Article by Flavia Vigliotti

Photo by Eelco Böhtlingk on Unsplash

‘The United States is responsible for 40% of climate breakdown in the world today’, the EU is not far behind with 29%. The Global North (GN) sums together with a catastrophic 92% [1]. How is it fair that in the GN we cause most of the issues, and face few of the consequences? We may be unaware of the global impacts of climate change, particularly in the Global South (GS). Our lack of awareness can stem from our geographical detachment and our economic ability to deal with the consequences when they do impact us. Nations in the GS are speaking up and calling out the richer countries, for example the prime minister of the Bahamas said his country needs help from the UK to pay for damages caused by climate change [2]. The consequences of climate change are evidently far worse in the GS due to a ‘climate of injustice’ [3]. These unequal costs of climate change on the GS are nothing new. In the 1995 Berlin Climate Change Conference, Atiq Rahman, of Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, stressed the realities of climate injustice to a room of scientists and negotiators, “If climate change makes our country uninhabitable” he warned “We will march with our wet feet into your living rooms” [4]. However, in recent years we have witnessed increased extreme weather, forest fires and flooding in the GN, but this does not stop these nations from continuing to burn fossil fuels and destroying the planet. Exploitation of poorer nations for better profits continues, in many environmentally damaging ways, including climate colonialism, “the exploitation of resources in the GS, for green agendas in the GN” [5].

Former President George H. W. Bush’s famous statement that “the American lifestyle is not negotiable” at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit [6] tells you all you need to know about the GN’s attitude towards climate related injustices. The pursuit of the neoliberal capitalist agenda of economic growth and increasing consumption in the GN is devastating environments in the GS and fueling climate breakdown. For example, food and fashion industries are expanding on unethical levels, these industries have been outsourced to countries in the GS to avoid strict employment regulations and increase profits. Consumers in the GN pay cheap prices for food and fashion, but the price is paid in the GS through human rights violations, exploitation of land and resources, pollution and ultimately climate breakdown.

The impacts on land and communities are extensive, spanning from food and water scarcity to loss of biodiversity and health risks. The GS is becoming uninhabitable. We are seeing an increase of climate refugees, those who are having to flee their homeland due to climate related disasters. Other effects include cultural impacts; indigenous communities are losing cultural practices due to the destruction of traditional land. Additionally, women and children face the brunt of climate change in these nations due to social inequalities.

Countries are trying to find solutions to mitigate the impact of climate change. One approach, that of carbon offsetting, a type of reforestation involving grabbing ancestral land from indigenous communities to plant a fast-growing monoculture of trees. We also believe that green technologies like electric vehicles are the way out, but they are more wasteful than we realise, simply adding to the climate injustice. During the production of one electric car, nearly 4 tonnes of CO2 are released [7] if we compare this to the annual carbon emissions of the average Somalian, which is 40kg [8], we can see the disproportionate effects of climate change and unequal costs being paid. Somalia is a country suffering climate breakdown, according to the BBC “Last year Somalia experienced terrible floods, made more intense by global warming. Yet they have emitted as much CO2 from fossils fuels since the 1950s as the US economy does in 3 days” [9]. Rechargeable batteries for EVs are powered by cobalt, a finite resource mined by workers labouring in slave-like conditions in the DRC [10], another country suffering from climate breakdown. Those emitting the least carbon emissions, contributing the least to climate change, are suffering the most.

It often feels as though we are trying to find solutions to continue our extravagant lifestyle, rather than preparing to switch to meaningful solutions that will positively impact the planet. These solutions can come in many forms, such as policy and legislation, global climate agreements, stricter conservation and protection of green spaces; ones that don’t involve exploitation of land, resources and people in the GS, but solutions that will help everyone. Oxfam is calling on the UK chancellor to increase taxes on “climate-polluting extreme wealth” [11]. If governments act quickly on promises from the Paris climate agreement, there is hope of avoiding the worst consequences of climate change. We must wake up to the realities of the damage that’s being done, everywhere. Immediate action needs to be taken on both personal and governmental scales.

[1] https://eos.org/articles/global-north-is-responsible-for-92-of-excess-emissions

[2] https://ww.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/20/starmer-faces-slavery-reparations-demands-at-commonwealth-summit?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[3] Urry. J (2009). ‘Sociology and Climate change’, The Sociological Review, 57(2), pp. 84-100. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2010.01887.x

[4] Roberts, J.T and Parks, B. (2007) A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy. MIT press. Available at: https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.manchester.idm.oclc.org/lib/manchester/reader.action?docID=3338483&ppg=1

[5] https://www.fairplanet.org/story/understanding-climate-colonialism/

[6] https://themacweekly.com/61550/archive/bush-the-american-lifestyle-is-non-negotiable/

[7] https://earth.org/environmental-impact-of-battery-production/

[8] https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/blog/which-countries-have-the-smallest-carbon-footprints

[9] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62rr5qe602o

[10] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/01/1152893248/red-cobalt-congo-drc-mining-siddharth-kara

[11] https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/28/carbon-emissions-of-richest-1-increase-hunger-poverty-and-deaths-says-oxfam

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