After doing some research on our country's youth groups we found that Eco House is the biggest youth group working on the environment and sustainability in Argentina. With more than 600 volunteers, they focus on educating the population about climate change and how to reduce the damage we do. They have educated around 50 000 students on climate change, in addition to providing several courses and classes in areas of poverty. They work on an international and national level. They have de support of the "Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible" (Ministry of Environment and sustainable development) of Argentina and they have had direct contact with the United Nations. They have appeared several times on local TV and newspapers, as well as radio shows, and their actions have helped approve the law "Ley Nacional de Cambio Climático"

(https://news.agrofy.com.ar/not...)

The most industrialized countries are usually the ones that benefitted the most from fossil fuels. By making great use of these, countries like China, and the United States were able to reach a strong and stable economical position but they have also emitted large amounts of CO2. We can see the relation between the use of fossil fuels, CO2 emissions, and economical power is quite linear. The countries that caused the most damage are then the ones who have more resources to correct it but are usually also less interested in doing so. The most economically powerful have little dependency on the planet and nature and have the resources to protect themselves from the consequences brought by their emissions. Usually, these countries function rather like businesses. Fossil fuels are a quite cheap easy option that works fine, though they will not be here for much longer and still create a lot of damage; renewable sources are usually a lot more expensive to set up and will only be profitable in quite a long time making it less likely for them to be chosen. Not all economically powerful countries behave in this way, of course. For example, Sweden recycles almost all its waste and uses renewable sources of energy that feed at least a quarter of its population. 

Contrary to this, the economically weaker populations are the ones more exposed to the effects of climate change while they are the ones that least contributed to the problem. This is the case of several African and South American countries. Many African populations suffer from several problems such as water and food shortages due to flooding, droughts, and changes in the distribution of rainfall. Others, like the ones in the Sahel, are semi-nomadic and farmers so climate change affects them greatly as well as they depend on the seasonal rotation to feed their animals. On top of this, Africa struggles with more imminent problems, like hunger and diseases, which are their priorities at the moment so they cannot be expected to do much to fix climate change. This is similarly true for other poor regions like the ones in South America and other parts of the world.

Most of the most economically powerful countries belong to the Global North but I would not use geography to determine which countries have a moral obligation to do something. I think all countries have an obligation to do as much as they can (especially considering each one’s economical situation) to help. We can consider the countries with the most emissions to have a greater responsibility for the damage caused and therefore should be the ones to put more effort into fixing it but, even though this may be true, we cannot leave this matter only for those countries to fix it because if we don’t all do our part, the problem will never be solved.

Our country, Argentina, is really not the best example of an eco-friendly country. There are several systemic changes we could make to help us all move towards climate justice. Argentina could inform its people about climate change more, having it as an important part of the educational curriculum at schools. We could have more centers and groups informing people and making at least some small changes. The government’s budget for ecological projects could also be increased and we should make this issue more of a priority.

There are several things we could do at our school and community as well. We could do more campaigns, projects, and have more talks to create awareness, give people ways to reduce their impact, make recycling easier and more efficient, etc.

Even though making systemic changes in our county would be quite hard, especially considering Argentina’s economical problems and lack of interest in the climate issue, we could still do more to at least create a change in our community. Eco house has been a huge step towards this last aim of changing our community.

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