Who Should Be Responsible to Climate Change

  All countries are affected by the problem of global warming. Now, all of us live in the world where no individual and no country exists in isolation. It means that problems over the world are our common enemies. Climate change is one of the international issues which should be solved by all countries over the world, but who should be most responsible for it. We should objectively compare deferent facts from deferent points of view to consider the responsibility for controlling global warming. I am going to state one opinion from three perspectives - historical, economic and ethics.

  As far as history is concerned, many people argue that the countries which have emitted the most amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) should be responsible for the problem. When this problem is observed, based on the idea that specific countries should have responsibility, it is important to clear which country historically has emitted mostly pollution so far. For instance, America, which is known well as one of the most developed countries, has emitted a quarter of all GHG which have been emitted since 1751. In fact, the first international treaty about climate change importantly took this perspective into consideration (Jocelyn 2020). Therefore, considering which country has emitted the most GHG leads to the idea that which country should reduce how much it is.

  We can also argue that wealthy countries should take over the responsibility for climate change from an economic perspective. The main developed and richer countries must be responsible for it due to emitting more GHG than developing countries. Over past centuries, as developed economy has got much richer, problems caused by pollution get worse due to the development of the industry. The main developed countries which most people would admit as economic power such as America or China are an important key to global economic growth. These countries also have huge population with the result that the amount of gas from burning fossil fuels relatively high. However, the country which will be much more suffered from global warming is the area of developing countries because they do not have money enough to pay for institutions for enabling nations to stand the climate change. According to The Times Editorial Board (2019), Miami Beach spent hundreds of millions of dollars to raise streets and install pumps in preparation for the expected flooding from rising seas. Meanwhile, Port-au-Prince, Haiti does not afford to do such projects. Thereby, it is mandatory for developed countries, especially America and the countries of Europe, to make a strong effort to make solution for this problem and help poor countries which need financial supports.

  It is reasonable to analysis this problem with the ethical perspective. Global warming has already been immense and no longer a problem which one or two countries can solve. In order to solve this problem as soon as possible, it is essential that individuals should take ethical action to it. Personal indifference give rise to even more challenging problems. According to Stephen M. Gardiner (2012), emitted GHG stays in atmosphere for long time, which means that if our generation continue to emit them, post generations will be suffered from still more serious problems. If problems caused by global warming is left, they will endanger the next generation let alone our generation. We should accept a sort of responsibility to this problem for the future with ethics.

  Dividing the problem into some perspectives enables us to make an objective statement about climate change. Richer countries tend to emit much GHG and have abilities to solve problems surrounding global warming. It is more important that all of us think over it and do the thing we can do about by conscious actions. The most important thing which we have to do at first is not finding the criminal but recognize this problem as ours.

Reference
Jocelyn Timperley, (2020, June 18). Who is really to blame for climate change? BBC FUTURE. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200618-climate-change-who-is-to-blame-and-why-does-it-matter
The Times Editorial Board, (2019, September 15). Editorial: Wealthy countries are responsible for climate change, but it’s the poor who will suffer most. LOS ANGELS TIMES. Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-climate-change-global-warming-part-2-story.html
Stephen M. Gardiner & Lauren Hartzell-Nichols, (2012). Ethics and Global Climate Change. the nature EDUCATION Knowledge Project. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/ethics-and-global-climate-change-84226631/