In a world already mired in socioeconomic and political injustices, climate injustice adds more injury. Prior to prioritising climate justice, understanding injustice serves as a key to imagining the bigger picture. More than a century and a half of burning Earth’s resources yielded climate change as its byproduct. That change in climate has triggered numerous changes to the environment, climate and weather patterns.
Massive floods in Pakistan, heat waves haunting Europe bypassing the Mediterranean Sea, extremely severe formation of Biparjoy Cyclone in the east-central region of the Arabian Sea, droughts in the Horn of Africa, hurricanes in the Caribbeans and melting of gigantic glaciers are some of the incidents that occurred in recent years. Hark back, the injustice is: the population that become victims are widely different from those having considerably contribution to climate change.
For the Maldives, Seychelles, Tuvalu, and Palau, among others, climate change serves as a time bomb. The climate change repercussions perpetuate life-threatening impact on the island countries owing to widespread melting of gigantic glaciers. The rising waters in the oceans will catalyse the small islands to disappear. Isn’t it unfair? Are island countries responsible for their own land disappearance?
Compensating countries for all the toll caused by large economies is known as climate justice in legal terms. Through the loss and damage fund, in technical terms, nations are paid reparations to recover the loss in form of either men or material. With the temperature of the globe rising— global warming— at a snail-pace, climate justice is brought in action to provide means and coerce to take measures to forestall the rise before it becomes too little too late.
Since it took centuries and more to warm the globe, considerable time is required to reverse it, if not as many centuries. The concept of climate justice is to turn the country’s economy and functioning style into something more environmentally friendly by negating fossil fuels usage bit by bit. It is farcical to think that countries will fluctuate overnight from nonrenewable yo renewable energy sources because many countries’ economies mostly depend on fossil fuels. Take Aramco of Saudi Arabia, and OPEC members. Like them, many other Middle East nations function on fossil fuels.
After the Glasgow, Sharm El-Sheikh, and UAE COPs, all eyes are on Baku in Azerbaijan, to see the world commit to pledges made in the previous conferences in different countries and renew the pledges to climate justice and environment protection for the survivability of all species breathing on the globe. Though many ineffective and ephemeral attempts are attempted, bringing the global temperature in doldrums— in static, motionless mode— will require all the nations across the globe to lead this mission to help the world achieve this goal and sustain and maintain life and temperature since unity is power.
To slow down the use of non-renewable, and to accelerate the adoptation of renewable energy sources, international organisations come to the rescue, signing treaties and agreements among the nations to stick on renewables and act upon actions minimising carbon emissions into the environment. The Kyoto Protocol, Rio Declaration and Conference of Parties (COPs) are the leading apparatus to a) help financial compensation to climate-struck vulnerable countries to recover the loss and damage, b) to make them pledge and provide frameworks in adopting novel initiatives to minimise the carbon emissions.
The process of compensating the countries starts with the island countries given their vulnerability to climate change and its repercussions. Island nations are prioritised because the oceanside waters are rising rapidly as mentioned in the third paragraph of the piece. Not just the Tuvalu, many other island regions are sinking in Asia as per a report issued by the United Nations recently stating “Asia wracked hardest by climate in 2023”.
The justice is, say developing countries, to compensate us as much as $100 billion by 2030 to reverse and recover the loss and act upon actions less harmful to the climate change and environment and as time passes by, the finance will also skyrocket since according to climate scientists, the same developing nations will require $400 billion by 2040 and over $1 trillion by the halfway point of this century. With time, not just the amount to recover and adaptability will rise, the time span would also get stretched. The best time is now.
By prioritising intergenerational equity, compensating climate debts in dribs and drabs— or otherwise— and addressing the slogan and right “right to development”, the world will surpass this cataclysm without costing an arm and a leg as it historically did. What’s happening right now to combat climate change is just the tip of the iceberg. Setting climate justice as the primary purpose and sowing the seeds of intergenerational equity will catalyze positive change and avert the doomsday. In the age of socioeconomic and political inequalities and injustices, the world cannot afford climate injustice and as long as this injustice persists, climate change will continue to haunt and hunt down lives. Climate justice is the last hope of humanity since via this justice an environment suitable to all can be created.
After the Glasgow, Sharm El-Sheikh, and UAE COPs, all eyes are on Baku in Azerbaijan, to see the world commit to pledges made in the previous conferences in different countries and renew the pledges to climate justice and environment protection for the survivability of all species breathing on the globe. Though many ineffective and ephemeral attempts are attempted, bringing the global temperature in doldrums— in static, motionless mode— will require all the nations across the globe to lead this mission to help the world achieve this goal and sustain and maintain life and temperature since unity is power.
