ISSUE #105: Climate injustice devastating the developing world.
The developed world adds the most fuel to the climate change fire while getting burnt the least.
Pakistan is going through rough times as the country experiences the worst flooding in a decade which has killed more than 1,000 Pakistanis, forced around half a million into refugee camps and around a million homes have been destroyed. The South Asian country is in dire need of help as it asks the international community for $160 million in monetary aid to face the crisis.
It’s terrifying to know that nearly one-third of the country is submerged underwater, but what’s even more terrifying is that it contributes very little to the global greenhouse emissions and still it’s at the forefront of the global climate change that is bound to wreak havoc over the world if goes unnoticed.
Climate injustice is when the countries least responsible for climate change have to suffer the most from existential climate change. Pakistan is a victim of climate injustice as the country is ranked 8th in the Long-term Global Climate Risk Index, which ranks the country according to the risk it faces from climate change, while its emissions amount to less than 1% of the global greenhouse gas emissions.
None of the countries mentioned in the index plays the leading role in causing climate change, but all of the countries mentioned are facing the dire consequences of it as the countries playing the leading role in climate change watch their destruction.
I added the total emissions of these countries as a share of global emissions and the result came out to be less than 2%. The countries experiencing the worst of the climate crisis are not the ones that should be experiencing the worst of the climate crisis, but this is what we’ve got. The mainstream thinking is that if Pakistan is experiencing its worst natural disaster in a decade then the culprit is Pakistan alone because it’s happening in their region, but that’s not how climate change impacts countries. It would be true if the emissions coming out of one country’s vehicles stayed in that country, or if we had no fly zones for one country’s greenhouse gases in other countries’ airspace, but we all know it’s not possible.
It’s worse when the developing world has to pay a hefty price for something they are not responsible, but what’s even more worse is that they don’t even have the means to cope with the climate crisis. The “developed” world can better handle Pakistan-like situation because people in these countries have wealth funds and insurance to cover their safety costs, temporary accommodation, better and many ways of receiving money from abroad, etc. People in the less wealthy countries don’t have means necessary to handle the crisis, they don’t always have reliable access to a safe accommodation, food, energy, water, etc.
It doesn’t stop there. These countries are further pushed into debt fighting the climate crisis.
“The world’s least developed countries received $3.2bn in loans in 2017-18 to help them with the costs of adapting to the ravages of the climate crisis,” writes The Guardian.
It’s like hitting an already physically impaired person with a car or something and then providing him a loan for his treatment.
Those destroying the planet the most are exactly the ones benefitting from destruction the most and suffering the least. They are also the ones who control our political system, therefore, we never see any real action taken for the protection of our planet.
Industrial revolution, which was funded by oil, coal, and gas, made the Global North richer in monetary terms than the Global South, but the richness came at a cost that seemed to be too small back then but has compounded since to become a matter of life and death now.
The developing world doesn’t need loans or aid, it needs reparations.
If I keep throwing garbage inside your house so that my house can look clean, and I keep doing it for years until a day comes when your house becomes inhabitable. What would you do then: ask me for a loan or force me to pay reparations?
Saying that the US or Canada or UK or any other heavily industrialized country is “sending aid to Pakistan” gives the feeling that these countries are generous for helping the needy Pakistan, but a thief doesn’t become generous for giving you a few bucks after he steals everything from your house and destroy your house.
Wealth inequality wasn’t enough that we have climate inequality staring in our eyes. Capitalism is great at making more of things and one of them is inequalities of different kinds.
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