Word: globalization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...with the election of President Barack Obama, who has made climate change one of his priorities, there was hope that the path could be cleared to a more equitable and effective global-warming deal. The timing is right - Kyoto expires in 2012, which means that a replacement treaty needs to be in place soon. (Read a Q&A with Yvo de Boer, the "Flying Dutchman" of climate change...
With little more than three months till the U.N. summit, however, things are in doubt. To be sure, the Obama Administration is pushing for a global-warming deal, and a cap-and-trade bill that was passed by the House and is now up for debate in the Senate would finally commit the U.S. to real carbon reductions. But under the new law - if it passes - U.S. emissions would fall only 13% from 1990 levels by 2020. The European Union, meanwhile, has pledged to make cuts of 20% from 1990 levels by 2020, meaning there is still considerable daylight between...
...developed world - but poor nations need to take some action as well. Fine, but the emergence of China, already the world's biggest carbon emitter, and to a lesser extent India, has complicated that equation. If China doesn't constrain its emissions, there's no hope of controlling global warming. Yet while China is getting richer all the time, it's still a developing country. Both China and India are likely to resist calls to make any sharp reductions to their emissions anytime soon, even as they - and other developing nations - ask for billions in assistance from rich nations...
...civil society has a role to play as well, by mobilizing the public to push politicians ahead. The Climate Group - a global nonprofit - is sponsoring events in the U.S. and China in the lead-up to Copenhagen, trying to build a wave of public support for more-ambitious carbon cuts. "This is the moment," says Steve Howard, the Climate Group's CEO. "If we lose this chance, we may not get it back." That dripping sound could be our last opportunity to fix the climate...
...example, Christopher Ruhm, an economist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, examined statewide mortality fluctuations in the U.S. between 1972 and 1991 and found that a 1% rise in a state's unemployment rate led to a 0.6% decrease in total mortality. (See pictures of the global financial crisis...