Search

In the ongoing public debate over climate policy, regulatory proposals by governmental agencies and Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are often challenged by policy analysts who value free markets, small government, economic growth, and individual rights. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a public policy think tank associated with the latter values. A subset of AEI scholars regularly evaluate, criticize, and promote climate-related policies through in-house publication of books and policy articles, as well as external publications and appearances in mainstream media. The organization also holds conferences and roundtable discussions at which policy experts discuss diverse elements of climate-policy-related science. These conferences are advertised to decision makers, corporate leaders, AEI supporters, and subscribers, as well as national media outlets in Washington, DC. Transcripts of AEI conferences are also posted to the organization’s website, sometimes accompanied by streaming video excerpts.

In the 1960’s, scientists proved for the first time that the acidification of lakes in Scandinavia was the result of industrial emissions of sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides throughout Europe. In 1972, the year the term “acid rain” was first used, the United Nations convened the Conference on the Human Environment, also known as the Stockholm Conference, the U.N.’s first conference on international environmental issues. This conference led to increased public awareness of air pollution and to research that confirmed the theory that air pollution could travel large distances and cause harm far away from its source.

In the 1980s, such books as W. J. Maunder’s The Uncertainty Business: Risks and Opportunities in Weather and Climate (1986) emphasized the risks and opportunities presented by Earth’s natural climate, subject to contingent human influences. Since then, mainly as a result of the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), emphasis has moved markedly to considerations of the human impact on the climate system. However, irrespective of this change in emphasis, weather and climate have always given rise to risks and opportunities, and communities and individuals who can adapt to these challenges will always be in a position to lessen the costs of climate variations and climate changes. They will also be in a better position to increase the benefits and profits arising from climate variations and climate changes.

The George C. Marshall Institute is a nonprofit organization supported by foundations, industry, and the public to improve the use of science in making public policy. Its major emphasis is on issues of the environment and national security.

Charlemagne (742-814) united the Frankish kingdoms and ushered in a mini-renaissance, encouraging education and the arts. After Charlemagne, France remained only nominally unified under titular kings who held little power compared to local princes such as William the Conqueror. France was eventually united under strong centralized leadership by Louis IX (1214-1270). For the next five hundred years, the country was periodically torn by internal religious conflict, as well as being threatened by foreign powers including England, Spain, and Germany. Nevertheless, France was a major contributor to the Age of Enlightenment of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The principle of intergenerational equity is strongly embedded in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Historically, it owes its recognition to the Brundtland Report, Our Common Future (1987), which popularized the principle of “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The Declaration of Rio on Environment and Development (1992) adds a rights-based perspective to the principle, suggesting that “the right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet development and environmental needs of present and future generations.”

Settled by Portugal in 1500, Brazil developed as a colony (1500-1822), then as an independent empire (1822-1889), and finally as a republic (1889-present). Of continental proportions, Brazil extends east across South America from the Andes Mountains and south from the equator to well below the Tropic of Capricorn. Slave labor, supporting mineral and agricultural plantation exports, forged the socioeconomic axis of the country for nearly four centuries (slavery was abolished in 1888). Several million Africans were forcibly transported to Brazil, one-third of all people shipped in the transatlantic slave trade. Brazil has the second-largest population of African descent in the world after Nigeria. The population is largely multiracial, and there is a vibrant Afro-Brazilian culture.

Prior to the twentieth century, most of Eastern Europe, with the exception of Poland, was part of the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman (Turkish) Empire. Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia gained their independence from the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century. Following the defeat of Austria-Hungary during World War I (1914-1918), the Austro-Hungarian Empire was broken into several countries by the victors. Some of the resulting nations, such as Austria itself and Hungary, are defined by fairly natural and stable cultural and geographic boundaries. The Slavic portions of the empire were grouped into two collective countries, Czechoslovakia (reflecting its Czech and Slovak ethnicity) and Yugoslavia (“land of the southern Slavs,” from the Slavic root yug, meaning “south”). Neither of these two entities remained intact.

During the twenty years following the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, in Stockholm, Sweden, the global environment continued to deteriorate, as the ozone layer and natural resources were depleted, while global warming and pollution increased. Importantly, little had been done to integrate environmental issues with economics and development. In 1983, Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, head of the World Commission on Environment and Development, put forth a report that defined sustainable development as “the growth of population, industry, and agriculture occurring in a manner that allows the current generation to fulfill its own needs without jeopardizing those of future generations.” A sustainable way of life was said to depend on “equitable economic growth, conservation of natural resources, and the environment,” in addition to social development.

Ecotaxation is the use of tax policy to discourage economically inefficient behavior that harms the environment. According to most economists, an unregulated market economy would fail to provide socially ideal or efficient outcomes because of negative externalities. A negative externality is the harm caused to unrelated third parties when two people engage in a market transaction, such as a customer buying a car made in a factory that releases pollution. To deal with negative externalities, most economists endorse a tax on the behavior causing the harm, referred to as a Pigovian tax after economist Arthur Pigou (1877–1959). If correctly calibrated, a Pigovian tax causes the producer to “internalize the externality.” A Pigovian tax is thought to promote economic efficiency, because the tax forces individuals to take into account the full consequences of their behavior. After imposing the correct Pigovian tax, the government can allow citizens to make their own decisions without further regulations. Further measures to achieve environmental goals are unnecessary, because market prices, corrected by the Pigovian tax, guide individuals’ behavior and lead to a socially desirable outcome.

For most of human history, the environment was to all intents and purposes unprotected by law. In Anglo-American law, the near-absolute dominion that was accorded to owners of property put little restraint on the right to consume, exhaust, or pollute resources at will. A nuisance lawsuit could be pursued if a neighbor deprived a property owner of the ability to enjoy such essentials as light, air, and water. The public trust doctrine restrained landowners from monopolizing access to navigable waters. Other than these impediments, American law left the environment open to even the most rapacious use. The preservationist movement of John Muir and Gifford Pinchot focused on conserving public lands and parks; it had little effect on private uses of land.

Educating the public regarding the notion of global warming somewhat evolved with the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. Since then the dissemination of the idea of global warming has occurred through the news media, via internet sites, on social media, and through the publishing of formal and informal literature, along with other forms of media. Formal academic sources such as the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA), the International Journal of Climatology, and Nature Climate Change are examples of scientific information sources. In contrast, books and films such as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (2006) and I am Greta (2020) are popular vehicles used to educate the public on the issue. Getting the word out about climate change and in particular global warming has transcended a variety of media and organizations.

Maldives is an archipelago grouped into nineteen atolls located on the Indian Ocean, south-southwest of India. It is an Islamic republic and became independent from England on July 26, 1965. The majority of its people are Sunni Muslims who were originally Buddhists. The official language is Dhivehi, an Indo-European language related to Sinhala, the major language of Sri Lanka.

Mexico has experienced political strife throughout its history, including major wars and executions of leaders. The Spaniards invaded the region in 1519, conquering the Aztec and Mayan native cultures. Mexico attempted to declare independence from Spain in 1810, resulting in war and the execution of a number of leaders from Mexico. This war of independence lasted until 1821, when Spain finally granted Mexico its autonomy. The Mexico of 1821 included most of present-day Central America and the southwestern United States.

Meteorology is the scientific study of the atmosphere, weather, and climate. It combines most of the basic scientific disciplines, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, statistics, and computer science, and applies them to Earth’s atmosphere and its phenomena. Thus, meteorology is a branch of Earth science and of physical science.

In 1968, the notion of holding an international conference on the environment was brought to the fore by the United Nations Economic and Social Council at its forty-fifth session. A council resolution underscored the immediate need for intensified action at the national and the international levels to contain and, if possible, halt the continuous deterioration of the human environment. The U.N. General Assembly, at its twenty-third session, endorsed the council’s recommendations. As a result, the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment was convened on June 5-16, 1972, in Stockholm, Sweden. The importance of the Stockholm conference was threefold: It was the first global conference on the human environment; it was the predecessor of the first U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992; and it acknowledged the need to articulate “third generation human rights,” those that go beyond the merely civil and social. Such rights are legally difficult to enact, but the conference endorsed them in the Stockholm Declaration, which recognized a human right to a “healthy environment.”

Established by Article 9 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) provides the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP) with information and advice on scientific and technological issues relating to the convention.

Around 2001, reports and publications about climate change began referring to a broad or diverse portfolio of policies, approaches, or technologies for coping with climate change. Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a 2001 report listing portfolio theory as a potential tool of analysis. This report’s description of portfolio theory highlighted the weighing of options by their risks and expected returns, consideration of budget, and arrival at a portfolio of options providing the highest anticipated returns for the lowest level of risk.