Daily Times

As the globe warms up, a whole new realm of justice has unfolded: Climate Justice. Amidst all the ongoing environmental crises, developing countries hit the floor of COP 21, held in Paris in December last year, putting all the blame of climate change on developed countries. They present themselves as “climate creditors” and demand for Climate Justice. That developed countries shall do disproportionately more to deal with climate change since they have done disproportionately more in causing it.

Despite being an appealing idea, Climate Justice is but a distraction that disperses our efforts away from climate interventions at a time when the need of alliance is indispensable. It is unwise to fight over this notion when cooperation is our only way out. The idea is flawed for various reasons. Firstly, the concept of climate justice assumes that it’s developing countries that are on the frontline. That is not true, however; not all developed countries are immune to the effects of climate change, and not all developing countries are threatened by it. We have seen an unprecedented surge of floods in London; we have witnessed the shrinking glaciers in the Glacier National Park in Montana, USA; we have evidence of the loss of permafrost on the Mackenzie River basin in Canada; we have seen plenty of research showing the threat of sea level rise to the USA, the Netherlands and Tokyo.

Secondly, the climate justice movement demands of developed countries to transfer technology and money to them so that they could enhance their capacity to deal with the implications climate change has for them. In other words, to set up more industries, more corporations and more infrastructures, which would help illicit more income to be used to make developing countries more capable of “adaptation” — just like developed countries. Would we not add to the atmospheric CO2 and GHGs as we take advantage of the transferred funds and technologies to enhance our adaptability? More importantly, would developed countries be able to transfer to us funds and technical expertise without producing more pollutants? I am afraid, no.

Thirdly, the argument underlying climate justice is spiral. It paints all the beings in developed countries with one brush and those in developing countries with another, as if everyone in a developed country is an environmental offender of the same degree, and everyone in a developing country is a victim of the same degree. Is it terribly difficult to imagine that there are beggars in developed countries and industrialists in developing countries? How could one charge a beggar as an offender and an industrialist a victim of the climate change? Surely, the man who owns a sugar mill on the bank of Chenab River in Lahore is an offender relative to a homeless man in New York. One cannot rightfully point fingers at foreign developed countries while turning a blind eye to industrialists at home. In short, the degree of offence to the environment comes from every corner of the world, and every one of us has contributed to the offence in different ways. Therefore, rather than pointing fingers and waiting for a messiah, we shall take up collective responsibility to make peace with nature.

Fourthly, justice can be rightfully demanded by a party that has been intentionally harmed by another party. Even though the causality between global emissions and extreme climate events can be established, it is difficult to argue that countries that have contributed more to the emissions have harmed the aggrieved countries intentionally. Thus, no state can rightfully ask for “justice” for any climate-related damage. The notion of Climate Justice is absurd and denies justice to the word justice.

In short, the idea of climate justice is all but helpful in dealing with climate change. It distracts us away from reaching a long-awaited consensus that can finally put us on the right track, away from the collision course. By taking the backseat and playing the climate creditor card, developing nations are, in effect, adding fuel to the fire that is a threat not just to themselves but to every other nation too, one way or the other. We are standing at a crossroad where more negotiations are neither feasible — given the time constraint — nor desirable. At best, they put us in a stronger deadlock.

We have gone past the point where we could play the blame game and leave it to the offenders to make things right. When the flood hit my aunt’s home last year, she couldn’t stay back inside and wait for developed countries to take up their responsibility and rescue her. That wouldn’t have been colossally unwise. For the sake of humanity, we need to put the past behind, get out of the backseat and make a collective sacrifice. Else, we are doomed. Just not yet, but anytime now.

The writer can be reached at yaqoob.akhss@gmail.com and on Twitter at @alipahari