#climate debt

[arvoresertecnologico]

A dívida ecológica é a dívida que os países do Norte têm com os povos e países do Sul. É uma responsabilidade com o planeta devido à destruição gradual como efeito das formas de produção e consumo. Foi gerado nos tempos coloniais e continua a aumentar até hoje. 

Isso inclui a responsabilidade pelo saque, usufruto, destruição, devastação (extrativismo de petróleo e de minérios, destruição de florestas e da biodiversidade), assim como a poluição da natureza. Também é gerado por trocas ecologicamente desiguais, pois a produção para exportação (principalmente de matérias-primas) é realizada sem levar em conta os danos sociais e ambientais que gera, como a apropriação intelectual e o usufruto do conhecimentos ancestrais relacionados às sementes e às plantas, ao uso e degradação da terra, do solo, da água e do ar para o estabelecimento de monoculturas, à poluição pelo depósito de lixo e resíduos tóxicos em países do Terceiro Mundo, entre outros efeitos do capitalismo industrializado e global, colocando em risco a soberania alimentar e em geral os meios e modos de vida das comunidades locais. 

A dívida ecológica inclui a dívida climática, que é a apropriação ilegítima da atmosfera e da capacidade de absorção de dióxido de carbono do planeta (solos, florestas, oceanos) a partir da extração e queima desproporcional de combustíveis fósseis. A poluição atmosférica é a principal causa do efeito estufa e da consequente crise climática que afeta principalmente os povos mais vulneráveis do Sul

 Baixe o Glossário da Justiça Climática:

bit.ly/GloJustClima

DEUDA ECOLÓGICA Y DEUDA CLIMÁTICA - La deuda ecológica es la deuda que tienen los países del Norte con los pueblos y países del Sur. Es una responsabilidad con el planeta, por la destrucción gradual como efecto de las formas de producción y consumo. Se genera en la época colonial y se sigue incrementando hasta nuestros días. 

Esta incluye la responsabilidad por el saqueo, usufructo, destrucción, devastación (extractivismo petrolero y minero de los bosques y la biodiversidad) y contaminación de la naturaleza. También se genera por el intercambio ecológicamente desigual, ya que, la producción para la exportación -principalmente de materias primas-, se realiza sin tener en cuenta los daños sociales y ambientales que genera, tales como, la apropiación intelectual y el usufructo de los conocimientos ancestrales relacionados con las semillas y las plantas, el uso y la degradación de las tierras, suelos, agua y aire para establecer monocultivos, y la contaminación por el depósito de basuras y residuos tóxicos en los países del Tercer Mundo, entre otros efectos propios del capitalismo industrializado y global, poniendo en riesgo la soberanía alimentaria y en general, los medios y modos de vida de las comunidades locales.

La deuda ecológica incluye la deuda climática, que es la apropiación ilegítima de la atmósfera y la capacidad de absorción de dióxido de carbono del planeta (suelos, bosques, océanos) proveniente de la extracción y quema desproporcionadas de los combustibles fósiles. La contaminación atmosférica es la principal causa del efecto invernadero y de la consecuente crisis climática que afecta principalmente a los pueblos más vulnerables del Sur.

Descarga el Glosario de Justicia Climática:

bit.ly/GloJustClima

ECOLOGICAL DEBT AND CLIMATE DEBT   - The ecological debt is what countries from the North owes to the ones in the South. It is the North’s duty to our planet, considering that the Earth is being gradually destroyed as a result of production and consumption systems. Such environmental damage can be traced back to colonial times and is still increasing in severity. 

 Acts of plundering, usufruct, destruction, devastation, and pollution of Nature form part of this debt, which has also been engendered by the unfair ecological exchange since goods production for export–principally, commodities such as raw material–is carried out without considering social and environmental damage such as intellectual property theft and usufruct linked to ancestral knowledge of seeds and plants, the use and degradation of land, soil, water, and air to practise monoculture, rubbish and toxic waste dumping in Third World countries and other effects characteristic of global and industrial capitalism. As a consequence, local communities’ food sovereignty is in jeopardy. 

Climate debt is part of ecological debt. In essence, climate debt refers to criminal conversion of the atmosphere and the Earth’s capability to absorb CO2 arising out of fossil fuel extraction and burning. Air pollution is the main cause of the greenhouse effect and the consequent climate crisis which affects the most defenceless nations from the South.

 Download the Climate Justice Glossary:

bit.ly/GloJustClima

[rjzimmerman]

The Climate Debt the U.S. Owes the World

We can’t meet our moral and practical burdens simply by reducing our own carbon emissions; we also need to make amends.

Excerpt from this essay by Bill McKibben published in The New Yorker:

Such intuitions about blame and responsibility have usually been offered in airy moral terms, but a new report released on Wednesday puts them into numbers. The analysis, from the activist group U.S. Climate Action Network, draws on the work of Tom Athanasiou, at a California-based nonprofit called EcoEquity, and his colleagues at the Climate Equity Reference Project. It tries to calculate how much of the burden each country should be bearing, based on its historical contribution to the cloud of greenhouse gases and its “capacity to pay”—a reflection of how rich the nation became during the fossil-fuel era. The report finds “that the US fair share of the global mitigation effort in 2030 is equivalent to a reduction of 195% below its 2005 emissions levels, reflecting a fair share range of 173-229%.” That is, we can’t meet our moral and practical burdens simply by reducing our own emissions; we’ve already put so much carbon into the air (and hence reduced the space that should rightly go to others) that we need to make amends. Of this hundred-and-ninety-five-per-cent reduction, Athanasiou says, seventy per cent would be made domestically, by building solar panels, rolling out electric cars, and insulating buildings. “This is about the maximum achievable by 2030, though cuts of this magnitude would require a full Green New Deal war footing,” he notes. ”The rest—the other 125%—would come by way of financial and tech support for adaptation and rapid decarbonization in poor and developing countries.”

For the past year, nations (and companies) have been announcing plans to reduce their emission levels to zero by mid-century. As Athanasiou says, that’s a welcome development, but, he adds, “Not one of these countries has made anything like an adequate move to support ambitious decarbonization and adaptation plans in the developing world. Or even, despite lots of talk, to significantly cut fossil subsidies. In fact, as I’m sure you know, a lot of the covid recovery money has gone to the fossils.”

A country like Honduras has not used anything like its fair share of the planet’s carbon budget. By decarbonizing, it will be doing far more than its fair share—and it won’t be able to, unless countries like the United States help foot the bill. That is the only honorable, and only sensible, course: they don’t call it global warming for nothing, and you can’t control it anywhere without controlling it everywhere. Our political debate has poisoned the idea of foreign aid in recent years, and it will be a hard lift for the Biden Administration to come close to meeting the requirements of justice.

[premimtimes]

Climate emergency, vaccine monopolies and fiscal blindness: Fighting inequality as the way out, By Eva Joly

Climate emergency, vaccine monopolies and fiscal blindness: Fighting inequality as the way out, By Eva Joly

Fight inequality If we are failing to meet our commitments, it is because of a handful of the richest people, the same people who do not pay their taxes. It is time for our elites to realise that fighting inequality on all fronts – health, climate and tax – is our only way out. Otherwise, there is no salvation for humanity – and it is no longer a hyperbole. 2021 will perhaps be remembered as the…

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[riseuptimes]

Brian Merchant: The US Owes the World $4 Trillion for Trashing the Climate

Brian Merchant: The US Owes the World $4 Trillion for Trashing the Climate

​The UN Green Fund, designed, essentially to help balance climate debt, is currently capitalized at $10 billion in pledges from rich countries. That’s barely a drop in the bucket, as Matthews points out: in 2013 alone, rich countries emitted 13 billion tons—or $520 billion worth—of carbon debt. BY BRIAN MERCHANT  Motherboard  September 9, 2015 Aerial View of Photochemical Smog…

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[popthirdworld]

The 'Global Climate Fund' is one of the most important things ever. It's a fund from rich countries to poor countries to help them deal with climate change. Obama pledged $3b. Thirty other countries all up just pledged $9b. Abbott refuses to contribute saying 'it's socialism masquerading as environmentalism.' The crucial thing to point out is this: this is not charity. Rich countries owe poor countries a 'climate debt'. Rich countries caused climate change. We are the ones that industrialised and have been CO2-ing since the 1800s. We're CO2-ing to make big TVs bigger. They're CO2-ing to industrialise and feed people. We caused the problem, but they bear the brunt of it. When we get hit by bad weather, we have the capacity to minimise damage and rebuild. When poor countries get hit by bad weather, it ruins them. Shanty homes built in mudslide areas, waterways get contaminated, things get grim. We owe poor countries a climate debt, Abbott. And lastly? $3b? $9b? Estimates show this isn't anywhere near enough to repay this climate debt. This goes to the heart of the climate problem. How much are rich countries going to recognise their responsibility for this problem they've caused for poor countries?

[thesocietypages-blog]

Of Carbon and Cash

As Andy Ross told us in the previous chapter, climate debt refers to the harmful carbon emissions created by countries like the United States and the grave effects that climate change is having on poorer, developing countries in the Global South. First introduced in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the concept of climate debt has motivated politicians, scientists, academics, and advocates to look closely at how climate change is experienced by rich and poor countries. Climate debt, for them, represents another example of the persistent global inequality between the developed countries in the Global North and the developing countries of the Global South. Social scientists are playing an important part in documenting the social movements around climate debt and in developing methods to calculate and account for such debts.

Meanwhile, this persistent global inequality serves as the basis for several international debt relief movements. For instance, the Jubilee Movement, predicated on the biblical notion of the “jubilee” (when debts were forgiven every seventh year), is a global movement based in Britain and other Global North countries that advocates for forgiving and abolishing the debts that Global South countries supposedly owe from the colonial era. In this instance, the “creditors” are wealthy, developed nations who once colonized and extracted resources like gold, oil, coal, and diamonds from countries they later charged with “debt repayment.” In one alarming example, Haiti was forced to pay the French government from 1825 to 1947 to compensate for “property” lost to French slave owners when Haitian slaves successfully revolted. The Jubilee Movement uses the debt abolishment argument to pressure countries to forgive such debt rather than force other nations into bankruptcy. Jubilee has had some limited success, but wealthy countries continue to pressure poorer countries to pay outstanding debts.

The climate debt and climate justice movements share some similarities with the Jubilee Movement: both are based on the persistence and injustice of global inequality, both recognize that the high consumption in more wealthy countries hurts poorer countries, and both force us to consider the nature of legitimate and illegitimate debts. Like the Jubilee Movement, the broader concept of ecological debt, under which climate debt falls, draws from the legacy of the ecological exploitation of colonized countries. Andrew Simms draws out this similarity in Ecological Debt: Global Warming and the Wealth of Nations, arguing that in both climate debt and international debt, those who have played the smallest role in creating the problems have borne the greatest burdens. Those most responsible for climate crises have skirted responsibility.

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[ecowatchorg]

To Get Out of Climate Debt, the U.S. Needs a CO2 Savings Account

We’ve overstretched our climate budget so far, many fear we’ve passed the point of no return.

SEE MORE:

http://ecowatch.com/2014/06/25/climate-debt-co2-savings-account/

[popthirdworld]

Climate Reparations and the Australian diss

Do people know what climate reparations are? Quick sloppy summary:

1. Developed nations caused the climate crisis - we put all the carbon in the atmosphere.

2. Developing nations, however, are suffering worst effects of climate crisis - eg. island nations disappearing; poor infrastructure to weather storms.

3. Developed nations should pay reparations so developing nations can deal with the impacts of climate change that we caused. If developing nations don't get this money, many (millions?) will die. The stakes could not be higher. But the talks yesterday fell apart in large part because of Australia - our delegates showed up in t-shirts, 'gorged on snacks', and were giggling, being 'cavalier and insensitive' about this life and death matter while rejecting almost everything. 130 developing nations abandoned the negotiations in frustration and disgust. Abbott is ruining Australia's reputation. But far more important: developing countries deserve and desperately need climate reparations.

UPDATE: This happened, despite my concerns it was just a rumour. The Guardian says so.