The Issue

In the past 200 years, the world has seen an astronomic incline of greenhouse gases (GHG’s) in the atmosphere via increased carbon emissions. This actively contributes to a variety of consequences due to global warming. The most notable of these consequences are increased droughts, intensified natural disasters, irregular weather patterns, and sea-level rise. This increase occurred due to a series of worldwide technological advancements, most notably the industrial revolution, which saw the rise of fossil fuel burning. While we are unfortunately locked into another 30 years of global warming due to our heavy emissions over the industrial boom of the past couple hundred years, we must begin work now in capturing and storing the excess carbon in the atmosphere and replacing our fossil fuel dependent infrastructure with renewable energy sources.

The Research

Throughout this growing dependency on fossil fuels, America has been a primary motivator in global warming. This is primarily due to the massive increase in our carbon emissions over the last 100 years. According to a study posted in the scientific data journal accessed on nature.com, carbon emissions in the United States have increased by over 5 billion tons of carbon in the past 100 years. This puts us as the second highest carbon emitting country worldwide, next to China. Globally, we have seen an astonishing increase in the rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide ppm (parts per million) in our lifetime. Our climate now has the highest concentration of carbon dioxide ever seen in the past 800,000 years, with the next highest concentration ever recorded over that timespan being an entire 25% away from where we are now. This absurd increase in GHG concentration is resulting in a rapid warming of our climate. According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,) SSP5-8.5, the worst of our climate projections for the next 100 years, involves a global temperature rise of almost 5 degrees Celsius, or almost 41 degrees Fahrenheit. If we continue to burn excessive fossil fuels, our planet will surely be destroyed.

Our Stance

Students Act Now believes that as a nation, we must strive to support concepts from the Paris Agreement policy ratified in the United Nations, its primary goal being: “…to hold ‘the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels’ and pursue efforts ‘to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.’” This agreement is currently ratified by 194 countries and is fully crafted using information given by the IPCC, making it extremely important to maintain. If this agreement continues to stay in effect, it will mean attempting to reach a point in the near future at which we achieve net zero carbon emissions.

On January 20 th , 2021, Joseph R. Biden’s first day of presidency, he signed our country back into the Paris Agreement. Before this, America had been in the Paris Agreement for four years, until Donald J. Trump pulled us out in 2020, becoming the first and only nation to do so. He states in his Rose Garden address speech in regard to the agreement: “The Paris Agreement handicaps the United States economy in order to win praise from the very foreign capitals and global activists that have long sought to gain wealth at our country’s expense.” While it is true China has been in the lead of carbon emissions for quite some time, the Trump administration is expected to sign us back out of the agreement in this upcoming term.

Students Act Now believes we must look towards the guidelines of the IPCC and the Paris Agreement for nationally decreasing our dependency on fossil fuel burning for energy. This would mean working quickly to adopt solar, wind, and hydroelectric energies as our primary replacements for fossil fuels. This shift can be started by voting towards implementing policies which would make companies be more responsible for their emissions, and/or implementing heavier nationwide carbon taxes. Additionally, we must help push policies that enact renewable energy structure. This works to prevent any further shifts towards more devastating climate change effects, an absolute guarantee when Trump signs back out of the Paris Agreement.

Works Cited

Climate change impacts, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,

www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/climate/climate-change-impacts. Accessed 14 Nov. 2024.

Figure SPM.3.  Synthetic diagrams of global and sectoral assessments and examples of regional key risks, H. Pörtner et al.; “IPCC, 2022: Summary for Policymakers”; Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, 28 Feb. 2022, doi.org/10.1017/9781009325844.001. Accessed 14 Nov. 2024.

Jones, Matthew, et al. “National contributions to climate change due to historical emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide since 1850.” Scientific Data, Article number: 155, 29 Mar. 2023, doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02041-1. Accessed 9 Nov. 2024.