My diagram shows the many different steps that ultimately went into the Copenhagen Accord coming to fruition. I began with global warming and greenhouse gas emissions because they are the main source of problems that are causing climate change. The emissions are hurting the environment, not in one specific area but all over the world. The UN conventions on climate change were extremely important because they brought many countries together to try and find a solution for climate change. What came out of the convention was ultimately the formation of the Copenhagen Accord. For the Copenhagen Accord to be able to work like they wanted it to, it needs the backing of many other countries, even those that are poorer and smaller. One problem with this is smaller countries that were not causing many greenhouse gas emissions were feeling as if they would not be benefiting from the accord as well as larger, more prominent countries would. The Copenhagen Accord being passed would greatly serve the interests of the United States. Cables that showed these negotiation tactics were obtained by WikiLeaks and released to the public. The United States began to try and coerce other countries that were not as interested in being involved, just for their own benefit. Other countries were being promised money and being threatened if they did not join. All in all, the 140 out of 193 of the countries involved in the goal for climate change are now in support of the accord.

Although I think that it is unfortunate that the United States was put in such a bad light from the release of the cables, I do believe that it is a good thing that they were published for the public to see. What occurred was wrong and people deserve to see what is going on behind closed doors, especially with things such as climate change, something universally affects everyone. It should absolutely be publicized that the strong countries of the world are taking advantage of their power position and trying to bully the smaller, weaker countries into taking the same amount of responsibility. This takes into question the ethics of what was done. I do not believe that it was ethical for the United States to bribe and threaten the other countries into joining the accord just for their own advancement. With such a large issue such as climate change, I think it is incredibly wrong and goes against ethics to bully other countries into doing what the United States thinks is best for our own country. By not taking into consideration how wrong it is to do this, the United States was being extremely selfish and I believe it is important to share the information that was in the cables to show that no one can just get away with these “negotiation” tactics. I believe that in the future, steps must be taken so what the United States did to other countries cannot be done again. There needs to be preventative measures taken where all countries can equally share responsibility for what they have done or still need to do in regards to different issues throughout the world and correct collective action can be put into these large scale issues.