Catastrophes - Acts of God

Description:

It is evident that man-made catastrophes or natural "Acts of Gods" have always been instrumental in charting the roadmap of life on earth. Negotiations too are affected by catastrophes. Acts of God could either motivate mutual cooperation in negotiations and sometimes even strain the relationships between members.

Big natural catastrophes are events of such a big impact to the affected region that it drives its political, scientific and economic leaders to rethink its role in the global fight against global warming. In this context we are obviously focusing on disasters that are/can be caused by global warming, thus excluding earthquakes caused by seismic activities. An example are the hurricane Katrina, the fires in Russia, the flood in Pakistan, the flood in Taiwan, China and Germany etc.

All the aforesaid catastrophes not only effect the power balance in the world but they also alter the individual commitment and concern for concluding them. Thus would certainly affect the climate change negotiation.

Enablers:

-Major natural disaster in China and/or US and/or India causing severe damage
-A new technology to reduce carbon emissions available at low cost
-New and cheap means of harnessing renewable sources of energy
-Depletion of oil
-Major increase in sea level
-

Inhibitors:

- Discovery of a huge oil field (say the size of Saudi fields)
- Another financial crisis
- Another major/world war
- An act of terrorism
- A global pandemic
- Nuclear disaster

Experts:

N/A

Web Resources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/21/dutch-troops-to-pull-out_n_470708.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_attack_on_Iraq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Enduring_Freedom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11
http://across.co.nz/WorldsWorstDisasters.html