With a new year comes a new responsibility. We are more than three months into 2015, and environmental protection is only now gaining momentum.

Across the globe, countries are taking steps to lessen their carbon footprint and eliminate the need and the use of fossil fuels.

Scotland implemented the largest tidal and wave-based plan in the world early this year, estimated to generate enough energy to potentially power 175,000 homes. International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde praised Beijing on their recent address to global pollution, and the entirety of Costa Rica was powered for 75 days with renewable resources.

Unfortunately, the United States is late to the party, which is troublesome considering the U.S. contributed about 20 percent of global emissions from fossil fuel (second only to China) as of 2008.

From 1990 to 2013, total emissions of carbon dioxide increased by 8.4 percent in America. This means that over 20 years of knowledge and about 25 years of preparation and planning amounted to nothing more than an increase in emissions.

But, it’s not for a lack of trying that the U.S. carbon dioxide increase is so prominent.

The Obama administration said Friday, “It is requiring companies that drill for oil and natural gas on federal lands to disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing,” according to an article by The Associated Press.

Additionally, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that will cut the federal government’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 40 percent over the next decade from 2008 levels, according to a fact sheet from the White House and the Office of the Press Secretary.

Furthermore, the House passed a Republican-backed bill Wednesday that requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to disclose all scientific data involved in decisions, in addition to a bill that prohibits registered lobbyists from holding office in the EPA’s Science Advisory Board.

From the same side of the aisle as the bills passed Wednesday, yet seeking different results, Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky “has begun an aggressive campaign to block President Obama’s climate change agenda,” according to The New York Times.

While countries across the globe work to great lengths to lessen the effect of climate change, the U.S. is caught up in a game of who has the stronger, more influential party.

While governmental transparency is a step in the right direction, if we take into account the age and caliber of both the fracking industry and the EPA, this action is far too little, dangerously too late.

It is important to realize that emissions are bound to vary and year-to-year differentials are not going to be the same. However, it is equally important to understand that yearly differentials will decrease if only legislation would allow.

What the United States is doing – or not doing, as is the case – in regards to greenhouse gases requires a complete reevaluation and overhaul.

If something drastic is not done quickly, the environment will plateau. Lush vegetation will never return to healthy levels, clouds of destruction will ravage the earth and smog will no doubt choke humanity into extinction.