"It is unrealistic to expect individual nations to make, independently, the sacrifices necessary to conserve energy.
International leadership and worldwide cooperation are essential if we expect to protect the world's energy resources for future generations."
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading."

The argument states that it is unrealistic to expect individual nations to make, independently, the sacrifices necessary to conserve energy. International leadership and worldwide cooperation are essential if we expect to protect the world's energy resources for future generations. The issue of international cooperation vis-a-vis contribution of individual nations for the purpose of saving the environment and sustainable development is debatable. The topic is increasingly important in this time when the earth and its atmosphere are under the threat of climatic changes and global warming.
Though it is true that international cooperation is must for implementing policies across the board, contribution of individual nations cannot be denied. Furthermore, it cannot be ignored that big picture is made up of smaller pieces. In this essay I shall argue that contribution of individual nations is also equally important, if not more, towards sustainable development and protecting world's energy resources for future generations.

Firstly, every little effort towards reducing damage counts. Efforts made by individual nations will also reduce or at least contain the damage. Waiting for international consensus to form will lead to irreversible damage to environment. At present, time is the key as every day the resources are depleting.

Secondly, today what we need is innovation in developing and using alternative, sustainable and renewable energy resources. If one nation can innovate, others are likely to follow the model.
It will be few individual nations that will lead the way for the world. These first movers only formulate the template for international cooperation. Thus, it is the individual leadership that will lead to collective and international cooperation, not vice-versa. If we look at history for example, in the past wars- World War I & World War II, lead was taken by a few key nations, in starting war as well as peace, and rest of the world followed suit.


Finally, it is impractical to assume that one and all will agree to a convention and then, rules and regulations will be enacted and then implementation will take place. On the contrary, this is a path that will form while marching. Solution here is more a bottoms up approach than top-down one.

Therefore, conceding to the fact that international cooperation is obligatory to protect the world's energy resources for future generations, necessity of contribution and efforts required of individual nations cannot be denied. Though many aspects of this debate can never be resolved to everybody's satisfaction, but in the long run acknowledging importance of efforts of individual nations, and then expecting international consensus shall go a long way.