CFR Education: How Do Governments Combat Climate Change?

• This text describes how various actions implemented by governments can help with the fight against climate change, including policies, agreements, regulations, and innovations.
• It gives examples of how the following seven policies have been successful: clean energy standards, international agreements, cap and trade, carbon taxes, adaptation policies, minimizing financial risks, and technology investment.
  
• There is also a lesson plan for various sections of the World 101 Climate Change module and a discussion guide for higher education classes.
  
• This is the twelfth section of the World 101 Climate Change module.
  

Positives

• The text lists ways that each policy has seen success or failure and it lists governments that have implemented each policy.
• The lesson plan links to the Model Diplomacy website (which requires a login creation) that hosts a simulation program for students to act as representatives on international governmental councils addressing climate change policy.

Additional Prerequisites

• Teachers will be encouraged to make copies of certain Google Docs and Slides, so having access to the Google Suite is helpful.
• Some of the links in the lesson plan are broken, but many of the broken links link to a single slide that can be found in the comprehensive Google Slides file at the top of the lesson plan titled "Climate Change: Policy Presentation."

Differentiation

• If a class is not choosing to follow the lesson plan, it is recommended to have students review the other sections in the World 101 module to dive deeper into climate policy.
• Before reviewing the article, ask students if they think governments should regulate fossil fuel consumption.
• After reading the article, consider having students each choose one policy to research further and share their opinion about whether it is a viable solution in their state or region.
• The guided reading handout and vocabulary handout linked in the lesson plan are excellent resources for classes that are diving into a deep exploration using the World 101 resources.

This resource addresses the listed standards. To fully meet standards, search for more related resources.