The Fight: Development and The Battle That Ensues

When dealing with an issue such as climate change, how do people from different parts of the world, with different views and different needs, come together and find a common ground?  What do they need to do to make a global challenge work for everyone?  These are the things that the students participating in the Climate Change Africa Mosaic and students from a First-year seminar had to address on Thursday, Sept. 15th.  We were placed into a world climate negotiation simulation, where we, the students, represented a country, then the countries were divided into block groups.  Within 3 hours we had to come to an agreement with the other nations which both set forth climate reductions and still benefited our own represented country.  This was a goal tat proved to be rather difficult, but was accomplished in the three hours.

This simulation provided some very good insight into these negotiations.  I was representing Brazil, which fit into the Rapidly Developing Country Block,  a group of countries that are in heavy debate about how to address there emissions while still promoting strong and profitable development.  I found myself fighting with the Developed Nation Block, trying to get them to significantly reduce there GHG emission, while being allowed to continue polluting.  It made these me see why the climate change negotiations thus far, haven’t seeming gotten very far.  Countries like the US, England, Canada and so on, are to this point, the primary contributers to Climate Change,  are continuing to fight with these Rapidly Developing Nations to get some kind of commitment.  The countries like Brazil, China, Mexico and so on, are fighting the Developed Nations to not commit to anything because they want the same unhindered opportunity to develop like the US and others had, something that seems very reasonable to ask for.  But what do we need to do to TRY and prevent extensive climate change problems.  We need them both to reduce there GHG emissions significantly and do it quick.  I strongly believe that every countries has every right to develop as much as possible.  For that development to have any significance in the future, though, they need to do it in a way that our Mother Earth will be preserved.  As for the Developed countries, there is no excuse, they need to do some serious work and do it before we are too late.  We are at the point, where hesitation from any party is only hurting us (the world community).