Climate disruptions by Ornaith O'Dowd, NYC

If you've blinked in the last several days, you will have missed media coverage of the Climate Change Congress, which took place on March 10-12 in Copenhagen. Climate scientists gathered there to assess the latest evidence of climate change. The message that emerged from the Congress was stark: we are facing (at least) the IPCC's worst case scenario. Climate disruption is worse than we had feared, even in 2007, and that was bad enough. Unsurprisingly, this has garnered far less attention than the economic crisis. The right insists that neoliberalism be shored up, restoring business as usual as possible. The Keynesian center (or center-left, depending on where one is standing) argues for massive public investment to create jobs and boost consumer spending. Contemporary Keynesians acknowledge the climate crisis and advocate a "green stimulus," with investment focusing on public transport and clean energy. As far as it goes, this makes sense, but it does not go far enough to begin addressing the problem on an appropriate scale. (The severity of the problem warrants significant reductions in energy consumption, all told, as well.) I want to discuss an aspect of the issue that usually goes unmentioned in the mainstream, but is essential to an adequate response: global justice and the long history of exploitation by the global North of the global South.
China recently became the world's largest emitter of carbon; other "developing" countries are following suit as industrialization and car use increase. Clearly, these countries cannot continue on this path if we are to tackle climate disruption. However, they are understandably piqued that "developed" countries grew rich precisely by expanding polluting industry and car use-- but without any restrictions or penalty.
Moreover, as a recent editorial in the UK Guardian points out, much of the carbon emanating from "developing" countries comes from the manufacture of goods destined for consumption in "developed" countries like the United States, often by foreign corporations (or their subcontractors). As is well known, U.S. (and other) corporations have chased lax environmental and labor regulations, as well as cheap labor, around the globe to maximize their profit margins. All the more galling, then, that the global North should deliver lectures to the rest of the world about carbon emissions.
All of this should be viewed in historical context: most importantly, the seamless narrative of the global North's economic exploitation of the global South, from the classical colonial period to the present. The global North exploits the South's resources-- labor, forests, diamonds, oil, rubber, coffee, and on-- and reaps the benefits (profits and cheap raw materials and goods), leaving the South to bear the burdens (depleted resources, impoverishment of workers, debt, and pollution). The narrative is seamless because there has never been any recompense or reparation for the resource theft (among other things) perpetrated by colonial powers: in fact, the theft has continued, albeit under a veneer of legitimacy. Because there has been no recompense, the global South, especially thepostcolonial global South, has been left with few options: develop on the North's terms, or not at all. (Latin America's leftward shift may seem to offer another story, one in which countries can develop on their own terms, but defiance of the North, especially the U.S., has always been punished. On the other hand, there is an ever-growing group of left-leaning governments in the region, and they represent an increasingly formidable force politically.)
There are many interesting issues surrounding reparations (most often discussed with respect to slavery in the United States). To enumerate them all would require a post by itself; here, I wish to stress the point that the colonizers have not paid at all for their crimes; in fact, colonial powers have benefited, and continue to benefit, from them. (So the justification is not merely backward-looking, but tied to the present effects of colonialism.) Try to imagine an alternative history of Britain, for example, if it had not had an empire. In short, no industrial revolution. Without an industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, what would Britain's economic position be today? Hard to tell, of course, but we can hazard a guess that it would not be in the G8. Now try to imagine the difference between the two "possibleBritains ": this is, very roughly speaking, the magnitude of what the global North owes the global South. (I am not necessarily suggesting this as a method for calculating reparations due, but as an aid to the imagination.)
So, the global North-- especially the colonial powers and slave trading powers-- owes the global South a lot of wealth and resources. An industrial revolution's worth, one might say. But the planet cannot afford any more industrial revolutions of the kind experienced in the global North: too much harm has already been done. The global North owes the global South the means for sustainable development (whatever that means-- the very language of development and growth are at least suspect from an ecological point of view). What's more, the global North bears the responsibility for the environmental damage caused by its own industrialization. Remember, too, that climate disruption will have (indeed, is already having) a disproportionately severe effect on the global South: tsunamis, drought, and so on.
Paying these debts would undoubtedly overturn the existing hierarchy of global power, and that is not on anyone's "realistic" political agenda. I do not expect to see these sorts of ideas discussed at the Copenhagen summit later this year: anything stronger than the Kyoto agreement would probably be an achievement, diplomatically. However, the scale of the crisis demands something much closer to the former than the latter. I do not think it has ever been more important to talk about what ought to happen-- and what must happen, if catastrophe for billions of people is to be avoided-- even if it seems very unlikely.