During our simulation and when researching and thinking about how a developing country would address environmental concerns while also juggling development concerns, I was reminded of an episode of "Years of Living Dangerously" (a Showtime show about climate change) I once saw. In the episode Harrison Ford went to Indonesia and learnt about the rapid deforestation occurring there. The deforestation is occurring mainly due to the palm oil production. As of today over 8mil hectares of forest were deforested for palm oil plantations in Indonesia.
The forests that are being eliminated to make room for palm oil plantations store massive amounts of carbon. Furthermore, the soil itself also stores a lot more carbon than usual. Therefore, when the forests are burnt down they release much more carbon than usual while getting rid of trees that could store carbon. Aside form the emissions, deforestation also destroys animal habitats.
The episode explains that the government supports these endeavors which are funded by large First World companies such as HSBC which has been criticized in the news. As horrible as it is many developing countries do deplete their own resources because often times it is the only way for them to make money. Since we value a country's economic standing so much, they are incentivized to improve their economy at any cost. Often times the cost is the environment.
If we are to actually move forward and make strides in environmental policy it is imperative to ensure that developing countries are more incentivized to develop sustainably. We already know that the logical reasoning, there will soon be no resources, the question becomes how do we incentivize developing countries to develop sustainably? Or is there an alternative route where we separate country's economic progress with their power on a world scale? Is that possible?
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