The Politics of Climate Change - Essay Example

Running Head: The Politics of Climate Change Student’s name Institution Course Professor Date Introduction Climate change over time has become a defined issue in our contemporary life. Since the past industrial revolution, there has been over- reliance on carbon-based sources of energy in our industries. The significant changes in the climate as shown by increase in temperature and sea level rise has been contributed by society. In the past three decades, there have been concerns in regard to human contributions to climate change resulting in movement from obscure scientific inquiries to the fore of science, politics, policy and practices at various levels of governance. The politics of climate change has been pervasive, vital and contested from the local adaptation strategies to international treaty negotiation. This calls for new commitment to international co-operation to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. According to World Meteorological Organization, climate can be defined as the average course or condition of the weather at a place usually over a period of years as demonstrated by precipitation, wind velocity and temperature (Hulmes, 2009, p4). Climate change has been termed as a complex issue that has been difficult for many people to discern it. However, there is high awareness concerning climate change and past studies have showed that the public has expressed substantial views about it. A general assumptions have been put forward in that there will be both financial gainers and losers due to the implementation of actions that can reduce the impacts of climate change. Moreover, fear gripped some individuals in that some of the consequences of climate change have been used as tactical tool by interest groups and partners who talk about the climate change (Ashworth, 2011). Giddens argued that climate change has to be viewed as a social and political issue and not environmental one alone. Most persons continue to prioritize it lowly as compared to other societal issues for instance education, economy and terrorism (Clifford, 1988).Thus the new politics of climate change, its fundamental shift ought to bring society back into climate change. Human activities for instance the release of green house gases have been linked to climate change and global warming phenomena. The global warming leads to increased cloud cover which tend to operate as a negative feedback mechanism. For the past decades the views and perceptions of individuals towards the climate change has expanded. The war against climate change has to be won in varied levels. These levels can range from politics, power, ideology, economics and behavioural psychology. The creation of new politics of climate change helps the policy makers to act appropriately. The policy makers have many powers to act than they can acknowledge. Environmental community has been the dominant actor and thus able to mobilize support on a wider scale and by creating social foundations for success through embedded low-lying carbon lifestyles (Darnton, 2004). The new political dispensation is positioned to open up the upstream processes of technological innovations, production of knowledge and institutional commitment to technology thus able to acquire their own discourses on participation. Science and politics have for a long time collaborated to yield dominant understandings of nature. Climate change has caused an impact to humanity and if not checked can be catastrophic for the entire human life. The policy making process ought to be concrete and radical but the responses of the politicians are on the level of gestures as oppose to being. Alternatively, any policy action and intervention at local, national and international level will have an impact on reduction of global warming and its associated mitigation measures. Giddens (2009) argues that at the moment, there is no systematic politics of climate change. The politics cannot allow us to deal with the problems at hand while at the same time the green movement is flawed at the source. Many people have had firm believe in the scientific consensus on global warming phenomenon. Thus they are able to support government action in a view to curb greenhouse gas emissions despite their political affiliations (Giddens, 2009). As McCright noted that political divide remains on the existence of climate change regardless on the fact that majority of scientist believe it is real. There is need to examine the influence of political orientation on the perceived scientific agreement and the support for action from the government to curb emissions. One fundamental step in dealing with climate change is by having both sides of the political spectrum accept the scientific consensus. At this juncture the policy makers are able to come up with techniques and approaches to curb climate change that could result in global warming. Both government regulations and market based solutions are able to limit the impacts of global warming. The climate change represents a tragedy of the commons on a global scale. With these, nations and individuals are not willing to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions since they will pay the full amount of abatement but gain a small fraction of the benefits. Climate change policies can be compared on four levels; for instance positions taken in international negotiations, adoption of domestic programs and ratification/non-ramification of international treaties to abate climate change. The international context can influence the domestic politics in various ways. These include the high profile negotiations that could assist in putting up issues of climate change on the political agenda and heighten its prominence in others. Also a multilateral agreement can reduce the costs of individual countries and ensures environmental benefits especially under the conditions of environmental and economic interdependence. Time is limiting as the climate change continue to pose profound threats to the wellbeing of our planet earth and of that of humankind. Otherwise catastrophic economic and social impacts may sets in. There has been a welcoming increase in both public and political concern in making issues of climate change their main central focus. However, with some people issues of climate change have been of far less concern over core economic, social and security priorities. Social meanings of climate change Theories that have been advanced in environmental social sciences in regard to climate change are quite materialist. For instance; the treadmill of production, ecological modernization and industrial ecology/mobilization. Industrial metabolism involves the input of raw materials and other energy sources in productive industries or systems. It posits that societies must holistically regulate this process and invent efficient machinery to reduce the rate of material consumption. Consequently, ecological modernization alludes that through current modernization of industries and other institutions, society can be transformed to green state. Thus environmental regulation and environmentally friendly industries will automatically yield a sustainable future as a market economies continue to advance. The treadmill of production theory counters ecological modernization. It argues that modern societies for instance the market dominated are driven by commitment to growth without the due regard to social and ecological costs. With the support from the government, industrial production can be allowed to expand and could increase the demands of raw material and create greater amounts of carbon. However, the expansion of capitalism depletes the natural resources which resulted in increase in the production costs of capital. If continue will create a crisis for capitalism. Ethnographic Silence on climate change by stakeholders creates a very difficult position for future generations. If the current trends continue, global warming could get out of control and threaten the survival of mankind. There is a possibility of an ecological discontinuity. Global climate change may result in extreme weather patterns such as a hurricanes, floods and droughts. This can disproportionately affect developing nations despite their minor contribution of carbon pollution. Global warming will occasion a rise in sea levels. This threatens many islands and some low-lying states with uncontrollable floods. Policy options Irrespective of the international scientific consensus about the impact of climate change and the support for mitigation techniques, policy implementation has proved futile. Various political parties commit themselves to the policy of pricing carbon emissions especially during electioneering periods. The climate change has expanded in the public prominence with the release of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report. There has been a recent and rapid growth of interest in exploring the technique to deliberately intervene in the climate change to counteract global warming. These corresponds to the slow progress of international climate negotiations that has led to concerns that current mitigation policies could not produce the necessary reductions in emissions that are fundamental to dangerous climate change. There are political issues that hinges about the inherent instability of climate. In order to have an ecologically just world, it needs to have a formal means of apportioning human responsibility for predicted climate change and later converting the culpability into solutions. However, the challenge is that the issue of inherently unstable climate and the catastrophic scenarios that are related with crossing climate thresholds undermines the very ground where such accounting could take place. Much concern have been placed on the issue of climate thresholds transitions which have made them have their own ideas as to why major regulatory bodies for instance, Framework Convention on Climate Change underestimate the possibility of abrupt change. Indeed most of the climate models till to date have inclined themselves to represent specific, fundamental and complex processes in linear ways that could end up reducing the sensitivity of simulations to thresholds crossings. The assemblage of both human and non-human elements can effectively form a single complex global system having its own internal dynamics and emergent properties. The issue of isolating defined causal agents and accounting for their contribution to overall change has been given a rethought. The inherent characteristics of climate systems include threshold transitions, instabilities and major fluctuations. The need for just and workable responses in regards to conditions of climatic instability can be achieved through opening up of the political to the exorbitant energies beyond its normal bounds thus making cataclysm be self-serving. A report by BBC news showed the possibility of having a perfect storm that will comprise of runaway climate change, enormous population growth, huge water, and food and energy shortage. The world is racing headlong into various interlocking catastrophes in case there is no reversal of various systems. In regards to politics of climate change, past researchers are aware that societal processes contribute towards climate change and resource scarcity. The elements vital for climate change are not limited to increase in Arctic temperatures, melting of icecaps and glaciers, changes in rainfall, reduced size of icebergs, reduced permafrost and biodiversity, more droughts and heat waves. Gidden’s paradox alludes that the dangers of global warming are not tangible and visible and thus most people will do nothing concrete till the dangers of climate change become more tangible. He further argues against the efficacy of the politics of fear however very critical on the idea of precautionary principle championed by Green movement. For a positive view of low carbon futures, he develops an idea of ensuring state, promoting convergence between climate change and other fundamental political issues and how new carbon technologies develops country’s competitiveness and thus its growth. Consequently, he explores how politics and related policies of climate change within specific societies such as Denmark, Iceland and Costa Rica who have generated fundamental strides towards carbon neutrality and decreased carbon growth (Giddens,2009). He assured that what states do can make great differences to potential outcomes since they are responsible in setting some policies that needs to be adopted by an ensuring state. The need to plan for uncertain futures and initiate vanguard models will eventually stimulate other consumers or producers to imitate and generalize on low carbon initiatives. The politics of climate change has displayed how several societies do vary in terms of their social resilience in regards to weather events that have become common for instance the climate change. There is need of multilateral forms of cooperation. These forms may include; sharing of scientific findings, aid and technological transfer. Being a social, environmental and scientific phenomenon, climate change can be characterized by its relationship to futures. The people in the political arena have an appeal for collective participation with a view to shape our mother planet through anticipatory logics whereas the scientists can predict the carbon concentration levels and futures states of the planet earth through climate models. In addition, the science of global climate requires a more sophisticated integration with both complex cultural and political systems with a view to anticipate and mitigate any impacts. The emergence and consolidation of the post-political condition insist on the urgency of politically mediated action with the view to retrofit the global climate into a more benign and stable condition. In other instances, it can engage in interventions that would eventually mitigate some of the socio-spatial and ecological consequences. The post democratic condition points that the few decades have been displayed by the deepening processes of de-politicization with thus increasing evacuation of the proper political dimension from the public terrain as technocratic management and contextual policy making filled the spaces of democratic politics. The politics of climate change over past time has been perceived to be fundamental pillars through which post political frame can be forged and retrenched. Climate change conundrum has been portrayed as global and a humanitarian threat. The humanity as a whole are invoked with the consequences of the climate change. However, the people are not involved as heterogeneous political subjects but as victims of processes beyond their control. Stabilizing the effects of climate change has become the conditions for capitalist life. The use of politics as policy making tool has sutured the space of the political as expressions of dissensus. The framing of climate change and its related populist politics forecloses politicization and evacuates dissent via the formation of a distinct regime of environmental governance. This regime revolves within the consensus, agreement, participatory negotiation of varied interests and technocratic expert management in the context of non-disputed management of market based socio economic organization. Over the last two decades many people and institution have been carrying out research on what is now a big threat to the world ‘’climate change’’. This brought in this policy; ABC (attitude, behavior, and choice) of climate change policy which mainly deals with the social change that depends on attitude that drives individual behavior thus the choice they make (Ajzen 1991). The damage to the environment is a result of human action that has an option of behaving responsibly. Behavior change entails breaking old ways and adapting to new ones. It recognizes societal transformations that present social arrangement that will shape the future, a system of provision and a radical innovation. ABC policy does not only seek social change but also bring together the local citizens as consumers and the government and other institutions as decision makers and enablers. The best way to do this is to make people become agents of sustainable and equitable development (Shove, 2009). This climate change policy targets those who are ready for action by increasing their efficiency i.e. providing them with skills on how to handle peer pressure, reducing the risks to them. This is facilitated by a bottom–up form of management as well as funding of important projects from the government. There is need to improve cost effectiveness. In this case you seek to balance on the cost benefit that accrues to the citizen while at the same time looking at the long term benefit to the environment (Shove, 2009). For us to deal with climate change we need to understand the problems the environment face both in the short and long term future. One of this is sustainability. This is raised by the concerns of the present generation who demand their satisfaction from the resources we have but end up using damaging means with little regards to the future generation. It also costs a lot for both the government and specific individuals who are so careful on conservation in terms on sustaining a project through to all users (Uzzell, 2008). The rationality of the people who seek to maximize their welfare guides their choice in a model. People look at the choice before them in terms of cost and benefits. Secondly, the habits and theory of action is a hard thing to deal with. People have been brought up with a set of mind or culture that has always shaped their behavior which now dictates their choice on how to relate with the environment. Some practices are also to blame for such problem because there were no checks and balances to control such practices. Social patterns have been at the forefront of selling some ideas to the users who end up copying or repetitively try to act otherwise and make this a common practice over looking its dangers (Shove, 2009). Lastly, infrastructure has not favored policy implementation or rather social outreach to sell the idea of environmental conservation and sustainability. Applying new management system demands a good structure but due to financial constrains and time has postponed key decisions. This policy has identified the challenge and it is seeking a solution. However due to the problems in implementation of most policies there is a suggestion to using social marketing principles as an approach as devised by P. Kotler and N. Lee. These include; taking advantage of prior and existing campaign tools. This helps to learn from past successes and failures. We should also target people ready for action so they can sell the idea. Thirdly, promote one idea at a time. We also need to be keen in identifying and removal barriers as you bring real benefit to the present. There is need to clearly highlight the costs benefit analysis to the citizen for them to buy our idea. Promote tangible object or service to help in outreach through offering of incentives as a form of appreciation and recognition (Shove, 2009). Try to be a fun of the media to pass messages at decision making point. Finally use prompts for sustainability. It is important to appreciate that there are other forms of policies that have to focus on technology, resource management and efficient supply. There is a struggle in the world on how to mitigate climate change for sustainability. However people’s lifestyles are ever changing thus making it had to formulate policy that is long term. 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