowledgeable on the subject, but this class has enhanced my knowledge on the issue immensely. Not only have I gained knowledge on global warming itself, but also the necessary precautionary measures that are required in order to fix the problem. Based on the content from this class, it is clear that collective action is necessary to reverse the damage that has been done. The United States may have gone about solving the issue incorrectly, but the intent behind it was not malicious in any way. However, I believe that the WikiLeaks Cables should have been made public as the corruption and spying would have only continued if they were not public. The United States went above and beyond to try to get other countries on board with their idea without taking into consideration the ability of other countries to act accordingly. Though the intent behind these cables may have been to simply “understand” what the other countries were thinking, the United States should have gone about it in a different way. Our country is seen as a leader for the most part, but this type of behavior is not something that should be admired, especially when dealing with an issue as important as global climate change. In order to reach an attainable international climate change treaty, the requirements for reducing greenhouse gas emissions must take into consideration the large number of nations around the world and the living conditions of each nation. Resources, such as fossil fuels, are readily available in some countries but not others. The standard of living and geographic surroundings of each country must be taken into consideration in order for a realistic international treaty to be implemented.

After reading through the article, I have decided to make my diagram about how climate change lead to the creation of the Copenhagen Accord and how is that going to help reduce greenhouse gases and finally lead to climate mitigation. First, the Copenhagen Accord was created by the UNFCC in hopes to grab each countries attention and explain to them the impacts of climate change and what will happen if nothing is done. Some countries support this and some don’t which made the United States take action and look for allies. Along with looking for allies, the United States benefits directly from any support of the Copenhagen Accord. The United States gathers support through various techniques. One technique was providing 30 money dollars to the Maldives to gain their support. Another technique involved threatening Ethiopia to sign the Copenhagen Accord or the discussion is done and United States will stop aiding them in any way possible. Another technique included spying on Todd Stern to gain classified information from him. The final way involved cables which required the United States to support Saudi Arabia and help them move away from a petroleum economy. All of these ways helped to gain the support of 140 countries that have signed or are about to sign the Copenhagen Accord. The article claimed that nearly 80% of carbon dioxide comes from these countries and having their effort will help tremulously. Since all of these countries are working on reducing greenhouse gases and will continue to reduce greenhouse gases. The reduction of greenhouse gases will lead to climate Mitigation.

I think that there needs to be a change and climate change is an important topic. Carbon dioxide needs to decrease and there are going to have to be changes in the world to accomplish that. I agree with what the Copenhagen Accord is about and how it is trying to recognize the impacts that climate change is having and could potentially have in the future. I don’t agree with some of the methods to get support from other countries, but I realize that it is necessary that you have to take certain steps when needed to gain support of other countries. Since the United States is one of the most influential countries, they are going to help lead the way whenever possible. I think that all the countries need to help the people of their country make an individual impact like what was talked about in this module. We have the choice to choose low impact foods and buy carbon offsets and both will help reduce greenhouse gases. As a country, we can come together and put in place more projects to help reduce greenhouse gases. Also, the government can offer more incentives to “go green” to help reduce greenhouse gases by higher tax credits based on what you do on your own. Also, a lot of people in the country don’t know how bad climate change is or just doesn’t care. Being able to tell those people or show them why it’s their business to care will also get more people to help reduce greenhouse gases.

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2. Global warming is an event that has led to many political, financial and ethical conflicts. Nations were trying to negotiate a climate treaty but agreed on different areas. They were concerned about the billions of dollars being redirected in order to completely adjust the economy into a low-carbon one. This means that the standard of living must change. For instance, Saudi Arabia, which is one of the richest countries, would have to turn their economy away from being petroleum based. This would be difficult since they are the world’s second biggest oil producer. In the event of trying to negotiate a climate treaty, the U.S decided to send out Wikilinks and gather information on other countries. They used this information to bully the countries into using the Copenhagen Accord. Other countries also found out that the United States was bribing other countries and trying to leave out certain countries that they feel cannot handle the financial “aid.” Beijing failed to reach a deal at Copenhagen, whereas the United States and many other countries – due to the United States’ influence – used the Copenhagen Accord. However, the Copenhagen accord cannot guarantee that the global greenhouse cuts needed to avoid dangerous warming will occur. The Copenhagen Accord was mainly pushed by the United States and was made to benefit the United States, one of the biggest polluters. Due to the Wikilinks, the United States succeeded in having 116 countries associate themselves with the Accord. Other countries oppose the Accord because it will negatively impact the extension of the Kyoto Protocol.

3. I feel that the U.S takes advantage of its power. It has an anthropocentric view. We have an issue with global warming and our bi-products are the cause of the issue. The methane and carbon dioxide that we produce are released into the air causing a trap for radiation in the troposphere. This is causing the Earth’s surface to warm but not the core. The United States is violating privacy by using Wikilinks and they’re using the information to fuel their own agenda. It does not seem that countries are actually taking into account the severity of the issue. They’re more interested in the financial and political benefits. This is a collective action problem because we must work together and actually solve the issue at hand. If we’re persuading other countries to join a proposal that is not made to actually change the economy, then nothing will change. I suppose it is good that we have access to this information because we can see the political and financial agenda behind things. However, I do not think it is necessarily right to practically hack into people’s conversations. Just because some people are making unethical choices does not give us the right to make them as well. It seems that the monetary funds are certainly an area of interest but not for the intended cause. If it were, then other countries, such as the island countries, would see this money also. By not attending to the problem, we are testing our Earth’s resilience. If we keep testing it, we will reach a state of instability.

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2. My system diagrams starts with greenhouse gases causing global climate. The need to reduce greenhouse gases leads to the need of the Copenhagen Accord. The United States is a top producer of Greenhouse gases. The United States was extra careful in selecting a plan to reduce greenhouse gases, but as the same time make sure the plan benefits them.  The United States seeks support for the Copenhagen Accord. The WikiLeaks cables revealed how the US manipulated the climate accord, by sending secret cables, spies.   It return the U.S. got a spear phishing attack on the office of the U.S. climate change envoy. This spying across nations lead to the Copenhagen Accord talks failing to lead to a global deal. The deals then continued in Cancun, Mexico. The US started to get as many countries to associate themselves with the accord once again. This lead to smaller countries being promised aid by the richer countries. The smaller countries had very little trust in the large countries to actual provide the aid.  Months later, the US cut aid to the Bolivia and Ecuador. A plan for funding the aid for the changes is need. Overall, 116 countries have associated themselves with the accord. Another 26 say they intend to associate. The plan ultimately fell through since there was a lack of trust between the countries involved. WikiLeaks made the negotiations public, show how The United States were intimidating other countries. The U.S. ethics were deplorable. They lost site of the main reason for the talks, to reduce Greenhouse emits around the globe.

3. The module talked about the collective action on mitigation. In this section I feel that the module hit a key point in why many countries cannot agree on one plan to mitigate climate change. In my opinion, the key point is that there are a difference in values from person to person as well as country to country. In my opinion, the main reason it is so difficult to reach international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emission, because it is very challenging to reduce emission. The module stated many reasons that it is hard to reduce greenhouse has emission. In my opinion, the challenging would be that there are major differences between the positions and views of different countries. The module stated that many smaller countries are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, such as island countries. The shifts in water and the extreme weather events could wipe out the whole country. These countries are eager to have emissions reduced.  I believe the State Department cables should have been made public from the start. Many people are unaware that this mitigation is currently taking place in the world. This would help people believe that climate change is actually happening. I do not believe the United States should continue conducting their climate change diplomacy in the same fashion.  I believe the United States should be more concerned with trying to get other countries to associate themselves with climate change accord, instead of trying to find a way to benefit from the Climate Change Accord. The United States is one of the top greenhouse gas producers, therefor needs to take a stand to reduce greenhouse emissions. In the module, it stated that many poor countries feel that it is unfair when the rich countries ask them to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, when they are not causes the bulk of the emissions. The United States needs to be a leader, and show other countries how to reduce greenhouse emissions without reducing the standard of living.

In my diagram I started with the soul issue behind this entire article and that was climate change and the increase in the amount of greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution. Due to the potential threats of climate change and the warming of Earth’s surface attempts have been made in order to try and minimize the amount of greenhouse gas emissions made by each country. One of these attempts was the Copenhagen Accord which was strongly supported by the United States. However, trying to get everybody to agree on one thing is quite challenging and of course not every country was on board with this idea. That lead to the use of  secret cables seeking intelligent life by the United States in effort to attempt to manipulate these countries that did not support the Copenhagen Accord to support the Copenhagen Accord. WikiLeaks exposed the United States which lead to a distrust and other controversies. In the end despite all of the doubts there were still 140 countries  supporting the Copenhagen Accord along side the United States. I felt these were the main points of the article and the order that they went in. Resulting in my diagram looking the way it does.

Before this class I was not very knowledgable on the idea of climate change and did not see understand how serious it actually is. In order to sustain life on Earth collective action needs to be taken around the world. Although the United States might have been wrong in the way they went about trying to get other countries to support the Copenhagen Accord, they had the best interest of other countries in mind. Therefore I also believe that the mistakes the United States made should not have been made public. There are better ways though to start a movement and I think the United States should have done so by showing the steps they are taking to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas they emit. I believe the United States need to be more of a leader in this cause and start taking bigger steps in lowering our greenhouse gas emissions considering we are one of the largest contributors to it. Previous lessons have taught that there are smaller communities in the United States taking steps to more sustainable living, like the cities that are made to walk rather than drive or take public transportation. There are also individuals that grow their own vegetables in cities which helps to filter the air, provides healthier nutrition, and decreases the miles that food travels to end up in local grocery stores. If steps like this were made all over the country there would be significantly less greenhouse gas emissions from the United States. The United States could then take their success and show it to other countries in order to make them want to reduce their emissions too.

2.) This diagram shows the interconnections of Climate change, the USA, and the Copenhagen Accord.  Climate change is a very real and relevant threat to society as a whole.  So the United States drafted the Copenhagen Accord, which was a revision of the Kyoto Protocol, and that would positively impact the United States greatly.  The United States needed other countries to be on board so they used multiple tactics to achieve this.  First to the countries that openly opposed the Accord the USA used cables to spy on said countries to gain “dirt” to use later in negotiations.  Secondly they promised certain countries money if they would agree with the Accord.  Lastly the USA threatened countries to end negotiations with them immediately if they did not agree to the accord.  The Copenhagen Accord didn’t pass because, the USA couldn’t answer how they were going to pay these countries for their compliance. This lead to these said countries to openly question the USA’s ethics, and stopped trusting the USA.

3.) I didn’t agree with how the USA conducted its negotiations at all while trying to pass the Copenhagen Accord.  We shouldn’t be making threats and spying on other countries just to pass a law about climate change.  Our country shouldn’t be trying to pass laws where they benefit greatly, while the other supporting countries do not.  This is never a good approach to foreign relations.  I think when passing a law that can impact the entire world, you need to have open discussions. The law needs to be amended and other countries need to have an active role in the laws creation.  This may take years to pass, but it will have mutual respect with all supporting countries.  Also if you are offering money incentives for other countries to come on board, at least back up the offer, don’t negotiate with empty offers, no country will ever trust you if that’s how you conduct your business.  This is a collective action problem, so it’s going to take a lot of mutual negotiations for an agreement to be reached.

2. My system diagram focuses on the information from the article WikiLeaks diplomatic cables. It mainly focuses on the Copenhagen accord.  A convention in Copenhagen was formed in response to the issue of climate change around the world. Countries got together trying to come up with ways to reduce human’s impacts on the environment. This is where the U.S came up with the Copenhagen accord. This accord would allow countries to set the own goals for cutting greenhouse gases, but it didn’t guarantee the greenhouse gas cuts needed to avoid dangerous warming. These obligations led many countries to disagree with the accord, especially the poorest. Getting as many countries to agree strongly served U.S interest. The U.S. then uses bribery and espionage to gain support of other countries. Some countries needed little persuading, such as the poorest nations who would receive aid.  Through these bribes, bulling, and promises of payments the United States eventually received 75% support for the accord. This was nearly 140 out of 193 of the negotiating countries. Even though the U.S. used bullying and bribery to get its way we can hope that it serves a purpose. Hopefully greenhouse gas levels will begin to decline as countries execute their plans.

3. Exposing the cables kind of crosses ethical boundaries. Action ethics makes us consider do the ends justify the means? The U.S. used dishonesty and bribery to obtain agreements on the accord, but did this need to happen. Maybe through more negotiating they could have come up with a plan that more countries would have agreed on without being pushed. Although, is it justifiable because it enables more sustainability in the world? It’s really hard to determine if the cables should have been exposed or not. However, this dishonesty could lead to other serious issues for the U.S. Now other countries will be skeptical when negotiating with the United States. This could then create collective action problems. If the WikiLeak didn’t happen maybe more countries would’ve agreed with the accord. Also, as we learned in module 9 collective action towards mitigation, there are many different countries, each unique in their own way. They see climate change in different ways than we do, so we shouldn’t pressure them to be on our side. However, the long term goal is to reduce carbon emission and climate change. In that sense I don’t think the cables were a big deal. The U.S. was just doing what they thought would help reach their end goal of reducing climate change.

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2. I mainly focused on the exchanges between the climate change, the cables, and their result on gaining support for the Copenhagen Accord. During the article, it tells how each country wanted the accord to be adopted but it also encourages each nation to focus on ways to reduce the greenhouse gases. This allowed easier access to rapidly growing countries than that was proposed by the United Nations. In the beginning of my diagram I tried to explain how climate change fortified the construction of the Copenhagen Accord. The United States was pushed to find ways to gain the approval of countries that did not support the accord. I broke down ways in which the United States fought to change the attitudes of some of these countries. Some of the thing they used to fortify the countries were spying, cables, money and threats. All the countries in the article had to commit to make some changes to reduce greenhouse gases. Many of the countries have agreed to make a change, so in the diagram I tied it together by showing how over one hundred and sixteen countries decided to support the accord. There were a lot of countries in the article, but here are a few that I mentioned were United States, Ethiopia, Maldives, and Saudi Arabia. Also I showed how twenty-six countries are going to commit to the accord on a later date. It seemed that the ways in which the United States encouraged support by spying, cables, money and threats have worked.

3. When I finished reading the article, the cable leak made it more difficult for the collective action than it did before. For the collective action to work it needed groups of countries to work together to reduce the discharges of greenhouse gases. In the article it tells how United States got other countries to support the accord. One of the ways was to promise a country financial aid. Some of the countries did the reduction just for the money it was going to receive. If the countries do not get the financial aid that was promised they might stop any effort to reduce the greenhouse gases. Both countries and individual need to reduce the greenhouse gases because these gases could affect our future. We need to realize that the climate change could affect how plant life survives in the future and how each one of us adapts to the changing of climate. Some of the climate changes that we might experience is the hot temperatures and rising of the rivers or streams due to the melting of the snow that we had during the winter months. The United States might be frustrated by the other countries that do not want to help support the accord. I feel we should not threaten countries to help reduce the greenhouse gases. They should want to do this freely to help their people to survive the climate changes. If we have conversation with our neighboring countries about the greenhouse gases and what each one of us can do to reduce it we might be able to have a better future for our children.

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2. My diagram provides a visual representation of the cause and effect relationship of how WikiLeaks cables revealed the manipulation of climate accord by the United States. This climate accord pertains specifically to the Copenhagen accord, which the United States sought to eliminate opposition of through scandal and unethical means. Their approach had an end goal of wanting to make major improvements regarding climate change and the environment. With a mission to mitigate climate change, an unofficial document, the “Copenhagen accord” was created in 2009 as a result of the Copenhagen climate change summit. One of its goals was to decrease greenhouse emissions. The United States wanted support from other countries for this accord, and so they sought dirt on nations opposed to it. Other countries were persuaded to agree with this document through money and several unethical ways. Today, 116 countries have agreed to this accord, and since 26 have said that they would also like to associate with it, then the total comes to 140 countries. There are several issues that are associated with negotiations regarding climate change. One is finances, and the other is trust that countries will keep their word. Several of these points were not included in my diagram, but they are definitely important and key to the entire issue regarding the Copenhagen accord. I chose to include the most important aspects of the situation.

3. This issue is definitely relevant to today’s society because climate change and the environmental standing of our world is a pressing issue that needs to be addressed. As explained in Module 9, a huge factor into why we have this dire need to fight climate change is due to the use of fossil fuels that is creating this problem. The use of fossil fuels is unsustainable, because when we burn fossil fuels for industry, not only is energy released, but matter released ends up in the atmosphere. Some of this matter is known as greenhouse gases, which were a main topic of the Copenhagen accord. Because this issue faces difficult consequences for the environment and for many forms of life, it has become an important topic of discussion. So, although it was unethical for the United States to use improper ways to promote the accord, it may have been overall beneficial for our world in that it increased awareness of climate change and the actions we can take to improve the problem. I believe that there could have been better ways to get support for the accord, including room for negotiations. It seems as if the United States was a bit pushy with their method of gaining support and eliminating opposition, so they could have considered making negotiations with others. 

The WikiLeaks cables showed how complex the politics of climate change are.  I didn’t want to focus on the specific acts that any one nation was taking, but rather what was driving those actions.  In my diagram I illustrated that climate change is finally recognized worldwide as a scientific fact by the majority of nations.  Private citizens and politicians have begun to understand the dire implications of climate change not only for future generations, but for current ones as well.  I think the world is beginning to act on climate change even if we’re in the early stages.  My second bubble is “Politics” because now that the problem is recognized, the politics of nations comes into play.  WikiLeaks gave us an interesting insight into the behind the scenes actions of our government and governments around the world.  By looking at the actions of these governments and their economic situations, I placed them into either the “Developed,” “Developing,” or “Underdeveloped” categories.  Developed nations like the U.S. have already benefited from the industrial revolution and are moving towards a green economy regardless whether we are forced to or not.  Developing countries have benefited from the industrial revolution and use of fossil fuels, but not to the same extent as the developed countries.  They still rely and will rely on fossil fuels for many years to come.  The developed countries had their turn and ruined the environment in the process.  To them it’s only fair that they be allowed to maximize their economic development through the use of fossil fuels.  We also have the underdeveloped countries.  These countries have not benefited greatly from the industrial revolution, but they often bear the worst of its consequences.  I further categorized “Developed” and “Developing” in to “Countries with Influence.”  The “Underdeveloped Countries” were placed into a category titled “Countries Vulnerable to Influence.”  Essentially the developed and developing countries are using political, economic, and covert tools to exert their influence, while the underdeveloped countries are selling their votes.  The Copenhagen Accord battle is just one battle of many more to come in the climate change saga.

The earth is at a point where change must happen, especially with the discovery of a planetary bound.  Our planet is extremely resilient, but our actions have pushed this resiliency near its limit.  I believe that everything should be done by the U.S. to slow climate change, with the eventual goal of stopping it.  I do not think that the U.S. diplomatic cables should have been released.  Transparency is great, but other nations opposed to our plans would use that information to undermine our efforts.  I see this as a question between distributive justice and procedural justice.  A country subscribing to procedural justice would follow all international rules and not worry about what decisions are made.  The better approach is to follow distributive justice and concern ourselves with the consequences of our actions.  We should weigh each decision and see if it will benefit the people of the world.  The U.S. is in a unique position as the world’s super power to foster change or force change if need be.  We should use our influence to create change diplomatically, while also creating change with our economic resources.  If we can help other nations become more sustainable their economy, quality of life, and the global climate change situation will improve.  In my opinion the ends justify the means when it comes to climate change.  I do not have a problem with the methods used by the U.S. to pass the Copenhagen Accord, but I do have a problem with the consequences.  The Copenhagen accord is a flimsy agreement that will do little to stop climate change.  The agreements passing also weakened other more promising solutions.  It appears that the U.S. was more interested in saving face than actually creating change.  We need the world’s super powers to us any means necessary to solve climate change.  It is a classic collective action problem and I think the solution is a strong country willing to lead.  People will always look out for themselves before they worry about what the world’s climate will be like in 100 years.

Using the Nathan World Map of Natural Hazards by Muncih Re, many risks and trends were identified for the general area. The area I used was north east Pennsylvania because I was unable to distinguish more accurately. The area is zone 0 for MM V and below earthquakes, zone 1 for low chance of wildfires, zone 1 for winter storm with 81-120 km/h winds, zone 2 for moderate frequency and intensity of hail storms, and also close to a coast with a tendency for zone 4 winds with peak speeds between 252-299 km/h. The El Nino brings warmer weather and fewer tropical cyclones. The La Nina brings higher risks of tropical cyclone activity. The history of the area shows trends of an average increase of 0.3 degrees Celsius and 15% rise in precipitation per decade between 1978 and 2007. There is an increased risk of heavy rain in the area.

For the first choice of question two, using Global Risk Data Platform, the site allowed a considerable increase in preciseness of area observed. For this part, I used Wayne County Pennsylvania and made note of how different parts of the county were affected. There was no history of landslides, tsunami, or spectral acceleration (earthquakes). There have been cyclone winds reaching an average of 70 km/h causing losses in the bracket of 20-200 million dollars (US). There are flood hazards especially near rivers. Certain areas at risk of draught. The detail in effected areas is very helpful when compiling data. I would differentiate the colors further when showing the level an area is affected. This sight is more time consuming and would be overly specific for larger areas.

The distinguished weather in different seasons causes predictable patterns for hazard risks. During winter, there is an increased risk of storms that produce snow or ice and come with strong gusts of wind. During the spring months, there is increased risk of storms that bring heavy rain fall often and the warmer temperatures leads to any remaining snow or ice to melt. This increase of water in the area leads to flooding especially in low-lying areas near bodies of water. This precipitation tappers off and the average temperature continues to rise leading to drought through the end of the summer. This transition of temperature can lead hail storms or twisters. Neither have a large risk of happening but have happened and normally effect about a square mile. Fall may be the season with the lease risk of hazards but there is still possibilities for all of the above hazards.

One main change I would make to the town would simply be stopping any development of land within a foot of sea level or within 100 yards of a body of water. Many areas deal with flooding often and development in these areas subject structures to water damage repeatedly. There could be zoning by local government to forbid insurance available on structures that area in flood zones. This may cause individuals to build structures in areas with less risk of flooding to qualify for insurance. I will never build a permanent structure in a flood zone with the expectation that it would be safe from floods. The other major risk faced in the area is winter storms and the side effects. The local area is proficient at predicting and canceling what is needed to keep roads more clear. Also individuals often choose not to drive in the weather.

2) This diagram shows the global rise in the issue of climate change which eventually lead to the creation of the Copenhagen Accord. Many countries were aware of the increase in global warming, however the US believed that the only way to fix this problem was to implement the Copenhagen Accord. This accord was an alternate form of the Kyoto Protocol and was one that would benefit the US greatly. However, there became an issue of finding other countries to support this law. Therefore, the US tried to gain allies of not only the big countries, but the under developed ones too. There were many approaches that the US used as persuasion which included money, threats, spying and cables. As explained in my diagram financial aid was used as an incentive to those who chose to support the Copenhagen Accord while also threatening those who opposed it. In regards to the threats some countries chose to accept the consequences addressed by the US and some chose to agree to terms such as Ethiopia. In regards to the tactic of spying the US managed to adhere certain cables of which each country could be bribed with. With all of these approaches there became a lack of trust among those countries due to the fact that some questions could not be answered. For example, one of those being that the US could not answer what form of financial aid these countries would receive i.e. cash etc. Due to this lack of trust and knowledge this resulted in the failing of the Copenhagen Accord and the failing in persuading policies on Climate Change.

3) Contrary belief climate change is mainly comprised of human’s interaction and activity in regards to the greenhouse gases. This issue can be compared to the module lessons on ethics and collective action. In helping the environment, we as a society need to not consider these virtue ethics but rather ethically act in order for the ends to justify the means. If we take action on this issue, the means could lead to healthy and sustainable environment. Its these environmental ethics that correspond to the concept of collective action. Climate change is one that affects everyone on this planet, no matter what the country. We can make ends justify the means, however it is very hard to do that without the cooperation of all parties involved. According to WikiLeaks, the United States had taken it upon themselves as an individual interest to change climate change for the sake of our country, no one else’s. This is proved through evidence of the spying and sending of cables. Instead of negotiating, the US also created ultimatums for countries who opposed the Copenhagen Accord. All of these tactics and self interests didn’t provide a solution but rather provided the same outcome as before. These actions therefore influenced my view on the State Department cables. I believe these cables should have been made public. The US was using these cables as a source of espionage in order to gain support from those countries and that is neither fair nor ethical. Despite these unethical decisions made by the US, it is still tough to say what should be done. I think we should start with reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by requiring an education program teaching each country of their fossil fuel use and how it can be reduced within that specific area. This could influence certain companies, vendors etc. to make a change in order to benefit their country. As you can see climate change has and will continue to be a rising area of concern and if we continue this trend our sustainability as a planet will be in danger.

Learning Activity_ Module 9

Climate change has caused us to consider our influence on the environment. Most of the world has become dependent on fossil fuels to maintain our way of life. However, we have data to show that the way our world operates now is unsustainable and if we do not make some drastic changes then the human race may not be able to survive global warming. Therefore, the United States proposed the Copenhagen Accord which favors developed countries more so than the Kyoto Protocol. However, developing countries did not like this plan because they are trying to improve their industries and cutting emissions would halt this process. Therefore, the United States offered $30bn in exchange for the agreement to the plan. This caused many countries to follow through. However, certain negotiations were leaked and some classified it as “bullying” or forcing developing countries to enter an agreement that would not favor them. This resulted in a lack of trust with the United States.
I personally believe that it was right for the cables to be leaked. It shows how negotiations are dealt with between countries. However, to say that the way the United States handled it was wrong is difficult to say because it’s hard to determine the best way to handle a collective action problem. Not every country is going to be on board unless it is benefitting them in some way. Although mitigating climate change is beneficial for all involved it is still not enough for some countries. They need something more immediate in return. Therefore, maybe $30bn in exchange for less carbon emissions is not such a bad thing. In the end climate change is an issue that needs to be the priority of conversations and meetings because if it isn’t then all other conversations would not matter because we might not survive in the long run. Sometimes when people are not listening you have to force them to listen especially when it is something as important as this. I do believe there is a limit to “forcing” someone to listen, for example, physical harm or contracts that intentionally hurt the wellbeing of the people.

CassandraOresko_Module9

Above is the link to my diagram.

The core ideas behind my design relate to the idea of how climate change is actually occurring and the relationship to the consequences. Most individuals ignore the idea on ways we can change our ways to help the climate, but we have became so dependent off these fossil fuels that it’s almost impossible to think of an alternative solution; which eventually we will have to face. From the start of the Industrial Revolution, we have seen an increase in how few of an amount of people nowadays actually make resources by hand. In addition, my diagram focused on what types of molecules fossil fuels burn off in the atmosphere; a harmful consequence known as greenhouses gases. Though the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect makes the life as we know it possible, this increasement of fossil fuel burning has intensified greenhouse gases, causing global warming, or as discussed from the module and diagram; temperature shifts. By introducing these changes, I wanted to stress the attention to adaptations and ways that we can reduce fossil fuel burning. Though the collective action problems has caused individuals to refuse to reduce their emissions, global collective action has taken action. The Copenhagen Accord, a non-binding document negotiated by US and other countries, was reached in order to reduce these greenhouse gas emissions. An international treaty is difficult due to the large amount of opinions from other nations, each nation wants to focus on the solution that is best for themselves. You would not expect a poorer country to pursue the same actions that the US would, since they are trying to produce a better standard of living. The overall failure of this accord led to the conclusion that we as individuals need to come up with a smarter and more realistic way of transitioning to sustainability, as shown by the amount of harmful consequences located in my diagram and how they impact our impact our growing society.
My views on the climate change issue are on the border in regards to how the United States conducted the diplomacy. Climate change is a growing issue, and isn’t stopping anytime soon unless we make both individual and collective action changes. The cause of human emission in greenhouse gases has caused an overall dramatic change in water shifts, temperature, and extreme weather. Though I believe the United States was trying to be as productive as possible in regards to The Copenhagen Accord, I believe they took it too far. Spying and threatening on other countries was clearly not a success nor the best possible solution. It is so difficult to negotiate on a compromise when each nation is so different. You cannot expect a nation trying to raise their standards of living to decrease their fossil fuel use when this is something they clearly need, while a country like the United States would rather decrease their fossil fuel use since they are in such a high standard of living. Instead, it would of been a smarter idea for the State Department to negotiate on ideas that would be fair for each nation. Whether it be a moralized meeting with the leader of each nation, or even a conference, this would of been a more ethical and reasonable way to negotiate. As stated in module 9, collective action is something that needs to spread across all of humanity. Climate change isn’t just happening in one area, it’s happening worldwide, and we need to come together in a mutual and supportive agreement in order to successfully change our ways for the better.

Through this diagram I decided to show how the recognition of climate change as a serious issue lead to the drafting of the Copenhagen Accord and eventually lead to realization that new climate mitigation is essential to create a more sustainable environment.  Once the Copenhagen Accord was created, all countries did not immediately adopt to the ideas of the Accord and therefore lead to the United States and the BASIC’s to look for allies to support them for their own personal benefit.  In order to gain other countries support these countries had to use a variety of tactics and methods.  The problem in this, and as I showed in my diagram is that some of the methods used by these countries lead to countries questioning how much trust they can put in other countries.  Some questionable tactics used by the U.S and the BASIC’s include cables, spying and threatening.  An example shown in this diagram of how cables came in handy is how US was informed that Saudi Arabia needed to move their economy away from petroleum which lead the US to commit to help Saudi Arabia with its “economic diversification efforts would ‘take the pressure off climate change negotiations’.”  Other ways of gaining allies was to spy, which was used by China through spear phishing as well as countries providing money to others in order to gain support.  The US also at one point used the method of threatening especially in the case of Ethiopia and basically made an ultimatum for Ethiopia forcing them to sign the accord.  In the end, 116 countries ended up joining the Copenhagen Accord however overall the accord resulted in failure mostly because of the lack of trust between countries.  I ended off my diagram by showing that if greenhouse gases continue to reduce i will be because of climate mitigation, or in other words, new methods of reducing greenhouse gases.

One of the biggest and most important things to take away from this module is what causes climate change.  It is common for people to believe that climate change is caused by temperature increases and the increase in radiation from the sun.  Unfortunately, these people are misinformed, and need to be aware that the reason for climate change is mostly due to greenhouse gases from human activity and not from sun radiation.  Another important idea to take away from this module is understanding that we are trying to “foster collective action among all of humanity” or in other words, have collective action on mitigation.  The reason this is so hard to come by is because different areas of the world have different languages causing a language barrier, people are aware to different extents of climate change and people have different values which cause debate in every major issue.  To show how values could come in the way of negotiating mitigation, I recall reading a section of this module that outlined the difficulty in reaching agreements between poorer and richer countries.  The small and poorer countries would become bothered by the larger and wealthier countries asking them to watch their use of fossil fuels when they don’t use nearly as much fossil fuels as the bigger country.  Looking back on so many failed attempts of reducing greenhouse gases, in this particular case it could be beneficial to instead of, for lack of a better word, “calling out” smaller countries in order to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, to make it a national requirement to be informed of the damage the excessive use of fossil fuels can be detrimental to the earth especially since we are burning up fossil fuels at a much faster rate than they are regenerating.

I started out my diagram by explaining how greenhouse gases are affecting climate change and the World Powers produced the Copenhagen Accord in order to fix the problem by mitigating climate change. The U.S. needed support for the plan so they set out to get this support by threatening, bribing with money, cyber war faring, and spying on other countries. The United States wasn’t the only country that was using progressive actions in order to gain support. Money was promised and negotiations were made, some countries supported the plan and others didn’t. The major let down to this accord that I didn’t go into much detail with on my graph was that the Dutch refusing to join due to the fact that they didn’t want to use financial aid for political reasons, but on a positive note Saudi Arabia did join the accord which was a major benefit, because they are the number one producer of petroleum. Saudi Arabia agreed that it was good thing and no key economic interests were going to be compromised. The cables attained by the WikiLeaks finished at the end of February 2010. Today 116 countries have associated themselves with the accord, and another 26 say they attend to associate.  In conclusion, according to the article 140 nations represent almost 75% of the 193 countries that are parties to the UN climate change convention and, accord supporters are responsible for well over 80% of current global greenhouse gas emissions which is a huge success.

After reading the WikiLeak article and the module 9 information I have been informed how climate change is a large growing problem, and actions need to be taken in order to fix it. These changes in climate are caused mainly by human emissions of greenhouse gases. Climate change can lead to temperature shifts, shifts in water, and cause extreme weather events. It can sometimes be hard to adapt to these changes. Something has to be done, and the efforts of the U.S. and the Copenhagen Accord were very successful in my opinion, but not the most ethical. I don’t believe they had to threaten and spy on other countries in order to gain support, it was seen as inappropirate. Also, instead of stating in the cable, “sign the accord or discussion ends now,” the State Department could have negotiated differently to make the conditions fair for each side. Overall, compromises could have been made in a more ethical way. I’m not really sure what approach I would have taken, but it could have been dealt with differently with maybe a meeting or press conference where everything could be set out on the table. As I read Module 9 it mentioned how climate change is a collective action problem, this means everyone should be working together to fix the issue and be on the same page. It is affecting us all and it should be in everyone’s best interest to solve these problems in the right way, with the help from all the different countries.

2. I created the diagram so that it explained how the Copenhagen Accord came about and the effects it had on different countries. Because climate change was receiving more global attention, the UNFCCC created the Copenhagen Accord, after the Kyoto Protocol was largely unsuccessful. The United States needed other countries to support this accord because it would benefit them. In order to gain support, the United States went about it in a questionable manner. For example, they spoke with Saudi Arabia to discuss their alliance. Saudi Arabia agreed but needed money from the United States to make the transition and to diversify their economy away from petroleum. The U.S. also threatened some countries, such as Ethiopia, saying they should “sign the accord, of discussion ends now”. Lastly, the United States gave money to Maldives to gain support. There was also a “spear phishing” attack on Todd Stern, in which hackers were given access to individual’s computers through emails with malicious codes. Because of all of this, getting trust from poorer countries proved difficult, but not impossible for the United States. Various countries were concerned about where this money would come from and if it would come in the form of cash. Nevertheless, in the end, 75% of the 193 countries involved associated with, or intended to associate with the accord. This means the world is getting closer to achieving success with this collective action problem. However, it is a question of ethics whether or not the ends justified the means.

3. I believe that climate change is a very important issue, one that needs attention right away. However, large amounts of people do not think about the effects of greenhouse gases and how they may be contributed to their abundance in the atmosphere. Because of this, I think it is important that the UNFCCC is working on mitigation efforts and to reduce emissions around the world. I also think that the cables being made available to the public may actually be a good thing. Although making threats may not have been the best way to gain support, I think the United States is doing the right thing. Working towards gaining support means fixing an issue that many people do not want to adjust their lives for. For example, most people would agree that it is in our best interest to reduce emissions but it is in our individual interest to keep emitting. Therefore, this raises the question of whether or not the United States could have gone about this in any other way. For instance, if the U.S. simply asked for support by explaining why this accord will help the world as a whole, we may not be where we are now. The changes that need to be made cost money, and by offering this money, it makes it nearly impossible for nations to say no. In this way, I think the ends justify the means. Now, there are many countries in support of this accord and the UNFCCC continues to work toward adapting our way of life so that generations can live on.

In this diagram I wanted to display the connection between climate change and mitigation. As discussed in this module, climate change is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. By burning these fossil fuels, greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere and this leads to the troposphere increasing in temperature. This then leads to climate changes around the world and is a problem for many nations. They understand that collective action needs to be done in order for effective changes to take effect. Although countries meet to discuss how each of them can take action in reducing climate change, there are always some difficulties in determining a method that will work for every country in the agreement. As shown in the diagram, the Copenhagen Accord was created in the hopes of reducing climate change, but in this, there were levels of distrust in other nations. This led to cables being sent out to determine the trustworthiness of other nations. In addition to this, although many nations want to participate in this mitigation, less wealthy nations have a more difficult time in agreeing to certain treaties. While these treaties request that nations reduce actions that lead to greenhouse gas emissions, poorer nations cannot afford to do so. These countries still need to industrialize and, therefore, not as likely to agree with these obligations. A third reason that these treaties have not worked so far is that some countries do not agree with the use of finances as political leverage. If they do not agree with using their money in the same way, they will not agree to the accord. With the need for mitigation to reduce climate change, there have been many attempts to negotiate adequate treaties.

After reading this module, it concerns me that decisions relating to climate change will never be solved. I’m concerned that it will all be talk and there will not be much action, and as this happens there will be even more climate change for the worse. I think that issues like this are extremely important to solve, as they influence everyone on the planet and if they are not solved, there will be consequences. I think that there is a collective action problem in this situation since these many nations are not working collaboratively towards effective action. As collective action refers to actions done by a group on a collective decision, the nations of the world need to negotiate to make an agreement. Although this decision is a hard one to negotiate, it is understandable. As stated earlier, less wealthy nations still need to use machinery to maintain their country’s economy and lifestyle so they still need to emit the same amount of greenhouse gases and cannot afford to reduce them. In this case it is hard for them to settle on an agreement. In addition to this, more wealthy nations typically are accustomed to using cars and similar methods of transportation for travel and it would be difficult to change the accustomed actions of the citizens of these countries. What I do not necessarily comprehend is why the cables have been made public. I assume that they were publicized in order to receive feedback from the public, in the case that the public would loudly voice their opinions, but through this, I feel like this would more so create more varying opinions and mitigations would be less likely to happen. I think that there are many ways that climate mitigation can occur, but I am concerned on when it will happen and the extent of which it will happen.

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2. My systems diagram includes the flow of ideas behind the Wikileaks article and climate change. The United Nations Convention of Climate Change in Copenhagen was formed as a response to the rising issue of climate change throughout the world. As a result, various countries, large and small, attempted to come to an agreement over a way to reduce the harm of humanity’s progress on the planet.  After a few failed attempts, the United States found themselves with the “Copenhagen accord”, which favored many of the ideas and feelings that as one of the largest polluters in the world, the country favored.  The accord would allow countries to set their own goals for the cutting of greenhouse gases, without determining what levels were actually beneficial.  However, various countries were hesitant to sign the deal, which resulted in the United States’ interactions.  Through bribes, such as a payment of $30bn to Maldives, sheer bullying based off the United States’ power, and promises of payments, almost 140 countries have signed on for the accord itself.  These accounts and records were exposed finally around February 2010.  But, still, countries like Japan, though not supporting the Kyoto climate treatment anymore, are supporting the accord.  One can hope that through the United States’ playground like tactics that the greenhouse gas levels will begin to decline as more countries begin to execute their plans.  Although there is no set plan to how much or what levels each country should decrease their emissions, a start is still a start for a larger issue.
3. My view on the issue at hand looks at the situation more holistically. As a collective action towards mitigation as seen in Module 9, there are many different countries, oil based, small, and wealthy, that see emissions and climate change in different ways. However, the long term goal is to reduce climate change from an unsustainable source of fuel, fossil fuels, and into a form that will not pollute the planet.  I think that the State Department cables do not play a large role in the public knowledge, whether we know or not.  I simply care about the progress of the world as a whole.  As a result, I have to agree with the United States’ diplomacy during the meeting in Copenhagen.  If a country does not wish to participate in a goal or movement, that is their right.  However, on the basis of the planet, the countries that are able to participate should help those that are hesitate, such as Maldives who cared for some money, being a small island nation.  On the other side, I would have liked to see a more regulated set of boundaries for emissions set up. Being realistic though, I understand the difficulty in organizing a movement that includes 140 countries.  As a result, I believe that ethically the ends justify the means, and the United States’ behavior was appropriate.  While changing climate could be one of the world’s most pressing issue, I believe that some action is much better than no action at all.  In addition, possibly through new acts, such as making large cities more energy efficient and communities less fossil fuel dependent with more walking roads, other countries will begin to follow. I think that having multiple countries on board for one cause, even with flaws, is much better than no countries on a well formed plan.

The core ideas behind my system diagram is how the U.S. used espionage and funding’s (which I called bribery since that’s more or less what it is) to get countries to join the Copenhagen Accord, which was mostly written by the U.S.  When countries heard that about 30 billion dollars in financial aid would be available to help assists in projects that would reduce their climate change impact, they jumped on board almost immediately.  Some countries did not take the deal, but not nearly the same amount that joined the accord.  One person from Brussels asked if the money would be in the form of cash, which I found to be sort of sketchy.  The second part is making use of espionage.  For example, the U.S. sent secret cables to Meles Zenawi, who heads the African Union for climate change.  In the cable, the U.S. lays out an ultimatum stating that they “sign the accord or all discussion end now.”  In my diagram, you can see that whatever course the U.S. took to get countries to back the Copenhagen Accord, more often than not, the countries joined.  It would make sense to join if you are being offered money, but if you are being forced to join, you might show some resistance, like how the Netherlands found it hard that one of the conditions to receive any financial backing was to join the accord.  As you can see from the diagram, the Copenhagen accord has been accepted by about 75% of the countries within the United Nations.

In my opinion, I think the cables should have been made public.  My biggest problem with the Copenhagen accord is how the U.S. went about getting countries to join it.  The cables probably should not have existed in the first place, as it can and has sparked some controversy.  Also, the U.S. had the biggest hand in creating the accord.  I’m sure that it is written in a way that can only make the U.S. reap the benefits to the maximum.  I think that the U.S. should have went about this in a more diplomatic matter where each country helps to contribute to the accord.  If the all the countries worked together to work towards a common goal or agreement on how to control the climate, it would probably be a much more powerful movement.  What the Copenhagen accord really illustrates is that countries want money so that they can continue developing.  There is a chance that they will not use the money properly, and that it may go towards something else.  It also shows that the countries that were pushed into the accord don’t think that it is a good document to control the climate.  However, they do not really have a choice, because its either there in and receive help, or they are left behind.  Forcing someone into a cause without them understanding the cause almost never works.  They are either there for something else, or because they have to be there.  Unfortunately, this is often how politics works out.

1) My hometown of Sunbury, PA is not in danger of many natural hazards. There are no volcanoes, almost never any tornadoes even though it is listed as a zone 2 area. There are very rarely any earthquakes, and it has a low risk of wildfires. According to the Nathan World Map of Natural Hazards, the closest natural hazards are high cyclone and extra-tropical winds, as well as heavy hail storms. The impacts are generally low from these events however. For this specific task the Nathan map is not very well suited because the area of Sunbury, PA is very small compared to the world, and some disasters like local river flooding are not accounted for.

2) On April 4, 2016 there was a confirmed case of Rabies in a raccoon in Watertown, New York. This is a disaster that my hometown is capable of facing because we have a fairly high raccoon population. This is a small disaster on the scale of damages, but it could turn into something much bigger without proper handling. If it spread it could be a biological disaster. If one raccoon had rabies in Sunbury, it would most likely mean a lot of raccoons had it. Raccoons can generally be found wondering alleys of Sunbury, which means it could be a huge disaster for the population. Luckily there were no reported incidents of human contraction from this event, but it is still potentially dangerous. Humans that live along the alleys would be much more vulnerable to this disaster. One of the ways this could be prevented is by controlling the raccoon population or by relocating them individually out of the city.

3) From personal experience, I can attest that my hometown is susceptible to strong winds and rain from hurricanes, and flooding from the susquehanna river. While it is not often, I have seen damages like fallen trees and power outages result from severe hurricane winds. Sunbury is surrounded by mountains, so it is very unlikely that tornadoes or hurricanes would reach the small town, but their strong winds are still able to affect it. Sunbury has been flooded many times, which has caused significant damage. Water levels during the floods rose high above most of the town, so a wall was built that spans the entire length of the city in order to prevent flooding. Sunbury has a unique fiber dam that spans the length of the river. It consists of inflatable fiber tubes that inflate in the spring to create a reservoir. It is lowered in the fall to allow for fish migrations. ( information provided by http://www.cityofsunbury.com/Pages/Community/Sunbury%20History/TheAdamTBowerDam.aspx)

4) One of the main natural hazards is the flooding relative to the Susquehanna River. This has been solved by building a concrete wall along the entire length of Sunbury. Besides this the only natural hazard that Sunbury faces is high winds. High winds are very hard to contain, so there is not much that can be done to prevent their damages. One thing that can be done is to install underground high wind shelters for houses without basements. There is a housing development without basements in Sunbury. The people who live here would be in danger if a tornado or hurricane every did reach the city, so building a shelter to provide safety would be an ideal prevention. The city could hire contractors to build this shelter. I personally can set up an emergency plan including where and when to go to our basement, and what foods and water to store in case of emergency.

My hometown that I analyzed in Module 7 is Wayne, PA. Being in North Eastern United States, the area itself is not susceptible to many natural disasters. There are no volcanoes, low probability of earthquakes and protection from high winds due to the Appalachian Mountain Range that goes up Eastern United States. Some disasters that are possibly are hail, heavier rain and tornadoes. That being said, after living there all my life before college the rains are very seasonal and I have never felt in “danger” from the amount of rain we would receive during storms. There have been tornado warnings but I’ve never actually heard of one forming. In general I think the Nathan map is well documented and probably backed up by a lot of research, but a smaller scale would be nice. Being able to even just look specifically at North America would allow me to see greater detail about the dangers in PA.

From RSOE EDIS: On April 04 2016 at 02:13 AM (UTC) there was a Biological Hazard in York, PA United States (EDIS Number: BH-20160404-52779-USA). There was a raccoon bite confirmed for Rabies. I realize on the scale of natural disasters this is an extremely small case, but it is extremely relevant to my hometown location and why I chose to cover this. Before moving out for college there were a few times I remember public posts going out to our area about when this would happen. Usually it wasn’t bites, but an update that a raccoon with Rabies was found and to remain alert incase others were infected. There was also a time when one was found acting strange during the day at my neighbors and they called the police because of it. Scale for this is the same in York, PA as in Wayne, PA. Raccoons are extremely common in PA and Rabies is nothing to play around with. It requires painful treatment and that may not even be enough sometimes. As mentioned above, when this happens in my area there is a public release that is generally made and the proper procedure for reporting it. I would say everyone is equally vulnerable to this. It generally happens during the day and if you’re outside theres no reason it couldn’t happen. That being said, I have never left my house in fear of a raccoon attack. If they were more common maybe, but like I said I remember only about 4 or 5 reports when living at home.

Going back to more grand-scale natural disasters that are possibly in my area, rain and flooding would be up there as the most possible. Wayne, PA is a few miles from the Schuylkill River and there are times where flooding is a threat. Wayne is far enough away from the river itself that direct flooding wouldn’t be an issue, but if the river overflows it serves as a catalyst for other possible threats at a smaller scale that affect the surrounding suburbs. I couldn’t find any direct research into flooding at such a small level of Wayne, PA, but from the Nathan map and personal experience this would definitely be the most “possible” natural disaster at a larger scale. There was also a time where our area felt the aftershock of an earthquake in Virginia, but thats the only time there has been a noticeable affect from an earthquake.

I think the best way for Wayne, PA to better its pre-event preparedness would focus on its Urban Planning to allow for better drainage during heavy rain seasons. Urban Planning could include adding more drains to the roads, focusing on the affects of runoff caused by high asphalt coverage, placing buildings strategically in regards to hills and general water travel and how to quickly drain areas that are especially prone to floods. The people responsible for these changes would be at a city level since its mostly urban planning and pre-event preparedness. Also faster ways to alert the general public could be introduced. I think introducing a texting service similar to AMBER alerts could be helpful during times of high rain and possible flooding.