Dickinson to Durban » Entries tagged with "Timothy Damon"
What America Can (and should) Learn from Europe
By Timothy Damon ’12 America has a long and proud history of firsts – the first airplane, the first man on the moon, and so forth. This heritage makes it all the more surprising that the United States would give up its leadership in innovation when it comes to the world’s greatest problem: climate change. One of the largest examples is allowing Europe to establish the first-ever market mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In 2005, the European Union (EU) implemented the Emissions Trading System (ETS), a cap-and-trade system aimed at reducing its GHG emissions. The principle of cap-and-trade (C&T) is relatively simple, and the idea actually came from a previous program the US EPA used to fight acid rain pollution. Basically the government sets an annual limit on GHG emissions … Read entire article »
Filed under: Carbon Markets, Climate Change, Summer Reading Responses
“Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing”
While studying British literature in high school, it never occurred to me that one of Shakespeare’s most famous lines might one day aptly describe the outcome of international climate negotiations – and certainly not the Copenhagen meeting in which so much hope was invested. Yet alas! For, to borrow Macbeth’s own words, the non-binding Copenhagen Accord was “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. But could a document signed by so many top government leaders and diplomats really be deserving of such a comparison? Well, let’s take a look. The Accord has 5 pages (the actual statement is only 3) to outline the agreement everyone reached. It impressively acknowledges that “climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time” and asserts that the Parties have “strong political will to … Read entire article »
Filed under: Climate Change, Summer Reading Responses
One trillion dollars…okay, deal! Wait, what?
Last week, the COP17 mosaic crew came together with a group of first year students to try to save the world! Using the climate interactive system C-LEARN, we were able to simulate climate negotiations much like those we will be attending at the end of November. At the risk of sounding redundant and possibly (accidentally, of course) plagiarizing some of my very articulate classmates, I will point to posts written by Tim Damon and Maggie Rees for a more detailed description of the simulation. Also, check out the short video below for a good overview of the purpose/significance of climate interactive as told by one of the organizations founders, Peter Senge. Our negotiation simulation (say that ten times fast!) provided me with an excess of epiphany’s regarding the complex relationships and details … Read entire article »
Filed under: Summer Reading Responses
The Devil’s in the Details
In a previous blog post, I discussed the need for a “moral compromise” between the developed and developing countries of the world in order to reach an agreement on climate change. Though I identified three points of compromise that most people would consider “fair”, this does not mean it is easy to act on them – as the students of our Mosaic and another class learned firsthand in a mock climate negotiation devised by Climate Interactive. This simulation divided us into the representatives of individual countries that comprised three different blocs: developed (USA, EU, UK, etc), rapidly developing (China, India, Brazil, etc), and less developed (Sudan, Middle East, small island states, etc). We were not given countries based upon our knowledge, and most students did not know much at all about … Read entire article »
Filed under: Mosaic Action, Student Research
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