Global Cooperation to Combat Climate Change, Essay

Introduction

Despite appearing to be a topic of recent global interest, climate change issues are exceedingly complex and entail a vast variety of challenges, opportunities, and points of view. According to The Oxford Handbook of Energy Politics by Hancock & Allison (2020), the Climate change movement began in Europe late 19th century as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Great success occurred in Britain with this movement. Since there were no regulations to prevent pollution, factories swiftly expanded into farming communities, contaminating the air and water. The locals did not wait long to react, making their voices heard and demanding that factories and government save the natural spaces in their communities. As a result of these campaigns, a wide variety of constituencies has coalesced around the desire for increased security and a shift toward a mode of communication that places a premium on awareness.

English conservation organizations date back to as early as the 1800s with the formation of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty (Tzu, 2011). The United States and international conservation efforts finally caught up at the turn of the twentieth century. Germany, which prioritized forest protection, was one of several countries to introduce Climate change rules and create government institutions (Morgenthau, 1978). There was a slow but steady increase in ecological consciousness throughout the 1950s and 1960s, but the 1970s were the pivotal decade in terms of the development of concrete actions. The inaugural Earth Day and the first Climate change summit held by the United Nations took place this decade. Subsequently, it is right to say that it has been difficult to achieve global cooperation to combat climate change because of global inaction, time disconnect, modern living, and climate change priorities in developing countries.

Global Inaction

The number of people who pay attention and act on ways to mitigate climate change worldwide is small. Authorities, academic institutions, and the general public do not understand climate change better and its potential consequences (Mencius, 2011). Unfortunately, as it was, the decline occurred after the peak. Climate change groups have seen a steady fall in support since their heyday in the late aughts, during the height of the uproar against the great recession and globalization. Next, problems such as divergent goals, linguistic and cultural barriers, international rivalry, inadequate infrastructure, a lack of expertise, and the prevalence of outsourcing became readily apparent (Stroebel & Wurgler, 2021). The lack of a standard method to establish responsibility is another critical issue that hinders widespread international cooperation. While Europe is at the forefront of moves to enforce accountability and strategy, their influence has been minimal thus far.

Globally, an effort to combat climate change could be motivated by either need or personal desire. The European Union lacks the political and economic clout necessary to convince other countries to join the fight against climate change (Young, 2016). The European Union’s (EU) normative preference for soft acts and the concept of the EU as a civilian authority fit this method with their coalition government pursuit. Thanks to the cooperative system of representation and coordination in place since the early 1990s, tremendous progress has been accomplished as a participant in international climate policy (Young, 2016). They have tried to create solid stances before the negotiations by delegating authority to senior delegates and the president.

These collective action problems arise when the sum of people’s rational and self-interested decisions have an effect that is bad for the group as a whole, and they may be the most pressing problem ever faced by humanity (Wapner, 2014). Considering that the bulk of economies relies on energy resources that release them, it is reasonable for a single country not to undertake significant reductions in carbon emissions. As a result of the collective emissions, however, most countries will become poorer in the long run if they maintain their existing patterns of behavior (Zainieva & Abdrasilova, 2018). To rephrase, what may be good for one country when considered in isolation may be bad for the global situation. Things that are bad for particular countries may end up good for the world.

Time Disconnect

The European Union has decreased its global influence to mitigate climate change because of its decreasing collaboration within international institutions and unsuccessful talks recently compared to the past. The Paris Agreement of 2015, which was the pinnacle of a worldwide campaign that was