Theoretical Frameworks Assessment on International Relations' Approaches to Climate Change

Climate Change and International Relations
Student’s Name
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Climate Change and International Relations
The relationship among nations stays unstable consistently because of a range of problems that the world is facing. Issues including terrorism, use of natural resources, and cybersecurity concerns keep deteriorating relationships among nations. Presently, nations are blaming one another for one problem after another. With the endless blame games in play, it becomes challenging to hold a specific country responsible for specific problems. Lately, nations have found avenues of addressing the challenges that they face globally through avenues such as international treaties or regional integrations aimed at achieving the most desirable outcomes. There, however, are concerns that nations are engaged in the agreements or treaties to serve personal interests. To that effect, this paper explores one of the global concerns in the last three decades, climate change, and the efforts that nations have put forth to curb the challenges in the parlance of international relations. The paper delves into theoretical frameworks including realism, constructivism, and liberalism in assessing the approaches that various international relations efforts have delivered in combating climate change. Present trends are constituting increasing industrialization in the developing world and the normalcy by which climate change is addressed the understanding is that nations are more likely to delve into ills as long as such behaviors accord them power at the expense of their global partners.
Climate Change
Climate change has stayed at the center of global diplomacy for a while. It was in June 1988 when the issue of climate change was first brought to the limelight through a landmark testimony before the US Senate by James Hansen. Hansen noted that the global weather patterns were changing that the impacts would, in effect, affect the scope of human relations (Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, Jollands, and Staudt, L2012). Hansen's testimony highlighted the dangers of climate change and linked it to human exploitation of carbon energy sources. In reality, it is easily the most complicated global policy issue. The debate has since continued deep into international relations circles. The chronological, spatial, and intellectual components of comprehending the political economics of climate change reflect this complexity. It's a stock pollution issue rather than a flow pollution issue. Historical industrial-country emissions are mingling with today's rapidly increasing emissions from developing countries (Kaul, 2013). The impacts of climate change are poised to escalate. Presently, scientists attribute the severity, frequency, and magnitude of global disasters to the impacts of climate change. The primary instigators of the problem are the rich industrialized nations, who will likely suffer less while the poor countries will likely suffer most from advances in climate change.
The conceptual dimension of climate change remains complex, with most countries basing their arguments on the complexities to shift the blames. Overall, climate change is a global issue both in its cause and effect dimensions. That is, global human activities are causing the trends in climate change (Kaul, 2013). The same activities stay responsible for causing harm in a global magnitude when the right time arrives. Also, considering the global nature of climate change, there is a built-in compulsion to address the linked challenges through international cooperation. Presently, efforts have been put to mitigate the challenge of climate change to no avail. That is because there are consistent disagreements on platforms such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (Gardiner, 2011). Central among the contested issues in such platforms is disagreements over costs or sharing responsibilities among parties. The challenge has been reflected on the Durban Platform of December 2011, in which there were recommendations for parties to accept the mitigation responsibility. The biggest challenge in addressing climate change stems from the variations in perceptions and inputs by different nations. To instill a better understanding of the challenges, a state must pursue one of the approaches, including realism, constructivism, and liberalism, to defend their positions on matters about climate change.
Realism
Realism is often the most common theoretical framework employed in addressing international relations issues. Realists note that nations often work to push their interests at the expense of any other consequences (Kaul, 2013). Nations are working to increase their power. To that extent, the more power a nation hordes, the better it is positioned in international debates. Nations that horde more power can easily eclipse their less powerful counterparts to become more influential. Acting in the principles of national interest is among the challenges facing contemporary international relations. State interests normally accommodate influence over other states, economic prosperity, military security, and self-preservation. No two states can agree on sharing such interests without conflicts erupting. Through that lens, realists view the world as a cruel place to live, and the only way to overcome the cruelty is through hoarding power.
The realist approach implies the position that morality plays in contemporary international relations matters. Considering the harsh characteristics of the world, leaders tend to detach their morality from foreign policy. Politicians, hence, have practiced realism since the beginning of states (Kaul, 2013). During the cold war, for instance, most scholars and politicians resorted to realist approaches to address their challenges. Both the Soviet Union and the US did not trust one another. Each of the superpowers sought allies and attempted to increase its political influence both locally and abroad. Presently, every major international relations issue is faced with realism, as evident in the case of climate change.
The influx of realism in addressing climate change can be marked by a range of inputs in international relations. Presently, developed nations do not feel some of the impacts of climate change as much as the developing world. That mildly explains their fringe efforts to curb the ills and causes of climate change. If national interests are better served by a climate treaty with required restrictions on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a realist understanding might favor it (Otterstrom and Stripple, 2012). This could also be the case with developing-country adaptation support. As long as climate change benefits some nations to gain power, such nations will never show the commitment to eradicate the ills. The UN expert adoption of a climate action plan to address climate change within the next ten years is a demonstration of how power plays a central role in every international debate. The UN climate action plan declaration is vague as it barely outlines the strategies it will employ to achieve the set goals (Klein, 2010). There was also the UNFCCC at the Durban Platform, in which participants in the initiative showed no interest in partaking in the responsibilities.
The Copenhagen Accord is another manifestation of realist approaches in dealing with the issue of climate change. In the Copenhagen Accord, the leaders of the US, South Arica, India, China, and Brazil developed a plan to mitigate the influence of climate change in global human activities (Evans and Davies, 2015). Even though the objectives of the accord were anchored on mitigation, the outcomes inferred adaptation. The effects of climate change on some nations with no measurable recoil effects on realists do not bother the realists. From such a perspective, rich countr...