I recently watched the Intelligence-Squared debate on BBC about whether businesses should invest a percentage of their budget on investing in environmentally friendly, yet expensive, technologies.
One side noted the impracticalities of doing this, and the null effect on the environment. They argued that even if American, and other Western countries were to adopt solar technologies, the rest of the world would continue to use harmful technologies in production. Developing countries do not have infrastructure or money to support such expensive efforts, and the only way that the project would be successful would be if it were a truly global enterprise.
The other side argued that the initial costs would be covered by savings through solar based technologies. They argued that turning to environmentally friendly technologies was a double edged sword : economically intelligent, and beneficial towards the environment. They were not able to respond to the opposition's claim about the global nature of the problem with the environment.
I think it is a valid point to note that the battle to save the environment should be a global endeavor. If only the United States ever does anything about it, countries undergoing industrialization will continue to affect the environment negatively. We should encourage more international programs like the Kyoto Protocol to address the issues at hand.
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I agree that everyone, and not just developed nations, will need to hop on the green bandwagon for success to be achieved. However, developing countries argue that the current global environmental crisis is a product of the developed countries' industrialization and therefore, why should they have to take action to pay for the West's mistakes? It's because of this argument that the Kyoto Protocol didn't include countries like India and China (and thus the reason why we didn't ratify it).
While I agree that the historical burden for climate change rests on the developed world's shoulders, I also believe the developing world should not be allowed to commit the same mistakes we did. The U.S. must work to provide incentives for the developing world to go green. Whether this means new tariff protocols, green development aid, of even technology transfers has yet to be seen, but something must be done.
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