Essay on China's Paris Pledge: Practically and Ethically Flawed

In the article 'China's Paris pledge on climate change, Harris (2017) argues that China's response to the Paris Agreement is practically and ethically flawed, and highlights shortcomings in the agreement. This article talks about China's pledge to the Paris agreement and how the resolutions they made are insufficient and full of flaws. Paris agreement places each nation with a responsibility to take action by making a pledge that would be used in the future as a baseline for further pledges on climate change.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

China pledged that it would make the best efforts to reduce CO2 emissions per unit of GDP from the 2005 60% and 65%, which they believe will level by 2030. This pledge, according to experts, is inadequate because they believe the emission of CO2 will peak before 2030 or may have peaked already. What the Chinese government is pledging is insufficient because they are promising to do what has already happened. Even if they succeed, their contribution to global pollution would still be very high double to what the USA emits (Harris, 2017). This pledge is unethical because soon this emission would be detrimental to not only china but other nations as well.

The pledge by china is also inadequate because it ignores many consumers, which have grown drastically to over a hundred million. Today millions of Chinese continue to pollute the environment and not being included in the pledge. The excuse china gives about this is the fact that they are still a developing country and as such, should be excused under the CBDR which legally protects China as a developing nation (Harris, 2017). America, just like china also has poor people who are expected to do more about climate change than the affluent Chinese. This is ethically wrong because pollution should be a collective responsibility, especially in the case of China, which contributes to a lot of emissions.

Another reason why the pledge is inadequate is the fact that it was not made to combat climate change specifically. According to Harris (2017), Pledge by china falls in four categories, which are continuing the usual business trends, economic pledge, international and domestic politics. With these categories being considered, emissions will continue to rise unless the Chinese government initiates new government policies. Paris agreement obligates each nation to guide its citizens to fight climate change. This is an injustice because individual citizens are not parties to the agreement and thus are not legally bound to abide by it. Individual who are rich would continue polluting the environment because that is not their responsibility. An international agreement should be about the duties and rights of individuals so that they stop causing more harm to the environment.

Paris agreement places emphasis on nations to combat climate change through making pledges and abiding by them by obligation citizens to protect the citizens. China should put emphasis on drastically reducing pollution by changing its government policies and put to task its citizens to focus more on protecting the environment. The developing nation tag should be a thing of the past for china as they should do more to avoid not being known for the most substantial emissions while doing little about the problem.

References

Harris, P.G., 2017. China's Paris pledge on climate change: inadequate and irresponsible. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 7(1), pp.102-107.