Climate change policy

The complex politics of global warming results from numerous cofactors arising from the global economy's interdependence on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emitting hydrocarbon energy sources and because CO₂ is directly implicated in global warming—making global warming a non-traditional environmental challenge.

The focus areas for global warming politics are Adaptation, Mitigation, Finance, Technology and Losses which are well quantified and studied but the urgency of the global warming challenge combined with the implication to almost every facet of a nation-state's economic interests places significant burdens on the established largely-voluntary global institutions that have developed over the last century; institutions that have been unable to effectively reshape themselves and move fast enough to deal with this unique challenge. Rapidly developing countries who see traditional energy sources as a means to fuel their development, well funded aggressive environmental lobbying groups and an established fossil fuel energy paradigm boasting a mature and sophisticated political lobbying infrastructure all combine to make global warming politics extremely polarized. Distrust between developed and developing countries at most international conferences that seek to address the topic add to the challenges. Further adding to the complexity is the advent of the Internet and the development of media technologies like blogs and other mechanisms for disseminating information that enable the exponential growth in production and dissemination of competing points of view which make it nearly impossible for the development and dissemination of an objective view into the enormity of the subject matter and its politics.

Traditional environmental challenges generally involve behavior by a small group of industries who create products or services for a limited set of consumers in a manner that causes some form of damage to the environment which is clear. As an example, a gold mine might release a dangerous chemical byproduct into a waterway that kills the fish in the waterway: a clear environmental damage. By contrast, CO₂ is a naturally occurring colorless odorless trace gas that is essential to the biosphere. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is produced by all animals and utilized by plants and algae to build their body structures. Plant structures buried for tens of millions of years sequester carbon to form coal, oil and gas which modern industrial societies find essential to economic vitality. Over 80% of the worlds energy is derived from CO₂ emitting fossil fuels and over 91% of the world's energy is derived from non carbon-neutral energy sources. Scientists attribute the increases of CO₂ in the atmosphere to industrial emissions and scientists have linked CO₂ to global warming. However, the scientific consensus is difficult for the average individual layperson to readily see and grasp. This essential nature to the world's economies combined with the complexity of the science and the interests of countless interested parties make climate change a non-traditional environmental challenge.

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Wikipedia