W2 Global Sustainable Development: Climate Change and Governance Flashcards

Flashcards covering the scientific basis, natural and anthropogenic causes, feedbacks, tipping points, and the political governance of climate change based on lecture notes and the Keohane & Oppenheimer article.

Paleoclimate reconstructions

The use of proxies such as ice cores, tree rings, isotopes, carbon dating, and pollen records to understand historical climate variations before human-instrumented data.

Anthropogenic

Environmental change or pollution originating from human activity, specifically regarding greenhouse gas emissions causing global warming.

Milankovitch cycles

Also known as orbital forcing, these include precession ($~26,000\text{ yr}$), obliquity ($~43,000\text{ yr}$), and eccentricity ($~100,000\text{ yr}$), which impact the distribution of solar radiation on Earth.

The Wilson cycle

The periodic cycle ($~600\text{ Ma}$) of opening and closing of ocean basins, leading to the creation and breakup of supercontinents due to plate tectonics.

ENSO Cycles

Interactions between the ocean and atmosphere leading to short-term global climate changes, consisting of El Niño (anomalous warming of sea surface temperature) and La Niña (anomalous cooling).

Albedo

A dimensionless and unitless measure of energy reflected at a surface, ranging from $0$ to $1$, where high values (e.g., $0.8$ for snow) represent high reflection and low values (e.g., $0.1$ for asphalt) represent high absorption.

Greenhouse effect

A naturally occurring process where the atmosphere admits solar heat but checks its exit; without it, Earth's average temperature would be approx. $-18^\circ\text{C}$ instead of the current $14^\circ\text{C}$.

Radiative forcing

An energy imbalance where greenhouse gases prevent heat from leaving the Earth, expressed in $\text{W m}^{-2}$. Positive forcing leads to warming, while negative forcing leads to cooling.

Positive (+ve) feedback

A climate interaction where an initial change is enhanced, such as the ice-albedo feedback where melting ice decreases albedo, leading to increased solar absorption and further warming.

Negative (-ve) feedback

An interaction within the climate system where an initial change is diminished or reduced.

Tipping points

Critical thresholds in a system that, when exceeded, lead to significant and often irreversible changes in the system's state.

Thermohaline Circulation (THC)

A global ocean circulation process driven by water density, which is controlled by temperature (thermo) and salinity (haline).

Marine ice sheet instability

A tipping point involving the collapse of ice sheets at the grounding zone (the junction of an ice shelf and ice sheet), often triggered by warming oceans melting the ice from underneath.

IPCC

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; the body providing the scientific evidence basis for climate change to inform government policy.

UNFCCC

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, established in 1994 to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

Kyoto Protocol

A 1997 agreement utilizing a 'top-down' model of targets and timetables that famously exempted developing countries from emissions reduction obligations.

Paris Agreement

The 2015 climate agreement that replaced the Kyoto regime with a 'Pledge and Review' system based on nationally determined contributions.

INDCs

Intended Nationally Determined Contributions; specific pledges submitted by states starting in 2013 outlining their intended actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Pledge and Review

The system established under the Paris Agreement where states offer voluntary climate contributions (INDCs) which are then subject to periodic transparency and global stocktaking.

Public bad

A political/economic concept describing climate change where the actions of one unit contribute negligibly to its own suffering, creating high incentives for states to shirk or 'free-ride' on the efforts of others.

Self-enforcing agreement

An international agreement where no member benefits from withdrawing or being noncompliant, typically requiring reciprocity to function without external hierarchy.

Two-level game

A strategic concept where climate policy is determined by the simultaneous interaction of international negotiations and domestic political coalition-building.

The Berlin Mandate

A 1995 decision that institutionalized the exemption of developing countries from emissions reduction obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

Reciprocity

In international relations, contingent exchanges where one party's concessions are matched by others (negotiation reciprocity) or where failure to meet obligations leads to adverse reactions by partners (enforcement reciprocity).