The Motion for Round 3

Hey, y'all.

The theme for today's motion is the environment.

One of the most pressing issues confronting humanity today is the spectre of climate change. The rapid industrialisation of the world in the past 300 years has had an adverse impact on the environment and ecosystems around the world. Many in the scientific community consider the 21st Century to be the tipping point for the climate change phenomenon. If we continue polluting at this rate, the world will become an extremely hostile place for humans to live, with rising temperatures and mass industrialisation causing desertification of forest areas and melting of icecaps and glaciers. This will further result in mass flooding in low lying areas and may even submerge several small island nations in their entirety.

While governments have been slow to accept climate change, it seems as if the tide has finally turned, with the Lima and Paris Accords due to be ratified by the international community in the coming 2 years. However, as always, international co-operation on climate change is hampered by the mounting need for economic development. This involves the claim made by developing countries in stating that their obligations towards the environment are different from those of developed countries due to varying degrees of industrial development.

While the international community struggles to come to terms with this phenomenon, it is widely accepted that climate change is an undeniable reality that every country must come to terms with, in their policy.

Keeping this in mind, the motion for today is: 

This House believes that developing countries should prioritise the need to combat climate change over considerations of economic development