Topic sentence

The efforts to manage the climate crisis have been largely unsuccessful.

CA
Some may argue that, as compared to the past, a lot more alternatives to carbonized fuels are
being sought out across the world which have successfully combated climate change.
Moreover, others may argue that governments of developed countries have come together to
make successful, active efforts in contributing to the prevention of climate change worldwide.
For example, The Green Climate Fund has raised $100 billion a year from 2020 to help
developing countries adopt initiatives to combat climate change and deforestation.

A1 (rebuttal) Alternatives are short-term only.

Although such efforts mentioned above have contributed to the management of the climate
crisis, some critics may say that they only provide short-term solutions and in the long run, are
believed to bring more harm than good to the environment. Let’s take electric cars as an
example. There has been increasing popularity of electric cars in recent years, such as Tesla
cars, which drive on clean energy instead of fossil fuels. The aim of these cars is to reduce
carbon emissions. Although carbon emissions have gone down, more electricity is required in
order to sustain electric car batteries. Generating such electricity is very harmful towards the
environment due to the fact that the electricity is not yet decarbonised, and thus resulting in
more greenhouse emissions. For example, Norway had announced its proposed ban on fossil
fuel cars in 2016, planning to prohibit the sale of all petrol & diesel vehicles by 2025. However,
the electric vehicles used had caused indirect pollution. Even though they do not emit exhaust
fumes, they use batteries which emit toxic fumes. The problem has not been curbed, and there
is still an ongoing climate crisis.

A2 (rebuttal) Lack of teamwork between countries

Another main reason for unsuccessful climate change efforts is the lack of collaboration and
action on a governmental level between other countries. This can be seen when the countries
that are mainly responsible for climate change are not contributing to international efforts and
not taking part in change for the better. This is because of the "free-rider problem" which stems
from the fact that countries would enjoy the benefits of global efforts to limit emissions
regardless of their contributions.
One such example would be when Donald Trump announced the US pulling out of the Paris
Agreement in June 2017, which is a legally binding treaty with the goal of limiting global
warming to about 1.5 degrees celsius. This Is significant because the US represents around
15% of global greenhouse gas emissions and remains the world's biggest and most powerful
economy. So when it becomes the only country to withdraw from a global solution to become a
global problem it raises questions of trust. Furthermore, this allows the US to contribute
significantly to global gas emissions as they do not have an emission target to meet which
causes limited success of programmes such as the Paris agreement. This is because even
though certain countries such as Finland and Greece have met their emission targets, the US
can continue to contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and overall cause a rise in
global greenhouse gas emissions.
This renders the other countries’ efforts useless because preventing climate change has to be a
collaborative effort. Therefore when one party refuses to pull their weight, it diminishes the
effectiveness of the campaign.

A3 Individual: Don’t take initiative. Buy and throw away society

Another reason why efforts to manage the climate crisis have been unsuccessful is due to
individuals assuming the onus is on the government to make changes. People in society fail to
see how their individual efforts need to complement governmental and global efforts as a whole,
therefore they don’t bother to take action. This can be seen from the National Climate Change
Secretariat’s Climate Change Public Perception Survey in 2016 which showed that over a third
of respondents in Singapore believed that their individual actions would not make a difference to
climate change.
This is a testimony to the fact that individuals do not have the right mindset in their approach to
climate change, which therefore slows the efforts being made to combat the problem of climate
change. Since no effort is being made by individuals, campaigns and movements meant to
mitigate climate change are redundant, therefore contributing to the prominent problem of
climate change. Individuals not taking action can also be seen in the campaign, “Singapore’s
Year of Climate Action” - a year-long national initiative aimed at raising awareness of climate
change. Individuals can pledge to recycle or opt to take public transport, walk or cycle and
organizations can pledge to raise office temperatures by 1 to 2 degrees celsius. However, barely
300 pledges have been made out of 5 million people. Hence, this shows the ineffectiveness of
the programme and why climate change is a persistent problem, due to lack of public
participation and awareness.

A4 - Top countries not contributing

The countries which are amongst the top greenhouse gas emitters are not making sufficient
efforts in combating climate change, making global efforts unsuccessful overall. For example,
President Biden announced in April 2021 that the United States, one of the top greenhouse gas
emitters behind only China, will aim to cut emissions by 50 to 52 percent below its 2005 level by
2030. Even though this seems like a sufficient commitment, the world’s average temperature will
still rise 2.1°C (3.8°F) by 2100 even if countries including the United States fully implement their
pledges for 2030 and beyond. Compared to if the more than one hundred countries that have
set or are considering net-zero targets follow through, warming could be limited to 1.8˚C (3.2°F),
according to the Climate Action Tracker, these efforts made by the United States and other top
greenhouse gas emitters are simply not enough. This illustrates how the top greenhouse gas
emitters are making insufficient efforts in combating climate change, especially because their
pledges made are not legally binding and are therefore seen as optional or unnecessary for all
countries involved, when in reality, climate change is a surging and dangerous problem which
needs immediate attention and fixing. This causes their pledges or efforts to be sub-par or 'lazy',
simply lackluster compared to how much they can contribute if they were to focus their efforts on
combating climate change, instead of focusing on their own country's production in other sectors
instead. This is why these international protocols have been largely unsuccessful in combating
climate change.