Climate Change, Science, and The Politics of Shared Sacrifice

This text presents the questions students need to address in an interdisciplinary approach to perhaps the most encompassing and wicked threat to our well-being in the 21st Century. It addresses the impacts of climate change, the history of international negotiations leading to the Paris Agreement
and its possible ambition gap, approaches to decarbonization by nations and economic sectors, efforts to construct post-fossil fuel energy systems, implications of recent technological advancements in energy and its distribution, the debate about the social cost of carbon, the economic costs of
adapting to climate change, and consideration of the proper roles of individuals versus governments, corporations, and environmental groups.

Over a dozen applied exercises and case studies at the conclusion of each chapter to further illustrate timeliness of subject matter and give students hands on experience with role-playing exercises as United Nations negotiators, or Peruvian peasants suing a German utility company.

The text addresses collective action problem early in the text, discussing the strength of the scientific evidence, the failure to come to terms with related social and political problems, and the scope of the problem and why so little has been done. Classes between theories of collective action
and interest group theories and the increasingly prevalent view of climate change as a security threat affecting some groups and countries more than others are also addressed.

The second part of the book discusses that while there is no single magical solution, there are many solutions underway which could contain global climate change within plausible and prescribed limits. We also discuss forms of solving the associated political problems but note that different
solutions produce different winners and losers. Changes to how we produce and consume energy will be driven by market forces, thoughtful policy, and by steady efforts to inform the public.