Within the past 25 years, the evolution of global climate change has encouraged interest’s parties, especially natural scientist, to steer global policy agendas on providing measures to mitigate global climate change. Solving climate changed has become a comprehensive task across the world due to conflicting policies of international organizations and the state’s perception of climate change. Politics of global warming has resulted from industrial evolution which has increased carbon dioxide and fossil fuels resulting in greenhouse gas effect. Consequently, greenhouse effect causes global warming, which is the crucial factor for climate change.
Natural scientists believe the current state of climate change will result in environmental apocalypse if adequate measures to mitigate the challenge are not initiated. Besides, the outbreak of wars has resulted in instability among the countries involved. In human history, the evolution of war has resulted in a massive loss of lives, ruined cities, and destabilized the country’s’ economies. According to psychologists, they believe that war is inevitable since ancient times and contemporary times. Therefore, the research paper will discuss global politics on climate change and justify whether war is inevitable.
Reasons for climate change presenting a challenge in global politics
Climate change is fundamental as a result of human activities and subsequently affects the quality of human life. It has raised important questions among natural scientist and socialism prompting international relations in promulgating policies to address global climate change. Political scientists are conscious of the overwhelming climatic changes. Climate politics have been integrated into the political science research to assist in implementing measures of the mitigating impact of climate change (Kamarck, 2019). Political efforts dealing with global climate change has resulted in the implementation of international treaties in conserving climate and creating a holistic approach of collective responsibility to every person in addressing climate change.
Kamarck (2020) stated that the earth’s surface would become inhabitable due to increased temperatures; thus, people will die of heat. The disease is expected to mutate and increase at an alarming rate. Food shortage is a challenge among states, and agriculture has declined, resulting in the dependence of imported food products. Climate change has become unpredictable due to constant changes, thus calling for global dialogue on mitigating the impact.
Global warming has resulted in melting of ice sheets and glaciers, causing a rise in sea level. For example, in Miami and Bangladesh, might be submerged due to increase in sea level (Bernauer, 2013). Freshwater will become unavailable, and soil pH will become acidic due to seawater limiting agricultural practices. According to David Wallace-Wells (2020), he stated, “What lies between us and extinction is horrifying enough.” Leaders are concerned about the welfare of human beings due to climate change resulting in hot debates on measures to mitigate climate changes. Climate change has long term effect on economic, political and social set up of the society. Decline in agriculture results to decline in country’s GDP because the majority of nations are dependent on agriculture.
Consensus-driven global governance models have been deliberated from the 20th century, but mechanisms to implement have become a challenge. For example, well organized and funded special-interests lobbying activists may deter the efficiency of controlling fossil fuels to reduce emissions for selfish gain. Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was formed to address global warming. In 2019, climate change politics was significant in Germany.
The highest court in the Netherlands held a landmark by ruling on protection of climate change as it in violation of human rights, and the government was ordered to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases (Incropera, 2016). Similarly, China has stopped the building of coal-fired power stations in 2020 as a mechanism to reduce emissions. International Monetary Fund assesses global subsidies for fossil fuels. According to the IMF report in 2019, it showed that fossil fuel industries received $5.2 trillion in 2017 amounting to 6.4% of global GDP.
Consequently, due to the IMF findings, Central Banks of the United Kingdom and France appealed to end providing fossil fuel subsidies. At the same time, the European Investment Bank stated it would end subsides in 2021 (Dessle & Edward, 2019). International Institute for Sustainable Development said it is possible to phase out coal across the globe. Therefore, global politics are concerned about climate change, and sanctions are being implemented on industries and countries violating the Paris Agreement on holistic measures of mitigating climate change. However, there are challenges in implementing global politics concerning climate change.
Challenges facing global politics in mitigating global climate change
Difficulties for achieving global climate change are under review. Institutional design practices have been put in place to mitigate challenges in the global cooperative effort. National and international policies at the country level, regional and international levels are conflicting, and there is a challenge of a consensus to incorporate all states and form a fundamental approach to mitigate global climate change (Maiti & Chakraborty, 2019). Concerns of establishing driving force policies on international policies have posed significance challenge leading to global politics on public opinion, science-policy interface, civil society and the states.
America is resistant in developing a comprehensive action on climate change, frightening an occurrence of environmental apocalypse. For example, UNFCCC (2020) set policies on the stabilization of global greenhouse gas emissions in the ecosystem as defined by the Kyoto Protocol (KP) 1997 providing sustainable emissions. Interestingly, the United States, the largest greenhouse emitter, refused to join the treaty. Besides, Canada withdrew from KP in 2012. Additionally, obtaining reduction commitment on ozone layer among developing countries and emerging economies is difficult to achieve (Sosa-Nunez & Atkins, 2016).
Sandler & Thompson (2004, 2006) stated that the main challenge is tragedy-of-the-commons logic in abetting climate change due to the lack of global collective responsibility. Political uncertainty is another challenge due to changes in the government’s climate policies as described by Hovi & Victor (2009, 2012). Cost-benefit distributions among countries pose a significant challenge. Therefore, developing a consensus on global climate change mitigation measures is challenging to achieve.
Is war inevitable?
According to three political psychologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, argued that acknowledging psychological roots of war can resolve conflicts. Terry Copp (2019) supported the argument of the three psychologists by upholding organized force in resisting aggression, or unbearable tyranny may result in amicable solutions (Baylis, 2020). For example, during the First World War, if the aggression of Australia was counterattacked with cautionary alarm, the war could have been abated
Similarly, suppose Czarist Russia accepted conquest of Serbia by Austria-Hungary, it could have avoided the European-wide war. France and Germany embraced occupation and resistance, while Germany changed the military action power fueling the conflict. If Britain adopted neutrality, the massive impact of the war could have been avoided.
Results from the Serbia conquest resulted in the enthusiasm of the Great War that resulted in the Russian revolution (Matthews & Callaway, 2019). The policy of appeasement could be the best tool to avoid war. For example, Czechoslovakia, Republican Spain and Ethiopia avoided war by applying the approach of appeasement failure to which it could have resulted in the inevitable war in 1939.
According to international relation, theories war can be quickly abated. For example, Liberalism theory states that the current global system is based on a peaceful world order. About what happened in Spain and Ethiopia, the appeasement policy resulted in a harmonious state rather than using military action in solving conflict among states? If states across the globe acknowledge the civilian casualties and economic loses brought forth by war, they could integrate the theory of liberalism to promote peace treaties (Steans, Pettiford, Diez, & El-Anis, 2013).
Currently, bilateral trade treaties are more effective in advancing political interests among different states as an economic tactic and promote peace across the world. Establishment of the United Nations based on liberalism has enabled international corporations. Generally, liberalism is rooted in the United States and has become the dominant strategy of international relations. It establishes international institutions and promotes peace treaties among member states. Starting a war is easy, but ending it becomes difficult not unless one country concedes the defeat.
Constructivism theory believes that international relations are not the best actors across the world. The theory prospects uphold the influence of international institutions and non-state actors as effective actors in promoting global actions. The theory has become prevalent among different organizations across the world. Based on the constructivism, theory, war van be easily avoided through international relations. For example, Germany was the primary catalyst for the Second World War by deploying armed forces outside its borders to provide immediate interventions in cases of war spillover and genocide attempts.
The aggressiveness of Germany was a devastating ad if it could have joined the United Nations; the first and second Gulf War could have been avoided (Jespersen, 2019). United Nations have intervened in stabilizing government of Somalia which has to be in the war in the previous decades. International organizations play a vital role in promoting peace among aggressive states. For example, Amnesty International is doing significant work in promoting global human rights. If all states confine to international relations, it will be easier to abate war across states by using the policy of appeasement.
However, based on the Realism theory, war is inevitable because states are working to gain political superiority over the less powerful ones. States gaining power over the less powerful ones thrive faster by exploiting, the less powerful. According to the theory, countries focus on their interests rather than international relations for political, social and economic imperatives. The government believe in violence as a practical alternative approach of governance, thus enforcing international relation policy becomes a challenge (Legion Magazine, 2019). Realism is evident between China and Russia. China is concerned with economic expansions despite the bloody civil war in Syria that the international community has pleaded for intervention.
Overall, global politics have shifted on climate change due to the deviating effect on humanity. However, challenges such as political uncertainties, cost-benefit distributions and withdrawal of states from PK and UNFCCC pose a significant challenge. Besides, war can be quickly abated if all states embrace a policy of appeasement as it supported by the theory of Constructivism and Liberalism. However, based on Realism theory war is inevitable. Therefore, it is possible to avoid war.
References #
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