10 November 2020

Climate change blog building back better

Where do we start!!!

While it’s no secret that climate change has been a topic for both concern and discussion since the 1960’s and 1970’s. It is about time that we start taking steps in order to reach zero carbon emissions by 2050 to 2060. There are a lot of indicators that we should start taking action to help remedy climate change. For example, you have rising water levels, greenhouse gas emissions, temperature dipping, melting of the glaciers, etc. Now, I think it’s fair to say, that climate change is something which concerns us all and whether or not you believe it to be true it makes sense to address all of these issues because if you are hoping to leave a better world for your children then chances are you will do everything within your power in order to address any issues that you children might inherit from your indifference to climate change or lack of action towards climate change.

Currently, there is a pandemic sweeping the world and disrupting daily life on every level. While this is both terrible and disastrous it does present an opportunity to rebuild better. The pandemic has not spared anyone rich, poor, race, culture, educated. It has taught us one thing; this is what happens when you don’t follow the science. For all of the climate change deniers who refuse to acknowledge that climate change is real, look at the way the virus has blown out of control. Follow the science and the scientists. While we here at Nexonta Technologies Inc., we are neither scientists or experts on climate change we are going to educate ourselves so that we can start taking small steps to help in the reduction in our carbon footprint by 2050 to 2060. We also will be providing information to help others be more informed as to steps that they can take in the reduction of their carbon footprints both for companies and individuals.

The road ahead presents a lot of challenges when it comes to rebuilding our society because of the ravages of Covid-19. However, this does provide a wonderful opportunity for us to rebuild from the ground up to create a better world than we had before all of this devastation.

Climate change and global warming have become one of the most pressing environmental concerns and the greatest global challenges in society today. As this issue continues to dominate the international agenda, researchers from different academic sectors have for long been devoting great efforts to explore effective solutions to climate change, with technologists and planners devising ways of mitigating and adapting to climate change; economists estimating the cost of climate change and the cost of tackling it; development experts exploring the impact of climate change on social services and public goods. However, Cammack (2007) points out two problems with many of the above discussions, namely the disconnection between the proposed solutions to climate change from different disciplines; and the devoid of politics in addressing climate change at the local level. Further, the issue of climate change is facing various other challenges, such as the problem of elite-resource capture, the resource constraints in developing countries and the conflicts that frequently result from such constraints, which have often been less concerned and stressed in suggested solutions. In recognition of these problems, it is advocated that “understanding the political economy of climate change is vital to tackling it”.

Meanwhile, the unequal distribution of the impacts of climate change and the resulting inequity and unfairness on the poor who contribute least to the problem have linked the issue of climate change with development study, which has given rise to various programs and policies that aim at addressing climate change and promoting development. Although great efforts have been made on international negotiations concerning the issue of climate change, it is argued that much of the theory, debate, evidence-gathering and implementation linking climate change and development assume a largely apolitical and linear policy process. In this context, Tanner and Allouche (2011) suggest that climate change initiatives must explicitly recognize the political economy of their inputs, processes and outcomes so as to find a balance between effectiveness, efficiency and equity.
With the recent US election, the Biden-Harris government have made the environment a top priority in the rebuilding of the global economy. This is fantastic because when the United States sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold. And with the US government mandate on fighting climate change and rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, this presents a fantastic opportunity for various other countries to do the same.

In the climate change domain, Tanner and Allouche (2011) define the political economy as “the processes by which ideas, power and resources are conceptualized, negotiated and implemented by different groups at different scales”. While there have emerged a substantial literature on the political economy of environmental policy, which explains the “political failure” of the environmental programmes to efficiently and effectively protect the environment, systematic analysis on the specific issue of climate change using the political economy framework is relatively limited.

Here are a few different worldviews on climate change.

Nowadays, because of the perception of science as a dominant policy driver, much of the policy prescription and action in the climate change arena have concentrated on assumptions around standardized governance and planning systems, linear policy processes, readily transferable technology, economic rationality, and the ability of science and technology to overcome resource gaps. As a result, there tends to be a bias towards technology-led and managerial approaches to address climate change in apolitical terms. Besides, a wide range of different ideological worldviews would lead to a high divergence of the perception of climate change solutions, which also has a great influence on decisions made in response to climate change. Exploring these issues from a political economy perspective provides the opportunity to better understand the “complexity of politic and decision-making processes in tackling climate change, the power relations mediating competing claims over resources, and the contextual conditions for enabling the adoption of technology”.

Unintended negative consequences of adaptation policies that fail to factor in environmental-economic trade-offs: Successful adaptation to climate change requires balancing competing economic, social, and political interests. In the absence of such balancing, harmful unintended consequences can undo the benefits of adaptation initiatives. For example, efforts to protect coral reefs in Tanzania forced local villagers to shift from traditional fishing activities to farming that produced higher greenhouse gas emissions.

Socio-political Constraints
The role of political economy in understanding and tackling climate change is also founded upon the key issues surrounding the domestic socio-political constraints.

While, it is going to be a long road ahead to fix these problems that we as a society have helped create, we will have to rebuild regardless and so we might as well rebuild putting the environment first. Whereas, before the pandemic, one could argue that climate change would require too much effort and money. As we now have no choice but to rebuild, we also have no choice but to put the environment in the forefront of our rebuilding efforts.

One can say that the virus was the wake-up call as well as the catalyst for us to take massive action towards addressing climate change and reducing carbon emissions and following the science. With the handling of Covid-19 coronavirus, it has taught us what will happen when you don’t follow the science.

Nexonta Technologies Inc.
On to the Next Level

Source: Wikipedia