DÜNYA İLİŞKİLERİNDE AVRUPA BİRLİĞİ - Deneme Sınavı - 8

Just how many people are in flight globally and have been forced to leave their homes due to armed conflict is uncertain. The UN estimates that about 65 million people have been displaced globally and the outlook for quickly improving the situation is dire.

Added to this number are migrants moving within Europe for other reasons and migrants coming to Europe from other regions in the world. Many EU countries that have received relatively high numbers of refugees can be defined as welfare states but vary in terms of distribution policy ambitions and scope of social protection. The differences between the central and eastern parts of Europe and northern and western Europe are particularly stark.

As regards attitudes towards immigration, the emergence of the Islamic State (ISIS) and a string of terrorist attacks with religious overtones have affected views on various immigrant groups. In the United States, President Trump has succeeded in halting entry to the US from a few selected Muslim countries. Many Europeans are also opposed to immigration from Muslim countries, regardless of whether due to war, disaster or other reasons. Of the ten countries included in the study (Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK), the percentage of people who disagreed with the statement “All further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped” was lower than 50 percent in only two (Spain and the UK). Both countries also have a long history with a relatively large percentage of Muslims in the population.

The long-term political, economic and social consequences of the large-scale immigration that the EU has witnessed in recent years are highly uncertain, not least for welfare states. Social debate in Europe has also been affected, and some pundits consider migration a threat not only to the survival of the welfare state, but the very survival of the nation state and fundamental European values.

Others consider migration the solution to some of the challenges of the welfare state, such as aging populations and their associated challenges, as well as a source of renewal and innovative processes. The issues are also current beyond the borders of Europe.

The welfare state is a political idea, or a social contract, based on the principle that the state, not the individual, is responsible for the welfare of its citizens and for ensuring that all citizens enjoy a minimum standard of living.

The lowest common denominator is a desire achieves higher welfare in economic terms and in living conditions more generally. In addition, out of some 1.3 million refugees who came to Europe in 2015, the overwhelming majority were 35 or younger, most coming from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Refugee immigrants and family reunification immigrants make up the dominant group.

This differs from immigration in the past, when volumes were considerably smaller and labor force immigration was dominant.

An interesting question that should be further explored is how the labor force migrators are composed and their skill structure, i.e. the percentage share having academic qualifications. Qualifications and skills, such as an academic background, are a critical factor in the success and effectiveness of economic integration.

Briefly, the life-cycle income theory is based on the understanding that income and earning capacity are spread across the entire life cycle.

The US had previously been strong drivers of the Montreal Protocol on the ozone layer in the 1980s, for example, but wanted to keep emissions reduction targets
more open. The answer is C.

This European ideal of acting as leaders in the context of climate talks can be said to
have been further solidified after the US chose to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. The answer is C.

In 2009, the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) generated 25 percent of world GDP and more than 25 percent of GHG emissions. The answer is D.

Considering developments in global climate policy, the Paris Agreement was adopted in November 2015. The answer is D.

The Paris Agreement differs from the Kyoto Protocol in several respects. Firstly, under the Paris Agreement, every country in the world makes commitments to reduce or limit GHG, thus not only the industrialised countries. The agreements are also structured differently. The Kyoto Protocol was a typical “top-down” agreement where a united group forced individual industrial nations to accept specific percentages of emissions reductions compared to those countries’ emissions levels in 1990 (e.g., US -7 percent and EU -8 percent). In contrast, the Paris Agreement is a “bottomup” agreement with one common objective—to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius by 2100 compared with pre-industrialism temperatures, but preferably to cap warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees— and where most individual states have formulated their own unique “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions” (INDC). Certainly, the Paris Agreement is innovative, but it is nonetheless a very weak agreement in many respects, with no clear rules or consequences for non-compliance. The answer is E.

Regarding the differences between Member States, Germany has its Energiewende (energy transition) for example, whose objective is not only to achieve a climate
transition, but also to phase out nuclear power. The country has made substantial and consistent investments in long-term and stable support for renewable energy, especially wind and solar power. The answer is D.

France, on the other hand, seems convinced that the best way to solve the climate problem is through major, systematic investments in nuclear power. The answer is B.

France upported  systematic investments in nuclear power to solve the climate problem. Germany has its own energy transition that phases out nuclear power.  Sweden has the highest carbon tax in the world .Introduced of a bonus-malus system for vehicle purchases was introduced by France. The answer is A . UK passed the first Climate Change Act (CCA) in the world.

In the US, for example, most cities were planned based on the assumption that the car is and will remain the main mode of travel. The answer is C.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presented its first report in 1990, which summarised current research and determined that global warming exists and constitutes a grave threat to world communities. The report was the basis for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio. This agreement later resulted in the Kyoto Protocol, which entailed binding emission reductions for industrialised countries during the first commitment period of 2008–2012. World leaders met once again in December 2015 to reach consensus on further commitments that must be made— and complied with—to prevent global warming from rising beyond unacceptable levels. The conference was held in Paris and was the largest gathering of world leaders ever. It resulted in the Paris Agreement,The answer is B.