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Essay: Classical Realism View on Climate Change: Understanding How States Prioritize Their National Interest

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  • Published: 1 February 2018*
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  • Words: 904 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 4 (approx)
  • Tags: Climate change essays

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Paste your essay in here… Classic realism is one of the fundamental views which philosophers and other scholars have on the world. It was mainly established after the Second World War and it is the result of realists trying to explain what happens within international relations after the effect of human nature has been taken into account. As Brian Leiter stated in his journal, “Classical Realism denotes a certain hard-headed, unromantic, uncompromising attitude towards the world, which manifests itself in a brutal honesty and candor in the assessment of human motives and the portrayal of human affairs.” (Leiter, B. 2001.)

Classical realism is one of the many theories which can be applied to international issues, and also contemporary ones. In this case I will be relating classical realism to climate change, and how classical realists, view climate change and how the subject applies to the issue.

It is important to actually understand what climate change is. Climate change has become one of the main talking points on the political stage over the past few decades, it was relatively unheard of prior to the 1970’s. Climate change is also known as global warming, and this term wasn’t even coined until a Science article in 1975 was produced by Wallace Broecker of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, titled, "Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?" (S. Broecker, Wallace. 1975.)

To classical realists, climate change is just another issue which can in a way, benefit their state as well as other states. The reason for this is due to the fact that these classical realists are always striving to find ways to increase the power of their state as well as getting ahead of the competition. According to classical realists, starts are the central actors within international relations and they act primarily to ensure that their own national interest is defined as power and that their main priority is their survival. (is.mendelu.cz. 2018.)

So, when it comes to the topic of climate change, states as well as their actors are going to want to ensure that they can survive the affects that climate change brings with it. For example, climate change is going to increase the amount of precipitation that a state receives, which will then lead to floods, which will in turn affect crops as well as civilian homes. This will result in the state having to spend a lot of money to ensure that these affected areas can be dealt with. This can also apply to states who receive little precipitation, and this can lead to droughts and a shortage of resources in terms of foods from crops as well as water.

The more that states learn about climate change, the more they can prepare themselves to deal with it. Classical realism and their view of trying to better themselves will apply to this situation. Many states will want to ensure that they are actually better prepared than other states, this will then lead to other states wanting the likes of aid from the states which have prepared themselves. A good example of this is that of the United States and Russia. The United States has had to deal with many different effect of climate change over the past decades. Only within the past decade has extreme heat waves actually killed hundreds of people as well as costing the US tens of billions in damage. This is due to the fact that major cities, as well as poor urban areas, are not well equipped to deal with this change in climate. (From sea to rising sea: Climate change in America | Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. 2018.) The US will have to put more money into ensuring that they are prepared, this money could have originally been spent on increasing their military capabilities. Other states, in this case, Russia, will see this as an opportunity to increase their military spending and get ahead of the US, either in the number of soldiers that they train and deploy, or increasing their nuclear arsenal.

Of course, the approach of classical realism to climate change will not always result in a state being able to better itself. Many states are in agreements such as the Paris Agreement, this is where majority of states have agreed to taking measures to ensure that the global average temperature is at an increase limit of 1.5 °C. (Climate Action – European Commission. 2018.) States will have to increase their spending as well as other measures, to ensure that they comply with the agreement. The current President of the United States, Donald Trump, has withdrew from the agreement, in what many argue is a realist move.

In conclusion, realism is still one of the most important theories of international relations, and despite this, there is still a very vague understanding of how realists view climate change and how they can act upon it. The subject of climate change will continue to be one of the key talking points, and as the years go on and the population increases, it will be important for the 21st century to have a 21st century realist opinion on this issue. No matter what happens, states main priority should be ensuring that their citizens are protected from the effects of climate change, but also that they are there to support other states which may be suffering increasingly more due to their geographical location.

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