SAMIR NAZARETH
From the first United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP) on Climate Change held in 1995 to COP 30 in 2025 held in Belem, the number of NGO participants/ observer have increased from 176 to over 4000. The climate and sustainability economy is worth hundreds of billions. But 1.5 C is now being tem porarily surpassed regularly despite copious amounts of money, manpower, interna tional agreements and flights expended to hold back the world from slowly broiling itself. The last decade has been the warmest since temper atures have been recorded. Has anything been learnt? If not why? Usually, climate meetings are evangelically future fo cused. Participants delve into their eureka moments, current successes and prac tices so that these can be replicated and expanded. There is almost an attempt to self-validate. Preventing climate change is existential ly vital. The responsibility on organisations working on the issue potentially translates into a non-acknowledgment of lack of progress in their varied attempts, everything from consumption reduction to protecting rainforests, to prevent it. One could speculate that a major reason for tempera ture rise is the solutions are picked from resources that capitalism proffers. Can a po litico-economic system that introduced Credit Card Points and Frequent Flyer Programs to promote and justify ex penditure as a way to reduce personal expense really solve the problem that is of its own making? Setting a thief to catch a thief makes for great fiction. Climate funding has always been touted as a challenge. It comes as no surprise that one reason for COP meetings usu ally getting stymied is mon ey. The world economy has been introduced to carbon markets, climate finance, tax breaks for climate technolo gy, monetary incentives for industries to change indus trial practices and so on. But while the value of the climate industry has increased and the number of people it em ploys has surged, the imme diacy of impact sorely needed to reduce climate change is debatable. This industry has a bright future despite not liv ing up to its founding charter, reputation and promise. With solutions being fi nanced by capitalism, indus tries continue to impact the climate. Consequently, de mands being made on mere mortals to prevent climate change has increased. The attempt to reduce consump tion – the cause of climate change has taken a backseat. Non-Governmental Organi sations (NGOs) are focussing on non-urban and rural com munities to either prevent climate change or make such communities climate resilient as they have been deemed to be climate vulnerable. Pos sibly this choice is based on the realisation that these ar eas and populations are not as consumeristic given their lower purchasing power and consumption opportunities. Communities living in forests and rural areas are spokespersons for better climate policies and for the protection of their way of life. Villagers, farmers, fishermen, forest dwellers, the indige nous – those who don’t have a seat in the policy making ta ble are demanding they get a seat or they are learning ways to safeguard their way of life against climate change. Another reason for this rural-urban divergence is because industrial develop ment, from mining to con struction of large industries, continues to eat into rural and forest land. Rural and forest communities who were fight ing for their rights are now a key defence against climate change. Their vulnerability to land conversion and acquisi tion becomes their strength, and an argument against the status quo unable to prevent climate change. These communities, far removed from the national capitals, are being made cus todians of the planet. They are also framed as not having agency and are therefore vul nerable. How does one define vul nerability when it comes to climate change? Is it dis tance from decision making centers, lack of knowledge or lack of ability to become resil ient or adapt? Are the urban poor part of this army of vul nerable? They too suffer from the impacts of climate change – they are vulnerable to heat stress and don’t have alter natives to public utilities and services. How is their role defined in the climate change prevention movement? In both groups of vulnera ble there is a dichotomy. Poor countries want to pollute or want to be paid not to pollute so that they can socio-eco nomically develop, a form of climate equity and justice. But this privilege does not seem to be extended to the poor and vulnerable. For the forest and rural communities, they are told their way of life is climate friendly, potentially climate resilient and needs to be protected. Are they giv en the opportunity to decide which path to choose? How does one rationalise poor countries being allowed the argument of climate equity and justice but their poor citizens are not be given an opportunity to decide their socio-economic direction? The answer to the ques tion ‘why aren’t we able to prevent climate change?’ is simple – the onus of doing something to prevent cli mate change continues to be foisted on those who have the least power. Demands ini tially made on less developed countries have percolated to the socio-economically weak er sections. Any small victory achieved, incorrectly vali dates assumptions of those working in this area and en courages them to ignore their role in the broader systemic issue. The reason why this con tinues is because everyone is focussed on the future with out learning from the past. This is another symptom of capitalism; the future prom ises profit. There is something unfor tunate about empowering the disempowered to solve a problem not created by them. How does it solve the larger problem? How does it serve the organisations that enter into these communities? Carbon and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise but the rate of increase has slowed. While a good thing, climatologists warn that lim iting temperature increase to 1.5C is no longer realistically achievable, but argue any de crease is good. Climate justice between countries is being recog nised, however that between citizens is socio-politically ignored. The politics of re sponsibility needs to change to incorporate the individu al. If rich countries are being asked to do the most to com bat climate change why isn’t the same being demanded of rich and middle-class people? (Samir Nazareth is an author and writes on socio-economic and environmental issues)
