Fletcher Features
Global Leadership Seminar Tackles Climate Change in Talloires
The global climate crisis requires a global solution. During the week of September 21st, The Fletcher School hosted the Tufts Global Leadership Seminar at Tufts European Center in Talloires, France. A delegation of Fletcher students and faculty met with their peers from universities around the globe, and experienced practitioners from several public and private institutions, to discuss the causes and potential solutions to climate change.
Each year the Tufts Global Leadership Seminar brings together students and faculty from five universities spanning three continents: The Fletcher School, College of Europe in Belgium, Lee Kuan Yew School of the National University of Singapore, University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, and Yonsei University in Korea. Appropriately, just a few months before the UNFCCC climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, this year's Seminar topic was "International Regimes for Global Warming: Political, Economic, and Legal Challenges."
For three days, the seminar brought together 34 students for a series of lectures and discussions intended to expand their understanding of the complexities of climate change and provide them with an opportunity to forge relationships with other future policy makers. All participants were asked to prepare essays on specific problems within the climate change crisis in order to stimulate discussions and debate. A fourth day invited practitioners from public and private institutions to share their views on the issue with the students and faculty. Representing Fletcher were first year Masters candidates Adrian Anderson, Adeline Cheng, Sarah Hahn, Maya Levine, Megan Rising, and Luke Schoen, and PhD candidate David Sussman.
Fletcher professor William Moomaw opened the seminar by presenting the most recent scientific understanding of climate change, and the projected consequences of its impacts in a variety of scenarios in which humanity's response ranges from "business as usual" to dramatic emissions reductions of 80% or greater. He also suggested taking a new approach to climate change, noting, "We must shift the framing of the solution from 'pollution control,' to one of crafting an equitable 'development treaty' under which everyone is entitled to basic energy services in a manner that does not degrade the climate and the environment."
Professor Ann Florini of the Lee Kuan Yew School outlined the history of global climate governance since the Kyoto Protocol and key challenges for policymakers in designing a global climate governance system. College of Europe professor Raimund Bleischwitz discussed the economic implications of climate change and concerns of equity between developed and developing nations. Professor Rolf Wüstenhagen from the University of St. Gallen proposed opportunities for business innovation to lead a transition to renewable energy technologies. Finally, Patrick Low, Chief Economist of the World Trade Organization, delivered a lecture on the role of the WTO and globalized trade in mitigating and responding to climate change.
The student seminar culminated in a climate negotiation simulation exercise in which each group represented one of the major actors, from the rapidly developing nations, to industry, to the industrialized countries that have contributed the most to current greenhouse gas concentrations.
Luke Schoen, F10