In regards to environmental problems, some individuals firmly believe that they can only be tackled through international cooperation between various countries due to how complicated said problems are. In that sense, I completely agree that countries must work together in order to start working towards a more hospitable planet, however, I’d also like to point out a potentially negative implication that might accompany such conviction.
It must firstly be established that environmental issues don’t exist in a vacuum. Mass deforestation that occurs in a country in Southeast Asia would affect the supply of the planet’s oxygen, which consequently have an effect on other countries, including those in continents outside Asia. Naturally, this points to the fact that regardless of our countries, skin colors, cultures, and religions, we all share earth as the planet that we live on. Thus, it’s a rational and beneficial process for our representatives to congregate and discuss effective policies that would address environmental issues both in the short term and long term. With countries working as a collective, they’re better suited to handle issues related to the environment compared to countries as lone entities.
However, a certain mindset that might underpin such belief that international cooperation is necessary to solve environmental issues could prove detrimental towards the progress of making the earth a healthier planet. This mindset would resemble an all-or-nothing attitude in its unyielding belief that either international cooperation is enacted or it isn’t, and if it isn’t, all hope for a more sustainable planet is lost. While it is undeniable that international policies would be far more effective than national policies in solving environmental issues, individual countries could still have a major impact on the global environment. For instance, Indonesia has one of the largest tropical rainforests in the world. If local forest systems were to be maintained and conserved, it would benefit not only the country, but the planet as a whole, similar to the previous example of how deforestation affects other countries negatively.
In conclusion, while I completely agree that international cooperation must be reached to effectively address environmental issues, I’d caution against the conviction that other local means are less effective and thus not worth considering. I’d argue that it’s better for individual countries to handle the relevant environmental issues of their own as they work towards a compromise with other countries regarding the global environmental issue.