POL 202 chapter 13
How does the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change aid cooperation on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions?
By ensuring repeated interactions between states
Public goods problems come in many varieties. Which of the following are examples of public goods problems being solved?
Correct Answers: -Your professor includes an individually graded component in a group project. -Your friend joins an all-volunteer firefighter squad. Incorrect Answers: -A member of your community delivers a meal to a homebound elderly neighbor. -A sales manager disciplines a salesperson for low quarterly numbers.
Which of the following are examples of an externality being corrected or internalized?
Correct: -A flight attendant tells the passenger next to you to use headphones with his iPad. -The army requires an eight-year service commitment from an ROTC student. Incorrect: -Your housemate cleans up a mess in her room. -The government lowers the tax on gasoline.
Although the potential benefits of environmental protection (or the costs of allowing continued damage) are great, polluters often win their preferred policy outcomes. Select the reasons why this is the case.
Correct: -Although industrial pollution causes net harm, producers who create this pollution accrue concentrated benefits while the costs are spread diffusely through the population. -Individual governments recognize environmental problems but, to avoid putting their firms at a global disadvantage, choose not to regulate. Incorrect: -Polluters win because there is an absence of production technologies that would reduce harmful emissions.
Which of the following are examples of positive externalities?
Correct: -Bees kept to make honey pollinate plants belonging to a nearby farmer. -Your neighbor keeps her lawn well maintained. Incorrect: -Smoke from a factory drifts across a neighborhood. -A landowner fishes in her pond.
Which of the following actors or groups of actors are using some variant of cap and trade to meet carbon emissions goals?
Correct: -China -European Union Incorrect: -US
The United States has withdrawn from which of the following climate agreements?
Correct: -Paris Agreement -Kyoto Protocol Incorrect: -United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
In which of the following environmental cooperation problems is an international institution likely to be of help?
Correct: -States are concerned that parties to an agreement are not fulfilling their obligations. -Because of the complexity of an environmental issue, extended negotiations are required. Incorrect: -Well-organized industrial interests oppose an agreement that would place limits on their emissions. -A state openly continues its production and use of CFCs.
In which of the following ways is global environmental preservation like the Prisoner's Dilemma?
Correct: -States are tempted to reduce pollution regulations to gain economic benefits. -States share an interest in preserving the global environmental commons. Incorrect: -States always choose to defect from existing agreements. -The world's population is "imprisoned" and cannot escape the effects of environmental degradation.
Which of the following statements about responsibility for pollution by certain countries or regions are are true?
Correct: -The largest increases in carbon emissions expected in the future will come in the developing world. -North America and the European Union are mostly responsible for current levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere Incorrect: -The easiest way to reduce pollution is to invest in implementing clean technology in developed countries. -Advanced industrialized countries tend to pollute at roughly the same rate.
Goods that have public characteristics come in a range that includes those that fall short of being pure public goods. Select the goods that are non-excludable but rival in consumption.
Correct: -box of donuts left in an office break room -groundwater basins Incorrect: -view of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park -variety at a buffet
Which of the following international environmental problems revolve around a common-pool resource?
Correct: -decline of fish stocks -deforestation Incorrect: -global warming -acid rain
Which of the following are examples of a public good?
Correct: -knowledge -national defense Incorrect: -driving on a highway -public bus ride
Which of the following activities have transnational advocacy networks (TANs) engaged in to support efforts to halt climate change through the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change?
Correct: -lobbying delegates at meetings -providing scientific data to participants Incorrect: -adjudicating disputes between participants -setting the bargaining agenda
Suppose two neighboring countries share a polluted bay. In each country, runoff from farms carries a common pesticide into a river that empties into the bay. To clean the bay, both countries must agree to restrict the pesticide's use. However, doing so will be costly for agricultural producers in each country because of the absence of alternative pesticides. Which of the following factors would foster cooperation?
Correct: -low complexity -iterated interactions Incorrect: -presence of privileged groups -bundling with public goods
How can international institutions help bring about environmental cooperation?
Correct: -through facilitating decision making and negotiation -by setting standards for environmental regulation Incorrect: -by punishing states that violate environmental agreements -by changing the preferences of states that oppose agreements
Why might cooperation on climate change survive U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement?
Efforts within the US at the state and city level and by firms can meet the US target under the Paris Agreement
Which of the following explains why those who would be negatively affected by tighter environmental restrictions so often defeat these policies
Existing industries have more supporters that they can mobilize than the new industries developing clean technology
Placing a high value on the future may actually make some actors intensify their resistance to cooperation on climate change. Which of the following actors would see its resistance stiffen the most as the value placed on the future rises?
Hydraulic fracking in newly discovered shale field mines in Wyoming
How does consideration of future generations' interests complicate environmental cooperation?
Information about how future generations will will evaluate tradeoffs is unavailable
Match each international environmental agreement to its contribution to environmental protection.
Paris Agreement of 2016- set a global limit of 1.5 °C of total warming above preindustrial levels Montreal Protocol of 1987- set global phaseout for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) Kyoto Protocol of 1997- committed 24 developed countries to reducing greenhouse gases Stockholm Convention of 2001- prohibited production and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs)
The U.S. withdrawal from climate change agreements is an example of what kind of problem?
Public good
Climate change is caused by which of the following?
Solar radiation being trapped in the earth's atmosphere by increasing amounts of CO2
Why was the United States willing to phase out CFCs unilaterally and lead the international effort to prevent ozone depletion?
The benefits to the US justified the cost
The depletion of the whale population that is due to hunting is an example of which of the following?
The difficulty of maintaining common-pool resources
Why has the U.S. auto industry opposed efforts to reduce emissions?
The required new technologies would raise the price of cars, and this would reduce manufacture's profits
When do cap-and-trade systems work best?
When pollution is easily observable
Goods that have public characteristics come in a range that includes those that fall short of being pure public goods. Select the goods that are non-rival in consumption, but excludable.
a band playing at a nightclub
The United States may ultimately maintain Paris Agreement commitments to fund emissions reductions in developing countries as a result of business groups who see opportunities to build clean infrastructure in these countries. This would be an example of which factor in favor of cooperation?
bundling with private goods
Despite widespread harm associated with ozone depletion, what made cooperation to address it so difficult to achieve?
concentrated costs of reducing CFC use in some countries
Why do many economists advocate for cap-and-trade schemes for pollution emissions?
correct: -Cap and trade can ensure a socially optimal use of pollution. -Cap and trade can incentivize investment in clean technologies. Incorrect: -Cap and trade eliminates harmful emissions completely. -Cap and trade does not rely on property rights.
Under the Paris Agreement, developed nations are often at odds with developing nations over the division of responsibilities. Label the following arguments and assertions as more likely to be made by developed nations or developing nations
developed nations: -Future emissions growth rather than historical emissions should be targeted. -States with lots of forestland that acts as a carbon sink have a special obligation to preserve it. developing nations: -Low-emitting countries bear disproportionate costs of climate change; high-emitting countries should engage in larger cuts.
The use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as refrigerants or propellants in aerosol cans is an example of which of the following?
externality
The Montreal Protocol (1987) includes a number of mechanisms designed to ensure that its goals of protecting the ozone layer are met. Label the following mechanisms as either "included" or "not included."
not included: -common standards across all countries -A cap-and-trade scheme Included: -compensation for developing countries -support from an international institution
Label the following resources as examples of either a common-pool resource or a public good.
public good: -biodiversity in rain forests -clean water in Lake Michigan common-pool resource: -cod fishery off Newfoundland -grazing land in Swiss alpine meadows
