Climatism and Its Discontents: Why Net-Zero Obsession is Unfair to the World’s Poor

Take the example of forests. In 2021, at COP26 in Glasgow, driven by the rush to demonstrate commitment to Net-Zero ambitions, a wide coalition of nations committed $12 billion over the next four years to halt deforestation. But forests are not only sinks for carbon dioxide. And the effect of ‘halting deforestation’ not only protects a carbon sink. For many communities in the Global South, the harvesting of wood from forests provides their income and their energy. There are many different types of low-intensity wood harvesting practices that are essential for the world’s poor, and yet which help maintain a functioning forest ecosystem. Poorly designed, institutionally ineffective, and scientifically uninformed bans on such harvesting practices simply drives them ‘underground’. The livelihoods of many vulnerable people are made illegal overnight.  Another example is decarbonising energy systems.  SDG#7 is to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”. About $4.5 billion of investment is needed annually to secure universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable cooking fuels such as Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), yet only about 3 per cent of such funding is currently offered by richer countries. And several European nations such as Germany and Norway are now seeking to ban financial investments in fossil-fuel projects in low- and middle-income countries. Such a ban would include technologies such as LPG cooking stoves. Development economist Vijaya Ramachandran recently denounced the effects of this proposed ban: This puritanical, one-size fits-all approach is bad for the climate and overwhelmingly leaves women breathing in dangerous smoke from dirty cooking fuels… Policymakers from rich countries might say they support women’s empowerment, but to me they seem more interested in simplistic climate mitigation—and coercing smaller nations to make cuts and compromises—than in improving the lives of poorer women … Pious, performative, broad-brush bans on fossil fuels help no one. Decarbonisation is therefore about much more than delivering Net-Zero. It is about improving health outcomes for many vulnerable groups, enhancing energy security—both national and local—and widening the range of ownership arrangements of energy services. This perspective has been well articulated by Yemi Osinbajo, the Vice-President of Nigeria.  … the [energy] transition must not come at the expense of affordable and reliable energy for people, cities, and industry. To the contrary, it must be inclusive, equitable, and just—which means preserving the right to sustainable development and poverty eradication…Nigeria and other African countries are committed to a net-zero future…A just global energy transition must include Africa, and it cannot deny our people their right to a more prosperous future.  It is inevitable that there will be trade-offs between different SDGs and between the SDGs and achieving Net-Zero. Not everything can be secured, and certainly not everything can be secured simultaneously and to a prescribed timetable. Win-win solutions can only go so far. Several of the SDGs – for example eradicating poverty (SDG#1), securing quality education (SDG#4), ensuring decent work and economic growth (SDG#8) – will require the expansion of affordable and reliable energy services for billions of people, not least in Africa and south Asia, as Osinbajo observes.   The problem with the ideology of climatism is that exploring these trade-offs is short-circuited by placing Net-Zero above all other goals.  Goal pluralism offers a more robust strategy because it allows and finds ways of aligning different and otherwise mal-aligned political interests.  The essay is an abridged version of Hulme’s book ‘Climate Change Isn’t Everything: Liberating Climate Politics from Alarmism’ (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2023). 

Buy cryptocurrency

Source link

Refer And Earn Demat Account – Get ₹300 | Referral Program

Open Demat Account In Angel One For FREE