Why Climate Change is like a Christmas Tree: A critical look at public policy to curb global warming

Henrik Jacobsen, Political Science
Coach House, Green College, UBC
Monday, November 20, 8-9 pm

Climate change has now been a major public policy issue for more than three decades. International efforts to curb global warming, however, have failed to produce any meaningful results. This presentation explains why the dominant ‘Big Treaty’ approach to climate change has been so unsuccessful, even counterproductive. It traces the origins of the current climate change policy framework back to the 1980s and shows that it is based upon several major flaws of reasoning. Most importantly, it argues that policy-makers around the world have not kept the menu of options to address climate change sufficiently open, thereby foreshortening a meaningful democratic dialogue on how we should so complicated and multi-faceted a problem.

Henrik Jacobsen is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia, with research interests in the areas of comparative politics and public administration. His previous degrees include: Mphil Politics, Comparative Government, University of Oxford; BA, International Politics & History, Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany.