Domestic factors and their influency on global climate politics

• Grant number: 12/19395-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: February 01, 2013
• End date: July 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Wagner Costa Ribeiro
• Grantee: Helena Margarido Moreira
• Supervisor: Miranda A. Schreurs
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
• Associated to the scholarship: 11/11247-1 - New geopolitics of climate change: the roles of United States and China, BP.DR

Abstract

Climate change is placed on the international agenda and inherently needs cooperation between countries since it is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st Century. My thesis research, entitled "The new geopolitics of climate change: the roles of United States and China" aims at embracing the discussions regarding climate change negotiations in order to understand which factors have hindered advances towards a possible new agreement on climate change, or even the renovation of the Kyoto Protocol. I intend to assess the positions taken by the two greatest global greenhouse gases emitters: United States and China. My hypothesis is that the relations between USA and China, and their positions on climate change negotiations, especially due to domestic economic and political constraints, define the new geopolitics of climate change. Through the research plan for the Research Internship Abroad, provided by São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), I aim at analyzing the domestic factors that have at the same time blocked effective climate change actions and stimulated a transition towards low-carbon economies. Doing so, I intend to comprehend the political dimensions of these domestic factors to the global climate policy and politics. Climate change negotiations comprise several dimensions (environmental, economic, political, scientific and social) simultaneously, which accredit them the interdisciplinary feature to what my thesis project proposes as well as the research developed at the Environmental Policy Research Centre (FFU) from Freie Universität Berlin. (AU)