Persuasive Essay On Climate Change

For hundreds of years, humans have been burning coal and oil expand their economy. In the Twentieth century, countries used coal to develop and become more technologically advanced. What people did not know back then was that when coal is burned it releases CO2 into the air. This carbon creates a thick layer in the Earth’s atmosphere, blocking heat waves from escaping earth. This excessive amount of heat trapped in our atmosphere increases the overall global temperature. The increased temperature causes something called Climate Change. Climate Change is the changes to the earth’s overall climate regarding things like weather, storms, and sea-level, among other things (Weart). Although humans now know that burning coal is harmful to our environment,

Although climate change is a global problem, some think that certain countries are more responsibly than others. Rich, developed countries have been “pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution” (Stefanini). Since they are more responsible for the current damage, some claim that they need to pay for it. Although climate change is a global problem that can only be solved through collective measures, many countries believe that countries who released a big percentage of the global CO2 emission, such as China, need to cut their CO2 more than most other countries (Saran). Developed countries, however, are trying to focus more on current emission rather than past emission that is still in our atmosphere. They try to shift the attention away from the massive amount of carbon they emitted during the industrial revolution, and instead focus their attention on small countries that are currently relying on coal to develop and grow (Stefanini). The smaller countries, in turn, claim that the developed countries should take responsibility for what they have done, and give the developing countries a chance to develop just as they once did. While many countries are constantly trying to shift the blame and responsibility, it seems as though, “climate negotiations have become… more about safeguarding narrowly conceived economic self-interests of nations” (Saran). While this may be a global issue, it seems as though, rather than working together for a similar cause, countries are working against each other for the better end of that similar