Blog 5

 For my final blog post, I wanted to further explore the topic which I discussed in my last analytical essay, climate change and its relationship to international relations.  I found this topic to be extremely interesting as it highlights a real issue that continues to stay unresolved due to the fact that any means of international organization is extremely difficult.  I felt like my paper was lacking in the broader ramifications of climate change in relation to how climate change will impact physical relations, rather than a focus on the inability of asserting some sort of international governance to mitigate climate change.  

I was still interested in exploring other facets of this topic, and found the answers to a lot of the questions that I had in a recently published Phys.org article, “Can the World Change Course on Climate?” by Kathryn O’neil.  This article is Q&A style with MIT professor Nazli Choucri.  One of the most interesting points that Choucri brings up is the topic of climate related emigration.  I had never considered how the effects of climate change in one country can create strains on the resources of other countries as areas in certain places have become unlivable or experience too extreme of weather conditions as a result of climate change.  I found this to be really interesting as in my paper I focused on how the actions of wealthier and more industrialized nations have great impacts on poorer nations, but in this scenario with emigration and immigration, the countries which are being emigrated to are not necessarily wealthy countries.  This chain of events puts an even greater strain on other countries that are already dealing with the effects of climate change, regardless of where they are located or their wealth.  I feel like this raises the question as to who is to assume responsibility in situations like these?  Should offending nations be expected to provide funding to the nations who inadvertently become responsible for the mistakes of others?  Another point which Choucri raised was that in these international organizations that seek to remedy climate change, pledges of commitment, along with other obligations can just go unfilled.  This article really made me question how deep the  effects of climate change truly run in our world and if  the course of accountability will change any time soon.   This is a topic which  I am interested in as I know climate change will be a pressing issue during my lifetime.


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