One of the main issues in the fight against climate change that people never seem to agree on is who is responsible for much of the damage. It is an important question that will inevitably impact the solutions that are proposed to fix things. After all, how can we strike the problem at its root if we can’t determine where the root is?

The answer to this question is, unfortunately, not very clear either. Responsibility for climate change is split between fossil fuel companies, developed nations, developing nations, politicians/regulators, the wealthy, and even regular people. Worse yet; people are aware of this, yet don’t cover it since people wouldn’t like to take the blame for any negative consequences they see affecting their surroundings.

Fossil fuel (coal, oil, natural gas, etc) companies are the ones most immediately held responsible for global warming. After all, not only do they harvest fossil fuels whose combustion itself pollutes the atmosphere, but certain methods of harvesting natural gas in particular — notably fracking (short for “hydraulic fracturing”) — release a highly potent greenhouse gas called methane into the atmosphere.

While it might seem obvious upon hearing of the environmental ruin caused by fossil fuel extraction that the first step in dealing with climate change is to get rid of these companies, that isn’t as simple as it sounds. Society is so dependent on fossil fuels as its primary energy sources that if companies extracting fossil fuels simply stopped doing so, human infrastructure would collapse. Who should we blame then? The extractors of fossil fuels, the manufacturers who use these fuels to produce goods, the politicians who regulate these products or the consumers who buy products manufactured with fossil fuels? Additionally, many alternative environmentally-friendly sources of energy (such as wind and solar) that have been proposed to replace fossil fuels are in relatively early stages of development and, although they are more accessible than ever before, they are still nowhere near as widespread as natural gas and coal.

Others, therefore, say that individual humans must adapt their lifestyles to have a smaller “carbon footprint” before we can phase out fossil fuels. However, this proposal also isn’t very clear since not everyone has the same carbon footprint as others. According to a study done by researchers at Sheffield Hallam University, the wealthiest people tend to be the largest consumers, meaning they buy more things that increase their carbon footprint. In addition, wealthier people may have private planes, as well as large homes that require more heating and maintenance, which can both contribute to atmospheric pollution.

From this, many people also infer that developed nations are at fault, since the world’s wealthiest reside in those nations and those nations are not addressing the excessive consumerism of such people. However, it can also be argued that developing nations are at fault as well, since they are not wealthy or industrialized enough to electrify equipment that uses combustible materials to operate, or transition to more expensive renewable forms of energy. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing exactly which countries have the largest carbon footprint, since multiple studies surveyed for this article each provided a different assessment of this.

What this all means is that as individuals, we cannot know for a fact who or what the largest contributors to climate change are beyond that the wealthy (individuals and nations)  certainly have a larger carbon footprint than others. However, we have to act on climate change anyway before we damage the environment beyond repair. We need more renewables and less fossil fuels as our energy source. We need better technology and stronger policy to move in the right direction. Thus, although we may not know which nations should take foremost responsibility for this issue, we should all take it upon ourselves to act to stop climate change and advocate for action in our nations, regardless of where we may be.