Energy culture as a determinant of a country's position in the climate talks

Tatyana Ruseva, Appalachian State University, CLEAN Community Collection

In this activity, students compare countries and nation states with high- and low-energy consumption rates within a specific region of the world. Students are encouraged to draw linkages between a country's energy culture and its position in multilateral climate negotiations.

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Notes from our reviewers

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Starting this activity with a lesson about international climate negotiations will provide a great framework for students to work in. Educator should create a scoring rubric for the students before conducting this activity. Suggested IPCC resource that looks at additional factors, beyond energy consumption [link http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml]. Prior knowledge - students should understand the term "climate diplomacy".
This activity uses various datasets to compare energy use around the world. Students will be asked to independently search the data to obtain information about their assigned country. Links to good online sources for background information on energy use are provided. Information about recent international climate debates and standpoints of nations is not provided. Comments from expert scientist: Good references from EIA and IEA.
The activity compares countries around the world and explicitly examines energy consumption of both high-income and low-income nations. This allows a focus on all types of cultures. This activity presents a general layout for an engaging group activity, but it does not lay out all the documents and materials needed to use the activity. These would need to be generated by the instructor.