Comparative Politics

Climate change is affecting many countries gravely, especially developing nations. Leaders of those countries are pleading other nations to supply financial aid to help them. They believe richer nations owe them because they became rich off of fossil fuels.

It's very interesting when you reflect on how far back this problem goes. Especially when considering the effects of colonization on the environments within regions of Africa and South America. It is going to be a very long and difficult road to fully compensate and prepare poorer countries for climate change after how hard we have screwed them over.

The built environment has always played a major role in climate change (roughly 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions can be allocated to constructing and maintaining buildings). But the building sector hasn't garnered a wide amount of attention at international climate conferences. However, an increase in climate-related natural disasters has made adaptation and resilience within buildings and infrastructure an immediate concern. In addition, the energy crisis that spread through Europe due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has created a massive regional effort to rapidly reduce heating oil and gas use and improve building efficiency.

Security professionals caution that the official Cop27 weather app needs access to a user's location, photos, and even emails. The government of Abdel Fatah al-Sisi may use this information to further repress dissent in a nation that already has about 65,000 political prisoners. The app was able to pair two different apps and access the user's camera, microphone, Bluetooth, and location data.

It is interesting to think about the debate about whether combatting climate change will be prioritized over other human rights. In this case I think that the weather app is doing more harm than good, but when it comes to major plans to cut carbon emissions, will people have to give up their rights/freedom?

In protest at the lack of government assistance following an oil spill in the region, indigenous people in Peru's Amazon region detained a group of tourists from both Peru and abroad. Four decades ago, Petroperu, a state-owned company, constructed the 800 km Norperuano pipeline to move  oil from the Amazon region to Piura on the coast. Petroperu claims that the spill was caused by a purposeful 21 cm pipeline cut.

Brushed off any mention of reparations while still committing over 10 billion dollars to developing nations to fight climate change. Boris Johnson, also at COP27, put it even more bluntly when he said the UK could not afford reparations at all. I wonder if this is out of fear of the huge check that could be tallied when calculating the ultimate cost of reparations. Also brought up another thought: climate emmissions have grown at an almost exponential rate since 1900, should we be paying climate 'reparations' for our current emissions as well as our past ones, given how much we are emitting at the moment. '

A Comparative Politics Professor was interviewed for this article! There are pros and there are cons. . . .

UN climate change chief warns about the exponential progression of climate change. The world is currently on track to reach more than double the 1.5 degree goal of the Paris Agreement by the end of the century so a lot will have to be done to find solutions

I am concerned that the larger GDP nations will not have convincing propositions to get smaller nations to pull out of the fossil fuel industries. Even if they do, it is very understandable that such fossil fuel dependent nations will have trouble taking such a huge risk to their economy when countries like the U.S. are heavily invested in fossil fuels themselves, and despite their promises, aren't making any progress either- in fact, the reality is quite the opposite.

After initially stating that he was too busy to attend COP27, Rishi Sunak has since reversed his decision following backlash. Critics say that he is attending in an attempt to recover his reputation and better market himself politically, rather than doing it out of national/global interest. I also believe this about the event itself: it is more of a political marketing strategy where officials attend to "take on climate change", but end up blaming other countries' lack of commitment for their own lack of progress.

It will be interesting to see if he will be one of the leaders to be open to more radical plans to lower emissions and fight climate change. It may be a bad sign if he originally claimed to be too busy to attend and only changed his mind for his image.

I saw this article when I was scrolling through to find my own. I agree that this seems to be more of a marketing plan both to make himself seem more appealing to the public and to take some criticism away from the UK's climate change policies in order to direct it towards other countries' policies.

Article, by a Jewish Advocacy Group, makes the argument that the Ayatollah's propagation of lies surrounding the Iran Nuclear Deal and the cause of domestic uprisings across Iran are reminiscent of the strategies used by Joseph Goebbels during World War II. We are at a crossroads now as to what Iranian relations hold in the future, as we must choose between Iran Nuclear Deal or supporting protestors. It argues for the latter.

Interesting how the sponsor (even that it has to have a sponsor) is Coca-Cola, which is still using and manufacturing a lot of plastic, which I would think would have been against the conference.

Its interesting as this could be interpreted as an effort to hold themselves accountable for climate change and plastic use but it can also be seen as a publicity stunt to attempt and hide the amount of emissions and plastic the Coca-Cola company has. I'm hoping its the former but time will tell.

Absolutely wild PR move. Coca Cola has such a colorful history with ecology so it's very uncanny seeing them pop up at this event. Also brings up the question: why does a UN event need sponsors?

With COP 27 about to begin hopes are not high among politicians and those in finance/business that anything will be accomplished. Given the war in Ukraine and other crises across the world, countries have found it hard to meet their agreed goals. Additionally, with countries struggling to move away from fossil fuels and coal during this time, it is possible rollbacks will be agreed on.

We are seeing more and more big businesses try to channel money into curbing climate change (or so we think). Country relations are at one of the worst levels in recent history so it will be interesting seeing countries put these disputes aside for COP 27.

The arrest of an Indian climate activist, Ajit Rajagopal (an architect and activist from Kerala in south India), by Egyptian security forces has renewed alarm about the regime's dire human rights record as it prepares to host the Cop27. About 60,000 political prisoners including human rights and environmental activists have been locked up on bogus charges and tortured in the past decade.

The program China adopts coming out of COP27 is probably the most important possible change to global emissions. It's good to see that the Chinese delegation is vocal about the need to adopt sustainable practices, but it's to be seen if a mass export economy like China can afford them.

China is stepping up as a world leader on climate change, damages Western standing among developing countries and the rest of the world since they have lost the initiative in terms of global climate issues.

Alaa Abd El-Fattah is a prominent British Egyptian prisoner who recently saw his sentence increased for 5 years after a social media post about torture in prison being deemed "false news" by the Egyptian government. The British government is working extremely hard to free him however he has vowed to not eat or drink during Cop27 in an effort to promote change for the climate and human rights in Egypt.

Three main goals: mitigation, adaptation, climate finance. Very interesting section about the effect of the war in Ukraine on climate efforts- increase in inflation and supply chain crisis. Lots of countries cannot do everything they committed to

I wonder how many countries have actually decreased greenhouse gas emmissions given the pressure that economic growth has on the energy sector and how renewables have not really matured until recently.

It is a good thing that this summit highlights aid toward less developed countries. Although a lot of the funding that is going towards these less developed countries seems much more like downstream solutions rather than upstream. This aid may help short term but won't in the long run.

Very interesting that the US was mentioned as starting to act on its commitment from COP26. US is investing $370 bil in emmission-free energy sources that should get close to cutting 50% of emissions by 2025. I wonder how are progress on that statistic is right now.

"The victory completes a stunning political revival for Mr. da Silva - from the presidency to prison and back - that had once seemed unthinkable. It also ends Mr. Bolsonaro's turbulent time as the region's most powerful leader. For years, he attracted global attention for policies that accelerated the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and exacerbated the pandemic, which left nearly 700,000 dead in Brazil, while also becoming a major international figure of the far right for his brash attacks on the left, the media and Brazil's democratic institutions."