What’s on : Lectures

International Climate Politics after Glasgow

Lectures
Date
8 Nov 2022
Start time
7:00 PM
Venue
Speaker
Dr John Vogler, University of Keele
International Climate Politics after Glasgow

Event Information

International Climate Politics after Glasgow
Dr John Vogler, Professorial Research Fellow in International Relations, University of Keele

COP 26 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2021, succeeded in keeping the prospect of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5˚C alive, although as Alok Sharma noted, ‘its pulse was weak’. However, since then the situation has become increasingly difficult and potentially disastrous. The perverse effects of global energy price rises and the associated shock to the international political order of the Russian invasion of Ukraine are more than evident. This lecture will consider the question of how far climate negotiations can be insulated from broader political and strategic relationships using the perspective of the longer term study of climate change in world politics, both in terms of the drivers of national policies and significant structural change to the international system. There will be an attempt to draw conclusions as to the development of the mechanisms of the Paris Agreement as it is fully implemented.

Joint lecture with “PLACE” and “The Royal Geographical Society”

Lecture to be held in the Tempest Anderson Lecture Theatre, Yorkshire Museum,
YO1 7DR at 7pm

ALL WELCOME.

Member’s report

Professor John Vogler, Professorial Fellow in International Relations at the University of Keele, presented our joint lecture with PLACE and the Royal Geographical Society. Professor Vogler shared his insights into the ongoing and complex political debate that is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This debate is highlighted at each Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention, now, since COP26 in Glasgow, an annual event. Each COP attracts many thousands of delegates; there were forty-five thousand at COP27 in Egypt. Each COP is a political meeting simply because climate change is a political issue.

Climate change is driven by our energy usage. The political debate around our energy needs and the consequential climate change is driven by vested interests, desire for justice and recognition of responsibility, and desire for prestige. Much of the debate surrounds the tensions between the rich developed world and the developing world. Climate change already devours 10% of poorer countries’ budgets. In the cases of some island nations the rising sea level associated with climate change is nothing less than an existential threat. For the whole world climate change is a threat to security which requires worldwide political will to solve. This will require a re-evaluation of what we understand by security and a re-appraisal of what the many and varied consequences of climate change might be for all of us.

Andy Marvin