Developing countries said on Wednesday they risked “total destruction” unless the rich stepped up the fight against climate change to a level that even the United Nations says is out of reach.
“The result of that is to condemn developing countries to a total destruction of their livelihoods, their economies. Their land, their forests will all be destroyed. And for what purpose?” said Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping of Sudan, chair of the Group of 77 and China, representing poor nations.
“Anything south of 40 (percent) means that Africa’s population, Africa’s land mass is offered destruction,” he told a news conference.
This is worth emphasising because concerns about the environment frequently brings a charge of racism from right-wingers who say something like: ‘oh, so you want to condemn those poor widdle black and Asian people in Africa/Asia to poverty, instead of encouraging capitalism so they can all buy big houses? Fascist!!!‘.
This argument needs to be killed for the simple reason that poor countries suffer more from our degrading environment and the impact of global warming. Saying that they should be allowed to become rich in the way the west did is thus very dishonest: they’ll die quicker than becoming rich.
The solution would be to encourage a form of more sustainable capitalism that doesn’t mean pillaging of land resources, doesn’t encourage lax pollution controls and gives workers human rights at work.
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Filed in: Environmentalism