Developing Nations and the Debate on Fossil Fuel vs Renewable Energy

Running head: ACADEMIC ASSIGNMENT
Academic assignment
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1ACADEMIC ASSIGNMENT
Introduction:
There has a long standing debate that whether nations around the world need to
transform itself from the fossil fuel based economy to a renewable fuel based economy or
not. Though, various international forums has been created since the 1980s when the effect of
the global warming came at a large number in front of the humankind, yet very little has been
done during the next three four decades (O’Neill et al. 2017). Some of the developed
countries has adhered the greener technologies in order to make the environment free of
carbon emission, however, when it comes to the developing nations, then it can be seen that
the states has failed to absorb the greener technologies owing to various reasons. Under this
scenario, this essay is meant to provide an argumentative overview of this much discussed
phenomenon, from the different aspects. It will portray the scenario through the
environmental perspective and from the point of view of the economy that whether
developing nations need to absorb the green fuel as the mechanism of making earth carbon
emission free or it is mere a tale.
Economic point of view:
The main argument of the change in the fossil fuel usage by the developing nation
was brought in by the Kyoto Protocol back in 1982, which bring in the idea of common but
differentiated responsibilities, that argue in favour of the different amount of responsibility by
the different state in order to reduce the effect of the carbon emission through fossil fuel
because it is one of the main source of the carbon emission (Quaschning 2016). Under this
scenario, developing nations were burdened with the additional production of the greenhouse
gases due to the fact that they are in their growth stage, where the industrialisation taking
place.
Contrary to this, various researches like Covert et al. (2016) has argued that, it is
uttermost important to keep in mind that, global warming has been enhanced due to the

2ACADEMIC ASSIGNMENT
historical usage of the fossil fuel by the developed nations. Thus, they are more responsible
for shifting them from fossil fuel based economy to greener energy economy. However, they
have failed to do so miserably and now through various international forum, developed
nations are enforcing the developing nation to absorb high priced, hard to utilise green fuels
for their enhanced growth (Boserup 2017).
As per the view of the researcher developing nations should not stop utilising the
fossil fuel at a rapid rate, because it will deteriorate the stability of the economy. Firms, in the
developing nation are mostly accustomed to the fossil fuel based technology, which in case a
change will make fluctuation in the performance of the workers in the developing nation and
leading to fall in the productivity as well. In order to transform the developing nations from
fossil fuel based economy to renewable based economy, respective government should bring
in the change in phased manner so as to allow the citizen absorb the transformation properly
(Twidell and Weir 2015). On the other hand, for this transformation, huge amount of money
is required, that need to be sourced by the developed nation due to their historical exploitation
of the environment. In addition to this, as per the researcher, if the developed nation fails to
provide proper assistance, then in spite of the restriction on fossil fuel, developing nations
need to carry on utilising the same because, developing nations are not solely responsible for
the global warming, rather the developed nations are the main culprit who brought in the
same.
Environmental point of view:
From the report of NASA, it can be seen that fossil fuel will be available until 2040
and then there will be scarcity of the same making the world a paralysed place, where the
firms will stop work and eventually economies around the world will start to fall (Muller-
Kraenner 2015). Thus, from the perspective of the world environment, it is essential for the
nations to move from fossil fuel based energy source to greener technology based economy.