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We recently entered the third decade of the 21st century, and the threat of Climate Change is now more severe and real than it has ever been before. The United Nations call Climate Change ‘’the defining issue of our time,’’ and its impacts are ‘’global in scope and unprecedented in scale.’’ After all, it concerns our shared home, doesn’t it? However that may be, in this essay I like to argue that climate change cannot be solved on a global scale, but, at best, only at the national level. Within the borders of a nation is where we find the strong central political power and incentives that are necessary to undertake serious action.

First of all, I like to show that climate change can’t really be seen as the same problem for every nation. To quote Tara Law from Time Magazine: ‘’Climate change is expected to affect every country in the world, but its impact will not be felt equally across all regions and some will be worse hit than others because of a range of different threats.’’ If the potential threats that climate change poses deviate for each individual country, then, how can we pretend as if it’s the same “global” problem for everyone? – it poses a far bigger, and contemporary threat to some nations than others. Law rightfully mentions that “Developing countries, places with widespread poverty, and countries with ineffective governments sometimes face the gravest risks from the changing climate.”

Germanwatch developed the Climate Risk Index, which reflects countries’ vulnerability to the direct consequences – deaths and economic losses – of extreme weather events.

According to the data on weforum.org, only two countries (United States, and China) are responsible for 40% of all CO2 emissions. A look at the Climate Risk Index table above reveals that these two gigantic emitters don't rank within the top ten most affected countries by the direct consequences of Climate Change. To continue, the top 15 emitters generate an astonishing 72% of the global CO2 emissions. We should ask ourselves, do we expect the big emitters to take responsibility for the negative effects of climate change in the rest of the world? Clearly, for them, there is more incentive to focus on national economic growth instead. Our changing climate causes without a doubt significant threats that will eventually concern all of us, in some way or another. But, as, for example, the COVID-19 outbreak and the fight against poverty show us, these “global” issues will only be dealt with properly by nations if there’s enough incentive to do so. When is there enough incentive to take proper action? – Usually when it affects own soil (in the not so distant future), or produces opportunity for economic gain.

Global efforts to deal with ''global'' problems are here today, and have been around in the past. The current global effort to our changing climate, the Paris Agreement, proves itself to be, as expected by many, not much more than a formality. ‘’Untold human suffering is in our future as nations miss their Paris Agreement targets by a long shot.’’ – sounds the sub-header of a recent National Geographic article. A strong central political power is necessary to impose order. If not, who’s gonna make sure that proper consequences are faced once rules aren’t respected? That’s what international climate negotiators sought for decades and decades: a way to collectively bind the world’s countries to ambitious emission-reduction commitments. Nevertheless, something truly effective never came to fruition. Now, with the Paris Agreement they tried something different. The agreement simply asked countries to submit voluntary commitments, hoping that eventually peer pressure would kick in.

On November 4th, 2019, the United States began the process of withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Trump stated that ‘’The Paris accord would undermine (the U.S.) economy.’’ The participation of the United States was considered very important, because it signaled that the biggest emitters would be role models. However, the US's departure builds the case that, in order to meet the required targets, some kind of force, that’s not applicable on a global scale, is necessary to accelerate countries' responses.

There’s a lack of strong central political power and incentives to solve the problem of Climate Change on a global scale. I’ve shown how the urgency and the scope of the threat strongly deviate between countries, and how the willingness to act properly depends on whether it is in a nation's best interest to do so. Furthermore, global efforts, like the Paris Agreement, have failed to make a significant impact because of their inability to bind the world’s countries to ambitious commitments. Climate Change cannot be tackled effectively on a global scale, so, let's focus on how we can neutralize the threat from under the dome of national jurisdictions instead..

Thank you for reading;)