Sample essay on risks and costs of environmental preservation and climate change

Environmental change has resulted from greater emission of greenhouse gases, consequently there is increased trapping of the sun’s energy in the earths atmosphere. This will lead to increased temperatures that will cause glaciers to melt and ocean levels to rise. It will also alter weather patterns resulting in more extreme storms, deserts expanding in the tropics, modified crop yields and growth patterns as well as spreading of tropical diseases.
The risk in environmental preservation is that polluting countries and their firms will have to significantly reduce carbon emissions. This means that they will not be able to maintain or increase on previous production levels. Environmental prevention will cause the countries to pay in order to be allowed to pollute consequently increasing production costs. Firms will be forced to comply with the reinstituted regulations, such as utilizing environmental friendly materials, equipments and production processes. The firms that are not able to meet these regulations will incur high costs paying to pollute and if they cannot do so they will have to reduce production. There is the risk of having equal pollution regulations for both developed and developing countries. This is because the developed countries polluted in large quantities in order to achieve development, therefore they cannot stop the developing countries from polluting in order to develop.
In climate change control there is the risk of some countries carrying a bigger responsibility than their counterparts yet the benefits derived are nonexcludable and every person can enjoy them. It is hard to coordinate large populations and different states in efforts to control environmental and climate change. The impact on the global environment from the efforts of a single country is very small. This has resulted in a negative externality where states tend to free ride on efforts of others, in the end climate and environment continues to deteriorate and the negative effects experienced by the world as a whole.
Environmental preservation is normally faced with collective action and bargaining problems. There are many actors involved, majority of whom favor tighter regulations and more cost being passed to those who are involved in harmful environmental activities. There are also minorities who have special interests and thus block costly new regulations and try to shift costs of policy change to others. The solutions that are developed in terms of policies usually creates gainers and losers from different groups. This results in great disagreements because countries feel they will bear a larger share of the cost than their counterparts. In the end no change takes place and the environment continues to degrade and climate change is not controlled. The only possible way around this dilemma is to work at achieving a compromise that will be acceptable to most of the states.
The costs of mitigating harmful environmental practices should be distributed in a manner that will be acceptable to the actors. This will ensure that they are all willing to cooperate in preserving the environment. When policies are put in place, it is the responsibility of each of the actors to follow them. International organizations play an important role in ensuring compliance to environmental agreements and standards. The organizations have the responsibility to provide accurate information on environmental preservation and climate change.
Countries view environmental preservation as a venture that will incur very high costs and small benefits especially the developed countries. International organizations and all the countries should compromise and focus on long term benefits and save the world from future destructions. The cost of environmental preservation should be borne by all states in the world at different rates depending on the polluting activities that each state has been involved in and is still involved in.