Category Archives: UN

Governing the Anthropocene: Federal Globalization?

(Source: Financial Times) A previous blog defined the Anthropocene as “the period of time during which human activities have had an environmental impact on the Earth regarded as constituting a distinct geological age.” The same blog stated that the widely agreed … Continue reading

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Guest Blog: Loss & Damage Funds and the Developing Indian Subcontinent

Happy New Year everyone! This week, guest blogger Muhammad Siddiqui is taking over the Climate Change Fork blog. Under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Micha Tomkiewicz, Ph.D., I’m a graduate student at Brooklyn College, CUNY, class of 2022. This blog … Continue reading

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Adaptation and Affordability: Developed Countries

The last few blogs have been dedicated to COP27 and its central achievement of clinching a unanimous decision to create a fiscal mechanism for the rich countries to transfer resources to the developing countries for adaptation to climate change. It … Continue reading

Posted in IPCC, UN, US | 1 Comment

Adaptation and Affordability: Global

Figure 1 – Historic cumulative emissions of countries (size of the circles) as a function of their vulnerabilities to climate change (Source: The New York Times) It is now the second week of COP27 and the last month of my … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, COP, UN | 2 Comments

The American Commitment

COP26 ended with a unanimous decision on how to accelerate the global effort to mitigate climate change. This included plans to assist developing countries in their adaptation efforts and to monitor progress in these areas on an annual basis. It’s … Continue reading

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Conclusions From COP26

This semester, I am teaching two courses directly related to climate change. I start both with an exploration of the basic science involved. It’s a multidisciplinary topic that requires using first principles to address the overlap of the physical, natural, … Continue reading

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Earth Day 2021

Earth Day is in two days. It’s a big day. Among other distinctions, it is both my wife’s birthday and that of this blog (this is now 9 years!). From a climate change perspective, this year’s celebration is special because … Continue reading

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Do-It-Yourself Ranking: How We Measure

When I first became a professor, I taught chemistry and physics. Both are traditional sciences with well-defined prerequisites. For physics you must first learn about mechanics (Kepler, Newton, etc.); in chemistry you have to start with the periodic table before … Continue reading

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Weaponizing Climate Change Ranking

Since I started this blog, I have habitually ranked countries with regards to their climate change indicators. These include changes in carbon emissions, energy use, forms of sustainable energy, and various ratios such as energy intensity (energy divided by GDP) … Continue reading

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Climate Change Refugees: Where Will They Go?

I have seen some alarming new reports of late. Two of them describe the start of environmental, climate change-powered migrations within rich countries. In the US, the key motivator is sea level rise: The Great Climate Retreat is beginning with … Continue reading

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