Confronting climate change
Last year, President Mohammad Nasheed of the Maldives, convened a cabinet meeting at the bottom of the ocean. He wanted to call attention to the threat that climate change and rising sea levels poses to his island nation. After the meeting, he surfaced in his scuba gear and held a press conference while floating in the Indian Ocean.
“This is a challenging situation, and we want to see that everyone else is also occupied as much as we are, and would like to see that people actually do something about it.”
A publicity stunt? Most likely. But it was a sign of the growing frustration over the lack of a new global climate change agreement, a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that called on counties to limit global warming. On the ground, it’s not clear what’s actually more difficult, agreeing on reducing carbon emissions, or actually reducing emissions.
America Abroad examines some of the obstacles, opportunities, and challenges of converting to a low carbon diet. We explore the changing climate of carbon emissions – from the Peruvian rainforest where economic development is decimating forests, to the U.S. where a proposed wind farm off Cape Cod is facing resistance. We also look back at the first major cap and trade program in the U.S. and discuss some of the challenges of reducing global carbon emissions with Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, Director of The Copenhagen Consensus Center and Adjunct Professor at the Copenhagen Business School. Listen to The Carbon Conundrum.