Keeping the World Clean and Green
Within the past two hundred years, humans have been able to change the Earth in such a way that it took natural processes hundreds of thousands of years to do. With climate change becoming more prevalent in talks among citizens, domestically and between countries, views on how to deal with these changes vary from state to state. Where one country might feel it is necessary for a global reduction in coal use, another may think the idea is ludicrous. It is an ongoing “battle” for stability and universal agreement on how to make the world better and how to slow down climate change and solve other environmental issues. I believe that countries need to make climate change and environmental policy a major priority among their goals as states.
As an Environmental Science and Policy major, climate change and other environmental issues are a focus of mine. Issues such as global warming, oil spills, natural disasters, etc, are always in headlines of the news. Besides disasters, both human-made and natural, many other issues are creating dilemmas and tension worldwide; water use and water availability, emission regulation, energy use and energy problems, and food and land use are all major environmental problems that people and governments are trying to solve. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees and the attempts to make rules and solve these problems keep dragging on as they have for years.
Climate change, and the factors that contribute to it, are probably the biggest environmental issues countries face today. This issue is a natural process that takes place on earth cyclically over thousands of years. Carbon-dioxide levels, temperature levels and sea levels are all related and usually rise and fall together. Since the industrial revolution, fossil fuel use by human beings has acted as a mechanism to accelerate the process of climate change exponentially. After our last major ice age (not to be confused with the mini-ice age that occurred in the middle ages), which occurred about 25,000 years ago, CO2 levels, sea level and temperature have all gone up dramatically and are setting records as some of the highest in recorded history. Scientists are able to determine this from ice cores and other sources and see that over the past 600-700 thousand years, levels haven’t been nearly as high as today. Global average temperatures have risen about 1°C over the past few decades, an unprecedented rise. Along with this, sea level is currently rising about 3mm per year and CO2 levels are at an all time high (at least in recordable time) of 390ppm.
With the scientific data of climate change available to every nation, some have developed their own policies on how they would like to address the same. Some non-developed countries around the world are not as concerned about environmental policy as developed nations for many reasons; monetary and cultural reasons seem to be two major factors for their views towards this issue. On the contrary, most developed nations (U.S., France, Japan, etc) are constantly generating new regulations and standards for greenhouse gas emissions such as CO2, Methane (CH4), Hydrocarbons (CFC’s), Ozone (O3), and Nitrous Oxide (N2O). All but CFC’s or Chlorofluorocarbons are bi-products of the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal. Over time, each of these compounds has had an impact on global warming and climate change.
It wasn’t until recently that the first critical act of environmental policy was implemented globally. Until 50 years ago, there was no regulation or standard that was enacted between countries; however in 1987, an agreement titled the Montreal Protocol would set the stone for environmental policy. The idea behind this was to limit the use of chlorofluorocarbons worldwide. In the years leading up to this, CFC’s were widely used in almost everything from hairspray to refrigerators as an aerosol. Over time, CFC broke down ozone in the atmosphere that lead to the discovery of a massive hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. Since ozone’s function is to block harmful ultraviolet radiation from penetrating the atmosphere, the global decrease in ozone levels resulted in increasing cancer rates, as well as rising global temperature.
After the discovery, developed countries were quick to react to the data collected. The Montreal Protocol went into force in 1989 as 40 countries ratified it immediately (lecture, November 2) and did so with the support of over 140 countries. Oddly enough, the United States wasn’t in favor of this regulation at first. It was thought that this would negatively impact major companies in the U.S. that produced CFC’s. Rumor has it that it was Nancy Reagan who convinced the U.S. to go along and ratify the Montreal Protocol. President Reagan was being treated for skin cancer at the time of this agreement and when scientists figured out that CFC’s destroyed ozone, which lead to skin cancer, Mrs. Reagan influenced the U.S. to join the other countries. In the years following the original ratification, subsequent amendments were implemented globally in 1990 and 1992, which aimed to reduce production by 50% by 2000 and complete the ban of CFC’s by 2010 (James ENSP lecture). Years after, DuPont Chemical Company was able to create an alternative to CFC’s that has the same function but does no damage to the environment. By now, most countries around the world have ratified the Montreal Protocol, which shows that the ability to come together for a global issue, such as this is, possible.
Environmental policy isn’t always this easy and is rarely ever accepted as unanimously as the Montreal Protocol was. In 1997, countries met in Japan to discuss the next topic of interest that was quickly affecting the earth – global warming and climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol was formed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Developed countries worldwide agreed to reduce their greenhouse output levels by 5-10 percent of the 1990 levels by the year 2012 (lecture, November 2). Developing countries were considered “voluntary targets” considering they are the ones who have the largest amounts of output from industry, transportation and citizen use. To this day, 191 countries have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol; countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, South and North America as well as Australia, have all ratified the Protocol and are trying to meet their commitment of reduction. The only country to sign the Kyoto Protocol and NOT ratify it was the United States. President Clinton was in office at the time and signed it, but did not receive the support he thought he would from Congress. Consequently, the United States remains the world’s leader in greenhouse gas emissions. Even though the U.S. has not ratified this regulation, the Obama Administration has put into effect its own regulations on Carbon emissions as well as other greenhouse gas emissions.
To me, the world will never agree on a topic or standard on greenhouse gas emissions and ways to solve climate change. Some countries will never have the money to support new technology and resources and there will always be countries that simply won’t want to comply with a standard such as carbon emission regulation. I will use China and the United States as examples; China and the U.S. are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, China is second behind the United States. While the U.S. is a contributor through the burning of oil, China contributes through coal. Both are terrible for the environment, but neither country will completely stray away from their current method of energy. By now or within a few years, the world is on track for reaching “peak oil” or the maximum amount of oil extracted from the earth. Within the next few decades, we will have exhausted all of the known oil deposits and will soon deplete up all other fossil fuel deposits. The world will be in a fossil fuel burning frenzy and I, as well as scientists, expect greenhouse gas emission levels to soar in the last decades of fossil fuel use.
Even though energy companies and countries are trying to find other sources of energy, it will only be the strong, wealthy countries that will be able to survive in a “true green” world. Even at that point, war seems inevitable for remaining resources such as stored oil reserves, water reserves and gas reserves. I wouldn’t be surprised if “allies” turned on each other. So even if countries are trying to work with each other to lower emissions and set regulations, they should also make it a priority to work together to find new sources of energy that will sustain everyone. If this does not happen, worldwide war will commence and the world we know today will be in shambles.
ALL WORK BELONGS TO VC-DO NOT TAKE WITHOUT PERMISSION
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