For my diagram, I wanted to start with the main idea of Climate Change since that is the event that is the root cause of this entire process diagram. Climate Change results in a call for action, since it is a problem on a global scale. The 2009 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen was held to discuss collective action, however as the article states, it was a tricky thing to negotiate. This is because it can be massively expensive to change industries and infrastructure to support lower emissions, which shows later in the $30 billion in aid. There was no official agreement, but the Copenhagen Accord was drafted by the US and was the unofficial document for collective action, and that is what I chose to use as my link in the second row. The US then began secretly contacting its allies to persuade them to agree to it, and that combined with $30 billion promised as aid helped. In my diagram I have both of those as links to the fact that 140 Countries ended up agreeing to the accord. WikiLeaks then obtained and released to the public the cables that the United States sent to some countries. The cables revealed negotiations with many countries including Brazil, India, and China. The cables showed that the US even made threats in trying to persuade some nations. The article stated that even countries like Saudi Arabia, where their main economic source is from oil and fossil fuels, were contacted by the US.

I am in favor of WikiLeaks releasing these cables to the public. It is important to us as consumers of energy to know how and why emissions will be regulated. Collective action when it comes to climate change is difficult, but when the entire world must come together to slow it down, the importance outweighs the difficulties. The way the US has been conducting these negotiations brings about an ethical dilemma, like discussed in Module 3. We read that a core questions is asking, “do the ends justify the means?” In this case, I believe they do. The health of our planet and its inhabitants should be the most important thing, and I believe the US has that, among other interests, at the top of their minds. I think this leak will make future negotiations no more difficult, nor easier, than before. I think the only result of this leak will be that countries will be more careful when sending “secret” messages. Less threats will be made, and sketchy dealings will hopefully become a thing of the past. I think what needs to be done now is make sure all negotiations when it comes to climate change need to be made public. In today’s society, it has become harder to keep things secret, like with the newly released Panama Papers. Public negotiations are the best way forward to have people agree to climate change mitigation.