Uploaded on 2017-01-25 by Hannah Bessett

1. Can you give a short overview of the national circumstances of your country? (e.g. population, land use, climate, economics, energy consumption, industry, transport etc.) I live in the United States, and so I will be using the report put out by the U.S. for this exercise. It is, however, an older report, and comes from two-thousand-and-fourteen rather than two-thousand-and-seventeen (or even two-thousand-and-sixteen), so the numbers may have shifted somewhat since then. The report says that we are the third most populated country in the world, and home to about three-hundred-and-sixteen million people. That number continues to climb, albeit very slowly. Land use studies show a trend of moving into large cities, though that being said, many American metropolitan areas are still less densely populated than other countries. Our climate covers a wide range of diversity with tropical regions in Florida and arctic areas in places like Alaska, but has recently been experiencing a higher number of natural disasters possibly due to climate change. Access to transportation is equally varied, though the economy is huge. 2. What are the main climate protection targets of your country in the report? The goal that seems to occur again and again in the report is to create an accurate image of what the Earth's climate looked like in the past, so that we might better be able to understand what is going on in the present and then prepare for the future. We are seeing water shortages, heat waves, floods, high demand for energy due to the dramatic swings in temperature, wildfires, damage to our transportation system, our ecosystems, decreased food security, high levels of stress brought on by these disasters, and lastly ocean acidification. Again and again the report states that there is no doubt that climate change is real, which is particularly important to note given the current circumstances. To combat all of this, the largest push appears to be toward the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through establishing more energy efficient means of transportation, the biggest demand we have. 3. How does your country want to reach these targets? Fortunately, there appears to be quite a few measures being taken in order to address these goals. As mentioned before, transportation seems to be the biggest culprit in greenhouse gas emissions, and the vast majority of steps being taken align with this. For instance, there are higher emission standards coming into place, increased usage of renewable fuels in public transportation, incentives given to shipping companies to decrease the amount of travel, and research into the improvement of diesel engines and aircraft. They are also offering incentives to businesses that operate using only or mostly green power, as well as implementing energy usage standards on household items. There is research being undertaken to find chemicals that are not so ozone-depleting as the ones we are currently using, and a number of governmental policies that are meant to encourage farmers to use materials that are not quite so toxic to other organisms. 4. What is your opinion about you country’s approach to the environmental issues? (e.g. are the targets feasible? Is the approach feasible? Would you approach the problem in a different way?) In theory, these measures would be more than enough to bring down the amount of greenhouse gas emissions the United States produces. The only problem with it is that much of the policy's are listed as 'voluntary,' which makes perfect sense as many of them deal with personal choices, but also imply that not everyone will opt to take advantage of them. I do not believe in making everyone focus on the things that are important to me, and think that it is important to maintain a high level of personal freedom while making policies such as these. However, I am not convinced that the adequate number of citizens will participate in these efforts, particularly given the current political climate. There are many individuals who I personally know who do not believe that climate change is real, or they do but they simply do not view it as a threat.