Anthropogenic Climate Change Abstract

This week in class we read the Anthropogenic Climate Change Abstract. It was a very dense policy document filled with a lot of controversy and gray areas. We discussed in class today regarding conflict versus consensus within the document. This was very interesting to me because anything in the document that was in brackets was items that were not agreed upon. The document was also filled with many different options for different scenarios and there solutions. The authors seemed to come to a consensus that climate change is a problem and we must set a goal to continually decrease carbon emissions. The problem is the way to do this, the "how" was not agreed upon. In class my UNFCC cluster, the Sci Tech group created an abstract for the document:

International solution to ACC abstract:

            The purpose of this document was to identify the international solutions to anthropogenic climate change. These solutions consist of reducing emissions with a set time time line for reduction, promoting that reduction in climate resilient societies in economics through education and awareness to the general public, pricing emissions, and utilizing the green climate fund for developing countries. This policy document offers a large scale of proposed solutions but is weak in consensus. Many minimalistic ideas such as emissions, target temperatures, and dates are up to debate. This document attempts to internationally strengthen policy frameworks through these solutions.

One last interesting thing we discussed in class today was the overall viewpoint and disciplinary approach to climate change. My group discussed how we believe that the definition of climate change or climate "science" needs to be altered to a more holistic definition of climate "studies" to allow a more interdisciplinary approach to the problem. All disciplines have a place and interest in climate change and are valued equally in research. Even among the social sciences each discipline is so different from the other and views the same problem differently with a different interest.