Climate Crisis and Climate Justice: A global Perspective

Soumayan Dutta, Debodeep Banerjee, Subhro Kundu | June 06, 2022 | Published Online

[This article is the first part of a three part series on the theme of ‘Environment, Capitalism and Class Inequalities’ by the Indian Researcher].

A look back in the past

History is unfortunately a tale of the so-called winners. Today, the world order is shaped in such a way that we often tend to overlook points of singularity of many, many aspects. Or worse, we remain blissfully unaware of the underlying patterns of everything that has unraveled in the way they are today. Climate change is undoubtedly one of, if not the most pressing concern that humanity has faced till date. The sheer extent of it is unnerving. More than 200 million people [1] are projected to be homeless or move their home in the next three decades, irrespective of the action taken. The most affected regions are South Asia and South America. And both these regions have been under direct European colonial rule for centuries. The European dream and desire to export their culture and customs to the rest of the world was strengthened manifold with the advent of the first industrial revolution. Any rebellion, any discontent within the colonies was now being dealt with an unprecedented scale of oppression. With increasingly weakening native socio-economic fabric, the colonies succumbed to despair. European “rule of law” converted the colonies into easily available resources to fund more and more advancement in their standard of living. The ingrained inequality of the colonial structures gave birth to the world we know today – one split into global north and south. The global north failed to understand very basic needs of life. As the trade footprint of these colonies kept on falling, those of the colonizers were on the rise. In a span of only a quarter of a century, the export share of India fell from 27% to just 2%. Since means of productions were owned by the European colonizers, almost all the revenue was gobbled up by them. The industrial revolution bore its first fruit to the elite of Europe. The carbon footprint left by the post industrial revolution started taking havoc tolls on the overall health of earth. Being in an geographically and economically inadvantegeous position, the colonies were pushed towards more and more danger.

Figure 1 represents the average temperature variation from 1880 to 2020. From this curve, we can see that the temperature was fluctuating with an amplitude of 0.2°C until 1940. Till that time the average of variation is around 0. But as we can see between 1940 and 1960 there is a minute increase in temperature variation. Post 1960, we observed a steep increase in average global temperature in each decade. 

The global south is on the verge of the greatest ever ecological disaster in human history. Sadly, they have little to do with what awaits them. The polluted air that they breathe, the toxic water they drink are not a choice they made. Unaffordability to healthy alternatives of lifestyle in post-colonial nations is more of a liability to the residents themselves rather than being a choice. Hence, without the context of past history and never-ending shadow of colonialist debris, the climate analysis of the 21st century remains not only incomplete but unjust. It is undeniable that the world must come together for a sustainable and healthy planet, but the global north, especially the west must admit their responsibility to the fullest for bringing it here. On the brink.

Unraveling spiral of climate change and catch-up play

Figure 2 depicts a greenhouse gas emission trend around the world. This is how it is at the end of the day. Blurring national boundaries, transnational organizations’ shared and varied orientation, the truth of the day remains a gloomy tomorrow for humankind. The era of unprecedented technological development kicked in with the great war of the 20th century. From horse drawn carriages to motorized armoured vehicle – war industry came a very long way indeed. Fueled with seemingly unlimited exploitation of natural resources, the war machinery of the west conquered swathes of land. The environmental impact of it still remains an under-explored niche. Unlike the previous wars, this one lasted longer than any of them could imagine. Loss of forest cover over France, Germany, Belgium were so significant that much of these places ceased to exist as diverse ecosystems[2]. Instead, they became monocultures in the post-war environment. But the biggest impact has been the change in nature of soil. Presence of heavy metals like copper and lead contaminated the soil quality, affected pedogenesis, killed lively ecosystems and left behind tonnes of unexploded ordinance. Till date, considerably large areas in France are demarcated as “zone rouge”, meaning “red zone”, which are in uninhabitable condition. Between 1914 to 1918, approx. 1.45 bn artillery were fired by the allied/axis. The deadliest feature of world war 1 was the use of chemical weapons – which has far reaching implications like loss of fertility of soil, alteration in soil characteristics altogether, emissions of sulphuric and other greenhouse gasses to the environment.

By the conclusion of WW I, much of the geopolitical balance was tilted. An imperialist world order was on a steady decline. Capitalism, fueled by the behemoth of North America, was soon becoming the driving force of the west. The United States is equipped with manpower, political opportunities, and capital. The land of golden opportunity got involved in European war affairs from a very early stage. With continued support in terms of food and arms from across the Atlantic, the allied gradually became a force to reckon with. We see, the carbon emissions have historically been on the higher end for industrially developing nations/regions. To speak plainly, historical emission (1850 to 1950) shows the US, UK, Germany and to an extent, Russia as the chart breakers. We see net emission by the US has been on the rise for quite some time in that time period. As the conflict among industrially sound nation states of Europe goes on increasing, the US continues to ramp up their production and thus, tipping the traditional west in terms of GDP and carbon footprint. The opportunity borne by the great war did not go in vain. A full fledged war industry came into existence. The sheer scale and efforts, and resources needed to sustain those efforts are clearly visible in the carbon dioxide emission footprint by the west (1900-1925).

If we now turn our attention to the more recent decades,  we see China and India are emerging as one of the highest emitters of greenhouse gasses(Figure 3A), and in turn notable contributors to global warming. We see a considerably higher learning curve for recent economic powerhouses than the established nation-states. While in Figure 3A, we see China as highest emitter of CO2 , figure 3B, we see the USA is the highest contributor in the per capita emission of CO2. This difference can be attributed to the rapid technological and industrial prowess, and an increasingly open world market. But the per capita emissions for these countries remain less than that of the traditional west and the US. A class oriented sneak peek into these nation states might show us the uncomfortable truth for the affluent and most resourceful people. While focusing on the class aspect, the richest of the rich stand to gain in magnitudes alike, irrespective of their religious affinity or national identity. A region-wise distribution of wealth leads us to the epicenter of accumulation – the west. Till date, the high-income group have contributed to 38% of entire CO2 emissions of the world, whereas they constitute around 16% of the entire population. Among this 16%, more than 90% affluent people are from the global north. Which evidently points to the great inequality of wealth distribution. In all sense, this should be the starting point of any sensible, impactful and sustainable discussion on climate analysis. But, in the popular rhetoric of recent times, we often see China and India under fire for riding the vehicle of growth – and consequently moving up the ladder in terms of year-on-year carbon emission footprint. Not it is fair, neither is justified to expect China and India to gallop to the state-of-the-art environmental standards for industries. The dual standard practice of moral preaching when it comes to the question of development of the global south must come to a halt.

Climate justice and climate finance

The effect of climate change is not equally borne by the poor and rich. The poorer people and poorer countries are more vulnerable towards the effect climate crisis than the rich ones. Thus we are introduced to the idea of climate justice. In order to define climate justice, one may refer to the definition that is used by the Mary Robinson Foundation – ‘climate justice links human rights and development to achieve a human-centred approach, safeguarding the rights of the most vulnerable and sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change and its resolution equitably and fairly’[15].  While the whole world is concerned for a sustainable world, the situation is more tragic for the global south. Global south is in such a position where they are tied up with both economic justice and climate justice.  When we talk about climate, we ought to address the industry and the rapid modification of the nature of capitalist industry- what do we exactly refer to by the rapid modification of the industry? The method of production has been more climate concerned than before. But, the tragedy is that the cleaner technology is not equally affordable; while the richer countries are more prone to adapt to this climate-friendly system of production, the poorer countries are left behind. As an obvious outcome, they become more vulnerable towards the menace of worsening climate conditions. However, they were consoled with a pseudo solution. In order to help them deal with climate change, the wealthy countries have pledged to donate $100 billion per year. The figure below depicts the amount of money distributed in this cause and it is quite clear that the promise of injecting 100 billion USD per year was not even met for once. 

The four primary sources are essentially tracked by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In none of the last six years, the pledged amount was met. While the amount was merely 52.4 billion USD in 2013, the amount raised to 79.5 billion USD(see Figure 4). Nonetheless, the argument of the broken promise remains the same and the wealthy countries must assume responsibility in this tragic failure to keep up the promise. A deep-rooted history and practices of capitalist profit-based propaganda, and a colonialist social superstructure are responsible for this climate crisis and climate injustice. The policy of distribution of this fund has categorical aspects too.  

In Figure 5, we observe that the money allotted for climate finance is primarily based on three categories and ‘Mitigation’ outperforms the other two categories throughout the 4 years. This situation explicitly implies that the wealthy countries are more focused on developing projects to reduce carbon emission rather than helping people adapt to climate change. However, this is not the ideal scenario. While mitigation of the climate crisis is a very important component of the whole program, helping people adapt to climate change is an essential component too.

Development: What is the cost?

In the game of playing catch-up to the first world, the global south, growth has been the driving factor of economy of nations like China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam. When the economies of these countries opened up, a floodgate opened for US and its like-minded allies. The practice of elite capitalists of the US to export “dirty production facilities” down south (to Mexico, Colombia and other American smaller nation states) got a bigger and better breathing space.

Figure 6 is a graphical representation of comparing per capita CO2 emission of India, China, United Kingdom, and the United States. If we segregate the full plot between 1800-1900(first part) and 1900-recent years (second part). We know that from 1880 to 1900 the center of the world’s capital was the United Kingdom. This representation showed us that in the first part UK was the top CO2 producer of the world even though India and China have no significant emission. In the second part, we see the US taking the centerstage. Timeframe of the event coincides with that of the advent of modern capitalism. we can see a sharp rise in CO2 emission in the US after 1900. Even after 1950, when China started their phase of far-reaching industrial revolution, their per capita CO2 emission did not cross the US. Following a constant growth curve of economy and hence emission, China became the 2nd largest economy of the world but its CO2 emission per capita is still lagging the US.

A memo that did rounds within the finance sector and eventually got out to the outer world. In the year of 1991, signed (and hence approved) by the then chief economist of World Bank, the memo read – “let them eat pollution”. It was about dumping the waste from the production of the developed world in the undeveloped nations. This capitalist mentality of growing at the expense of others, the audacity of pretending to own everyone and everything, to get something desired at all costs is a menace to the very existence of an inhabitable, humane future. Eventually, the global south indeed has become the back office for realising the dream that sells. The corporate language of “we” doesn’t really refer to a sense of togetherness. It means a select few who have been able to climb up the poultry cages or have been handed over an opportunity due to hereditary advantages. As a result, nations like India continue to grow at an inhumane expense of its own people – the lowest rung of the society. The poorer section continues to live in unhealthy spaces and have very limited or no access to clean water or even nutritious food. The unequal growth story shall continue to unfold unless there’s assumed responsibilities from the benefitted and privileged. Climate finance can have a very impactful and long-lasting role to play here. The bulk contributor to global warming must be curtailed by targeted carbon footprint reduction, like replacing conventional energy sources with renewable ones.

If we are to even remotely follow the guidelines laid down by IPCC to limit global mean temperature rise within a cumulative change of 1.5°C to 2°C, we must act fast and just. A moralist standpoint in the question of responsibility is a generic trend observed among traditional right-wing political observers. These dual standard demands to be called out, since objective study and historical analysis of the burden of emissions clearly shows a skewed trend of co-contribution from the global north. The international panels on climate-related coordination must device methods to prevent a possible collapse of sensible measures and room for discussion. For example, India’s commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2070 is an ambitious target indeed. Since 1870 to 2019, India’s net contribution to the emissions has been 4% only [5]. Despite having a favourable historical backdrop, India’s commitment to reach net zero emissions has recently been further bolstered by more recent targets (pledged in COP26) like obtaining 500GW of non-fossil energy by 2030 [16]. 

Ensuring a fair climate finance policy and fulfillment of pledges made especially by global north remains unsatisfactory.

Acknowledgement

We sincerely thank Kaustuv Ganguly and Soham Bhattacharya for helping us in preparing this piece. 

Authors are part of Research Associate Team, Indian Researcher.

End Notes

1) European “rule of law” doesn’t have any direct correlation with the climate but the written framework of laws served as a tool of exploitation.

2)  The information related to this can be obtained from this article. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-by-income-region

References

1. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/09/13/climate-change-could-force-216-million-people-to-migrate-within-their-own-countries-by-2050
2. Heiderscheidt, Drew (2018) “The Impact of World War one on the Forests and Soils of Europe,” Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado: Vol. 7 : No. 3. https://digscholarship.unco.edu/urj/vol7/iss3/3
3. https://monthlyreviewarchives.org/index.php/mr/article/view/MR-044-08-1993-01_2
4. https://www.statista.com
5. https://www.marxist.com/global-warming-marxist-perspective.htm
6. http://ppqs.gov.in/statistical-database/
7. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02846-3
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9. https://moef.gov.in/en/ministrys-portals/
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11. http://climateequitymonitor.in/
12. https://www.oecd.org/
13. https://peoplesdemocracy.in/2021/1031_pd/can-developing-world-stand-global-north-cop-26; https://climate.nasa.gov/
14. https://frontline.thehindu.com/environment/ipcc-report-2021-calls-for-immediate-action-rather-than-rhetorical-references-to-a-climate-crisis/article36039407.ece
15. https://www.mrfcj.org/pdf/Geography_of_Climate_Justice_Introductory_Resource.pdf
16. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1795071