Essay: Should developing countries prioritise protecting the environment and reducing emissions or advancing their economies and citizen’s quality of life? (persuasive essay)

Essay Question: Should developing countries prioritise protecting the environment and reducing emissions or advancing their economies and citizen’s quality of life?
Is it fair for billions of people to suffer all because they live in a country where the quality of life is so terrible that they don’t even have safe water to drink? Why do developed nations sit back, ignoring the real problems whilst they criticise the governments of developing nations trying to improve infrastructure for their citizens? Third world nations are using vast amounts of resources and releasing enormous amounts of greenhouse gases and accelerating global warming so that they can start to have something even approaching the standard of living citizens of first world nations take for granted. Every country has a responsibility to keep their carbon footprint low, but no one could disagree that stronger economies and a better quality of life for everyone wouldn’t be universally beneficial, but also, we need to dramatically cut down emissions and save resources. I don’t think that citizens of third world nations should just have to except the state of their country, but to improve it would will take many more resources to get their infrastructure to a decent standard. Instead I wish that the first world nations that are guilty of using up so many resources and have been the biggest contributors to the global warming problem help the nations who are urgently in need by using their technology, money, influence and knowledge to better the quality of billions of lives and drive down everyone’s emissions.
Improving a nation’s economy can dramatically improve standard of living for its citizens. One way to do this is to introduce new jobs so that workers will have more money, therefore more disposable income to spend which in turn will grow and strengthen its economy even further. Jobs in areas such as technological development, construction, maintenance, transportation, health care and any other sector that will enhance infrastructure and quality of life. For instance, in America, renewable energy generation such as wind and solar power industries are each making jobs available at a rate 12 times faster than any other sector of the U.S. economy. Although America’s economy is very different from less developed countries that doesn’t mean that jobs won’t be created and that citizens won’t experience the benefits that having more income brings.
Additionally, I believe that international community needs to work together to help developing countries to find an alternative path to prosperity that doesn’t involve fossil fuels and finite resources. We must stop associating economic growth with carbon emissions and fossil fuels, and instead realise that we can protect the environment whilst still prospering. By bypassing the use of finite resources and fossil fuels, developing nations may avoid many of the environmental, social and economic pitfalls that are the classic symptoms of dependence on fossil fuels. Also, because so much of the world’s economy is based on oil, coal and gas, ceasing to use fossil fuels will force us to develop the renewable energy sector and give us new opportunities for innovation.
However, unless we completely overhaul our world economy, developing countries cannot fight climate change and provide for their citizens at the same time. Developing countries will only accelerate global warming as their economies grow because they cannot afford eco alternatives. Wealthy countries are forcing poorer nations to choose between decreasing emissions and improving their citizens quality of life. But no one can afford to ignore the impact of the many growing, developing countries. This is where the richest, most prosperous nations need to step up and change things. The excuses they give for not batting an eyelid at the problem are laughable! How can they prioritise a few potholes or unreliable train services when 1 in 9 people don’t have easy access to clean drinking water, or that there are 350–500 million cases of malaria every year, with 1 million fatalities, or less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into education by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen. How can wealthy countries ignore facts like this but then criticise the governments trying to solve these specific problems and many more issues by increasing emissions?
To summarize, we may have to completely rethink our world economy, but we will be able to radically improve quality of live for the poorest people if the most prosperous nations realise that they can help developing countries cut emissions whilst bettering the developing nations economy and infrastructure. Some of the many ways we could do this are providing new jobs that will strengthen their country’s economy, finding new energy sources that won’t contribute to global warming and making long-term, lowest-emissions plans for all countries. It is necessary for developed nations to aid countries less developed than themselves, to slash emissions, protect the environment and most importantly, to help everybody achieve an equal standard of living and quality of life.