What is the biggest problem with climate justice? The polluters have all the money

The world has a huge structural problem that stands in the way of real climate action: most of the money is in the North of the world, but most of the need is in the South. The North has burned fossil fuels for 300 years, producing fantastic wealth. However, that prosperity has resulted in greenhouse gases that have warmed the planet, and the South is bearing the brunt of climate impacts. According to Bill McKibben, if climate justice is to happen, we will have to mobilize Northern prosperity to build a livable future for all.

Bill McKibben, an activist, writer, and professor, helped found it 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, which has staged protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action. In a recent New Yorker column, McKibben describes the frustrated dilemmas of the negotiators COP27 where protesters chanted “Pay, pay, pay for loss and damage” ahead of US President Joe Biden’s plenary address.

The tension and anger were palpable.

And why wouldn’t they be? The demonstrators have personally experienced the consequences climate pollution. Water stress and hazards such as devastating droughts and devastating floods are hitting communities, economies and ecosystems hard. Precipitation patterns are being disrupted, glaciers are disappearing and major lakes are shrinking. The rising demand for water, coupled with limited and unpredictable supplies, threatens to do just that exacerbate conflict and displacement.

The protesters know that the countries whose pollution has caused their problems have enough dollars to repair the damage.

McKibben explains that the “moral argument couldn’t be simpler: Americans have produced nearly a quarter of the excess carbon in the atmosphere; a quarter of the damage should be on our account.

More than a third of the world’s capital is in the US alone, and we haven’t begun to pay our share, at least not in a simple way, and it seems that Congress is unlikely to pay the survivors of Africa’s climate crisis help or Asia related to the damage.

Bee COP27Denmark and some other countries have pledged about $75 million for climate aid. The recent floods in Pakistan cost about $40 billion.

Is there a more indirect way to access the wealth of the North that could be amenable to those in power?

Investing in climate justice – an exercise in nuance

The North’s failure to meet several $100 billion-a-year COP climate finance commitments by 2020 has eroded confidence globally.

Released just before COP27, a research study from the London School of Economics described how climate action is about transforming our economies, particularly our energy systems, by investing in net zero, adaptation, resilience and natural capital. It is clear that achieving this transformation will not be easy. Key investment priorities, say the study’s authors, should include energy system transformation, responding to developing countries’ growing vulnerability to climate change, and repairing damage to natural capital and biodiversity.

It requires strong investment, innovation and the right scale of financing of the right kind and at the right time. This would require “low-interest grants and loans from developed country governments to double from $30 billion today to $60 billion by 2025.”

If the Global North were to spend that “relatively small amount,” McKibben predicts private investors would likely plow a trillion dollars in emerging markets. This approach may seem unattainable — the US Congress refused to approve Biden’s request for $11.4 billion a year for this kind of aid.

McKibben says there’s a lot of Northern money in it retirement accounts, which is not charity and will not be turned into the “loss and damage” of climate change, “no matter how justified the claim of the poor nations.” He does, however, outline that the trillions of dollars in those funds can provide the financing that developing countries need for an energy transition. Think of solar panels, wind farms, hydroelectric power stations and electric vehicles.

These investments could generate cheaper clean energy as a mechanism for climate justice and provide a return for American retirees – if the fund managers are willing to take the risk on companies that have no track records and may be at the mercy of local political and judicial authorities. systems. Typically, a pension fund can forecast its earnings based on 100 years of historical utility returns.

It is not so easy to invest in the Global South and promote climate justice. How can such investments be made risk free? What variables might make pension fund managers as comfortable investing in an African solar farm as they are in a Kansas windmill?

There are already some instruments to mitigate risks, but they belong to the multilateral development banks – the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank. McKibben says the problem with these bodies is that they put a little bit of public money into a deal, so much of the danger disappears.

On the other hand, a call for the IMF to issue half a trillion dollars in special drawing rights or other financial instruments could boost investment in the South and fully integrate climate into their mandates.

Final thoughts

‘Loss and damage’ themes are a fairly new focus at annual climate summits; most have urged the major emitting countries to set ambitious decarbonisation targets. The study from the London School of Economics talks about how the scale of investment needed over the next 5 years and beyond requires a debt and financing strategy that addresses the festering debt problems, particularly those of poor and vulnerable countries. That could lead to a “major expansion of both domestic and international finance, public and private, concessional and non-concessional.”

COP27 is another reminder, McKibben notes, “that justice is only capricious through politics.” Rebalancing the world’s wealth, even just a little bit, will probably take some political sleight of hand. “These steps won’t raise $40 billion if a country like Pakistan floods, at least not anytime soon, nor will they fix the lingering, slow-motion crises — desertification, drought, sea-level rise — that pose some of the greatest risks.” on an overheated planet.”

No, none of the loss and damage financial schemes exactly answers the question posed by the most vulnerable countries: money to cover their devastating losses and damage.

“Still, our chances of a livable world may depend on it,” he reminds us.


 


 


 

Do you appreciate CleanTechnica’s originality and coverage of cleantech news? Consider getting one CleanTechnica member, supporter, technician or ambassador – or a patron on cartridge.


 


Don’t miss a cleantech story? Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on google news!


Do you have a tip for CleanTechnica, do you want to advertise or do you want to introduce a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.


Advertisement