Articles Comments

Dickinson to Durban » Entries tagged with "Anna McGinn"

Can local action combat a global issue?

Can local action combat a global issue?

By: Anna McGinn ’14 In her article, “Thinking globally, acting locally—institutionalizing climate change at the local government level in Durban, South Africa,” Debra Roberts discusses Durban’s recent initiative to develop as well as address climate change.  This reading reminded me of our discussion in Washington DC with Dallas Burtraw from Resources for the Future.  Both Roberts and Burtraw emphasize that action at a local level is required to adequately mitigate and adapt to climate change.  However, … Read entire article »

Filed under: Climate Change, Environmental Politics, Key COP17 Issues

Mosaic Group to Washington DC

By: Anna McGinn ’14 Instead of rolling out of bed and heading to classes as usual, on Thursday, October 20 the students in the Mosaic program traveled to DC to meet with United States negotiators, scientists, and government workers.  Over our two days of meeting, we meet with a total of eleven speakers.  Each brought a different point of view to the table, labeling different events as successes and failures and focusing on different angles of the problems and possible solutions.  Everyone emphasized the need for immediate action on an international scale, but few expressed optimistic sentiments about the upcoming negotiations.  One speaker, Jennifer Morgan from the World Resource Institute (WRI), explained a comprehensive plan that would lead the world in the direction of international agreement on actions that need to … Read entire article »

Filed under: Climate Change, Environmental Politics, Key COP17 Issues, Mosaic Action, Student Research

Politics and Time

By: Anna McGinn ’14 Janet L. Sawin and William R. Moomaw’s report, “Renewable Revolution: Low Carbon Energy by2030,”offers quite a positive and uplifting assessment of the world’s situation as it pertains to climate change in the next twenty years.  Actually, the tone was so encouraging that I started to question the legitimacy of some of the statements they make.  But the difference between this article and most other research we have assessed on this topic is that the focus of this report is on what the world is doing well in regards to renewable energy, and not so much the degree to which it is failing.  Yet, it makes the transition to renewable resources sound too easy. This report acknowledges the fact that policies are pivotal for their emission projections to … Read entire article »

Filed under: Carbon Markets, Climate Change

The Corporations Speak

By: Anna McGinn ’14 Reading industries’ and corporations’ take on climate change policy is an interesting perspective to dissect especially after reading IPCC and scientific documents. Their focus is not to describe the science of climate change or to create international agreements on GHG emissions. Rather their report, “Assessing U.S. Climate Policy Options: A report summarizing work at RFF as part of the inter-industry U.S. Climate Policy Forum,” explains how corporations would like the United States to approach climate change regulations. From page one, they focus on regulating GHG emissions through various market approaches. In the realm of corporations, everything has a dollar value. Further, they are careful to use non-committal language and are vague in their explanations of solutions. Despite some drawbacks, it seems impressive that these 23 corporations came … Read entire article »

Filed under: Carbon Markets, Climate Change