COP27: Let science prevail over profit

THERE is empirical evidence before the eyes of the developing world that dealing with climate change and the debates around it are no longer about seeing the phenomenon as an environmental issue, but rather a political one because of where matters are being decided and framed.

The non-committal attitude by the developed countries and their multinationals in fulfilling pledges made over a decade ago to deal with the climate crisis is a signal that these nations are not being governed by morality.

At a United Nations climate summit 13 years ago in Copenhagen, Denmark, the world’s richest nations made a significant pledge that they would channel US$100 billion dollars a year to poor countries by 2020.

The same reasons given back then have been repeated since the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement that poor nations should be “helped to adapt to climate change and mitigate further rises in temperature.”

That promise has been broken on many occasions.

The political undertones in the climate change issue cannot be downplayed as they are apparent especially in the absence of a political will by big economy leaders.

From the 2015 Paris Agreement, the resolution to raise US$100 billion yearly for the developing nations to “mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change” has become an infinite noise as there is a shortfall of US$20 billion and it is anticipated it will be rolled by 2023.

The intentions by the USA, Britain, Canada and Europe to deal with climate change are opaque.

They maintain bright-faces when they want

Africa to co-operate and endorse their agenda regards climate change, but turn a blind eye when Africa calls for compensation of how American and European transnational companies continue to damage the environment in search and chase after profits.

Western fossil fuel corporations, because of the nature of their capitalist economic ideology, continue to register huge profits from the unstopped consumption of coal, oil and gas without considerations that such acts are driving global warming to dangerous levels.

For over five centuries, Western countries have benefited from this huge exploitation of fossil fuels that became the motor of their industrial capacity.

The biggest victims of this economic appetite remain the developing nations that are facing floods, hunger, drought, cyclones and heatwaves.

In 2019, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi experienced a turbulent Cyclone Idai that killed and displaced thousands combined.

In July 2021, Germany, Belgium, France and the Netherlands were hit by deadly floods that registered record rainfalls.

In the same month, monsoon rains killed thousands in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Burma, leaving trails of destruction.

The same happens today Pakistan, Nigeria, South Sudan, Chad and other developing countries have experienced huge floods.

Tragedy of the commons

Rising temperatures, melting ice glaciers, and heatwaves are by-products of the inability to harness scientific findings that are providing a testimony on the fierce urgency of now.

The impact and consequences of the climate change crisis are becoming universal and non- discriminatory. Both the rich and poor are now victims of this subject matter that needs a collective approach to make the world a safe place.

One of the consistent take-aways from all climate change summits that has lived in theory has been the recommendation to enhance co-operation among states. But the existential reality nations are facing at a time when the US and her NATO alliance are threatening the interests of Russia through funding a proxy war in Ukraine and destabilising Asia by provoking China leaves the world even more divided when faced with the huge climate threat.

Global unity is becoming elusive as the contrasting divisions and civilisations trying to dominate the world are becoming more focused on political power, seeing matters relating to the environment and climate change as a side show.

The absence of an enforcer on the climate change resolutions makes the hopes of resolving this critical issue fade and have them become matters only deliberated in a Hobbesian theoretical state of nature where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”.

Development by contradictions

Zimbabwe has a target to become an energy exporter by 2023, building from its coal reserves that are estimated to last for the next 38 years, and also through investments into clean energy.

Economies that have electricity means they can operate industries and sustain the quality of their citizen’s health, education and even social service delivery because of availability of energy.

On the other hand, about 90 percent of South Africa’s electricity is generated thermally.

Zimbabwe’s carbon emissions are insignificant at 0,85 million tonnes compared to those by the state of Texas which in 2017 amounted to 2,7 million tonnes.

More so, South Africa as the region’s biggest economy secured an US$8.5 billion loan to transition away from coal and invest in renewable energy.

In view of this, countries like Zimbabwe are also expected to move away from thermal power generation and invest in renewable energy without any guarantee to help.

This generates complex bilateral and multilateral balancing acts in the region in a bid to sustain economies.

The reason why big power states have not reached any agreement on how to deal and fund these issues is because they are keen to protect their interests.

There is a lot of politics that come around environmental issues.

The development chasm between nations of the north against those in the south regards this issue is unbridgeable because the former benefited much from the behaviour of exploitation of the latter’s resources.

The COP27 conference should cease becoming a cunning trap meant to regulate how global south nations industrialise their economies by abandoning their resources in favour of proposals that will be submitted by the West.

The agenda has to be collective.

What should be done?

There is need to develop a ‘polluter-pay-principle’ framework that enforces heavy, deterrent penalties for countries that wantonly pollute the environment, especially the developed nations. In the interim, poor nations should be given an opportunity to exploit their resources for the development and modernisation of their economies as they cannot at the moment pay for the ‘sins’ of others.

Nations of the south a playing catch-up! Rich nations should not impose their plans on poor nations by bandwagoning and chain-ganging them to endorse the former’s plans. Poor nations should have their proposals heard case-by-case and not treated as the same because the development trajectories are different.

The modernisation theory of development should be done away with and each country pursue its own, for in it, the proposals by the West are just but an agenda to de-industrialise Africa hence ought to be carefully scrutinised and do with what is unnecessary.

African scientists and environmentalists need to come together and present a working framework on how to deal with climate change.

There is need to have continental thinktanks that advise on policy positions against the threat posed by climate change. Developing nations should resist the negativity of the West and use what we have to do what we can with minimal damage.

Above all, citizens in Africa should be aware that the climate change debate is a political topic being fronted by states with animal instincts.

These instincts are driven by selfishness and an ego that has more symptoms of wanting to dominate as seen by the slander of proposals from other countries.

The climate change issue has shown that to some extent, states ought to be rational in their talk of mutual dependence and interdependence when dealing with environmental protection.

This mutual co-operation points to the view that coercion and force are becoming unnecessary.