A picture speaks a thousand words, or in this case, speaks of hundreds of years of history of imperialism, inequality, and the dominance of the Global North over the Global South.
It’s no accident that some countries are ‘poor’ while others lavish in the luxuries of smartphones, SUVs and regular overseas holidays. It’s not that countries who are poor don’t have the resources or labour to boost their wealth, it’s that countries in the North are deciding the fate of countries in the South, and if it’s up to us, we’ll make absolutely sure to reap the rewards from the minerals and labour in the South, without giving fair compensation or benefit-sharing.
Most of the Global North’s wealth has relied on land stolen from Indigenous peoples, as well as forced labour from enslaved African people. So it’s important to note, poor countries aren’t just poor because they weren’t able to get wealthy, they are poor because they have been sacrificed for countries in the Global North. They are poor because they were intentionally made so.
It’s called imperialism; which means a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonisation, use of military force, or other means.
One of the main features of imperialism is the existence of a ‘core’ and a ‘periphery’. The periphery being, regions like Africa and South America, where resources are extracted and labour is exploited for much cheaper than it would be if it was from the Global North. The core, as you can guess, are the countries benefiting from the cheap labour and resources.
The Global North maintains most of the power and controls wealth, coercing the resources and labour in the South to remain cheap. For example, if you look at mining in the South, most mining is controlled by multinational corporations. The objective of these corporations is to make as much money as possible. So how do they do that? They exploit workers for really cheap labour (illegally cheap), avoid paying taxes or pay as little as possible, and give little to none of the benefits back to the country that the resource was extracted from.
Basically, a multinational will be given all the rights to a resource in another country, they might employ local workers, pay them incredibly low wages, mine the resource, pay little to no tax on the resource, and profit massively from extracting the resource, giving little to none of the benefits back to where the extraction took place. This incredibly unjust scenario is what is depicted in the first picture: digging up the South to create wealth in the North.
We also cannot look past the important point of equity in the climate space. Why should nations of the South spend more of their share of GDP to decarbonise, when countries such as the US and Europe have historically emitted the most CO2? The reason they have emitted more is because they’ve developed bigger industries that profit from the extraction in the Global South. This also means that they have more wealth to allocate to decarbonisation. This is known as the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’.
“The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities is the bedrock of our enterprise for a sustainable world.” - Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India.
We can’t expect poorer countries to take the same burden to decarbonise while they haven’t yet raised their standard of living (which burning fossil fuels allowed the Global North to do). This means the Global North needs to take a greater share of the burden to both decarbonise quicker and provide climate finance to developing nations, allowing them to raise their standard of living while cutting emissions at the same time. This is the ‘just transition’ - shifting to renewables in a way that doesn’t leave anyone behind. It is incredibly important considering that the lowest income countries are far more vulnerable to climate change from disasters and sea level rise.
The IEP predicts that 1.2 billion people could be displaced globally by 2050 due to climate change and natural disasters.
By this point I’m sure you’re thinking, okay but what on Earth do we do about that? Well, there are many things you can do:
Always include climate justice in the conversation. It’s not just about cutting emissions to stop the planet from heating up, it’s about reducing exploitation and allowing the Global South to exercise their right to develop in a sustainable manner.
Stop buying stuff you don’t need. The items that people from the Global North would deem ‘affordable’ are only set at that price because workers are being exploited and this cycle is perpetuated by overconsumption; so let’s stop consuming so much.
Urge the people around you to try and reduce their consumption as well. The fight for real climate justice must be included in the conversation, and we have to make sure people don't gaze over this important point. A great way to instigate this can be to encourage people to gift experiences rather than possessions so that you can enjoy quality time with loved ones instead of enjoying cheap possessions.
Without climate justice, the Global South is becoming a sacrifice zone while the Global North continues to lavish in the luxuries of overconsumption, while calling it ‘green’.
"Saving the planet is now a communications challenge"- Sir David Attenborough.
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