Climate Conference Policy Proposal
The year is 2050. Forty-two years after the cost of oil skyrocketed to nearly $150 a barrel, and thirty-five years after it plummeted to $40 a barrel, fossil fuels play a minor role in the world’s energy supply. Geopolitics no longer revolve around oil, coal and gas resources, and the air and water are cleaner than they have been in decades. Conventionally-powered cars in major cities have given way to smart interconnected transport systems; those cars that do remain are electric or hybrid vehicles. Means of powering both industry and the daily needs of the citizenry have also moved past carbon. Worldwide greenhouse gas emissions have dropped to 50 percent of the 1990 levels, while global GDP has continued to grow. Concerns regarding global climate change have been alleviated. These changes all began with the proposal submitted by the United States during the 2020 Global Climate Change Conference.
While this sounds like science fiction today, it must be a reality tomorrow. Your task in this mid-term exam question is to author a 4-page(minimum)policy proposalsubmitted by the United States to the 2020 Global Climate Change Conference that put the entire world on the path toward achieving this resource-efficient and low-carbon global economy. Your policy proposal will address two primary sets of questions. 1) What changes should we as the United States initiate? And, why these changes as opposed to others? 2) What is the most effective and realistic means of driving/motivating such change both here and abroad? And, why this motivation as opposed to some other? Putting your task very simply, your proposal will address these three questions: what, why, and how?
In addressing this question, I want you to provide the most comprehensive, explicit, and succinct proposal possible. Leave nothing to be assumed by the reader. Take into account the many perspectives we have reviewing in the first half of class, as the most inherent of expectations is that you use direct support from the material presented throughout the class. Your proposal, put simply, should be based upon empiricism. Proper justification of this individual policy proposal should come by way of scientific knowledge.
Your submission should be free of any unnecessary verbiage, again focusing on being explicit and succinct. This should be a final policy document and not a first draft. Every sentence should have a clear and important purpose in the overall document.
I want in-text citations of where you got your information from and expect that your sources are primarily those we have already utilized in class (either from the readings, videos, notes taken from lectures or online postings). You may do some outside research to supplement your paper, but the foundational source of knowledge and evidence used to write your policy proposal should come from the sources that we have utilized in the first half of class.
Last, in accordance with the Writing Intensive designation of this course, please utilize proper APA formatting for this activity. This means that the essay is typed, double spaced, and in 12-point font (Times New Roman is the most common). A formal APA title page, in-text citations as needed, a formal APA reference page should be incorporated. The title and reference page do not count toward the length expectation. Note: The title page to this document is already in APA format. Just change the name, copy, and paste it to your own essay. No Page Header or Abstract is needed!
