As increases in human population lead to expansive industrialization and cultivation, increased carbon emissions are resulting in global climate change. This atmospheric alteration may result in a number of detrimental environmental impacts including food insecurity, increased spread of disease, more intense storms, and sea level rise. As the United States is one of the largest contributors to atmospheric carbon emissions, I researched what the government is implementing to reduce the nations carbon footprint. “In 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama wrote, “As the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, America has the responsibility to lead” (Wold, 2012, p.304). Regarding domestic policy, Barack Obama worked with the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) enact better “ fuel economy standards, imposed new limits on greenhouse gas emissions from major emitting facilities, and imposed limits on emissions relating to the development of oil and gas” (Wold, 2012, p.305). President Obama has pledged that the United States will reduce its greenhouse gases by 17% of 2005 levels by 2020 and by 83% by 2050. This will be done by considering renewable energy sources; such as, wind, solar, hydropower, nuclear power, natural gas; and coal.
The economic impact of these policy proposals would be that poorer people in other countries may have to pay for the creation of carbon emissions of the richer countries. I am referring to non-industrial countries that do not have the ability to produce the same amount of bad atmospheric carbon emissions. The question is who will pay for the changes that the EPA wants? For example, the United States, as a nation that is dependent on cows in the agricultural industry, we will always have methane pollution. Our nation is also dependent on gas driven cars. It takes time to charge up electric cars, and it takes considerable energy to dispose of the battery. Will we just have another tax to cover the abuse of natural resources while the government figures out a way to use energy to stop emission? The answers to these questions are political because the government may not be looking at the long term goals of conservation (Tol, 2009).
References
Tol, Richard S. J. 2009. “The Economic Effects of Climate Change.” Journal Of Economic Perspectives 23, no. 2: 29-51. Business Source Elite, EBSCOhost (accessed November 19, 2014).
Wold, C. (2012). CLIMATE CHANGE, PRESIDENTIAL POWER, AND LEADERSHIP: “WE CAN’T WAIT”. Case Western Reserve Journal Of International Law, 45(1/2), 303-359.
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