By CPP Student, Rosalinda Barcellona The United States should rejoin The Paris Agreement INTRODUCTION I. Attention Getter: Do you want your future children to suffer from our inability to take care of our environment? According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (unfccc), the Paris Agreement is a pact made by countries within this convention to fight against climate change through investments in sustainability and certain requirements such as a global cap on carbon emissions. Our country, the United States was one of the countries that signed on until President Trump withdrew us. II. Specific Purpose Statement: Today I will persuade you that President Trump should rejoin the Paris Agreement. III. Identification of Opposition Statement (Fair Hearing): Some of you may argue that the Paris Agreement is a waste of America’s money, but the effects of Global Warming are becoming increasingly more life threatening, and if America officially rejected the agreement, then the economy of other countries would be damaged. IV. Significance: This issue applies to everyone around the world. If we ignore the effects of Climate Change, then our home will continue to become less and less inhabitable. V. Credibility: I am extremely passionate about Global Climate Change and the efforts to reduce its harmful effects and I have participated in a program that taught me the many ways Global Warming has become an issue. I have also done extensive research on the consequences that will rise from the withdrawal from the agreement. VI. Preview Statement: Today we will look at the potential problems that our withdrawal will cause. Then I will propose a solution. MAJOR TRANSITION: First, let me explain the problems created by the United States’ lack of participation in the effort to fight against Climate Change. BODY I. Main Point: A withdraw will inevitably reduce the United States’ efforts to remain an environmentally sustainable country. A. Environmental issues 1. The reason this is such an important issue is because of the dangers of our unsustainable habits as a country. a. These habits include burning fossil fuels, deforestation, inefficient waste management, and overproduction of non-biodegradable products. b. The continuous burning of fossil fuels emits a variety of greenhouse gases. These gases make their way to the Earth’s atmosphere where they act as a “blanket” around the Earth because of their heat retaining properties. ii. One of the greenhouse gases, CO2, which is the primary focus of the Paris Agreement, is recycled by nature through the ability of plants to absorb it. a) You may be thinking, “well that’s good because we have a lot of trees,” but this is no longer the case due to mass deforestation for products such as palm oil, rubber, and crop land. Instead of the CO2 being absorbed by the plants, it is added to.