CONTENTS
1. CLIMATEJUSTICEINAGLOBALGREENNEWDEAL 7
HARPREET KAUR PAUL & DALIA GEBRIAL
2. WORKINAJUSTICECENTREDTRANSITION 15
No worker left behind 18
SEBASTIAN ORDOÑEZ MUÑOZ
Womxn's work and the just transition 2 1
KAVITA NAIDU
Fighting for good, green jobs in the wake of Covid-19 23
VICENTE P. UNAY
Building workers' movements against false solutions 26
DANIEL GAIO
3. LIVINGWELLTHROUGHSHOCKS: HEALTH, HOUSINGANDSOCIAL
PROTECTION 31
The socially created asymmetries of climate change impacts 35
LEON SEALEY-HUGGINS
A decolonial, feminist Global Green New Deal for our 2020 challenges 39
EMILIA REYES
Doing development differently 41
JALE SAMUWAI
4. TRADE&INVESTMENT: BLOCKADINGAGLOBALGREENNEWDEAL 47
What's wrong with trade and investment agreements? 51
LAURA BASU
How investment treaties could blockade a Green New Deal 5 3
MARÍA CECILIA OLIVET & LUCÍA BÁRCENA
Trade treaties, comparative advantage and social inequalities 60
DONATELLA ALESSANDRINI
1
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
5. THISLANDISOURLAND: CONSERVATION, FOODANDENERGY 63
Nothing about us without us: centring workers in the just
agriculture transition 69
TERESA ANDERSON
REDD+ and the failures in land diversity ambitions 74
ALEX WIJERATNA
Justice alternatives to the Sustainable Development Mechanism
of the Paris Agreement 75
NATHAN THANKI
Green Energy Grabs 79
HAMZA HAMOUCHENE
Can Land as a Carbon sink save us all? 81
KIRTANA CHANDRASEKARAN
6. BLUENEWDEAL: WATER, ICEANDOCEANS 85
Reckoning with the social impacts of glacial melts 8 8
SUNIL ACHARYA
Ocean in our Blood: The Maori fight for water and against Empire 9 2
TINA NGATA
Blue Imaginaries for a Green New Deal 93
JESSICA LEHMAN & ELIZABETH JOHNSON
7. CLIMATELINKED-MIGRATION-THERIGHTTOMOVEANDTHE
RIGHTTOSTAY 99
Intersecting crises: a case study of climate migration in India in the
wake of Covid-19 10 3
JESSICA FALEIRO
Climate migration is a feminist issue 10 7
TETET LAURON
Securitizing the crisis: Climate policy at the U.S. border 10 9
TODD MILLER
Climate change never comes alone 112
ALEJANDRO GONZÁLEZ
A just vision for climate migration 113
MARÍA FACIOLINCE & DANIEL MACMILLEN VOSKOBOYNIK
2
8. FOREIGNPOLICY 119
Dismantling green colonialism 120
HAMZA HAMOUCHENE
Decarbonisation and Foreign Policy in the Middle East 12 2
DAVID WEARING
Leaving behind the racist and imperialist baggage of the original New Deal 123
JUSTIN PODUR
9. WHOPAYS? DEBT, REPARATIONS, ANDACCOUNTABILITY 129
Luciano Lliuya v. RWE AG: litigating for climate justice 137
ROXANA BALDRICH
Corporate profiteering in the Niger delta 139
KEN HENSHAW
Building a climate movement that can reshape foreign policy 141
YASMIN YOUNIS
Colonial debt and reparations 14 3
BROULAYE BAGAYOKO
Debt cancellation and reparations - Southern movement perspectives 14 5
LIDY NACPIL
10. EPILOGUE 151
AVI LEWIS
3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are indebted to everyone that took the time to
contribute to this publication, and also want to thank
the people you collaborate with in your transformative
work. Through it we can see a collective path to futures
we need and deserve. Sean Sweeney (Trade Unions
for Energy Democracy), Mika Minio-Paluello (Platform
London and Transition Economics) and Tomaso Ferrando
(Universiteit Antwerpen), thank you for your thoughtful
recommendations.
5
Illustration by Molly Crabapple
6
1. CLIMATE
JUSTICEINA
GLOBAL GREEN
NEW DEAL
Harpreet Kaur Paul &Dalia Gebrial
If the Coronavirus pandemic provides an indication of our collective ability
to cope with shocks, the future of the climate crisis does not look pretty. Take
the case of India: on 24 March 2020 and with just four hours' notice, over 1.3
billion people found themselves in a Covid-19 spurred lockdown. As in many
countries, those with access to savings or formal employment retreated to the
safety of their homes. However, for a significant proportion of India's 40 million
migrant labourers - many of whom live hand to mouth - lockdown left them
stranded far away from home, without income. With road and rail networks
closed and no resources to meet basic needs, many of those who keep society
functioning - whether as domestic helpers, drivers, gardeners, street vendors,
or as daily-wagers or construction workers - decided to walk hundreds of
kilometres back to the villages they'd left behind, in some cases because of
devastating climate impacts.1 Many died en route.2 Across the world, informal
economy workers are disproportionately impacted by the crisis, with women
particularly over-represented in precarious work.
1 Randall, Alex (2020). `What does Covid-19 mean for people displaced by climate change?.' Le Monde
Diplomatique.
2 Pandey, Geeta (2020). `Coronavirus in India: Desperate migrant workers trapped in lockdown.' BBC News.
7
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Within `developed'3 countries like the UK and US, we continue to see peo-
ple of colour disproportionately impacted by the virus. Often living in densely
populated, working-class neighbourhoods and working in highly exposed
jobs like frontline care and transportation, black and brown people have found
themselves on the frontline of Covid-19 impacts within countries most pre-
pared for such shocks.4 Those considered `unproductive,' such as the elderly
and those with disabilities, have been sacrificed in service of an economy that
sees them as burdens, rather than cherished members of our communities.
Everywhere, police disproportionately enforced lockdown measures on those
most impoverished and with least access to space.5 The workers being put
on the frontline are the same workers penalised for demanding protective
equipment, and punished by increasingly hostile immigration policies and
anti-migrant headlines. In other words: it is the most vulnerable and margin-
alised being left to pay the highest price during this global crisis.
Is it possible to learn from this painful preview? Can we instead re-orga-
nise how we work, care, move, rest and play to prioritise people and planet,
especially in times of crisis? The need to re-shuffle and centre these needs
3 References to `developed' and `developing' follow UNFCCC definitions: UNFCCC. `Parties & Observers'
4 Bristol Poverty Institute (2020). `Poverty Dimensions of the Impact of Covid-19 on BAME communities.'
University of Bristol.
5 Ratcliffe, Rebecca (2020). `Teargas, beatings and bleach: the most extreme Covid-19 lockdown controls
around the world.' The Guardian.
Illustration by Tomekah George
8
1. CLIMATE JUSTICE IN A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
has long been the rallying cry of climate justice advocates across the world.
Activists in the Global North have recently been re-energised by the Green
New Deal framing to `Build Back Better' from the climate crisis, creating green
jobs, apprenticeships and re-training programmes to stimulate renewable
energy generation, increase energy efficiency, reduce waste, promote sustain-
able transport and alter land use. Renationalising energy, waste, agriculture,
and transport companies to carry this out efficiently, while also addressing
fuel poverty with a combination of cheaper state generated clean energy
and energy savings schemes (improving home insulation, for example) are
important features.
Progressive Green New Deals look to tackle the climate crisis through a
transformative political and economic programme. This means wide-scale
investment in public infrastructure, the provision of free or cheap green trans-
portation and reorienting away from oligarchal energy companies towards
a democratic community or public ownership model. The Green New Deal
framing also focuses on a just transition, ensuring that jobs lost in carbon
intensive industries are transferred to decent work in the renewable energy
and energy efficiency sectors, as well as reforestation or organic agro-ecolo-
gy industries. These developments represent somewhat of a shift in climate
thinking in the Global North, which had previously framed `the environment'
and climate action as abstract categories, separable from economic and po-
litical systems. Much of this shift is due to a long overdue lesson, learned from
the holistic approaches of climate justice movements in the Global South and
by Indigenous communities.
However, the Green New Deal has largely been trapped in national
imaginations. Activists and politicians in North America and Europe have
developed compelling visions for how such a programme could be trans-
formative on a national scale - but the story of climate change
is global and therefore its solutions, too, must
be global. If Global North activists
seek decarbonisation at a pace
inconsistent with keeping
warming below
1.5°C - that has a
direct impact
on those on
the frontline
9
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
of seas rising, heat, water and food stress, disease spread and increasingly
regular and strong storms, wildfires, droughts (often leading to long-term de-
sertification), and floods. While record-breaking financing and state handouts
for the fossil fuel intensive industries continues to abet rising emissions, the
need to meet the Paris Agreement targets of keeping global temperature well
below 2°C above pre-industrial levels has never been clearer.
The difference between the two Paris Agreement numbers is also stark.
The difference in impacts between an increase of 1.5°C, and an increase of
2°C, in global average surface temperature is significant. In NASA's summary
of the IPCC's October 2018 Special Report,6 they state that an estimated
61 million more people would be exposed to severe drought due to lack of
water availability at 2°C, in comparison to 1.5°C. 50% fewer people would
see increased climate change-induced water stress at 1.5°C. Between 184-
270 million fewer people are projected to be exposed to increases in water
insecurity at 1.5°C. According to WWF, limiting temperature rises to 1.5°C
would also result in 1.3 billion fewer people experiencing regular heatwaves,
and 65 million fewer people exposed to exceptional heat waves.7 10 million
fewer people would be exposed to sea level rise related loss and damage.
If we continue as we are, we will overreach the limits set out by the Paris
Agreement. Exact estimates vary, but most see global average surface tem-
perature rise reaching about 4°C by the end of this century. This will likely
render much of the equatorial belt uninhabitable for much of the year, with
Saharan deserts spreading into southern and central Europe. Two thirds of
the glaciers that feed many of Asia's rivers will be lost. Existing policies would
limit this warming to 2.8°C, but there is no court responsible for making states
follow-through with their policies, and their pledges and targets are non-bind-
ing.
While ambitious decarbonisation is necessary, many of the demands be-
ing made in the North, such as around renewable transportation, will have
significant impacts on supply chains and environmental sustainability around
the world. Ushering green energy to the Global North and the expense of
people in the majority Global South having access to their basic needs is
antithetical to the notion of a Global Green New Deal. Neglecting the inter-
dependent nature of both the climate crisis and responses to it risks creating
6 Buis, Alan (2019). `A Degree of Concern: Why Global Temperatures Matter, Part 2.' NASA.
7 WWF (n.d). `Half a degree matters.' WWF-UK.
10
1. CLIMATE JUSTICE IN A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
a new era of `green colonialism.' We cannot accept a model of `progress' that
relies on exploiting workers who mine the minerals and metals for renewable
energy generation, or which allows for the continued concentration of land
ownership and access in the hands of a few. We cannot replace our fossil fuel
centred economy - where a country like Nigeria can derive 86% of its export
revenue from oil and gas while two-thirds of the population live below the
poverty line8 - with green energy that maintains the same dynamics of who
has access to what. To do so would be to miss the opportunity to not just build
back, but build anew in the knowledge that another world is possible; a world
where clean energy, food, water, housing, transport, care and health needs are
universally met, without exception.
The way we understand and mobilise around the Green New Deal needs
to change. This includes how we frame our movements, our policy proposals
and our vision for change over the coming years. This means rooting calls for
climate justice in global understandings of responsibility, accountability and
reparation.
This book pools the knowledge of climate activists from around the world
to offer an alternative frame for the Green New Deal - one that is rooted in
principles of global justice, and understands the interdependent nature of the
problem and its solution. It pushes beyond abstract platitudes of `international-
ism,' instead using case studies of concrete policy and movement frameworks
from around the world to inspire further action; to challenge those working
under the Green New Deal framework to think beyond national borders. We
reject the false and fanciful solutions put forward by political and financial
elites, which merely continues an energy system based on extractivism and
neocolonialism. Instead, this publication stands in the tradition of the 1991
multinational People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit's seventeen
principles of Environmental Justice,9 and the decades of climate justice lead-
ership that has arisen from the majority Global South ever since.
The vision informing this publication is one that seeks to limit warming to
1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.10 This vision also sees communities on the
frontline of climate change receiving the resources they need to address the
consequences of our already warmed world. It looks at pathways out of the
8 OPEC (2020). Nigeria: Facts and Figures. OPEC.
9 Alston, Dana (2010). `The Summit: Transforming a Movement.' Reimagine: Race, Poverty and the
Environment. .
10 IPCC (2018). `Global Warming of 1.5°C: An IPCC Special Report.' IPCC.
11
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
climate crisis that are rooted in principles of democratic ownership, gender
justice, anti-racism and anti-colonialism.
At the heart of this, is a reparative framework that places the responsibil-
ity on historic emitters in the Global North to take on their fair share of the
struggle for a sustainable world. This means striving for zero carbon by 2030,
scaling up climate financing, welcoming migrants, re-thinking land access,
distribution and food justice, and providing the resources, know-how, and
patents waivers for clean technology to countries that need it.
Frames alone cannot challenge increased mining by Rio Tinto in Australia
or on elephant sanctuaries in India. They cannot push back against the global
deepening of institutionalised and mandated austerity and privatisation, which
take us further away from ensuring universal social protection. They cannot
give countries the fiscal and policy space to prioritise people and planet, or
stop the continued reliance on fossil fuels. They cannot overhaul extractivist
trade agreements that enable the making of things by precarious workers in
the majority Global South for the benefit of those of us in the minority Global
North. They cannot increase our collective capacity to experience global pan-
demics, climate change, or economic recessions in a way that does not ask
those least responsible to pay the greatest price. What we hope this frame
can do, is propose a set of broad principles and red lines within which we can
collectively operate and take action. It is up to those reading this publication
to build the movements and policy action that will change our world for the
better.
Our world at 1.1°C is already disproportionately hurting those least culpa-
ble. The wealthiest in the minority Global North have the greatest respon-
sibility to repair these impacts and prevent future unmanageable warming.
Current state pledges and climate action ambitions, if fulfilled, would still see
around 2.8°C of global average surface temperature rise. As it stands, even
these insufficient targets are unlikely to be met, as they rely on future carbon
capture technologies that are at best impracticable and at worst will continue
environmental racism through resource extraction and waste dumping. At the
same time, resources to adapt to and repair the harmful effects of historic
emissions already in motion are concealed from those most in need. Worse,
available funds are too often redirected to those causing the problem through
fossil fuel and agri-business subsidies while climate, humanitarian and devel-
opment financing is squeezed.
12
1. CLIMATE JUSTICE IN A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
The response to climate breakdown requires a global vision that addresses
the root causes of how we got here. This publication aims to outline the drivers
of the problems, and suggests how we can create the new world, where the
needs of the many are not sacrificed for the profits and power of the few.
This publication is split into eight themes, which represent the key policy
and movement planks of a Global Green New Deal: work; health, housing and
social protection; trade and investment; land and food; water; the movement
of people; foreign policy and debt and reparations. These themes were identi-
fied during workshops conducted as part of the `Climate Justice' programming
stream in The World Transformed Festival 2019.11 Each theme is introduced
by us and then moves to interventions from policy workers, activists and civil
society organizations from around the world.
11 With thanks to Asad Rehman, Kate Arnoff, Jason Hickel, Jyoti Fernandes, Katie McKenna, Simon
Pirani, Nathan Thanki, David Wearing, Rajiv Sicora, Mika Minio-Paluello, Minda Burgos-Lukes, Patrick
O'Callaghan, and the many others who participated and assisted.
13
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Illustration by Molly Crabapple
14
2. WORKINA
JUSTICE
CENTERED
TRANSITION
To stay below 1.5°C, industries like solar, wind and battery storage must ex-
pand rapidly, and fossil fuels must stay in the ground. Much has been written
about the need to retrain workers in carbon intensive industries for a planned
transition into decent green employment. This is particularly important in the
Covid-19 era where thousands of people have lost employment just as the
need for long-term job creation, resilience and sustainability to withstand
health, climate and economic shocks becomes clearer. Transitions take time,
resources and vision - but workers in fossil fuel intensive industries can be
protected through pensions (for older workers) and funded retraining into
guaranteed green work schemes for younger workers. Education providers
must start offering courses to equip a new generation of engineers, construc-
tion workers, plumbers, metal workers, architects and others to be part of
a low-carbon future. Work must always provide living wages, safe working
conditions (workers producing solar panels, for example, deal with a number
of toxic substances and electrical hazards), and give workers a meaningful
voice in decision-making, including through ensuring freedom of association.
Workers cooperatives can create deeper worker democracy.
15
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Public ownership and investment of a green stimulus could create millions
of jobs in:
· Passive housing construction so that infrastructures generate
more energy than they use through energy efficiency retrofits and
embedded SMART renewable energy generation infrastructure;
· public transport upgrades and innovative electric car sharing schemes;
· ecological restoration and land, forestry, and agriculture improvements;
and
· community energy, waste, and manufacturing infrastructure.
Such commitments are essential given that, globally, governments are
planning to produce about 50% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be con-
sistent with limiting warming to 2°C and 120% more than would be consistent
with limiting warming to 1.5°C.1 Outputs from the fossil fuel industry continue
to grow2 with the benefit of government handouts (approximately USD$500
billion in 2019),3 unprecedented support from private banks (global banks fun-
neled USD$2.7 trillion into fossil fuels since Paris Climate Agreement)4, and
the confidence that they can expect business as usual without political shifts
towards progressive Green New Deals. The need to protect workers from heat
stress as temperatures rise above 51°c in India and Pakistan (for example) is
also well documented, as is the need to create work for those on the frontline
of climate change impacts.5
Furthermore, whilst the transition to renewable infrastructure (such as
electric cars) often headlines Green New Deal discussions in the Global North,
there is little acknowledgement of the exploitative assembly lines of these
supposedly green goods, and the extractive mining of minerals and metals
they require. Global production of batteries, solar panels, electric car motors,
fuel cells, nuclear reactors and wind turbines relies on rare earth minerals and
metals that are overwhelmingly sourced from the Global South, often under
appalling ecological and labour conditions. With China dominating the man-
1 UN Environment Programme (2019). `World's government plan to produce 120% more fossil fuels by
2030 than can be burned under 1.5°C warming.' UN.
2 Hausfather, Zeke (2018). `Analysis: Fossil-fuel emissions in 2018 increasing at fastest rate for seven years.'
CarbonBrief.
3 AFP (2020). `2019 fossil fuel subsidies nearly $500bn: OECD/IEA.' France24.
4 BankTrack et al., (2020). `Banking on Climate Change: Fossil Fuel Finance Report 2020.' BankTrack
5 ILO Work Income and Equity Unit (2019). `Working on a warming planet: The impact of heat stress on
labour productivity and decent work.' ILO.
16
2. WORK IN A JUSTICE CENTERED TRANSITION
ufacturing of solar PV and lithium-ion batteries, what happens on the factory
floors of Guangzhou should be as central to envisioning a Green New Deal as
rebuilding industry in the rust-belt of the US or de-industrialised impoverished
parts of rural Britain.
Communities at the frontline of the extraction of these minerals are expe-
riencing displacement, internal and external conflict (including threats and
killings of land defenders and movement leaders), eroded livelihoods, con-
taminated air, soil and water, lack of access to arable land and freshwater,
economic dependence, severe health impacts, and cultural loss as peoples
are severed from their land. At the manufacturing level, exploitative conditions
with long hours, poverty wages, union busting, and health and safety con-
cerns are endemic.
This is also a gendered issue. Women who work with toxic chemicals face
reproductive health issues, while women engaging in unpaid sustenance
farming or care work face heightened difficulties, particularly where they must
travel further for access to clean water, undertake care for longer periods as
younger generations migrate to urban areas unimpacted by saltwater intru-
sion, or have to cultivate on land in a context of desertification.6
A holistic Global Global Green New Deal would need to:
· repair historic gendered injustices, including with regards to paid and
unpaid labour
· reduce consumption of renewable energy powered goods; promoting
re-use, repair and mending, as well as sharing;
· seek international agreements and governance mechanisms to fairly
allocate the supply of the available rare minerals and metals.
Trade agreements must ensure workers' rights protection and environ-
mental sustainability standards that empower workers and communities to
expand their negotiating power. They must facilitate worker and commu-
nity-led green industrial strategies in mining and manufacturing areas and
leverage public purchasing power by ensuring socially, environmentally and
climate-responsible procurement that meets ILO and human rights frame-
works, and democratises energy and mining companies complicit in supply
chain horrors.
6 Any references to "women" or "womxn" in this publication refers to an inclusive definition, which welcomes
trans women, genderqueer women, and non-binary people
17
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
No worker left behind
SEBASTIANORDOÑEZMUÑOZ
Sebastian Ordoñez Muñoz is Senior International Programmes
Officer (Latin America) at War on Want, based in London,
UK .
The recent mainstreaming of the Green New Deal framework has
intensified scrutiny on oil majors. However, the same cannot be said of
global extractivist power - especially mining companies, who see the
climate crisis as an opportunity to reinvent themselves and guarantee
their bottom line. Supported by the World Bank,7 the mining industry
has cynically positioned itself as key actors in the energy transition,
claiming they are needed to provide the minerals and metals to meet
growing renewable energy demand.8 Yet, many of these same compa-
nies are heavily invested in fossil fuel extractors, and are among the
world's highest corporate emitters.9
The mining industry, along with other extractive industries, has
been at the heart of a colonial model which continues to bring profits
to multinational corporations and the wealthy few, while dispossessing
countless communities of their lands, water and livelihoods and
exploiting workers at the expense of their health and well-being.
Miners are also amongst the most mistreated workers in the world.
In July 2019, at least 43 artisanal miners died in the Democratic Repub-
lic of the Congo (DRC), due to a mine collapse at an industrial copper
and cobalt mine owned by Anglo-Swiss multinational Glencore (cobalt
is a vital part of electric car batteries). UNICEF estimates that 40,000
children work in mining across the south of the DRC. Meanwhile, Glen-
core sees itself as part of the energy transition powering the electric
vehicle revolution.During the pandemic, multiple governments declared
7 Hund et al., (2020). `Minerals for Climate Action: The Mineral Intensity of the Clean Energy Transition.' World
Bank Group.
8 Auciello, Benjamin Hitchcock (2019). `A Just(ice) Transition is a Post-Extractive Transition.'
9 Oberle et al., (2019). `Global Resources Outlook 2019: Natural resources for the future we want.' UN
Environment.
18
2. WORK IN A JUSTICE CENTERED TRANSITION
mining an essential activity, or responded to industry pressure to do
so after a brief shutdown. Mining operations became vectors of the
disease -- for workers and rural communities. As companies profiteered
from the pandemic, threats to land defenders exercising legitimate
protest increased, and the regulatory groundwork was laid to reposition
and bolster extractivist industries.
Mining and the `green' recovery
The conversation in the North has turned to the need for a `green'
recovery: substantial stimulus packages to re-activate economic
activity, doused in largely cosmetic green-growth commitments that do
little to address the systemic nature of the climate crisis.
With many Southern economies forced to rely on resource
extraction for income, falling demand and prices will not only further
expose the vulnerabilities of their economies, but will cement the
logic that increasing production of such resources is the sole tool for
economic recovery. However, increasing the rate and scale of extraction
will only result in huge environmental, social and health impacts for
people and planet. 10
For a long time, the global mining industry has tried to pit its
workers against climate justice movements and communities on the
frontlines of ecological collapse. Though historic tensions exist between
environmental and labour politics that must be overcome, this fabricat-
ed dichotomy is made possible in part by the well-rehearsed maxim
that mining brings economic development, which is heavily pushed by
states and industry.
There is another way
The clamour to replace one extractive industry with another ob-
scures the fact that the biggest factor in human impact on planetary
ecology is economic growth. It also promotes the reliance on technolo-
gy as the sole vehicle to reduce carbon emissions. While improvements
in technology efficiency help reduce the material and energetic
10 Zarate, Camila (2020). `Los impactos ambientales del Plan de Reactivacion Económica.' OLCA.
19
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
intensity of economic activity, these improvements have not succeeded
in bringing about an absolute reduction in impact.
Transitioning our energy system must not come at the expense of
workers. We need to correct the lack of effective and binding mecha-
nisms to ensure the respect of human rights, with international legal
norms that hold transnational corporations accountable for the abuses
along their complex supply chains. Human rights treaties binding on
corporations and their supply webs, ethical procurement, worker and
community led decision making, can all play a role. As can innovation
in energy storage, transmission, distribution, generation and supply
techniques that do not rely on raw earth minerals and metals. Workers
and communities should be able to ask, for whose benefit are the
mines? Will they have equitable access to the resources mined and
the final products - whether renewable energy or otherwise - made
from the raw materials? Can the mines be closed and a fair allocation
of energy still be maintained? In this case, social protection for mining
workers and communities must be ensured.
Ultimately, the solutions are fundamentally social; technical fixes
and increases in efficiency alone do not bring about justice or ecologi-
cal well being. However, on the demand side, there are ways to enable
us to make better-informed choices about our energy and resource
consumption. Such changes should lead to reduced consumption and
re-use, or widespread sharing of available materials, significantly lower-
ing the need for new resource extraction. Communities and workers on
the frontlines need the resources to articulate a new alternative to the
dominant development model.
Justice and equity must touch every aspect of the transition, leaving
no being behind. Increasing access to energy, food and public ser-
vices goes hand-in-hand with reducing excess consumption through
processes of redistribution that guarantee jobs and livelihoods. A truly
Global Green New Deal11 is an opportunity to put climate justice front
and centre as the world enters a post-pandemic recession. However,
this begins by ensuring that recovery or transition in the Global North
does not happen at the further expense of ecological and worker well
being in the Global South.
11 www.globalgnd.org
20
2. WORK IN A JUSTICE CENTERED TRANSITION
Womxn's work andthe just transition
KAVITA NAIDU
Kavita Naidu was, until recently, Climate Justice Programme
Officer at Asia Pacific Forum On Women, Law And
Development, based in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Since the financial crisis of 2008, the political left in the US and UK
have been advocating for a Green New Deal12 as the transformational
socio-economic response to tackle the climate crisis. So far, all GNDs
- whether national or international - aim to dismantle the profit-driven
fossil fuel economy, and transition equitably to a `green economy' that
promotes social, gender and economic justice.
The feasibility of the Green New Deal13 depends on whether it
reflects the scale of the challenges faced in the Global South as a
result of extraction and exploitation of natural resources, energy and
cheap labour by the developed North.14 Imperial trade liberalization has
saddled the Global South with alarming debt. High interest rates com-
pounded by structural adjustment policies have paralysed the ability of
Southern states to invest in public infrastructure, build environmental
resilience, tackle health crises like Covid-19 - let alone fund a GND.
Womxn of the Global South bear the brunt of the insecurity and
work generated by these policies. Trade rules dictating the privatisation
of essential services15 in healthcare, sanitation, water and education
have disproportionately burdened womxn, who take on the gendered,
unpaid work of collecting water and fuel, cleaning, preparing food and
providing care for children, the elderly and ill. Over 75% of unpaid care
work in the world is undertaken by poor womxn and girls who can
spend up to 14 hours a day doing care work in rural areas. Their contri-
bution to the global economy when valued at minimum wage is $10.8
12 Dauncey, Guy (2019). `Ten Green New Deals - How Do They Compare.'
13 Kolinjivadi, Vijay (2019). `Why a `Green New Deal' must be decolonial.' Al Jazeera.
14 McQuade, Joseph (2019). `Earth Day: Colonialism's role in the overexploitation of natural resources.' The
Conversation.
15 Khan, Tessa and Marion Sharples (2017). GADN Briefings: Making trade work for gender equality. Gender
& Development Network.
21
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
trillion16 - more than three times the value of the global tech industry. In
developing countries, 90% of women are working in the informal sec-
tor17, and their unpaid domestic work subsidizes the capitalist economy.
In other words, wealth for the rich is accumulated by eradicating basic
labor and human rights of womxn and girls across the world.18
Neo-liberalism demands gendered divisions of labour that place
the burden of precarity on womxn. Meanwhile, these same womxn are
left to face insufferable pollution19, displacement20 and dispossession21
in the name of profit and economic growth. Despite contributing the
least to the climate crisis, womxn of the Global South bear the brunt of
unpredictable seasonal patterns22 that destroy their crops and water
sources, harm health, cripple food sovereignty, force greater poverty,
and expose them to violence and conflict, entrapping womxn in a
cycle of intergenerational inequality and discrimination.
Given this context, how can a GND reverse the dominant economic
system, which persistently undervalues, invisibilises and exploits South-
ern womxn's labour to sustain `growth' in the North?
Without shifting from the rhetoric of `growth' and addressing the
historical and gendered injustices that have caused climate, ecological
and health crises, the GND risks reinforcing `business-as-usual' -
promoting `green' colonialism masked as `sustainable development'.23
A feminist and human-rights based `decolonial' GND must overhaul
technocratic and market driven solutions that merely "cost shift"24 to
more marginalized populations - especially womxn. It must center the
social well being of the most vulnerable by redistributing capital and
resources in the form of climate reparations and binding Common But
16 Oxfam (n.d.). `Not all gaps are created equal: the true value of care work.' Oxfam International.
17 Schalatek, Liane (2020). `The invisible coronavirus makes systemic gender inequalities and injustices
visible.' Heinrich Böll Stiftung.
18 Elliot, Larry (2019). `World's 26 richest people own as much as poorest 50%, says Oxfam.' The Guardian.
19 WECAN (n.d.). `Why women.' WECAN International.
20 Sarkar, Soumya (2020). `Women suffer the most from climate displacement.' India Climate Dialogue.
21 Löw, Christine (2020). `Under cover of the pandemic, stealth land grabs are ongoing.' OpenDemocracy.
22 UN Human Rights Council (2019). `Analytical study on gender-responsive climate action for the full and
effective enjoyment of the rights of women.' UN
23 Gebrial, Dalia (2019). `As the left wakes up to climate injustice, we must not fall into `green colonialism'.' The
Guardian.
24 Kolinjivadi, Vijay and Ashish Kothari (2020). `No Harm Here is Still Harm There: The Green New Deal and
the Global South (II).' Jamhoor.
22
2. WORK IN A JUSTICE CENTERED TRANSITION
Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR).25 Resources should be mobilised
to secure vast public financing of essential and environmentally viable
public infrastructure. Fossil fuel subsidies must cease and budgets
from military and prison industrial complexes redirected to developing
social protection schemes, decent work, redistributing care, ecological
regeneration and restoration - lifting the burden of unpaid care and
domestic work from the shoulders of marginalised women.
A Global Green New Deal must shape a new social contract that
re-orients this broken economic system away from unrestrained
exploitation of natural resources and labour to one built on human
dignity, solidarity, equity and protecting our planet.
Fighting for good, green jobs in
the wake of Covid-19
VICENTEP. UNAY
Vicente P. Unay, Jr. is Secretary General at National Union Of
Workers In The Power Industry (Power-Sentro), based in
Quezon City, Philippines.
The just transition from oil and gas jobs to decent jobs in the
renewable sector has been thrown into uncertainty by the Covid-19
pandemic. The crisis has not only exposed the deficiencies of a
market-oriented healthcare system that treats health as a commodity,
but also the situation of precarious workers and income inequality.
Overseas Filipino workers from different parts of the world were
transported back to the country - and those in the transport and
informal labour sectors suffered loss of income due to lockdown and
enhanced community quarantine for 3 months. Under the pretext of
the pandemic, the Department of Labour and Employment (DOLE)
25 Climate Nexus (n.d.) `Common but differentiated responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC).
23
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
advisory allowed employers and employees to negotiate adjustments
in their contract - such as reduction in work hours, compressed work
week and increased flexible working arrangement. Workers who were
laid off were unable to file a case as quasi-judicial bodies of DOLE were
suspended, and had limited information, procedure and access for
filing an online complaint.
To sum up, nearly 10 million workers were unprotected in a time of
crisis, and lost their job.
It does not have to be like this. Crises like the pandemic and climate
change can be an opportunity for the working classes to build towards
social transformation; a shift where the preservation of human life and
sustainable environment is the centre of development.
The labour movement26 in the Philippines is united in fighting the
pandemic, climate change and the creeping authoritarian regime. For
SENTRO, which represents 80,000 workers across different sectors, this
must involve rapidly building up the country's public health system, in
order to protect from the health impacts of the continued denudation of
the environment, climate change and future pandemics. It also means
seeing this as a chance to alter income inequality in the country by
introducing an income guarantee - a prelude to universal income. With
the government being forced to bail out corporations, now is the time
for the labour movement to press for changes in the power balance
underpinning industrial relations.
However, the trade union movement is constrained by legislation
such as the 2012 Cybercrime Prevention Act, the 2020 Anti-Terrorism
law and the 2020 BAHO Act (which gave the President additional
powers to fight Covid-19). These laws are designed by the Duterte
administration to sow public fear, legitimise human rights violations and
undermine democracy and freedom of the press. SENTRO therefore
sees the fight against climate change, labour rights violations, looming
dictatorship and the recent pandemic as interrelated.
The Philippines are one of the lowest CO2 emitting countries in
the world. Yet, as an archipelagic island situated between the Pacific
Ocean and South China Sea, it is frequently affected by extreme
26 SENTRO, Nagkaisa (the biggest broad labour coalition in the Philippines) and other broad civil society
organizations.
24
2. WORK IN A JUSTICE CENTERED TRANSITION
weather events, like typhoons. When typhoons hit, the transmission
lines and electric distribution posts are heavily devastated, and take 3-6
months to rehabilitate - a period that hampers provincial economies.
Yet, the current energy supply remains heavily dependent on coal
as its primary source for power generation.27 The long-term Philippine
Energy Plan (PEP) has been criticised for its "lack of focus" on clean
energy,28 especially as the Shell-operated Malampaya gas field is
expected to be exhausted within the next 4 to 5 years.
SENTRO has been mobilizing with other movements to put the Phil-
ippines on the path to clean energy. This includes mobilizing against
coal power plants with the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice,
working with ATM - an alliance to stop mining - to end extractive and
open pit mining, and as a petitioner in Greenpeace Philippines' public
case against carbon polluters like Chevron, Caltex and Shell.
SENTRO is also resisting the corporatization of electric cooper-
atives. For forty years, publicly funded electric cooperatives have
provided electricity to 13 million household consumer-members,
including rural areas.29 The privatisation of these cooperatives means
higher electricity bills for consumers (the highest in Asia), frequent
blackouts, unstable supply and many still without power. For workers,
it means cutting jobs and increasing reliance on contracted labour with
lower wages and no benefits.30
In 2013, San Miguel Energy Corporation privatized the Albay Electric
Cooperative (ALECO), after five years of workers resistance. High rates
and inefficient services led many in the community to refuse paying
their bills. The company disconnected the electric services of con-
sumer-members who, in solidarity with striking workers, boycotted the
payment of the electricity bill. On the other hand, the striking workers
reconnected the electric service of disconnected community members.
With unstable access to electricity, SENTRO introduced pilot renewable
energy areas, and concluded a collective bargaining agreement that
27 Bunye, Patricia (2020). `Energy 2020: Philippines.' Global Legal Insights.
28 Rivera, Danessa (2020). `Fitch flags Philippines lack of focus on clean energy.' Philstar Global.
29 Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA (2018). `Building union power through clean energy in the Philippines.' Union
Aid Abroad - APHEDA.
30 PSI Comms (2018). `Building workers' power in the utilities sector in Asia Pacific.' Public Services
International.
25
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
created a Climate Justice and Just Transition Council.31 However, at
present, 9 electric cooperatives are under threat due to a corporate
franchise grabbing bill, which is pending in Congress.
As long as the privatization of the power industry is permitted,
attempts to decarbonise will only sustain business as usual - the
transition to renewable energy and green jobs will be controlled by
market-oriented policies, which hurts workers and their communities.
Hence, the challenge for the trade union movement is to resist, reclaim
and restructure the power industry towards energy democracy. That
means public control and democratic governance of the power
industry. Building a united global trade union movement is a must if
we are to alter the power relations and change course away from false
solutions to climate change.
Building workers' movements against false
solutions
DANIEL GAIO
Daniel Machado Gaio is National Secretary Of Environment at
Central Única Dos Trabalhadores (Cut), based in São Paulo,
Brazil. Translated by Michael Fox.
Humanity's challenges have become more urgent since the begin-
ning of Covid-19. In recent decades, the labor movement together with
social movements and environmental organizations have denounced
the unsustainability of the neoliberal model that created a health, social,
ecological and climate crisis We have been pointing out alternative
paths to this model - and now, they are even more urgent.
We find ourselves in a moment of a systematic dispute in which old
answers disguised as sustainable will be highlighted as ways out of the
31 Mata, Joshua (2015). `A social uprising for energy democracy.' New Internationalist.
26
2. WORK IN A JUSTICE CENTERED TRANSITION
Illustration by Tomekah George
crisis. False solutions masquerading as a `green economy' will likely
appear with substantial strength at a time when the world is demand-
ing a different way out.
One sector that has invested heavily in false solutions is mining. Auto-
mation, IT and labor subcontracting are being presented to shareholders
as the answer to the irresponsible and murderous reality of these com-
panies' performance in the face of impacted communities, workers and
biodiversity. Together, the ruptures of Vale dams in Bento Rodrigues32
(2015) and Brumadinho33 (2019) dumped 75 million liters of toxic tailings
32 Phillips, Dom (2015). `Brazil's mining tragedy: was it a preventable disaster?.' The Guardian.
33 Phillips, Dom (2019). `Brazilian mining company to pay out £86m for disaster that killed almost 300 people.'
The Guardian.
27
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
mud, devastating entire communities, generating irrecoverable environ-
mental losses, and claiming the lives of 278 people and 12 missing, most-
ly workers. To this day, families seek justice and reparations for the crime.
Meanwhile, in its institutional marketing, the company says that
"it will invest at least USD$2 billion to reduce the company's carbon
emissions by 33% by 2030. The biggest investment ever committed by
the mining industry to fight climate change."34 It's a transition that's not
at all just.
This sector, together with agriculture and cattle ranching, has been
responsible for deforestation, conflicts and contamination in the Ama-
zon that have recently intensified. Retaining the same agricultural and
mining systems, but without workers, is being presented as the answer
to this crisis. This way, while production increases, jobs decrease and
communities are threatened and harassed.
That's why unions and social movements are working towards the
approval of a binding treaty that holds companies accountable and
responds to those impacted in cases of environmental crimes and
human rights violations. An effective transition cannot allow arrange-
ments where companies self-present as sustainable while destroying
the environment, exploiting and costing workers their lives.
In light of the scale of this challenge, we have been working
intensively for these transformations to be made through global pacts,
both in official spaces for climate negotiations at the UN and in our
international alliances. These transformations must occur through the
convergence between counter-hegemonic groups that bring proposals
from workers, women, Blacks, Indigenous peoples and communities.
Beyond the challenges that deal with the old and new forms of
work and precariousness, it is up to the labor movement to incorporate
feminist and anti-racist eco-socialism as an aid in the fight over the
model of development. Together, we can break away from this failed
model, and build towards a system that focuses on life, employment
and democracy.
34 WBCSD Communications (2020). `Vale advances on the climate agenda and unveils US$D2 billion to
reduce carbon emissions within the next ten years.' WBCSD.
28
2. WORK IN A JUSTICE CENTERED TRANSITION
29
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Illustration by Molly Crabapple
30
3. LIVINGWELL
THROUGH
SHOCKS:
HEALTH, HOUSING
ANDSOCIAL
PROTECTION
Climate change threatens our right to have a clean and safe environment
in which to live. Increasingly strong storms, floods and wildfires cause loss of
life and livelihood, and existing mechanisms to deal with this heightened risk
are not only insufficient, but exclusionary. Often, marginalised communities
will not have been consulted in the design of early warning systems and evac-
uation systems, causing particular risks to those who may need enhanced
support.
The rights to live in dignity, with suitable access to housing, safe energy,
a clean and safe environment, sustenance, and physical and mental health
have been under threat for a long time. They have their roots in colonialism,
which created a profound global cultural shift in how humans relate to nature
and one another. It imposed a view that if we weren't always dominating and
exploiting natural resources and other people, we weren't being `productive.'
31
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
This directly conflicts with the beliefs of many indigenous peoples, for
whom the relationship between people and nature is one of interdependence
and stewardship, rather than domination and extraction. The systematic de-
struction of such principles has left swathes of the global population without
adequate resources to prioritise the health and well-being of themselves,
their family and community - meanwhile, wealth continues to accumulate for
a small minority. The destruction of nature for extraction, industrial agriculture,
urbanisation or industry development is also causing severe health crises.
Zika, AIDS, SARS and Ebola all originated from animal populations under
severe environmental pressures.1
Scientific developments in technology and medicine have enriched in-
dustries such as pharmaceuticals and agriculture. Yet, life saving drugs have
become out of reach for many who are excluded from the rudimentary in-
frastructures for survival - basic social infrastructures like a comprehensive,
accessible healthcare system and stable, safe housing. Neoliberal gover-
nance (which has pushed austerity measures within Global North countries
and structural adjustment and privatisation in the South) have concentrated
wealth for the few, while pushing millions into poverty. With climate break-
down comes the urgent need to reverse this course, and focus instead on
building strong infrastructures of social protection and resilience - especially
for communities most at risk.
Guppi Bola (Public health, climate justice, and decolonising economics
expert) adds:
As the pandemic has demonstrated, health crises distribute them-
selves unevenly across the globe by following the patterns of existing
structural marginalization. The health gap exists because these out-
comes of ill-health are both avoidable and unfair. It is ultimately a result
of political choices around investment of public resources, exposure
to environmental pollution and other (including climate change linked)
hazards, and access to stable decent and green employment with
appropriate protective equipment. Health outcomes are complicated
by biological weathering (the susceptibility of ill health due to ongo-
ing trauma) which is slowly being recognised as a driver of health
1 Carrington, Damian (2020). `Pandemics result from destruction of nature, say UN and WHO.' The Guardian.
32
3. LIVING WELL THROUGH SHOCKS: HEALTH, HOUSING AND SOCIAL PROTECTION
inequalities alongside barriers to accessing vital public health services,
clean air and water, nutritious food, and sustainable work consistent
with International Labour Organisation convention, human rights, and
occupational health and safety standards.
Across the world, the gap between the amount of affordable housing
available, and the number of people who need it is increasing. By 2025, this
gap is forecast to affect over a third of the world's urban population2 - for 1.6
billion people around the world, this would mean living in unsafe and over-
crowded high rises, in informal slums or sleeping rough. Extreme weather
events cause disproportionate losses for vulnerable dwellers and those forced
to live in informal settlements where women, young people, LGBTQI+, people
who live with disabilities and older people face heightened risks of violence.
One single storm can displace thousands of people, and cause a scale of
property destruction that takes decades to recover from. In 2005, Hurricane
Katrina destroyed 800,000 housing units in New Orleans. In 2019, Cyclone Idai
is estimated to have destroyed 90% of Beira, a city of more than half a million
people in Mozambique. Mozambique is the sixth poorest country in the world,
and highly indebted - yet its coal and titanium mines and agro-industry has
enriched investors around the world. Meanwhile, the people of Mozambique
have suffered as a result of this economic model, facing reduced social se-
curity spending as the government seeks to repay its debts (especially in a
climate of reduced income from its export commodities). In this neoliberal
policy space, housing and other poverty alleviation efforts are systematically
deprioritised over (foreign) investor friendly schemes that have concentrated
wealth in the hands of a few.3
Black Lives Matter UK organiser and University of Warwick PhD candi-
date, Alexandra Wanjiku Kelbert, notes:
Storms and pandemics themselves cannot easily be averted. But
the scale of the destruction wrought, and whether or not an event
becomes a disaster or a catastrophe, is based on both the political
decisions made in responding to a crisis and the history of decisions
2 Woetzel et al. (2014). `Tackling the world's affordable housing challenge.' McKinsey Global Institute.
3 Jubilee Debt Campaign (2020). `Mozambique: Secret loans and unjust debts.' Jubilee Debt Campaign.
33
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
(entrenched in ideological priorities in favour of gentrification, foreign
direct investment or loans over lifting local people and local solutions)
that create the context in which an event takes place. Covid-19 has
shown what many of us have known for a long time. Economically
marginalised people of colour disproportionately exposed to higher
levels of air pollution, poor housing conditions, healthcare deprivation
or discrimination, and frontline or precarious work will be dispropor-
tionately impacted by shocks, whether health, climate or economic.
This is true in the UK4 as much as for the billions living in poverty in the
Global South. If the pandemic is a portal (as Arundhati Roy suggests)5,
it should be a portal to the kind of world many of us have been working
towards for generations, in our housing and land struggles, in our
strikes and in our protests.
A globally just Green New Deal must therefore include a vision of afford-
able, secure and dignified housing - built to protect people from the impacts
of climate change that are already underway - in addition to decent work and
social protection throughout everyone's life course. Social protection includes
universal access to health and social care - systems whose existing lack of
resilience in times of crisis has been highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Decades of allowing private companies to treat people's health as a busi-
ness opportunity while defunding public healthcare infrastructure has created
a two-tier global health system. While some can rely on cutting edge medical
technology and expertise, many are left unable to access even a hospital
bed. This inequalities wrought by this system will become exacerbated by
climate breakdown. Indeed, there is a deep connection between climate and
wellbeing - for one, climate change increases the likelihood and severity of
future pandemics.6 The intensification of heatwaves from France to Pakistan
disproportionately impacts elderly people and those with pre-existing heart
and lung conditions. Climate change also proliferates vector-borne diseases
(such as dengue, yellow fever, zika, and malaria), and increases premature air
pollution related deaths. Food and water scarcity create health consequences
4 Hirsh, Sophie (2020). `This is why Covid-19 is disproportionately hurting people of colour.' GreenMatters.
5 Roy, Arundhati (2020). `The pandemic is a portal.' Financial Times.
6 Lustgarten, Abraham (2020). `How climate change is contributing to skyrocketing rates of infectious
disease.' ProPublica.
34
3. LIVING WELL THROUGH SHOCKS: HEALTH, HOUSING AND SOCIAL PROTECTION
linked to malnutrition. Wildfires impact breathing. In short, climate change is
the number one threat to public health this century.7 As a result the need for
a resilient and universally accessible healthcare infrastructure and services is
urgent now more than ever.
A Global Green New Deal needs to nurture a twenty-first century com-
mons in place of an economy based on privatising humanity's basic needs.
This includes building a society that promotes life-long learning, care, health,
art, movement and music as part of overall well-being inspired by Buen Vivir8 -
the social philosophy inspiring movements in South America to work towards
less consumption, and encourage cooperation within communities to fairly
distribute available resources, rather than permit permanent accumulation by
the wealthy. The alternative to this model of unsustainable growth at the top
and scarcity at the bottom, can be one of rich abundance for the many.
The socially created asymmetries of climate
change impacts
LEONSEALEY-HUGGINS
Dr. Leon Sealey-Huggins is Assistant Professor And Activist
at University Of Warwick And Wretched Of The Earth
Collective, based in Birmingham, UK.
The unfolding of climate breakdown is not an inevitable impact of
geophysical and meteorological processes - although it does of course
entail unprecedented geophysical effects. Rather, climate breakdown
is harmful precisely because it magnifies existing health, economy,
gender, age and other marginalising relations.
To take an example, we might consider the plight of the Caribbean
region. Despite being one of the lowest emitting parts of the world, the
region is particularly prone to extreme weather events as a result of
7 Watts et al. (2018). `The 2018 report of the Lancet countdown on health and climate change: shaping the
health of nations for centuries to come.' The Lancet 392(10163).
8 Balch, Oliver (2013). `Buen vivir: the social philosophy inspiring movements in South America.' The
Guardian.
35
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
climate change - and is not being supported to build climate resilient
infrastructure for its people.
In 2017, the unprecedented Hurricane Irma hit the British Virgin Is-
lands (BVI) with devastating force. However, compare the capacities of
common Virgin Islanders to cope when the hurricane hit, versus those
of the Islands' most famous occupant, `Sir' Richard Branson. While
thousands were forced to seek safety on neighbouring islands, unsure
if their houses would remain standing once the storm passed and they
returned, Branson hunkered down in his concrete bunker sipping wine.9
Meanwhile, thousands of buildings were destroyed, costing billions of
dollars, and at least four people lost their lives in the immediate impact
- and more dying in the months that followed. The inequality embed-
ded in peoples' ability to be protected by climate-related disasters
already underway is not inevitable: it is a symptom of a housing system
that does not respond to the majority of peoples' actual needs. There
is no such thing as a `natural' disaster. Rather, disasters are socially
9 Zhang, Benjamin (2017). `Richard Branson is having a big sleepover party on his private island as Hurricane
Irma approaches.' Business Insider.
Illustration by Tomekah George
3. LIVING WELL THROUGH SHOCKS: HEALTH, HOUSING AND SOCIAL PROTECTION
produced by uneven access to resources, and are compounded by
inattention to the harms of particular socio-ecological relations.
Imagine, instead, if Branson's hoarded wealth was put to better use,
in the form of a redistributive and reparative process that would have
better protected all inhabitants of the BVI? If distributed reasonably,
humanely and fairly, Branson's wealth would have easily covered the
costs of retrofitting the entire building stock of the BVI, and probably a
greater part of the wider Caribbean region. These buildings could be
made to withstand the kinds of weather events we are likely to see on
an almost annual basis. Moreover, if we turned our attention to other
billionaires, like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, we could ensure the entire
world's population have access to basic material and social needs,10 in
spite of disruption to supply chains caused by climate breakdown. In-
stead, during our global pandemic, the wealthiest have increased their
proportion of wealth. US billionaires alone got $434 billion richer during
the pandemic.11 At the same time, the majority of people look to survive
with increased (unpaid) care responsibilities and small handouts in the
form of short-term and insufficient rent freezes, limited water and utility
bill suspensions or occasional wage contributions.
While necessary, one-off redistribution of wealth would not be
sufficient to resolve the ongoing structural processes that cause
weather-related disasters. What is required is a long-term reorganisa-
tion of social relations and social priorities in a way that eliminates the
role of the billionaire hoarders and uplift all communities in their wake.
To do this requires liberatory community strength building which will
no doubt take many forms, but the seeds of which are visible in many
struggles globally, such as in the case of the community permaculture
of farmers of Puerto Rico who are able to feed fellow community
members in the wake of Hurricane Maria that struck the same season
as Irma;12 or in the experimental models of community building seen in
Cooperation Jackson.13 A Global Green New Deal that could scale these
kinds of programmes offers the promise of a world where everyone has
10 Oxfam (2019). `Billionaire fortunes grew by $2.5 billion a day last year as poorest saw their wealth fall.'
Oxfam.
11 Frank, Robert (2020). `American billionaires got $434 billion richer during the pandemic.' CNBC.
12 Liguori, Steph (2020). `The Rebirth of a Puerto Rican Permaculture Farm.' The Culture-ist.
13 Cooperation Jackson (n.d.). `Sustainable Communities Initiative.' Cooperation Jackson.
37
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
access to energy, health services, education, housing and local/organic
food and where communities are also active agents in the decision
making that governs their lives.
When the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a global pandem-
ic in March 2020, it meant understanding that no one is safe unless everyone
is safe. This requires a radical rethinking about what our economies are for,
what purpose are they supposed to fulfill if it's not to enable our collective
safety and flourishing? Rather than continuing an economic model that
depletes our environment, concentrates wealth, and subsidies carbon inten-
sive industries, Emiliar Reyes outlines how universal access to housing and
health - in addition to other forms of social protection - may be ensured. This
is particularly important in the context of climate change as extreme weather
events rip away homes, savings and resilience, salt water slowly creeps onto
farm lands and rising temperatures desertify previously abundant subsistence
lots, making them unharvestable. Some countries, such as India, Ethiopia and
Mexico, are implementing work schemes to help communities on the frontline
of climate change impacts secure income through green or other guaranteed
work during climate shocks, including work to improve irrigation schemes,
flood prevention measures, soil stabilization, reforestation works, rural trans-
port maintenance and improved land tenure to increase climate change re-
silience. Future schemes could add training and employment opportunities
in renewable energy generation, distribution and supply, energy efficiency (in
manufacturing, transportation, building construction and operations) mea-
sures, organic agriculture and public transport provision.
A human rights centred approach to social protection would require that
these schemes build long-term and sustainable opportunities that meet In-
ternational Labour Organisation decent work standards. Only decent, green,
and long-term guaranteed work can help communities save to increase their
resilience to withstand inevitable climate change shocks. Short term work
that does not offer sufficient workers' rights protection, training opportunities
and sustainable work would be insufficient. In addition, a holistic approach
to social protection requires dignity for all - not just those able to undertake
formalised paid work - to be ensured through social security, whether cash
transfers to those undertaking unpaid care work, working in informal precari-
ous jobs, or those unable to work, asset building and community development
38
3. LIVING WELL THROUGH SHOCKS: HEALTH, HOUSING AND SOCIAL PROTECTION
to increase adaptive capacity to withstand climate change impacts and repair
long standing marginalizations, social health protection (including maternal
health), child and family schemes, disability and sickness welfare protections,
pensions and clean green energy subsidies for those who need it to heat their
homes and feed their families.
Adecolonial, feminist Global GreenNewDeal for
our 2020 challenges
EMILIA REYES
Emilia Reyes works for Equidad De Género: Ciudadanía, Trabajo
Y Familia (Gender Equity: Citizenship, Work And Family),
based in Mexico City.
Multilateralism is in crisis, prioritizing profit over wellbeing. Over the
years, financing conditionalities imposed by the IMF and the World
Bank have required fiscal austerity, trade liberalisation, deregulation
and privatisation of social and economic sectors. This has exacerbated
developing countries' vulnerability to health epidemics, social, environ-
mental and economic shocks, as well as climate change. The Bretton
Woods institutions, the OECD and the UN have encouraged increased
reliance on (unaccountable) private financing for development and
humanitarian responses.14 The Women's Working Group on Financing
for Development (WWG on FfD)15, now more than ever, sees the need
for a comprehensive and systemic response while promoting a demo-
cratic transformation of how global governance takes place.
A decolonial feminist Global Green New Deal must upend the
structures that deplete wealth, resources, nature in the Global South
14 Kentikelenis et al., (2020). `Softening the blow of the pandemic: will the International Monetary Fund and
the World Bank make things worse?.' The Lancet 8(6).
15 The WWG on FFD is an alliance of women's organizations and networks to advocate for the advancement
of gender equality, women's empowerment and human rights in the Financing for Development related
UN processes. It's currently co-convened by the Feminist Task Force and Equidad de Genero: Ciudadania,
Trabajo y Familia.
39
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
to fuel consumption for the most wealthy, and an economy that relies
on unpaid domestic and care work from women or pays marginalised
women precariously to undertake this labour.
We join the Civil Society Financing for Development call to
challenge existing economic, trade and financial dynamics. Under the
umbrella of a call for a UN Economic Reconstruction and Systemic
Reform Summit, we want to work towards a New Global Economic
Architecture16 that works for people and planet.
We must bring redistributive justice and environmental integrity to
the center. We are continuing to erode public spending, especially in
relation to crucial life giving and making sectors such as health and
education at the very time we should be learning why care work, adap-
tive infrastructures and expansive universal social protection (maternal
health, child, social and health care, life-long education and decent
work, and pensions, for example) that protects everyone throughout
our life course are absolutely vital. Only by ensuring this - as we
undergo decarbonization processes - can we ensure a justice centred
transition. New Green Deals must include these decolonial and feminist
approaches, especially as we witness the attacks on indigenous
peoples (who now make up less than 5% of the world's population, but
preserve 80% of the planet's biodiversity)17, local communities, and
those facing multidimensional discrimination on the basis of the lottery
of our geography, exposure to poverty, gender and gender identity,
sexuality, age, indigenous or minority status and disability, national or
social origin, birth or other status.
This means rejecting false solutions based in the financialization
of development that rely on private exploitation of what should be
recognized as commons. This also means centring redistributive justice
in our understanding of what an economy is for and how it functions.
We can do this with progressive taxation (so that those who can afford
to contribute to the well-being of all), ending subsidies for carbon inten-
sive industries (fossil fuel, construction, agroindustry, mining, and arms
industries, for example), tackling illicit financial flows, and committing to
16 CS FFD Group (2020). `Time for a UN Economic Reconstruction and Systemic Reform Summit.' Civil
Society Financing for Development Group.
17 UN (2019). `UN Report: Nature's Dangerous Decline `Unprecedented'; Species Extinction Rates
`Accelerating.' UN.
40
3. LIVING WELL THROUGH SHOCKS: HEALTH, HOUSING AND SOCIAL PROTECTION
running economies for people and the future of our planet.
We must give fiscal sovereignty to developing countries to decide
which social protection regulations are in their interest, and hold them
to account to deliver these. We must give fiscal space through debt
cancellation and tax justice, place a moratorium on unfair trade and
investment agreements (especially on vaccines, medical treatments
and technology, as well as on food systems), and regulate financial
institutions and markets. We believe this is the time to form alliances
amongst social movements to ensure humanity finds its path again
towards justice and wellbeing for people and planet. The time to act is
now.
In any state organised social protection for development, climate policy
or humanitarian responses, the voices of those on the frontline are essential.
Alternatives are possible, and in the piece below Jale Samuwai outlines ex-
amples from Fiji.
Doing development differently
JALE SAMUWAI
Dr. Jale Simuwai is Climate Finance Advisor at Oxfam in the
Pacific, based in Suva, Fiji Islands.
Covid-19 for all its devastating health, economic and social impacts,
has provided us with a unique opportunity to reflect on how we engage
with climate change questions and development in general. Climate
change as re-affirmed by Covid-19 is not merely an environmental
problem, it is the consequence of a flawed development system that
we have considered normal for too long. The conversations on climate
change and Covid-19 are therefore not distinct, but are at their core a
conversation about development itself.
Development as eloquently put by Dr. Tacisius Tabukaulaka is a
set of ideas that creates an image of what we want to become. The
prevalent ideas that currently drive our development thinking are
41
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
grounded in neoliberal economic ideologies. For Fiji and the majority
of the Pacific countries, our development system is part of our colonial
heritage, and this is evident in the extractive economic policies that
have historically driven our development. Our existing development
system promotes capitalistic thinking that sidelines the wellbeing of
communities and the environment, and prioritises the need of big
corporations and large-scale extraction of natural resources as the
ideal pathway for achieving a better future for all. It is an established
ideology that also promotes cut throat competition, rewards and incen-
tivises individualism rather than the cordial and mutual cooperation of
all. At the core of this development thinking is an extractive ideology
that promotes and sustains the interest of the privileged few rather than
those who have little.
There is a growing yearning from communities for real change on
how the development system in our country operates. This means
shifting our governance structures and decision making processes, and
pushing for bold, fearless political leadership that is committed to a
radical overhaul of institutions that are meant to be for the public good.
Fiji made unpopular but necessary decisions that defied neoliberal
logic to protect the safety and wellbeing of our people during the
Coronavirus crisis. Despite the economic impacts, Fiji implemented a
lockdown immediately upon its first recorded Covid-19 case, forbid-
ding travel within cities as well as inter-island travel. This had severe
economic implications especially for local businesses, and even though
we have no community cases, curfew is still imposed from 11pm till
4am is still enforced nationwide. Now the same level of courage must
be shown in the long and difficult decisions required to tackle climate
change. We need leaders to move away from viewing everything from
an economic perspective, and make development decisions because
it is the right thing to do for holistic human and planetary well-being.
They must have the courage to say no to lucrative development oppor-
tunities such as those in the extractive industries, and ask - for who are
they lucrative? They must champion only the projects that place the
well-being of all Fijans and the environment at its core.
This requires radical inclusion. Fiji needs to re-evaluate how it has
been framing its development questions when it comes to whose voic-
es we listen to, who should be sitting at the decision table and crucially,
42
3. LIVING WELL THROUGH SHOCKS: HEALTH, HOUSING AND SOCIAL PROTECTION
who is missing from critical decisions that influence the quality of life
for all our citizens. This is essential in holding our states to account to
re-prioritise widespread well-being over short-term investment which is
anyway soon to be extracted and exported abroad.
Right now, in critical forums that determine general well-being, it is
the rural remote women, the persons with disabilities, indigenous peo-
ple, young people, LGBTQI communities and faith-based organizations
that are always missing - whose voices are either muted or distorted. It
is high time we stop talking about people who experience vulnerability
and the marginalisation in societies, and instead listen to them.
When we bring those voices that have been devalued and sidelined
for so long into the core of our development solution formulation, new
and profound solutions for our development problems, including that
of climate change, will begin to surface. Fiji, I believe, doesn't need big
ideas to solve most of our obvious development problems - what we
need is the insight and priorities from the practical experiences of our
local people being valued, heard and acted upon.
Covid-19 has shown us that ultimately, our safety net is our com-
munity. Our ability to be resilient in the face of great uncertainties lies
in our relationships with each other and our values. There is an urgent
need for us as Fijians to relearn our local and indigenous values and
principles and for these to be embedded in the core of our develop-
ment and education systems.
A famous itaukei idiom resonates for me here: "ni dau loveci ga na
kau ni se gone"- meaning you can only change people's behaviour
and thinking when they are young. Building an education system for
young people that does not follow the neoliberal model of promoting
competition, individualism, consumerism and materialistic wealth is
key to shifting the system towards a fair future for all - in a way that is
sustainable and long term.
Communities are often our safety but they have faced decades of erosion. A
key obstacle to financing social protections schemes that uphold community
well-being in countries within the Global South is the significant debt burden
they face, and the constant drive for growth driven by international develop-
ment institutions. Whether it's forests in Bhutan or ocean creatures in a blue
43
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
economy, everything is seen as having the potential to grow GDPs in a way
that is compatible with sustainable futures. At the same time, governments in
the Global South spend more and more on debt repayments, curtailing edu-
cation and health. Often, reduced public spending is a requirement of loans
of development projects. Reduced social services have a particular impact on
women who support education, care and health related work.
Such measures concentrate wealth among a small minority while the ma-
jority have less but work more. The ability to live a good life is assured to the
very population driving our climate crisis. While the world's richest 10% caused
52% of emissions between 1990 and 2015, they are also equipped with the
resources to fund quick retreats to safety. In 2019, the world's billionaires (2,153
people) had more wealth than 4.6 billion people (over 60% of humanity).
To enable a new development consensus, one that promotes commu-
nity abundance in alignment with limited planetary resources, globally just
green new deals must shake off loan conditions that straightjacket countries
- through debt burdens as well as trade and investment structures - from
making autonomous decisions about how to increase resilience to climate
change impacts.
With fiscal freedom, countries in the Global South could instead eliminate
illicit financial flows and seek employment-based and wealth-linked contribu-
tions to fund social security, decarbonisation and climate change resilience
measures. Funding for fossil fuel, agribusiness and raw earth mineral, metal
mining industries, and the military could be redirected. Sovereign wealth
funds from debt cancellations could be allocated to the needs and demands
of communities on the frontline of climate change impacts. With the freedom
to choose a kinder economy, countries could allow for higher budget deficit
paths and levels of inflation through a more accommodating macroeconomic
framework. These measures are currently restricted under existing trade and
investment paradigms but should be sought, while continuing to demand eq-
uity fair share based transfers of wealth from the Global North (as discussed
in the final chapter). We come back to debt in the final chapter, and consider
trade and investment below.
44
45
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Illustration by Molly Crabapple
46
4. TRADE &
INVESTMENT:
BLOCKADINGA
GLOBAL GREEN
NEW DEAL
Across the world, we have seen a rise of political leaders campaigning on a
nationalist platform of `taking back control.' Whilst optically opposed to global-
isation, these same leaders are committed to forcing secret trade and invest-
ment agreements that prioritise neoliberal privatisation over social protection,
enabling a race to the bottom on workers' rights and climate, environmental
and food standards. Under these agreements, it becomes systematically
difficult for political leaders to genuinely protect civilians from health crises
(including Covid-19), economic hardship, and unmitigated climate change.
Doing so can elicit legal challenges in secret tribunals through `investor-state
dispute settlements' (ISDS) - a mechanism included in many trade and invest-
ment agreements. Several global law firms have predicted that corporations
will sue countries for loss of profits due to measures enacted to protect people
during the Covid-19 pandemic. Responding to this threat, Sondhya Gupta (UK
campaign manager at SumOfUs) told The Guardian:
47
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
"Clearly, companies shouldn't sue countries over emergency
measures to save lives in a global pandemic, and we shouldn't sign
trade agreements that let them. We know lower-income countries are
struggling most to contain the virus. The threat of rich corporations
bullying them out of badly needed public funds to `compensate' them
for profit losses will further hamper efforts to fight the virus and add to
the burden on future generations."1
As predicted, Spanish, Canadian, Italian, Dutch, British and US corpo-
rations plan to sue governments in the Global South for daring to institute
regulations aimed at protecting communities from Covid-19 impacts.2
At the same time, the Energy Charter Treaty locks signatories into fossil
fuel dependence. In May 2017, UK-based oil and gas company Rockhopper
sued Italy after the Italian Parliament banned new oil and gas operations3 near
the country's coast due environmental and earthquake risks. The company
demanded compensation for "very significant monetary damages", including
lost future profits. The claim was made under the Energy Charter Treaty's in-
vestor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism, despite Italy exiting the
treaty more than a year before the claim was registered. This is possible as the
treaty protects investors for 20 years after a country withdraws from it, thereby
instituting investor interests over the popular political will in the long term.
Indeed, even if investors lose their claims, states incur significant legal costs
in defending health, employment, social protection or climate regulations
designed to protect us and our environment. These arbitration mechanisms
fail basic standards of judicial independence and fairness, and threaten the re-
sponsibility of states to act in the interests of their citizens and the planet. For
this reason, public interest groups, trade unions, and academics have called
on governments to oppose investor-state arbitration of the type included in
the Treaty.4
1 Doward, Jamie (2020). `Global Firms Expected to sue UK for Coronavirus Losses.' The Guardian.
2 Olivet, Cecilia & Betina Muller (2020). `Juggling Crises: Latin America's battle with Covid-19 hampered by
investment arbitration cases.' TNI.
3 Thompson, Jennifer and Cat Rutter-Pooley (2017). `Oil and gas explorer Rockhopper in legal fight with Italy.'
Financial Times.
4 Stop ISDS (n.d.). `Alliance.' Stop ISDS.
48
4. TRADE & INVESTMENT: BLOCKADING A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Furthermore, intellectual property regimes embedded in trade and in-
vestment agreements make it more difficult for people to access affordable
medicine, green energy, and prevent farmers from saving seeds. Alongside
the race to develop a vaccine for the Covid-19, there is also a rush to patent
such developments, which will likely impede universal -- or even widespread
- access to what will likely be the world's most in-demand shot. While the de-
velopment of almost every Covid-19 drug has been made possible by public
research and funding, licensing schemes will hand these treatments over to
for-profit corporations, who will then control access to what is and should
remain a universal public good; allowing them to profit off the pandemic.5
Rather than learning from the mistakes and missteps of the HIV/AIDs crisis of
the 1990s, we are repeating them again.6
The well-known violations of labour and environmental standards taking
place throughout global supply chains are also actively facilitated by global
trade agreements. Goods are made in areas with limited workers' rights and
environmental regulations, and almost no enforcement of any local standards
- such conditions are implemented in order to offer the promise of cheap land
and labour for global corporations.7 As well as factor labour, international trade
requires millions of cheap, informal workers on ports to facilitate the transfer
of goods like food, drinks, clothes, jewellery, toys, pharmaceuticals, vehicles,
minerals, metals and chemicals. The `cheapness' of these workers is facilitated
by the fact many of them are migrants working in dangerous contexts with
limited (or no) state recognised rights, and the fact many of them are racially
minoritized women.8 In other words, they are people who have structurally
lower political and social power. At the same time, the pollution produced
from shipping these items between ports and where consumers use them
are not covered in emissions targets of the Paris Agreement, our international
climate change accord.9 This omission has huge impacts, as the shipping
sector emits over 1 billion tonnes of CO2 a year - more than all but the top
5 Belluz et al. (2020). `A guide to the vaccines and drugs that could fight Coronavirus.' Vox
6 Ho, Tara Van (2020). `International Economic Law and Covid-19.' The IEL Collective.
7 Vidal, John (2012). `Are export processing zones the new sweatshops, or drivers of development?.' The
Guardian.
8 Dunaway, Wilma A, ed. (2013). Gendered Commodity Chains: Seeing Women's Work and Households in
Global Production. Stanford University Press.
9 Hulac, Benjamin (2015). `Pollution from planes and ships left out of Paris Agreement.' Scientific American.
49
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
five biggest emitting countries.10 The International Maritime Organisation sees
these emissions levels increasing even more over the next decade. While the
goods and merchandise move freely, the carbon embedded in their move-
ment is unregulated and the workers that mine, assemble or pack them are
often trapped.
In these ways, trade deals systemically entrench global inequality, climate
breakdown and worker exploitation. Tackling trade and investment agree-
ments must therefore be an essential step in achieving justice-oriented action
on climate change, health inequities and economic injustice. So long as these
treaties are intact, genuine advances towards global climate justice are im-
possible. Indeed, even treaties agreed on the premise that trade should not
happen at the expense of the environment or labour conditions, and - on the
contrary - promote sustainable development, largely fail to realise that poten-
tial.11 They also fail to acknowledge the historical reasons - rooted colonialism
and slavery - why some countries have power to determine the terms of trade
and investment, while others have do not. Globally just trade new deals would
embed this historical understanding and require a new way of thinking about
who has access to what, and the principles underpinning international rela-
tions.
More immediately, impact assessments into climate, environmental and
labour conditions affected by trade should review the intersecting challenges
faced by the paid and unpaid labourers who make global trade possible. Trade
agreements can require the reduction of carbon emissions, ensure protection
against deforestation, protect the rights of indigenous peoples, require decent
work and ensure foreign investors pay towards social protection schemes
through proressive forms of taxation. However, the countries that negotiate
these trade agreements must not forget their differing responsibilities for
funding the work required to transform these commitments from paper to
action. Civil society can continue to have a role in monitoring whether trade
and investment conditions are being met and require enforcement action
through independent, transparent, accessible and binding dispute resolution
processes and mechanisms.
10 The International Council on Clean Transportation, (October 2013) `Greenhouse Gas Emissions From
Global Shipping, 20132015.'
11 Harrison, James and Sophia Paulini (2020). `The Trade and Sustainable Development Chapter in the EU-
Mercosur Association Agreement: Is it fit for purpose?.' ClientEarth.
50
4. TRADE & INVESTMENT: BLOCKADING A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
What's wrongwithtrade andinvestment
agreements?
LAURA BASU
Laura Basu is Europe Editor for Open Democracy, based in
Amsterdam, Netherlands.
In times of global pandemic, those wanting to `take back control' of
their democracies would do well to begin with trade and investment
agreements. Negotiated in secret, they are tools to transfer power and
resources from people to transnational corporations who are often
the only ones in the room. In the new EU-US trade talks replacing TTIP,
90% of European Commission meetings have been found to be with
corporate lobbyists.12
As well as lowering tariffs, trade deals seek to bring down `non-tariff
barriers' and achieve `regulatory coherence, promoting a race to the
bottom on worker's rights and environmental and food standards.
Public services are under threat, as the corporate lobby pushes for
liberalisation of all services unless explicitly exempted, including future
services.13 The attack on public services has a particular impact on
women, because they are the main users and workers in many of these
sectors, and because they remain the main providers of unpaid labour
at home or in the community which complements public services. The
deals often include `standstill' or `ratchet' clauses, meaning that once a
sector has been liberalised, it's extremely difficult to go back.
Trade agreements usually include Investor State Dispute Settle-
ments (ISDS), which allow corporations to sue governments for loss of
profits, including potential loss of future profits. Governments do not
have the reciprocal right to sue corporations. By the end of 2018, states
12 CorporateEurope (2019). `TTIP reloaded: big business calls the shots on new EU-US trade talks.'
CorporateEurope.
13 Fritz, Thomas (2015). `Public Services Under Attack: TTIP, CETA, and the secretive collusion between
business lobbyists and trade negotiators.' CorporateEurope.
51
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
worldwide had been ordered or agreed to pay investors USD$88 billion
in disclosed ISDS cases.14
Research by the Transnational Institute and CEO and reported by
openDemocracy has found that law firms are preparing for a `wave' of
such lawsuits in the post-pandemic era, as corporations sue govern-
ments for emergency measures brought in to protect populations from
the coronavirus. Measures that could face legal challenges include the
state acquisition of private hospitals; steps introduced to ensure that
drugs, tests and vaccines are affordable; relief on rent, debt and utility
payments; and action taken to provide clean water for handwashing.15
To date, no other trade and investment agreement has triggered
more investor-state lawsuits than the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT)
which has been described as `the world's most dangerous investment
treaty'. Governments attempting to prevent projects that further lock
in fossil fuel dependence and accelerate climate change can be held
liable for billions in damages under the ECT. Despite its controversy, the
ECT is currently expanding, especially in the Global South.16
While those pushing these deals claim they are about `free trade',
there is one area in which they promote anything but freedom: intellec-
tual property. Mega-regional trade deals like the Comprehensive and
Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership include intellec-
tual property protections that go way beyond WTO rules, and these
provisions are replicated in multiplying bilateral and regional treaties.
They make it more difficult for people to access to affordable medicine,
prevent farmers from saving seeds, and open the way to genetically
modified organisms.17
Trade deals entrench global imbalances and reinforce the interna-
tional division of labour, standing in the way of a globally just Green
New Deal. In RCEP a mega-regional trade deal currently being
negotiated among 16 countries across Asia-Pacific it is the corpo-
rations of big players like China, Japan, New Zealand and Australia
14 Olivet et al. (2020). `Pandemic Profiteers: How foreign investors could make billions from crisis measures.'
TNI.
15 Basu et al. (2020). `Exclusive: Countries to face a `wave' of corporate lawsuits challenging emergency
Covid-19 measures.' OpenDemocracy.
16 ECT's Dirty Secrets (2019). `What is the Energy Charter Treaty?. ECT's Dirty Secrets.
17 GRAIN (2017). `How RCEP affects food and farmers.' GRAIN.
52
4. TRADE & INVESTMENT: BLOCKADING A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
who will benefit from the further opening up of key markets to large
corporations, driving out the small family farms that produce 80% of
the region's food. RCEP will also enable land grabbing, as vast tracts of
land are bought up by foreign multinationals where currently in many
countries investors can only lease land.18
Unfortunately, deals negotiated behind closed doors in the
presence of corporate lobbyists to shift wealth and power to giant
corporations do not tend to bode well for people or planet. Tackling
trade and investment agreements19 will be an essential first step in
achieving transnational and justice-oriented action on climate change
in a post-Covid world.
In the piece below Cecila Oliveta and Lucía Bárcena from the Transnation-
al Institute outline the specific obstacles to achieving a Green New Deal under
the Energy Charter Treaty.
Howinvestment treaties couldblockade
a Green New Deal
CECILIAOLIVET & LUCÍABÁRCENA
Cecilia Olivet is Coordinator for Trade And Investment
Programme at Transnational Institute, based in Belgium;
and Lucía Bárcena is Project Officer for Trade And
Investment Programme at Transnational Institute, based in
Spain.
Leaving fossil fuels in the ground is a key requirement to limit
global warming to 2°C, according to climate scientists. The majority of
European parliamentarians recently joined the call for fossil fuel phase
18 Ibid.
19 Poojaffd (2020). `Stop all trade and investment treaty negotiations during the Covid-19 outbreak.' Civil
Society Financing for Development (FFD) Group.
53
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
out. Yet, most governments are failing to implement an energy tran-
sition. Instead of banning new permits for exploration or extraction of
fossil fuels, limiting or rescinding existing licenses, cutting subsidies to
coal, gas or oil; or taxing its production, a recent UN report warns that
"governments are planning to produce about 50% more fossil fuels in
2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 2°C and 120%
more than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C".20
Many factors deter government action to tackle the fossil fuel indus-
try. But there is one obstacle that is rarely talked about. International
investment treaties, in particular the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT),21 are
powerful weapons for fossil fuel corporations. They enable them to
attack any climate measure that could reduce their profits, even those
enacted to deal with the social and ecological crisis.
.
How are fossil fuels investors using investment agreements to
prevent an energy transition?
Using investment agreements, fossil fuel companies can deter
governments from advancing climate legislation, or make steps towards
energy transition extremely expensive.
Big oil, gas and coal companies can bypass national legal systems.
Instead, they can use a web of over 2600 international investment
treaties22 to sue States for billions of dollars in "damages" at internation-
al arbitration tribunals if governments move to shut down or restrict the
profits of fossil fuel projects. Environmental lawyer Amandine Van Den
Berghe, summed up the problem: "fossil fuel companies may seek to
use ISDS to shift their losses from stranded assets onto states and seek
unmerited compensation for poor business decisions".
The Energy Charter Treaty is the world's most dangerous invest-
ment agreement, due to its wide geographical reach and its extremely
broad and generous investor privileges. Created in the 1990s to protect
20 SEI, IISD, ODI, Climate Analytics, CICERO, and UNEP (2019). `The Production Gap: the discrepancy
between countries' planned fossil fuel production and global production consistent with limiting warming
to 1.5°C or 2°C.' The Production Gap.
21 ECT's Dirty Secrets (2019). `What is the Energy Charter Treaty?. ECT's Dirty Secrets.
22 ECT 's Dirty Secrets (2019). `What is the Energy Charter Treaty?. ECT 's Dirty Secrets.
54
4. TRADE & INVESTMENT: BLOCKADING A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
foreign investors in the energy sector, it has since been used in 131
cases by investors to sue States.23
Several of these lawsuits were initiated by fossil fuel companies
attempting to undermine governments' efforts to fight climate change.
In 2017, Italy was sued by the British oil and gas company Rockhopper
after cancelling its concession to drill oil in the Adriatic Sea. This
followed a decade of struggle by Italian coastal communities who
denounced the danger of coastal drilling, which had already caused
earthquakes and threatened new ecological disasters. The oil company
is using the Energy Charter Treaty to demand 300 million euros in
compensation - seven times the amount the company initially invested.
This case, like the 1,000 other investment treaty lawsuits24 known
about worldwide, will be decided by three private lawyers acting as
arbitrators. These arbitrators tend to defend private investor rights
above public interest,25 revealing an inherent pro-corporate bias. Their
decisions are binding and immediately enforceable. Arbitrators' rulings
usually ignore the public interest concerns motivating the government's
intervention, or the fact that the companies may well have been fully
aware of the risks26 when they invested.
Fossil fuel companies are also using the threat of billion-dollar
lawsuits to dissuade governments from taking effective climate action.
Canadian oil and gas company Vermillion, which extracts almost 75%
of all French oil, used the threat of an ECT lawsuit to dissuade the
French government from legislating to phase out fossil fuel extraction.
The law was shelved and replaced by a watered-down version
which continues to allow it. More recently, German coal giant Uniper
threatened to sue the Netherlands for up to 1 billion over a new law
banning the use of coal for electricity production by 2030.27 The threat
was made when the law was being discussed by the Dutch Parliament.
Even though the threat didn't stop the proposal becoming law, the
23 International Energy Charter (2020). `List of cases.' International Energy Charter.
24 UNCTAD (n.d.). `Investment Dispute Settlement Navigator.' UN.
25 Olivet, Cecilia and Pia Eberhardt (2012). `Profiting from injustice: How law firms, arbitrators and financiers
are fuelling an investment arbitration boom.' TNI.
26 Olivet, Cecilia and Pia Eberhardt (2014). `Profiting from crisis: How corporations and lawyers are
scavenging profits from Europe's crisis countries.' TNI.
27 Darby, Megan (2020). `Coal generator uses investment treaty to fight Netherlands coal phaseout.' Climate
Home News.
55
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
intent to chill legislation was clear - and the company might still follow
through.
In an era of climate crisis, it is almost inconceivable that govern-
ments are still subsidising dirty energy. Yet, if they start to cut subsidies
to coal, gas or oil, it is likely that States will see an avalanche of invest-
ment lawsuits. Spain has been sued 47 times over cuts to renewable
energy subsidies. Cuts to subsidies of any type of energy could unleash
the same result.
The costs of investment lawsuits run into billions of US dollars and
could bring the budgets of most countries, particularly in the Global
South, to breaking point. By the end of 2018, States worldwide had
been ordered or agreed to pay investors a staggering USD$88 billion
due to ISDS cases. This money could otherwise have been spent
on climate adaptation and funding energy transition. To put this in
perspective, the Adaptation Fund, one of the main multilateral climate
funds, has committed to USD$ 720 million for different projects since
2010. This is less than 1% of what governments had to pay foreign
investors as a result of ISDS cases.
.
Are energy transition friendly investment agreements possible?
The short answer is no. There are many other legal instruments that
could support an energy transition - we don't need investment treaties,
even reformed and improved ones.28
International investment agreements (IIAs) were largely signed
because governments believed they would help States attract foreign
direct investment (FDI). Yet, years of research and ample experience
has shown that IIAs are not a determining factor in the attraction of FDI,
including clean energy investment as is claimed nowadays. So, all that
remains for States is the risk of being sued.
IIAs only protect foreign investors. They don't include any obliga-
tions, and only investors can initiate lawsuits. In particular, they protect
large transnational corporations. The fossil fuel industry has initiated at
least 150 ISDS lawsuits, making it one of the most prolific users of the
28 Fossil Fuel Treaty (n.d.). `The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.' Fossil Fuel Treaty.
56
4. TRADE & INVESTMENT: BLOCKADING A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
system. Yet, transnational corporations, in particular fossil fuel compa-
nies, surely don't need, and shouldn't enjoy, extra protection.
Governments in India, Morocco and even the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) have promoted "alternative" models
of investment agreements. But while these new treaties might reduce
the risk of being sued, they do not alter the nature of investment
agreements and could still hinder governments' efforts to address
climate breakdown.
Investment protection treaties are not just shields that protect the
fossil fuel industry, they are powerful swords that empower them to
attack governments trying to act on climate change. The international
investment regime is not compatible with an energy transition or a
green new deal. Keeping it in place will only extend the fossil fuel era.
The solution to predatory investment treaties is not better agree-
ments that "reduce" the risk for States. The solution is for governments
to follow the example of South Africa, Indonesia, Ecuador, Italy or even
all EU member States. They must urgently terminate all international
investment treaties in force, in particular the Energy Charter Treaty,
and stop negotiating new ones. Only then will governments be able to
phase out fossil fuels and truly advance a green new deal without the
risk of having to spend millions of euros compensating corporations.
While corporations can bring expensive arbitration claims and have the
decision of secretive panels be binding on the citizens and government of
nations without accountability, the Paris Agreement and human rights treaties
lack the same agency.
In the piece below, Donatella Alessandrini describes the historic and con-
tinuing injustices upon which trade negotiations take place. Slavery, colonial-
ism and unpaid labour are significant contexts. The British fought three wars
to gain access to Burmese forests. Ten million people - half the population of
Congo at the time - died as Belgium took hold of rubber and ivory subjecting
local people to a ruthless regime. Twelve million people - predominantly from
West Africa - were shackled into boats headed for the Americas where they
were forced into silver and gold mines, and various crop plantations. Forests
were cleared to make way for livestock and sugar cane plantations. Goods
made for export. In the last decades of the 19th century, tens of millions of
57
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Indian died of famine, while British colonial policy forced the country to export
record levels of food. These numbers cannot bring to life the devastation ex-
perienced by people, families and places, and the loss of diverse cosmologies
promoting interdependence, stewardship, and non-binary concepts of work,
gender, sexuality and more. Colonialism reconfigured the world economy.
India's share of the global economy shrank from 27 to 3%. It is estimated that
the UK benefited by approximately USD$45 trillion from its colonial rule of the
Indian subcontinent alone. China's share shrank from 35 to 7%. At the same
time, Europe's share exploded from 20 to 60%. In addition to the natural and
human impacts, this funded industrialisation and the early industrialisers were
responsible for more than three times as many GHG emissions between 1850
and 2002 than so called developing countries. Experience of colonial practic-
es continue to be strong indicators of poverty today, and poverty increases
susceptibility to climate change impacts.
Similarly, for too long women's subsistence labour - collecting firewood,
growing food for family consumption, collecting water (increasingly difficult in
regions subject to water insecurity), care work and more - has been unpaid.
This labour has not only been undervalued and undermined, but is required
to create a new generation of labourers. Women's participation in paid labour
often justifies sweatshop labour. However, this participation often takes place
in precarious contexts.
Not only do existing trade and investment schemes - built on free trade
ideologies - entrench labour precarity and highlight gender injustice, they
also kick away the ladder to development for developing countries.29 Research
from Global Justice Now indicated that African countries receive $161.6 bil-
lion in resources such as loans, remittances and aid each year, but lose $203
billion through factors including tax avoidance, debt payments and resource
extraction, creating an annual net financial deficit of over $40 billion.
29 Chang, Ha-Joon (20020). `Kicking away the ladder: An unofficial history of capitalism, especially in Britain
and the United States.' Challenge Journal 45(5).
58
4. TRADE & INVESTMENT: BLOCKADING A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Illustration by Tomekah George
59
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Trade treaties, comparative advantage and social
inequalities
DONATELLA ALESSANDRINI
Donatella Alessandrini is a Professor Of Law at University Of
Kent in Canterbury, UK.
International trade and investment treaties are built on the prob-
lematic assumption that countries trade with one another because they
have different competitive advantages which can be exchanged to ev-
eryone's mutual benefit. The problem with this assumption is that it fails
to articulate how various advantages came about. The ways in which
states and corporations come to gain specific competitive advantages
are through processes permeated by social inequalities, including
gender and racial inequalities. Underpinning gender inequalities in
the labour market, as feminist economists have argued, is the pursuit
of competitive advantage by avoiding paying towards the full costs
of the reproduction of the labour force and of our planet. For example
firms may establish themselves in jurisdictions where they pay less tax,
which has a negative impact on the revenue available to provide local
public education, health services and, crucially, environmental stan-
dards. Multinational corporations also create complex supply webs to
push any costs of contributing in these ways to local contractors who
then squeeze the labour force and exploit or neglect the environment
in order to extract profits on small operating revenues, while big brands
take the bulk of the trade benefit.
The way in which workers and the environment are treated and
regulated is constitutive of what we call competitive advantage, rather
than being its consequence or `externality'. The pressure on firms and
states to abide by the `commercial provisions' of trade and investment
treaties (to say nothing of the private contracts signed between firms)
means that, unless the contribution workers and the environment make
to production and trade is properly acknowledged, treated and remu-
nerated, its invisibilization and/or devaluation will continue to provide a
source of competitiveness in the global economy.
60
4. TRADE & INVESTMENT: BLOCKADING A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
How, then, can this contribution be acknowledged in international
trade regulation so that `employment', `environmental protection' and
`gender equality' concerns - to use the terminology of these treaties
- can transform the substance of `commercial provisions'? If we start
from the premise that the composition and conditions of re/productive
labour vary from country to country, depending on gender, class, race,
ethnicity, migration flows and so on, and that resources are unequally
distributed between and within the Global South and Global North,
then uniform and universal environmental and labour regulation
through multilateral trade rules is undesirable, particularly when linked
to trade sanctions. What is possible and necessary, however, is to hold
the `commercial provisions' of current trade treaties to account, and we
can start by scrutinizing their effects on environmental, working and
living conditions. A further step would involve re-thinking trade treaties
and commercial relations more broadly, putting decent environmental,
working and living conditions, rather than global competition and
capital accumulation, at the centre of trade policies.
61
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Illustration by Molly Crabapple
62
5. THISLAND
IS OUR LAND:
CONSERVATION,
FOOD AND
ENERGY
The way we are using land is accelerating the climate crisis. The ability of
communities around the world to live autonomously and harmoniously on the
land to which they are tied is routinely and violently intercepted by multina-
tional corporations in the name of conservation and food and energy provi-
sion. Yet, the same communities in the Global South whose land is grabbed
under international trade and investment agreements for these purposes, are
the same communities systematically denied from the harvests exported from
places that have been taken. The global food system is driving environmental
injustice through extreme water use, the pollution of ecosystems by pesticides
and agricultural run-off and producing roughly a quarter of the world's green-
house gas emissions.1
In the last two decades, it is estimated that 26.7 million hectares of land
has been acquired by foreign investors for use in the agriculture business.2
1 Ritchie, Hannah (2019). `Food production is responsible for one-quarter of the world's greenhouse gas
emissions.' Our World in Data, Oxford Martin School.
2 Nolte et al. (2016). `International Land Deals for Agriculture. Fresh Insights from the Land Matrix: Analytic
Report II.' Land Matrix.
63
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Yet, the global, multinational corporation driven agricultural industry - which
we refer to as agribusiness - implicated in these acquisitions, has only become
more inefficient, unequal, polluting and reliant on displacement. Much of this
is rooted in the unevenness of land ownership, where industrial commodity
crop farms have taken land away from those who use it for direct, local food
production, and who often have spiritual, cultural and ancestral connections
to the land.
Many of these commodity crop farms use vast swathes of land for the
production of just one crop, like palm oil or sugar, which places a huge toll
on the health of the soil and its ability to support diverse plant growth later.
According to GRAIN, small farms make up 90% of all farms - and yet these
small farmers have just 25% of the world's farmland to work on.3 Indeed, small
farmers - mainly women - feed most of the world on less than a quarter of
all agricultural land. The large agribusinesses that own the majority of the
land and control trade in grain, biotech and industrial food production force
out local food producers and impoverished people, and drive environmental
degradation with the highly polluting activities and intensive water use at the
core of their practice. Workers in the industry also continue to rank among
the world's most insecure workforces. The International Labour Organization
(ILO) estimates that at least 170,000 workers in the agricultural sector are
killed each year - whether through lack of protections, higher risk of poverty
or exposure to toxic pesticides.4 Meanwhile, indigenous peoples are custodi-
ans of 80% of the world's remaining biodiversity, but are facing severe food
insecurity, extreme poverty and other human rights deprivations.
Agribusiness fundamentally fails to adequately fulfil the food needs of the
worlds' population - one in three people face some form of malnourishment,
and one in nine face hunger issues.5 The `supermarketisation' of food systems
leads to an increase in reliance on processed, rather than fresh, food - con-
tributing to this rise in malnutrition and obesity. Children remain the most
vulnerable to malnutrition - according to the World Health Organization,
malnutrition is the underlying contributing factor in approximately 45% of
deaths of children under five.6 Today's food systems are dominated by trade
3 GRAIN (2014). `Hungry for land: small farmers feed the world with less than a quarter of all farmland.'
GRAIN.
4 ILO (2015). `Agriculture: A Hazardous Work.' ILO.
5 WFP (2019). `2019 - Hunger Map.' UN: World Food Programme.
6 FCRN Food Source (2018). `What is malnutrition?.' Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford.
64
5. THIS LAND IS OUR LAND: CONSERVATION, FOOD AND ENERGY
agreements and economic policies that prioritize profits over the right to food.
Power is concentrated in the hands of a few corporate actors that benefit
from free trade rules and export-oriented agricultural policies. Such regimes
privilege large-scale agribusinesses to the detriment of others, creating insta-
bility in the global food system. Yet, the food produced in this way represents
a small part of global production - the UN estimates that 70-80% of the food
consumed in most of the Global South is produced by smallholder farms.7 The
20-30% of food produced by large agri-businesses is having huge, destructive
impacts across the system.
Big commodity traders like Bunge Ltd, Cargill, Luis Dreyfus and Archer
Daniels Midland, are the agricultural equivalents of fossil fuel companies like
Shell and BP. They reap the rewards of a broken system and are subsidised
by state handouts, while leaving the basic needs of millions unfulfilled and de-
stroying the natural world. Trade agreements encourage the planting of cash
crops and the industrial meat industry, thereby incentivising deforestation, the
redirection of water away from local communities and the pollution of eco-
systems. Indeed, the destruction of forests in order to grow animal feed is one
of the biggest threats to biodiversity, which is vital to sustainable agriculture,
resilient and sustainable food production, and carbon sequestration.
This process also results in the marginalization of women from agricul-
tural decision-making, whose subsistence-based knowledge and practices
are derided and made impossible. Women face a lack of voice in shaping
work agendas, and increasingly depend on men for cash and access to
the market to purchase the food they previously grew. This contributes to a
growing dissonance between women's roles as agriculturalists and the social
recognition accorded to them, and has particularly troubling implications for
household food security, since the main responsibility for this lies in women's
hands.8 It also prioritises business-led ways of knowing and doing over more
sustainable methods, like traditional rotational systems, permanent pasture
and conservation grazing. These sustainable forms of farming that can restore
soils and biodiversity, and sequester carbon, are derided, while the demand
for crops requiring high inputs of fertiliser, fungicides, pesticides and herbi-
cides are forcibly increased. The growing feminization and casualization of
7 UNFAO (2014). `The state of food and agriculture 2014: In brief.' Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations.
8 Harcourt, Wendy and Ingrid L. Nelson, eds (2015). Practising Feminist Political Ecologies: Moving Beyond
the `Green Economy.' Zed Books.
65
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
the waged agricultural workforce over the past few years enables flexibility for
larger growers, while increasing precarity for workers.
The ecological cost of agribusiness is also clear. As a model, agribusiness
dangerously increases emissions while destroying wild habitats - and by
driving climate breakdown, the agricultural industry is, somewhat ironically,
making access to food increasingly precarious. As a recent example, Cyclone
Idai (which struck Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe in March 2019) alone
destroyed nearly two million acres of crops including corn, cassava, beans,
rice and groundnuts such as peanuts. Displacement caused by increased
frequency and intensity of extreme weather is being particularly felt by those
who rely on the fishing and agriculture sector for income and subsistence.
Industrial agricultural practices also threaten food stability by reducing our
resilience to intensifying ecological impacts - such as desertification - in the
future. A 2015 report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization found
that, globally, 25 to 40 billion tonnes of topsoil are lost annually to erosion,
thanks mainly to ploughing and intensive cropping.9 The IPCC's August 2019
Special Report on Climate Change and Land found that to become fit for
purpose in an era of climate change, agriculture must move away from in-
tensive and industrialised approaches, and towards food systems based on
agroecology and less and better meat.10
Countries on the frontline of the most extreme impacts have done very
little to cause the crisis and instead been required (through trade and invest-
ment agreements) to open their markets to foreign investment in a carbon
intensive, displacing and polluting way of growing food. A vicious and ironic
cycle, where global agribusiness is behind some of the biggest threats to food
sustainability and accessibility, is therefore coded in the DNA of our global
food system. The Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights
warns that this is leading towards a "climate apartheid scenario in which the
wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger and conflict, while the rest of the
world is left to suffer". 11
In response to this crisis, the international peasant movement La Vía Cam-
pesina developed the concept of `food sovereignty' in the 1990s.12 Introduced
9 UNFAO (2015). `Soils are endangered, but the degradation can be rolled back.' Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations.
10 IPCC (2019). `Climate Change and Land.' IPCC.
11 UN (2019). `World faces `climate apartheid' risk, 120 more million in poverty: UN expert.' UN News.
12 Viacampesina.org
66
5. THIS LAND IS OUR LAND: CONSERVATION, FOOD AND ENERGY
Illustration by Tomekah George
at the World Food Summit in 1996, food sovereignty was framed as an explicit
critique of the neoliberal global food system13, representing a radical break
with the dominant agrarian system. The 2007 Nyeleni Declaration defines
food sovereignty as "the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate
food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and
their right to define their own food and agriculture systems."14 Food sovereign-
ty prioritizes factors such as local production, direct commercialization, the
use of agroecological methods, opposition to genetically modified crops and
agro-chemicals, and rights to land, water, seeds and biodiversity.
A globally just Green New Deal must think of land and food as part of the
global commons, and therefore to be regulated and shared fairly.15 It must also
recognise the intimate relationship between land sovereignty and food justice.
This means supporting indigenous land rights, halting land grabs for mining,
agro-industrial plantations and biofuels and banning land speculation by big
financial institutions. Supporting regional, short and regenerative agro-eco-
logical models, as well as traditional knowledge that minimises the use of toxic
13 La Vía Campesina (2003). `Food sovereignty.' La Via Campesina.
14 Nyéléni Forum 2007 (2007). `Declaration of Nyéléni.' Nyéléni.
15 Vivero-Pol et al. (2018). Routledge Handbook of Food as a Commons. Taylor & Francis.
67
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
inputs, reduces food waste and re-allocates industrial agriculture subsidies
to small farmers, would not only cool the planet, but feed the world at least
three times over.16 It is entirely possible to live in a world where everyone
has access to publicly paid for food. Agricultural policies across 53 countries
currently provide an average of USD$528 billion per-year of direct support
to - predominantly intensive - agricultural businesses.17 These resources must
be redirected to climate change resilient and equitable practices. In addition,
while it is no substitute for land and resource redistribution, any technological
innovations, such as plant-based meat alternatives, must be accessible to all
those who need and want it.
Taking the agricultural industries into public ownership, re-thinking what
we produce and how much we really need, democratising land access and
control of food decision making to prioritise sustenance over market power
is crucial, especially for revaluing the labour rights of a women-dominated
workforce and enabling food justice. Embracing this kind of `food citizenship'
may take many forms,18 including support for greater urban-rural engage-
ment, collective procurement and participation in food policy councils. Such
community-based movements are taking control of local and regional food
systems with the goal of promoting bottom-up change. Indeed, the food and
energy needs of the world's population do not contradict principles of land
sovereignty, which holds that "land belongs to those who work it, care for it
and live on it". 19 On the contrary; a Global Green New Deal that enshrines land
sovereignty is necessary to achieve a just new deal.
16 Erdman, Jeremy (2018). `We produce enough food to feed 10 billion people. So why does hunger still exist?".
Jeremy Edman.
17 OECD (2019). `Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2019.' OECD iLibrary.
18 Lozano-Cabedo, Carmen and Cristobal Gomez-Benito (2017). `A theoretical model of food citizenship for
the analysis of social praxis.' Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 30(1), p1-22.
19 Borras Jr, Santurnino and Jennifer C. Franco (2012). `A `Land Sovereignty' Alternative: Towards a Peoples'
Counter-Enclosure.' TNI.
68
5. THIS LAND IS OUR LAND: CONSERVATION, FOOD AND ENERGY
Nothing about us without us: centring workers in
the just agriculture transition
TERESA ANDERSON
Teresa Anderson is a Climate Policy Coordinator for Action Aid
International, based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Agriculture is a major source of the world's greenhouse gases, and
is highly vulnerable to its impacts. At the same time, agriculture is the
source of food security for almost everyone on earth, the basis for the
livelihoods for more than 1 billion people, and the foundation of many
economies. Dramatically cutting greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the
agriculture sector could thus bring major disruptions to peoples' lives
and food security if done without prudence. The transition in agriculture
must therefore be undertaken with care, ensuring that considerations of
justice and rights are central to the approach. The following "Principles
for a Just Transition in Agriculture"20have been developed by ActionAid,
to help guide this necessary shift:
.
1. Transform the food system to work for people, nature and the
climate.
.
The IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land (August
2018) confirms that to become fit for purpose in an era of climate
change, agriculture must move away from intensive and industrialised
approaches, and towards food systems based on agroecology and less
and better meat. The term "agroecology" describes a set of agricultural
practices that work with nature and largely avoid GHG emissions by
improving soil health, crop diversity, resilience to pests and disease,
and avoiding the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. With 70%
of the world's cropland currently used for producing livestock feed,
shifting away from industrial and large-scale livestock production
20 Borras Jr, Santurnino and Jennifer C. Franco (2012). `A `Land Sovereignty' Alternative: Towards a Peoples'
Counter-Enclosure.' TNI.
69
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
and consumption has also been identified as a necessary measure to
reduce the industry's outsize contribution to methane, deforestation
and land use.
.
2. Address don't exacerbate inequalities.
One of the major challenges to changing agricultural practices is
that farmers using industrial agriculture techniques can feel demonised
and defensive that they are being blamed for the climate crisis. They
may be wary that top-down and simplistic climate policies will leave
large sections of rural communities stranded, with few options for se-
cure livelihoods. There is already deep injustice across the food system,
with farmers and workers often squeezed and exploited by a system
that concentrates wealth, land and power in fewer and fewer hands.
Women farmers face particular barriers and burdens. Meanwhile, two
billion people are still food insecure. A just transition in agriculture must
therefore be done in a way that addresses and does not exacerbate
injustices in the food system.
3. Ensure inclusiveness and participation.
The term "just transition," originally coined by unions, defines WHAT
the new system will look like, and HOW that transformation is carried
out. A just transition must be genuinely inclusive and participatory,
engaging with key actors, particularly those that are marginalised and
ignored such as women farmers. Farmers, workers and communities
must be given a seat at the table and opportunities to shape their own
future.
4. Develop a comprehensive framework.
Governments should develop comprehensive policy frameworks
that provide positive opportunities for better food systems that work
for farmers and the climate. Regional and national level impact as-
sessments and planning processes, gender-responsive and inclusive
policies, social protection, training and reskilling, support for new routes
to market, as well as joined-up thinking that links different sectors and
70
5. THIS LAND IS OUR LAND: CONSERVATION, FOOD AND ENERGY
global connections will be key. These elements can form the basis of
increasingly ambitious national climate policies including Nationally
Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans
(NAPs).
Through a just transition in agriculture, many communities that
might otherwise resist climate action can become powerful advocates
for change.
In 2019, the burning of the Amazon and the darkening of skies from Sao
Paulo, Brazil, to Santa Cruz, Bolivia, captured the world's conscience. Much of
the blame rightly fell on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for encouraging the
burning of forests and the seizure of Indigenous Peoples' lands. Less reported
was the fact that this is incentivised by large-scale international meat and soy
animal feed companies like JBS and Cargill, and the global brands like Stop &
Shop, Costco, McDonald's, Walmart/Asda, and Sysco that buy from them and
sell to the public. These companies are creating the international demand that
finances the fires and deforestation.
From the Greater Mekong, to the Amazon and Madagascar, alarming re-
ports have emerged of increased poaching, illegal logging and forest fires,
while many countries are engaging in hasty environmental rollbacks and cuts
in funding for ecological protection. Deforestation and forest degradation in
the tropics account for a significant share of global carbon emissions. This all
comes at a time when we need these spiritual sites, homes to vast species
and carbon absorbers the most. Existing schemes, such as the REDD scheme
and REDD+ are insufficient to prevent this, worse, conservation schemes can
actively harm those that have done the most to protect our remaining social
and planetary biodiversity.
The REDD+ scheme (Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and
Degradation) is in the Bali Action Plan, and UNFCCC parties have agreed
to consider REDD+ forest carbon schemes as a potential way to mitigate
and offset carbon emissions and enhance forest carbon stocks in developing
countries. Supported by the World Bank, FAO, UN Environment Programme
(UNEP) and UN Development Programme (UNDP), REDD+ projects involve
host governments and forest-dependent communities (largely in developing
countries) being paid small sums via complex market-based mechanisms to
71
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and for
conserving, managing and enhancing carbon stocks. While some projects
included reduction aims, most focused on conservation.
The social impacts of REDD and REDD+ projects on people living in and
around forest areas, however, have often not been taken into consideration.
In a number of African countries, these projects even enabled states to grab
land from indigenous and forest communities without seeking full prior and
informed consent21 - despite this being required as part of the UN Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The UN Committee on the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination, issued concerns around the implementation of REDD
activities in Indonesia, given the impact on indigenous peoples' right to pos-
sess, develop, control and use their communal land. Action Aid have reported
forced evictions and human rights violations, lost livelihoods, divided com-
munities, destruction of culturally significant sites and increased poverty - all
of which disproportionately impact women, who undertake the majority of
household food production.22
Indigenous and forest peoples have understood and managed their envi-
ronment best, evidenced by the fact that 80% of Earth's biodiversity is in tribal
territories. When indigenous peoples have secure rights over their land, they
achieve at least equal if not better conservation results at a fraction of the
cost of conventional conservation programs. But in Africa and Asia, govern-
ments and NGOs are stealing vast areas of land from tribal people and local
communities under the false claim that this is necessary for conservation. The
grabbed land is called a "Protected Area" or "National Park" and the original
inhabitants dispossessed, sometimes with shocking violence. Tourists are
welcomed and trophy hunting, logging, and mining have been known to take
place within these taken territories. Ecoguards and park rangers have been
known to target local people's assets and torture with impunity. In February
2020, Survival International research implicated the WWF in funding so-called
"ecoguards" who have been accused of torturing the forest communities that
have long relied on, and protected, the Messok Dja area of the Republic of
Congo.23 Similar stories of forest peoples being displaced and then tortured
21 REDD-Monitor (2015). Carbon Conflicts and Forest Landscapes in Africa. REDD-Monitor.
22 Oram, Julian (2014). `The Great Land Heist: How the world is paving the way for corporate land grabs.'
ActionAid.
23 Lang, Chris (2020). `UNDP investigation confirms that WWF-funded ecoguards beat up indigenous people
in the Republic of Congo.' Redd-Monitor.
72
5. THIS LAND IS OUR LAND: CONSERVATION, FOOD AND ENERGY
for entering their previous territories, even for collecting snails, have been
made in Nepal.24
Multinational institutions such as the World Bank have promoted partici-
patory learning and action or gender and development methods to elicit input
in projects from local communities. However, these approaches tend towards
maintaining predominant economic growth models that elicit particular, stra-
tegically beneficial voices from communities to do so. They fail to call into
question the view that the environment can be a commodity for trade or a
state's property, therefore avoid proposing solutions that could lead to sub-
stantial political and economic transformation and justice. Depending on how
it is done, participation can either come from a desire to protect autonomy,
or it can be designed to legitimise the prioritisation of economic growth over
people and planet. At its worst, the co-option of `participation' can continue
the prevailing mantra of growth-centred economics - which itself has caused
the crisis - thereby failing to empower local people and continuing Eurocentric
conceptions of development.25
A Global Green New Deal must learn from the mistakes of programmes
like REDD and REDD+, and ensure meaningful democratic participation of in-
digenous and forest-dependent communities when engaging with questions
of land conservation, including decision-making say over whether land is
traded, parcelled, and financialized at all. Participation of women, indigenous
communities and forest peoples within schemes that subordinate to market
norms does not allow for decision-making which rejects colonized concep-
tions of ownership in favour of a deep recognition of our interdependence and
reliance on land, and for the protection of our commons.
Market-based solutions to our crisis will fail. Commodification, trading and
financialization of nature and ecosystemic regeneration are part and parcel of
the ongoing drive of capitalism towards an `accumulation by dispossession.'
Everything from the regeneration of nature, global natural commons, public
goods and state-run enterprises and facilities, social reproduction, care and
social relations become marketised. The climate change negotiations nurture
the concept of green commodification through carbon trading, joint implemen-
tation and the Clean Development Mechanisms (like REDD, REDD+ among
24 Warren, Tom and Katie J.M. Baker (2019). `WWF Funds Guards who have Tortured and Killed People.'
Buzzfeed.
25 Richards, P (1995). `Participatory Rural Appraisal: A quick and dirty critique.' PLA Notes
73
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
others). They open a huge segment for the financial market. At the Rio+20
conference, banks, investment funds and insurance companies signed up to a
`Natural Capital Declaration' for the purpose of integrating natural capital into
their financial valuations. Techno-science like genetic manipulation and gene
editing , and geo-engineering new technologies for resource extractivism
from fracking to deep-sea mining and for substitution of natural processes as
in synthetic biology, nanotechnology and reproductive technologies intensify
the ongoing commodification. They facilitate the adjustment of nature, human
nature and the social to the neoliberal market rationale for monetary price,
efficiency and profitability.26 A Global Green New Deal contains within it the
hopes of reversing the intensification of neoliberal market approaches to-
wards nature, gender, indigeneity, poverty, labour and social justice concerns.
REDD+andthe failures inlanddiversity ambitions
ALEX WIJERATNA
Alex Wijeratna is a Campaign Director for Mighty Earth, based in
UK .
Based on my reading of REDD+ carbon offset schemes over the
last 10 years or so, I am alarmed by the impacts of REDD+ on the rights
of Indigenous and local communities on the ground, and I'm increas-
ingly dubious that i) they work in carbon terms, and ii) can deliver zero
deforestation and the necessary forest finance at the speed and scale
that we need for a 1.5C world.
Global peasants movements, community-based (CBOs) and civil
society organisations (CSOs) see REDD+ as another form of com-
modification and privatization of the commons and point to first-hand
and extensive documented evidence that pilot REDD+ forest carbon
schemes are simply not working for local forest-dependent com-
26 Harcourt, Wendy and Ingrid L. Nelson, eds (2015). Practising Feminist Political Ecologies: Moving Beyond
the `Green Economy.' Zed Books.
74
5. THIS LAND IS OUR LAND: CONSERVATION, FOOD AND ENERGY
munities or in climate change terms. A significant number of studies
show that REDD+ schemes promote land grabs and human rights
abuses, cause conflict over Indigenous and customary land rights,
create disputes over carbon rights, carbon credits, carbon leakage and
community compensation payments. They are riddled by weak gover-
nance, weak participation and `elite capture', and increase discrimina-
tion against rural women, tribal and Indigenous peoples. Under REDD+
schemes, the rights of affected Indigenous and local communities to
Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) are rarely carried out, and a
wealth of evidence shows that Indigenous peoples, shifting cultivators
and rural women lose out in particular.
Yet, rather than learning from past mistakes, the Paris Agreement has
systematised reliance on market driven mechanisms through the Sustainable
Development Mechanism of the Paris Agreement. In the piece below, Nathan
Thanki outlines how it does this, and what the justice centred demands and
alternatives are.
Justice alternatives to the Sustainable
Development Mechanismof the Paris Agreement
NATHAN THANKI
Nathan Thanki is a Co-Coordinator for Global Campaign To
Demand Climate Justice, based in London, UK.
The Paris Agreement differs from the Kyoto Protocol in several
regards. It both weakens the differentiation between developed and de-
veloping countries and abandons the collective setting of targets and
timetables for emissions reductions in favour of the far more flexible
approach of "nationally determined contributions" (NDCs). The result,
famously, is that everyone is on board but the ship is sinking: even if
75
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
the NDCs are implemented, temperatures are on track to rise by 3-4°C
this century.
One area in which the Paris Agreement does mimic the Kyoto
Protocol is in the use of market-based approaches to climate change
mitigation. The Kyoto Protocol's so-called "Clean Development Mecha-
nism" was tainted by questions over its efficacy and many instances of
human rights abuses and land grabs particularly impacting indigenous
peoples and forest communities. Emissions trading schemes demon-
strably failed to reduce emissions. Yet the Paris Agreement (specifically,
Article 6) persists in relying on these policy approaches that are proven
failures.
Article 6 is couched in the language of "voluntary cooperation"
but this is code for the same kind of logic that underpinned the indul-
gences of the Middle Ages' Catholic Church; those who can afford to
pay are absolved of their sins. The poor pick up the burden. The basic
premise of this kind of `cooperation' is that countries are able to use
"internationally transferred mitigation outcomes" to count towards
their NDC. So, if a developed country wanted to, it could increase its
own carbon-intensive activities and simply purchase the right to offset
this pollution through mitigation carried out in another country. One
of the technologies touted to deliver these offsets is Bioenergy with
Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). In theory, BECCS would involve
planting trees to absorb atmospheric carbon, cutting those trees down
and burning the biomass to use the energy, then somehow capturing
and storing the carbon in the ground. There are a plethora of problems.
Bioenergy is not actually carbon neutral. The technology doesn't exist
at scale yet, and to scale it up would require vast amounts of land.
Whose land? You can easily guess.
Rather than persist in a near-fanatical commitment to market-based
false solutions, climate justice demands real solutions which are
people-centred and equitable which are people-centred and equitable,
and which appreciate the inherent value of nature rather than reduce
it to a commodity. Some solutions include, but are not limited to:
drastically limiting corporations and wealthy elites excessive con-
sumption, particularly of energy; removing barriers to affordable and
accessible environmentally sound technologies such as intellectual
property rights; ending producer subsidies promoting fossil fuels and
76
5. THIS LAND IS OUR LAND: CONSERVATION, FOOD AND ENERGY
other carbon intensive industries; conserving biodiversity by leaving
the ecological integrity of natural ecosystems unharmed and scaling
up ecological restoration; transforming industrial agriculture towards
agroecological practices; and investing in electrified, free or subsidized
mass public transit. There are more real solutions than false ones.
If you watched David Attenborough's beautifully made and Netflix pro-
duced witness statement "A life on our planet," you may have come away
with the idea that desert renewable technology can save us. Yet, the world is
embroiled in an energy contradiction. Hundreds of millions of people around
the world are unable to access energy to carry out basic functions - such as
heating their homes and powering cooking appliances - while multinational
corporations are ramping up land-grabs in the name of energy provision for a
tiny minority of the global population. Whether for export oriented and mass
produced food, or energy (however green) these land grabs must end.
13% of the world's population have no access to electricity, and 40% do
not have access to clean fuel both of which have severe impacts for health,
education and wellbeing. Almost all of the people in both these are located in
the Global South.27 The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the
annual cost of reaching the goal of universal energy access will be around
USD$48 billion by 2030. In comparison, the International Finance Corporation
(IFC) indicates that those without access to modern energy services spend
USD$37 billion per year globally on low-quality cooking and lighting energy.
The global poor spend three to ten times more of their disposable income on
energy than the rich.
Indeed, the poor are already spending nearly as much on fuels as would be
required in capital investment to provide accessible renewable energy (which
has high upfront costs but very low operating costs).28 The costs of addressing
the health consequences of household air pollution from unventilated cooking
with fuelwood and charcoal (which contribute to asthma, acute respiratory
infections, tuberculosis, strokes, low birth weight, and cataracts, among other
healthcare risks)29 means that it would be cheaper - and more dignified - to
27 Ritchie, Hannah and Max Roser (2019). `Access to Energy.' Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
28 ILO (2013). `Providing clean energy and energy access through cooperatives.' ILO.
29 Applied Research Programme on Energy and Economic Growth (2016). "Energy in Nepal". Applied
Research Programme on Energy and Economic Growth
77
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
invest in universal clean energy access rather than relying on an already failed
market driven approach. In the Global North, private energy companies are
reaping record high profits whilst the elderly and working classes experience
severe health impacts from being unable to afford increasingly extortionate
energy bills. In the UK, one person dies every seven minutes from the cold.30
Land grabs have historically been the bread and butter of the fossil fuel
industry. However, as the climate crisis creates pressure to transition to a
post-carbon world, `green' does not always equal `good' when it comes to
community-driven land sovereignty.31 Across Latin America, South East Asia
and Africa, efforts to attain energy efficiency and develop large-scale biofuel
development have led to land-grabbing by both local and foreign entities -
farmers whose land is seized by multinational corporations are left without
an income, and forced to buy the commodities they once grew.32 Proposals
to cover the Western Sahara in solar panels assumes empty open space
available for exploitation by European and US companies who will generate
profitable renewable sources of energy for consumption in the Global North.
Israel's reputation as a `hub' for solar energy is built on the commercial solar
fields in the occupied West Bank, while Palestinians remain unable to access
consistent energy supplies.33
Alternative systems of energy generation - grounded in principles of de-
centralised, democratic and public energy ownership - is entirely possible in
today's technological context.34 We could all have solar panels on our homes
and wind and tidal energy in our local communities. Libraries, hospitals, mu-
seums, schools and universities could be built to generate more energy than
they consume. We could collectively contribute to the generation of green
energy, and participate in decision making about how to allocate it - specifi-
cally towards socially valuable activities (to limit the extractivism required for
green infrastructure). Only by moving away from a model that privileges the
enrichment of oligarchal energy companies can we have the space to develop
a renewable energy system in harmony with principles of land sovereignty
30 Foster, Dawn (2016). `Why is one older person dying every seven minutes during the winter?.' The Guardian.
31 Borras Jr, Santurnino and Jennifer C. Franco (2012). `A `Land Sovereignty' Alternative: Towards a Peoples'
Counter-Enclosure.' TNI.
32 GRAIN (2013). `Land grabbing for biofuels must stop.' GRAIN.
33 Who Profits (2017). `Greenwashing the Occupation: The Solar Energy Industry and the Israeli Occupation.'
Who Profits.
34 Steinfort, Lavinia (2019). `The Future is Public: Democrratic energy economies can avert climate
catastrophe.' TNI.
78
5. THIS LAND IS OUR LAND: CONSERVATION, FOOD AND ENERGY
and energy security.35 It is crucial that the zero-carbon world envisioned in
progressive Green New Deals is not used as cover for a new generation of
`green' colonialism, and instead deepens energy democracy with universal
and sustainable access that supports the well-being of all.
Green Energy Grabs
HAMZA HAMOUCHENE
Hamza Hamouchene is the North Africa Programme
Coordinator at the Transnational Institute based in
London, UK.
In this context where the energy security of the North trumps the
human rights and sovereignty of people in the south, where priorities
are dictated by the richest and most powerful (states and multination-
als), it is of paramount importance to scrutinise the political economy
of energy transitions.
Two examples of renewable energy schemes in North Africa show
how energy colonialism is reproduced in the form of green colonial-
ism or green grabbing.
The Ouarzazate Solar Plan was launched in 2016 just before the
Marrakech climate talks (COP22). It was praised as the largest solar
plant in the world and the Moroccan monarchy was declared a
champion of renewable energies. The plant was installed on Ama-
zigh agro-pastoralist communities' land without their approval and
consent, a land grab for a supposedly green agenda (a green grab).
Second, this mega-project is controlled by private interests and has
been built through contracting a huge debt of USD$9 billion from
the World Bank, European Investment Bank, and others. This debt is
35 Friends of the Earth et al. (2018). `Energy Cities, "Unleashing The Power Of Community Renewable
Energy.' Friends of the Earth.
79
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
backed by Moroccan government guarantees, which means potentially
more public debts for a country already overburdened. Third, the
project is not as green as it professes. It is using concentrated thermal
power (CSP) that necessitates extensive use of water in order to cool
down and clean the panels. In a semi-arid region like Ouarzazate,
diverting water use from drinking and agriculture is outrageous.36
Similarly the Tunur Solar project in Tunisia highlights how patented
green technology is extracted while locals struggle to have access to
sufficient energy to meet their basic needs. A private venture between
British, Maltese and Tunisian entrepreneurs, it aims to develop low
cost dispatchable power to Europe. A familiar colonial scheme is
being rolled in front of our eyes: the unrestricted flow of cheap natural
resources (including solar energy) from the Global South to the rich
North while fortress Europe builds walls and fences to prevent human
beings - who seek dignified lives - from reaching safe shores.
We must always ask the relevant questions: who owns what? Who
does what? Who gets what? Who wins and who loses? And whose
interests are being served?
To implement just and truly green new deals, which provide for
the future of people and planet, we must take nature back from the
clutches of big capital and recast the debate around justice, popular
sovereignty of the masses and collective good. The priority must be
energy autonomy for local communities and a radical democracy that
takes precedence over the logic of a market that considers our land
and our livelihoods as commodities to be sold to the highest bidders.
36 Hamouchene, Hamza (2016). `The Ouarzazate Solar Plant in Morocco: Triumphal `Green' Capitalism and
the Privatization of Nature.' Jadaliyya.
80
Can Land as a Carbon sink save us all?
KIRTANA CHANDRASEKARAN
Kirtana Chandrasekaran works for Friends of the Earth
International, based in Edinburgh, Scotland
Land based climate mitigation and adaptation is fast becoming
a central theme in the response to the climate crisis. Corporations
and Governments are hoping land can sequester millions of tonnes
of carbon, to offset37 their still rising emissions and help us reach `net
zero'38 climate targets. The UK Committee on Climate change suggest-
ed last year 40% of the UK's mitigation targets could be met by carbon
sequestration or so called `negative emissions technologies' (NETs).39
Shell, ENI and Heathrow airport have all made big commitments to
achieving net zero via land based carbon offsets. This increasing
reliance on carbon sequestration is itself a result of the major failure of
industrialised country Governments for over 3 decades to put in place
the structural changes needed to reduce emissions in all sectors - fossil
fuels and the industrial food system which contributes anywhere
between 30 50% of GHGs with its huge fertilizer use, contribution to
deforestation and international trade.40
Carbon offsets are a major red herring, but even just the large scale
use of land for climate mitigation can be problematic. How land is
used, by whom and for what purpose are deeply political, not technical
issues that movements for food sovereignty and land justice especially
in the global south have been grappling with for decades. These
movements have made important gains in getting recognition of their
collective rights to land and territories via international Human Rights
37 `Carbon offsets claim to compensate for the emission of carbon dioxide via other activities such as
planting trees. In reality, this allows the buyer's emissions to continue, instead of requiring them to cut their
emissions at source.
38 The basic concept of "net zero" can be captured in an equation: greenhouse gas emissions minus carbon
drawdown equals zero.
39 " The IPCC's climate change report: "Negative emissions" and business as usual" Redd Monitor October
2018
40 "Food sovereignty: five steps to cool the planet and feed its people" GRAIN, 2014.
81
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
instruments such as the UN Declaration on the Right of Peasants, UN
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and historical agree-
ments such as the International Conference on Agrarian Reform. But
now land based climate policies imposed from above can pose grave
threats to these rights by unleashing a new wave of land grabbing
through enclosures for conservation projects but also via the commod-
ification and integration of nature into financial markets what we call
the financialization of nature.41
Almost all of the plans for `net zero' not only deflect action further
but also require eye watering areas of land. Estimates of the land
required globally to deploy bioenergy with carbon capture and storage
(BECCS) range from 100 to 3000 million hectares.42 Even the more
benign sounding `Nature Based Solutions' for climate change estimate
14 million hectares of destructive monoculture tree plantations and a
whopping 678 million hectares of land for reforestation.43 It's not clear
who will claim ownership of these areas of land or where they will
come from, but we can guess based on recent announcements by
fossil fuel corporations. ENI, is involved in a gas extraction project in
Mozambique and has been implicated in kicking 550 families off their
land and blocking fisherfolk from the sea. At the same time ENI has
committed to planting 20 million hectares of forest in Africa to achieve
net zero by 2030. For the communities living on the land and forest this
is essentially a double land grab once for gas extraction and again to
offset it.
On the other hand decentralised solutions to the climate crisis
based on ecological, autonomous management, traditional knowledge
and governance by Indigenous people, forest peoples, small scale food
producers of their own land and territories such as agroecology and
community forest management (CFM) already exist and are gaining
importance.44 45 CFM is the best way to protect forests and ecosystems
41 Regulated Destruction, FoEI 2019.
42 " The risks of relying on tomorrow's `negative emissions' to guide today's mitigation action" Stockholm
Environment Institute 2016
43 Griscom et al, 2017
44 "Agroecological and other innovative approaches for sustainable agriculture and food systems that
enhance food security and nutrition" HLPE, CFS July 2019
45 "Community Forest Management - An opportunity to preserve and restore vital resources for the Good
Living of human societies" FoEI, April 2018
82
that naturally store carbon, and agroecology can reduce the use of fos-
sil fuels, increase yields and store carbon in soils. We just need political
will to support them and scale them up. Many of the worlds 600 million
peasants and over a billion forest dependant people have practiced
agroecology and CFM for millenia. Yet many of the most prominent
environmental schemes do not envision decentralised solutions with
truly local autonomy and governance or justice but aim to keep the
status quo in power relations and may even enable corporations to
grab more natural resources.
If a green new deal is to succeed it must go beyond a Northern
mindset and learn from historical movements in the global south. It
must recognise that the link between the climate crisis and land rights
are not new. The structural causes of the climate crises and land rights
violations are the same an economic system based on endless (neo)
colonial patterns of natural resource extraction and accumulation46.
Communities on the land peasants, indigenous peoples, pastoralists,
fishers especially women have always been the first line of defence
against extractive projects and climate change. This is why mining
corporations and agribusiness are the sectors most responsible for the
documented killings of land and environmental Human Rights de-
fenders.47 If we want to succeed in building a world for climate justice
keeping peoples on the land is our responsibility.
46 Summary for policy makers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services,
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services May 2019
47 "At What Cost? Irresponsible business and the murder of land and environmental defenders in 2017" Global
Witness July 2018
83
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Illustration by Molly Crabapple
84
6. BLUE NEW
DEAL: WATER, ICE
AND OCEANS
As the health of our soil and air depletes, so does that of our rivers, glaciers
and oceans. The IPCC's September 2019 special report on The Ocean and
Cryosphere in a Changing Climate concluded that warming oceans, melting
ice, and rising sea levels are already affecting everything from coral reefs to
the nearly 10% of the global population living in low-lying coastal areas, and
that negative impacts will greatly worsen in the future.1
As ice melts in the Himalayas, Andes, New Zealand, Rockies, Southern
Alps, as well as in the Arctic and Antarctic, unique ecosystems are endan-
gered and local communities face food and water stress. Glacial outburst
floods pose risk to downstream communities and infrastructure - such out-
break floods from three lakes in the Bolivian Ande alone (Pelechuco lake,
Laguna Arkhata and Laguna Glaciar) could expose 800-2100 people to life
threatening floods.2 Glacial retreat is also impacting food sustainability where
agricultural irrigation systems are fed by glaciers and snowmelt. While glacial
melt will initially increase water flow into rivers (sometimes causing floods)
the ice is disappearing and in South Asia, a future water crisis looms for 270
1 IPCC (2019). `Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.' IPCC.
2 Kougkoulos, Ioannis et al. (2018). `Modelling glacial lake outburst flood impacts in the Bolivian Andes.'
Natural Hazards.
85
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
million people as Himalayan glaciers shrink.3 Along with melting ice, the ex-
pansion of ocean waters as a result of temperature increases is driving rapid
sea level rise. This in turn, causes displacement in low-lying islands, as well as
crop failure from salt water intrusions of groundwater supplies in places like
Bangladesh and Senegal.
Warming oceans also threaten the survival of marine life and ocean
ecosystems. Even if global warming is limited to the agreed target of 1.5°C,
it is projected that up to 90% of warm water coral reefs will be lost.4 This
loss is also down to the fact that since 1955, more than 90 percent of the
energy trapped by the atmosphere as a result of increased greenhouse gas-
es has been absorbed into the oceans. The resulting ocean acidification is
bleaching coral reefs, which are some of the most biodiverse ecosystems in
the world. Reefs provide critical food resources for tens of millions of people,
but bleached coral is poisoning fish. Pacific Island nations, like Tuvalu and
Vanuatu, are already experiencing these consequences of warming water -
with increased flooding, erosion and extreme weather patterns. For a country
like Vanuatu, despite only contributing 0.0016% of global carbon emissions, a
single cyclone in 2015 wiped away more than half their GDP.5 Two of Tuvalu's
nine islands have already submerged - and the "sea is eating the sand" of the
remaining islands. As the soil becomes saltier, farming crops in these lands
becomes increasingly difficult.6
In Bangladesh, a combination of river erosion, flooding and storms are
making it difficult for local communities to farm wheat, chillies, pulses, nuts
and more. Many farmers are pushed into day-labouring in informal precarious
work. Those that can afford to travel move to the capital city - with more than
1300 individuals estimated to move from rural parts of Bangladesh to Dhaka
every year. These migrations tend to be due to the immediate impacts of a
disaster, or due to slow-onset climate impacts such as salt water intrusion or
reduced fish stocks.7
Similarly, 6000 inhabitants of low-lying islands in Melanesia are being
forced from their homes and made stateless as a result of rising sea levels and
3 Albinia, Alice (2020). `A water crisis looms for 270 million people as South Asia's glaciers shrink.' National
Geographic.
4 IPCC (2018). `Special Report: Global Warming of 1.50C: Summary For Policymakers.' IPCC.
5 GFDRR (2018). `Weathering financial shocks from disasters in the Pacific Islands.' GFDRR.
6 Pasley, James (2020). `The Pacific Islands are drowning under rising sea levels. These stunning photos
show their precarious way of life.' Business Insider.
7 Mulder, Natasha (2019). `Surviving climate change and migration in Bangladesh.' ActionAid.
86
6. BLUE NEW DEAL: WATER, ICE AND OCEANS
saltwater inundation8 - this includes the displacement of the entire population
of the Carteret Islands.9 This loss of connections to ancestral lands where
families are buried and traditional ways of life are pursued, where a common
language is expressed, and a particular way of participating in democratic life
is enacted will be unrepairable. The relocation of climate refugees from the
Carteret Islands has been left to an NGO called Tulele Peisa, formed by local
elders in response to central government inaction. Tulele Peisa managed to
secure 0.81 square kilometres, a gift of four abandoned plantations from the
Catholic Church of the nearby Bougainville island - but it still needs another 14
square kilometres. As of 2018, Tulele Peisa had built eight houses on Bougain-
ville Island, and rehabilitated 14 family parcels with cocoa and coconut trees.10
In Senegal, lands that were previously abundant have not been harvest-
ed for decades. Fish, oysters and other sea life is diminishing, causing food
insecurity. Waterside mangrove trees are the breeding grounds for fish and
shellfish, but depend on a delicate balance of brackish water - which mixes
freshwater from the river with salt water from the sea. But as rainfall reduces
upstream and sea levels have risen, the freshwater component has reduced
and river saltwater levels have increased. Mangroves die and leave vast in-
fertile mudflats, so gathering oysters and other shellfish has become much
harder, thereby hitting the river fishing and shellfish economy.11 Mangroves
are also significant natural flood defenses and absorb carbon.12 In September
2019, 4,000 people were displaced after flooding in Senegal.13
The average person in Papua New Guinea, Bangladesh, or Senegal emits
0.4 - 0.9 metric tonnes of CO2 per year, compared to Australia, which has an
average per capita footprint of 17 tonnes, followed by the US at 16.2 tonnes,
and Canada at 15.6 tonnes.14 These figures do not include the carbon em-
bedded in the products that people in the Global North consume, but which
8 Blitz, Brad K. (2011). `Statelessness and Environmental-Induced Displacement: Future Scenarios of
Deterritorialization, Rescue and Recovering Examined.' Mobilities 6(3), p.433-450.
9 Connell, John (2016). `Last days in the Carteret Islands? Climate change, livelihoods and migration on coral
atolls.' Asia Pacific Viewpoint 57(1), p.3-15.
10 Munoz, Sarah (2019). `Understanding the human side of climate change relocation.' The Conversation.
11 ActionAid (2015). `On the Edge: Climate Impacts and Adaptation in West Africa.' ActionAid.
12 Dia Ibrahima, M (2012). `Vulnerability Assessment of Central Coast Senegal (Saloum) and The Gambia
Marine Coast and Estuary to Climate Change Induced Effects.' Coastal Resources Centre and WWF-
WAMPO, University of Rhode Island.
13 Floodlist News (2019). `Senegal - Thousands Displaced by Floods in Dakar and Kaolack Regions.' Floodlist.
14 Ritchie, Hannah (2019). `Where in the world do people emit the most CO2?.' Our World in Data, University
of Oxford.
87
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
are made elsewhere (predominantly in the Global South) and transported by
carbon heavy freight or air. Frontline climate change impacts are not felt in
the countries most responsible historically, and the countries where per capita
greenhouse gas emissions continue to be disproportionately high.
In addition to all this, as permafrost thaws and decomposes, it slowly re-
leases thousands of years worth of carbon and methane that it holds, acceler-
ating the greenhouse effect and increasing risks of long dormant bacteria and
viruses reviving, making future pandemics more likely.15
It is in this context that our contributing authors consider what the blue in
a globally just Green New Deal could look like. The values that are promoted
throughout the pieces would see globally just Green New Deals underscore
our interdependence with the natural world, rather than continuing to see it
as a site of extraction and exploitation, as is encouraged by the World Bank
and others.16 The ocean, a huge site of carbon absorption, would have time to
heal, giving our remaining ocean creatures the ability to rebuild. Globally just
Green New Deals would also ensure that water is no longer diverted from
communities to corporations for unsustainable products made in precarious
working conditions,17 ensuring the universal right and access to clean water.
Furthermore, flood defenses would be funded by those most culpable, and
the right to move would be protected and promoted.
Reckoning with the social impacts of glacial melts
SUNIL ACHARYA
Sunil Acharya is the Regional Advisor for Climate And Resilience
Practical Action in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Way back in 1920, the Indigenous peoples of the sacred Tsum Valley
in the foothills of the northwest Nepal Himalaya made a collective
commitment for the conservation of biodiversity and culture of their
15 Fox-Skelly, Jasmin (2017). `There are diseases hidden in ice, and they are waking up.' BBC Earth.
16 https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/infographic/2017/06/06/blue-economy; see also https://blogs.
worldbank.org/endpovertyinsouthasia/investing-bhutans-forests-sustainable-future
17 See for example, https://waronwant.org/media/coca-cola-drinking-world-dry
88
6. BLUE NEW DEAL: WATER, ICE AND OCEANS
local area for the benefit of the many generations to come.18 The valley
residents were gearing up for centennial celebrations to reaffirm and
renew the commitments in a cultural festival to be organized in April
2020. They were forced to postpone the event until further notice due
to Covid-19. While they have always remained the custodians of nature,
a much greater threat looms large the threat of climate change with
the prospect of displacing them and their culture entirely.
Around 1.9 billion people across the South Asian subcontinent
depend upon Himalayan glaciers for drinking water, agriculture and
energy. Due to climate change, these glaciers are melting twice as fast
as they were in the year 2000.19 Some parts of the Himalayan region are
warming fast, three times faster than the global average. In 2019, a com-
prehensive climate change study focused on the Hindu Kush, Himalaya
found that even if global collective action can contain the temperature
rise to 1.5°C, at least one third of the Himalayan glaciers would melt
by the end of this century. At the current rate of global greenhouse
emission and warming, the Himalayas could lose two thirds of its
glaciers by 2100.20 Glacial lake outburst floods will wash away people
and infrastructure in the mountain slopes with more frequent floods (in
the already fragile region) until around 2050, increasing river discharge.
In the longer term, we will see persistent droughts with glacier-less
mountains and water-less rivers.
Scores of villages in the Himalayas have already been forced to
relocate elsewhere due to scarcity of water. One example is residents
of Dhye village in Mustang District of Nepal. The village people have
historically adjusted their agriculture-based livelihood to an arid
environment and have been balancing their material needs within
nature's limits. However, climate change has rendered their livelihoods
more difficult. The Dhye villagers were forced to relocate to a nearby
area, Thanchung. The government calls this relocation illegal and en-
croachment of national property thus rendering Dhye villagers `climate
18 Rai, J et al., (2016). `Sacred Tsum Valley: Improving biodiversity conservation with lessons for effective
management of protected areas in Nepal.' In Verschuuren, B and Furuta, N (eds). Asian Sacred Natural
Sites: Philosophy and Practice in protected areas and conservation. Pp. 121-138. Routledge.
19 Maurer, J.M et al., (2019). `Acceleration of ice loss across the Himalayas over the past 40 years.'
ScienceAdvances.
20 Solly, Meilan (2019). `The Himalayas could lose two-thirds of its glaciers by 2100.' Smithsonian Magazine.
89
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
refugees,' albeit displaced internally within Nepal.21
The Andes have also been impacted. Peru alone has lost up to 50
percent of its glacial ice in the past three to four decades. Glacial lake
outburst floods have resulted in the loss of thousands of lives. In 1941,
a single devastating flood from Lake Palcacocha killed more than five
thousand people and destroyed the city of Huaraz. Climate change has
made this deadly lake more dangerous for current and future genera-
tions.22
While the countries of these regions have made negligible contribu-
tions to climate change and resulting impacts, the dominant approach
to development and its pathway is hastening the crisis. Governments,
motivated by their development partners, build infrastructure in the
Himalayan region without giving proper consideration to geological
and environmental risks. In the rush for short term economic growth,
hydropower promotes enrichment for the companies that own the
dams with negative impacts to local communities many of whom live
with energy poverty as the water generated energy is exported to other
regions and countries. Over 20 million people in Nepal, 82 percent of
the population, lack access to clean and safe methods of energy for
cooking, disproportionately exposing the women who undertake this
labour to toxic air. Household air pollution from unventilated cooking
with fuelwood and charcoal presents a serious public health hazard,
21 Prasain, Suresh (2018). `Climate change adaptation measure on agriculture communities of Dhyhe in Upper
Mustang, Nepal.' Climatic Change 148(2).
22 Orlove, Ben (2017). `Palcacocha icefalls demonstrate hazard vulnerabilities in Peru.' Phys Org.
Illustration by Tomekah George
90
6. BLUE NEW DEAL: WATER, ICE AND OCEANS
contributing to asthma, acute respiratory infections, tuberculosis,
strokes, low birth weight, and cataracts, among other healthcare risks.
Dams also displace and the majority of displaced people are indige-
nous communities who have made their homes in the mountains. Dams
also increase the risk of earthquakes (in an already vulnerable region).
A study conducted after the 2015 Nepal earthquake called for an urgent
revaluation of hydropower development in the region. It reported that
about 25 percent of hydropower projects are likely to be damaged
by the landslides triggered by earthquakes.23 Similarly, road projects
across the Himalaya region pose threats to the fragile ecosystems.
By-passing the required environmental assessments and management
plans, they tear through pristine areas that have been protected by
indigenous communities for hundreds of years. All these damages are
mistakenly viewed as the necessary costs of development but these
dominant views do not answer: for whose benefit is this development?
What does development mean if it takes away so much? If develop-
ment is the story of who we want to become, whose story is promoted
while silencing others? What are we leaving for future generations?
While the climate crisis and current Covid-19 pandemic has exposed
the thin margins on which the global economic order runs, and how it
is devoid of the capacity to deal with shocks and uncertainties, it has
also presented the opportunity to rethink how we address poverty,
economic injustice and the climate crisis. One framework that is creat-
ing a vision to build a healthier, more resilient and sustainable future is
the Green New Deal, propagated mostly from the industrial world. We
need to examine the merit of these proposals from the perspective of
the Global South. This framework alone cannot drive the fundamental
systemic shifts required to transition away from our shared crises.
Unless those on the frontline of disaster development, climate change
and marginalisation are participating in discourses meaningfully,
and leading our visions for alternative futures, we will forever make
cosmetic changes to a system that has historical roots in exploitation,
extraction and displacement. ....................................
23 Qiu, Jane (2018). `Landslides pose threat to Himalayan hydropower dream.' Nature.
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Ocean in our Blood: The Maori fight for water and
against Empire
TINA NGATA
Tina Ngata is an Environmental, Indigenous And Human Rights
Advocate based in Te Ika A Maui.
I am, as a Pacific Woman, a member of a water nation. I am an
ocean person. In saying this, I mean I am the ocean, as a person. My
layers of ancestry back to the ocean are recorded, and recountable,
and each of those ancestors exist within me, including my ancestor
ocean. Hence why we so readily say, in the Pacific:
"We sweat and cry salt water, so we know that the ocean is really in
our blood."24
Water is therefore, from my Indigenous perspective, an issue
of relationships. The severance of these relationships is one of the
greatest open wounds of imperialism. Imperialism took my Indigenous
ocean nation, sliced it up, and apportioned its control around the world.
It is said that within the next decade, over 700 million people worldwide
could be displaced through water scarcity.25 Water, in my world, is
the great connector, but in the hands of Empire, it is used to divide,
displace, and impoverish.
Maori fight for water to have intrinsic rights because we understand
it as an intelligent being. Water's intelligence is comprised of the
multiple lifeforms within and around it, and the waterbody itself. To
understand and respond adaptively to water therefore requires a lo-
calised relationship. Governing water from centralised imperial power
hubs is the least effective model of water protection. For thousands of
years, Indigenous peoples have kept our waters clean, life supporting,
and abundant. In a short time, imperialism, in a multitude of forms,
disrupted that.
24 Teaiwa, Teresia. (2017). `We sweat and cry salt water, so we know that the ocean is really in our blood.'
International Feminist Journal of Politics, 19(2), 133-136.
25 UN (2020). `Water.' UN.
26 Roy, Arundhati. (2003). `Confronting empire.' Sterneck.
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6. BLUE NEW DEAL: WATER, ICE AND OCEANS
We must therefore confront imperialism if we genuinely want to pro-
tect water. We must know imperialism's source, and we must know its
extensions. We must understand its function not only in multinational
corporations, but also in NGOs, in governments, and in the global insti-
tutions that service them. We must, as Arundhati Roy says, force empire
into the open, we must make it drop its mask26. In the context of the
Global Green New Deal, that is the mask of paternal benefaction which
disguises a global power complex rooted in imperialist entitlement.
Without such exposure, we will continue to fail climate commitments,
Sustainable Development Goals, and the Global Green New Deal.
In my culture, polluted waters are a metaphor for a polluted mind.
It is a polluted mind that tells me my Indigenous rights are inferior
to imperial rights. It is a polluted mind that suggests the oppressed
should appeal to the oppressor to grasp the Global Green New Deal. It
is a polluted mind that suggests the enslaver will protect the interests
of the slave. Either you, as an Imperialist oppressor and beneficiary,
are interested in justice or you are not. You do not get to establish its
parameters for your own gain and maintain the role of a humanitarian
benefactor. The Global Green New Deal therefore demands a new
global power infrastructure that is independent of the Imperialist
behemoth, with full powers to hold that behemoth to account, and a
true benefactor of humanity will champion that step.
Blue Imaginaries for a GreenNewDeal
JESSICALEHMAN&ELIZABETHJOHNSON
Dr Jessica Lehman is Assistant Professor in the Department
Of Geography at Durham University in Durham, UK; and
Elizabeth Johnson is Professor in the Department Of
Geography at Durham University in Durham, UK.
Marine scientists, environmental economists, and politicians have
argued that a global green new deal should meaningfully include the
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
ocean. Proposals for a `blue new deal,' or a `teal deal' would integrate
land- and sea-based initiatives. Advocates of an oceanic new deal27
indicate a number of areas where environmental sustainability and
economic gain could be achieved, and "good paying, union jobs"
created. These include emissions-cutting measures in marine trans-
portation, sustainable fisheries management, aquaculture, and marine
habitat protection.
There is much to like about a global blue new deal. As an interdisci-
plinary group of scientists, environmental economists, and geographers
explained in Conservation Letters earlier this year, incorporating the
ocean into visions of an environmentally stable future would first
require a change in our ocean imaginary. Rather than viewing the
oceans "as climate change aggressors (e.g., sea level rise) or victims
(e.g., coral reef decline)" a `teal deal' necessitates that we would first
"recognize oceans as an integral part of climate solutions".28 This focus
on possibility rather than catastrophe is refreshing. Moreover, a blue
new deal presents an opportunity to understand the oceans beyond
binary terms as risky or at risk - and to see them as deeply connected
to land-based human activities and social and economic value sys-
tems. And, the blue new deal focuses more astutely on issues of social
justice and inequality than the recent spate of proposals, anchored in
various nations, for the development of the `blue economy.'
However, we want to flag three significant and related risks of a
global blue (or teal) new deal as it has been discussed in political
and environmental circles and as it manifests in associated ocean
imaginaries. The first is linked to the discourses of global good that
permeate blue new deal language. The high seas and their resources
(as well as the resources of the international seabed) have been
codified into international law as being for the benefit of "all mankind".
The global ocean, its living inhabitants, and its nonliving resources are
often viewed as just that: part of what the UN Convention on the Law
of the Seas (UNCLOS) calls the "heritage of all mankind" and part of
27 Dundas, Steven J. et al., (2020). `Integrating oceans into climate policy: Any green new deal needs a splash
of blue.' Conservation Letters, 13(5).
28 Ibid
94
6. BLUE NEW DEAL: WATER, ICE AND OCEANS
a global common. Thinking with the oceans and the interconnection
between marine, terrestrial, and atmospheric matters encourages this
viewpoint. Yet, these discourses do not simply elide the often complex,
overlapping, and contradictory juridical regimes that shape global
ocean governance (many of which are laid out in UNCLOS). They also
are used as foils behind which space is held open for ocean resources
to be exploited29 by particular nations and global corporations (Zalik
2015).
Second, these blue and teal deal proposals also risk perpetuating
an understanding of the oceans as a realm of untapped potential.
Although the `blue new deal' steps encouragingly away from notions of
the ocean as a space for limitless and friction-free capital accumulation
(for example by calling for the end of deep-sea drilling), there is the
potential in these discourses to reproduce notions of the oceans as
reservoirs of resources and services, even if these services include
carbon sequestration and small-scale livelihood provision.
A third related concern is the trap of nostalgia that permeates much
of the GND discourse. The original New Deal in the United States was
intimately tied to the entrenchment of settler colonialism in the United
States. This included the establishment of large-scale infrastructure
projects as well as the continuation of the violence of Native American
boarding schools,30 which expanded throughout the 20th century.
In the United Kingdom, proposals to catalyze a "Green Industrial
Revolution" similarly bury the extractive violence that accompanied the
first Industrial Revolution. Visions of the global ocean as a project for
economic expansion risks the erasure, elision, and repetition of these
colonial histories and ideologies.
Taken together, ignoring these risks would mean falling into a trap
that sees the oceans as `aqua nullius,' spaces of untapped potential re-
sources (whether carbon sequestration potential or marine protein) and
realms where current and historical relations between humans, and
between humans and nonhumans, are secondary if acknowledged at
all. In doing so, questions of who exactly benefits from such measures
29 Zalik, Anna (2015). ` Trading on the Offshore: Territorialization and the Ocean Grab in the International
Seabed.' In Ervine, Kate and Gavin Fridell (Eds) Beyond Free Trade. International Political Economy Series.
Palgrave Macmillan, 173-190.
30 Pember, Mary Annette (2019). `Death by Civilization.' The Atlantic.
95
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
and whose lives will be potentially harmed by them are often left unad-
dressed. Moreover, other ways of valuing and relating to ocean space
outside of a system of quantified accounting and economic exchange
are left unexplored. Therefore, we argue that issues of marine gover-
nance and equality must be foregrounded in discussions of a blue new
deal and must be approached with an analytic capable of accounting
for the different imaginaries, value systems, and relationships with and
of the ocean that proliferate around the world. In short, imagining a
"teal deal" requires contending not with an imagined "global ocean" in
the singular, but with overlapping and contested oceans in the plural.
The oceans have long been a space upon which utopian ideals,
future possibilities, and even the salvation of humanity have been
projected - by imperial powers and indigenous coastal communities
alike. The oceans are an alluring and productive site for imagining
otherwise. But a truly effective and equitable global blue new deal must
be clear-eyed about the risks such imaginaries elide, and put issues of
equality and justice-oriented governance first.
96
97
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Illustration by Molly Crabapple
98
7. CLIMATE
LINKED-
MIGRATION:
THE RIGHT TO
MOVE AND THE
RIGHTTOSTAY
The aim of the climate justice movement must be that nobody is forcibly
displaced from their home. Climate-induced displacement is often driven by
people not having the resources to adapt to the consequences of climate
change, being forced to adopt mal-adaptive policies, like industrial agriculture
which depletes vulnerable resources which hasten the crisis, or - or suddenly
evacuating in the face of a storm or flood without support to return. In some
cases, it becomes inevitable in the absence of seawalls high enough or flood
defenses strong enough. The removal of loan conditions that require austerity,
the cancellation of debt and the provision of meaningful climate financing or
reparations could fund universal access to social protection measures - mak-
ing the choice to stay or move a genuine one. Such resources could also fund
adaptation measures that increase resilience - this includes using scarce water
resources more efficiently, adapting building codes to withstand new climate
conditions and extreme weather events, building flood defences, investing in
decent green jobs, and setting aside land corridors to help species migrate.
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Illustration by Tomekah George
However, such defences cannot prevent the movement of those losing their
islands or delta regions to rising seas. In the future, adaptation measures will
not prevent movement from areas that have been made unfarmable or too hot
for human survival. This reality requires a holistic approach to protecting both
the right to stay and live a dignified life, as well as enshrining and protecting
the right to move with dignity too.
According to UNOCHA, which co-ordinates the UN's humanitarian re-
sponses to emergencies, eight of the world's worst food crises are linked to
both conflict and climate shocks.1 Disasters have driven more than 70% of the
33.4 million newly displaced people that took place in 2019, with 23.9 million
people displaced by weather related disasters (floods, storms, droughts, etc)
alone.2 Most of those who have been displaced live in Global South coun-
tries, who are collectively responsible for less than 4% of emissions. These
1 OCHA (2019). `Global Humanitarian Overview 2020.' ReliefWeb.
2 IDMC (2020). `Global Report on Internal Displacement 2020.' IDMC.
100
7. CLIMATE LINKED-MIGRATION:THE RIGHT TO MOVE AND THE RIGHT TO STAY
countries have not been equipped with the resources to support alternative
forms of climate adaptation, and countries of the Global North, despite doing
far more to cause climate change, have not provided the level of climate fi-
nancing to resource infrastructures of resilience for countries on the frontline,
instead they have often promoted industrialised agriculture and policies that
increase exposure to climate impacts.
Climate-related displacement disproportionately impacts women and
girls in Southern countries - in 2018, more than half of the 41 million people
internally displaced were women.3 Despite bearing the brunt of the impacts
of climate crisis, Black and brown women in particular are excluded from the
very decision making processes that have led to climate breakdown, as well
as the policy decisions that determine how we respond to its consequences.
Women and girls are also made more vulnerable by the impacts of climate-re-
3 Cazabat, Christelle (2020). `Women and girls in internal displacement.' IDMC.
101
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
lated displacement for multiple reasons. As they tend to have greater care re-
sponsibilities, it is harder for them to leave home - and if they choose to leave,
the process of migrating is fraught with risks of gender-based violence, such
as trafficking or sexual assault. These risks remain high for those who have
managed to migrate, especially for those who end up in informal settlements
or displacement camps. Women and girls in lower-income countries are also
driven to migrate because they tend to rely most on subsistence farming as an
income source and food source, which often becomes scarce due to climate
change.
Organizations like CARE International have developed some preliminary
suggestions for how a global infrastructure of protection and support for those
displaced by climate change could work. This includes ending what they call
the "legal vacuum", which leaves those displaced by climate breakdown in
a "legal No Man's land".4 One way this could be done, is by ensuring coun-
tries that have historically done the most to cause climate breakdown, yet
are cushioned from its worst impacts, open their borders and provide safe
and legal means to citizenship for displaced people. This requires an active
and persistent global migrants' rights movement fighting for the free and safe
movement of people. Existing legal frameworks are not yet responsive to the
particular struggles of climate-displaced people, especially as it intersects
with gender inequality and oppression. Movements and policymakers attuned
to this issue must therefore expand their responses to include the accessible
and resourced provision of services for those subject to gender-based vio-
lence in all its forms. These social, political, legal and economic infrastructures
of support for those who have to leave their homes because of climate-related
issues must be financed and resourced in a way that is reparative and just.
This means countries in the Global North paying their fair share, and fighting
the tide of right-wing populism that responds to displaced people with bor-
ders, fences and racialized violence.
In the following piece, Jessica Faleiro outlines an example of how com-
munities displaced by climate change are left unprotected and vulnerable to
other crises - such as Covid-19.
4 CARE (2020). `Evicted by climate change: Confronting the gendered impacts of climate-induced
displacement.' CARE International.
102
7. CLIMATE LINKED-MIGRATION:THE RIGHT TO MOVE AND THE RIGHT TO STAY
Intersecting crises: a case study of climate
migration in India in the wake of Covid-19.
JESSICA FALEIRO
Jessica Faleiro is the Project Lead of Actionaid International's
South Asia And Climate (Samac) Project, based in
Johannesburg, South Africa.
Climate change is driving forced displacement in India
According to the Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID)
2020, India had the highest figure in the world of new internal displace-
ments due to disasters in 2019. These 5 million displacements were
caused by `a combination of increasing hazard intensity, high popula-
tion exposure and high levels of social and economic vulnerability.' The
country also noted the seventh warmest year on record since 1901, and
the wettest monsoon season in 25 years.5 As a large country spread
across many climatological and ecological zones, India is vulnerable to
many different kinds of climate impacts including droughts, heat waves,
flooding, rising sea levels and cyclones. However, the most vulnerable
are the rural populations who are dependent on climate-sensitive
livelihoods such as agriculture, fisheries or forestry. 67% of India's 1.3
billion people live in rural areas and still rely heavily on these sectors
for their income.6
In 2016 a joint report by ActionAid, Bread for the World and
Climate Action Network South Asia, noted that crop failure resulting
from increasingly erratic rainfall or drought, and destruction of fishing
livelihoods due to higher saline intrusion from rising sea levels forced
people to migrate in search of work. As the study also noted: there is "a
lack of data mapping of the role of climate change in overall migration
trends in South Asia and its contribution is not yet clearly understood
5 IDMC (2020). `India.' IDMC.
6 Anderson, T. et al., (2016). `Climate change knows no borders: an analysis of climate induced migration,
protection gaps and need for solidarity in South Asia.' ActionAid.
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
by policy makers. Even though climate change is clearly leading to
ever-greater migration in the region, the lack of clear data and policy
analysis means that the issue is still largely invisible in migration
discourse and response".7
The impact on rural and migrant workers
According to India's 2011 Census data (the latest available) there are
17.8 million interstate and intrastate migrant labourers.8 It is difficult to
get data on what percentage of these labourers migrated specifically
because of climate change related factors - however it is clear that
people move when in need of income they cannot get locally.9
Climate change is often a key, exacerbating factor in the destruction
of local income-generating activities - especially for rural communities.
In 2017, the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati
Raj, Hyderabad, reported that mass migration out of the hill areas of
Uttarakhand had left behind several `ghost villages' with nothing but
barren fields and ruined houses as evidence that someone had once
lived there.10 The report of the state's Rural Development and Migration
Commission, released in 2018, said that more than 70% of migration
occurs within the state, indicating the movement of people from the
state's hill regions to its plains.11 There is a large difference in the soil
fertility and agricultural development of the plains in comparison to the
hill areas. Additionally, there is better industrial, transport and general
infrastructure in place in the plains, allowing it to sustain a dense pop-
ulation. It is understandable as to why people would feel compelled to
move from a place that lacks proper facilities and basic services, and
where agriculture is difficult to sustain.
7 Ibid
8 Kundu, Sridhar (2020). `At least 23 million migrants are returning to India's villages. Can the rural economy
keep up?.' Scroll.in.
9 Anderson, T. et al., (2016). `Climate change knows no borders: an analysis of climate induced migration,
protection gaps and need for solidarity in South Asia.' ActionAid.
10 Mamgain, R.P., and Reddy, D.N. (2017). `Outmigration from Hill Region of Uttarakhand: Magnitude,
Challenges and Policy Options.' Rural Labour Mobility in Times of Structural transformation, p.209-235.
11 Rural Development and Migration Commission (2018). `Interim Report on the Status of Migration in Gram
Panchayats of Uttarakhand.' Rural Development and Migration Commission, Uttarakhand, Pauri Garhwal.
104
7. CLIMATE LINKED-MIGRATION:THE RIGHT TO MOVE AND THE RIGHT TO STAY
According to Uttarakhand's Action Plan on Climate Change:
"Climate changedriven fluctuations in the precipitation pattern have
increased uncertainty in the farm output and recurring crop failures
have left little incentive for the masses to continue with the same.
Labour-intensive hill farming has thus been rendered unsustainable
and the region is presently threatened by food insecurity. The repercus-
sions of this are clearly reflected in large stretches of hitherto regularly
sown agricultural lands being left barren. Climate change is thus taking
its toll on hill farming, agricultural diversity and the overall well-being of
the people". 12
Displaced communities left vulnerable to Covid-19
Considering the sheer numbers of migrant labourers at interstate
and intrastate level, and the lack of data mapping, it isn't surprising that
when the government ordered a nation-wide Coronavirus lockdown
with only a few hours' notice on 24th March 2020, it was unprepared to
anticipate the scale of movement of internal migrants from urban areas
back to the villages they came from.
Soon after the lockdown was announced, large numbers of migrants
clustered around train and bus stations, anxious to return home when
they heard rumours that transport services might be running after
all. This was not the case, and hundreds of thousands of suddenly
unemployed migrants found themselves on the streets without food
or housing. Desperate and unable to observe social distancing, many
walked hundreds of kilometres back to the villages they'd left due to
climate change impacts. Many did not survive.
Shelters were set up in school buildings to house hundreds of
migrants at a time. Some were farmers who worked as seasonal
labourers, and couldn't get back to their villages to tend fields in
time for planting season, leading to further losses in income. Without
employment, most of these migrants are now dependent on food
handouts from state governments or charities to survive. Some have
12 Government of Uttarakhand (2014). `Uttarakhand Action Plan on Climate Change: Transforming Crisis into
Opportunity.' Government of Uttarakhand.
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resorted to begging and sleeping rough. It took several months for
trains to transport 6 million people back to their home states.13
In the midst of a mismanaged lockdown, tropical cyclone Amphan
made landfall in West Bengal on 20 May 2020. Trees were uprooted,
houses destroyed and electric and telephone towers severely dam-
aged. Power outages lasted days. The state administration struggled
to cope with the massive impact of Amphan as 800,000 people were
forced into flood shelters, without any chance of social distancing
for days. Many of the shelters were already housing several migrant
workers who had returned to their state in the first week of May and
were under quarantine.
In the case of Uttarakhand, reverse migration has gradually re-pop-
ulated 550 `ghost villages' as migrants who had lost even long-term
jobs returned to the villages they'd left to tend once-abandoned lands.
This puts pressure on the government to provide basic access to
proper health and education services,the absence of which, exacerbat-
ed by water scarcity, drove them to leave in the first place. The impact
of the lockdown has only highlighted the lack of social protection for
India's rural poor, which continues to go largely unaddressed in policy
circles.
Tetet Lauron from the Phillipine climate movement addresses how climate
crisis disproportionately impacts women, and proposes some key policy aims
for a feminist and decolonial Global Green New Deal.
13 Special Correspondent (2020). `60 lakh migrants took 4,450 Shramik specials to reach their home states.'
The Hindu.
106
7. CLIMATE LINKED-MIGRATION:THE RIGHT TO MOVE AND THE RIGHT TO STAY
Climate migration is a feminist issue
TETET LAURON
Tetet Nera-Lauron is a an Advisor at Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung,
based in Manila, Philippines.
Climate change continues to exact a toll on people's lives, liveli-
hoods and communities with weather-related disasters becoming more
frequent and intense. Almost 25 million people have been displaced
last year alone by 1,900 disasters spanning 140 countries and territories,
the highest figure recorded since 2012.14 That equates to roughly one
person being displaced every second. These risks are increasing, and
climate change is an added layer to the multiple vulnerabilities already
faced by people of varying genders, races, sexualities and ages.
Climate-induced displacement is not gender neutral.15 Women in all
their diversities are disproportionately affected due to existing struc-
tural and systemic inequalities. 6 out of 10 of the poorest people in the
world are women. They bear the brunt of unpaid care work, and earn
less than men for work of equal value. And despite many advances
on gender equality initiatives globally, many disparities remain both in
developing and developed countries because of ingrained government
policies, economic constraints and social norms.16 Women continue to
have limited access to resources, rights, mobility, and their voices are
muted in shaping decisions and influencing policy.
Women are hit by a triple whammy when disasters strike. Already
poor and marginalized, more women than men lose their lives not due
to physical differences but to social and traditional constructs such
as restrictive clothing, being the designated caregiver in the family,
or restrained mobility without the company of a male relative. These
constructs limit women's abilities to protect themselves in the aftermath
of disasters. While seeking refuge in `safer' ground,they face many
14 IDMC (2020). `Global Report on Internal Displacement 2020.' IDMC.
15 Shreejaya, Shradha (2019). `A study on the gender and social impacts of climate migration.' Rosa
Luxemburg Stiftung.
16 UN Women (2018). `Facts and Figures: Economic Empowerment.' UN Women.
107
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
other inequalities in accessing their fundamental human rights, social
protection, and face systemic gender-based violence such as trafficking
and other forms of bonded labour.
Proposals that aim to spur systemic transformations in the economy
and environment in some of the world's richest but heavily polluting
countries through Green New Deal (GND) are capturing the imagi-
nation of many the world over. But for any GND to be truly relevant,
it must commit to changing the rules of the game not just within rich
countries' own borders, but must extend to correcting the injustices of
centuries of colonial plunder. This also includes the continuing models
of ecological colonialism, with unfair trade and investment agreements
resulting in greater poverty and underdevelopment in the Global South.
A decolonial, feminist global Green New Deal must actively interro-
gate and resist racial, gender, class, caste and sexuality hierarchies.17
It must address the root causes of poverty and marginalization that
results in the exclusion and multi-layered vulnerabilities of farmers,
workers, fisherfolk, indigenous, migrants, half of which are women. The
following are some key considerations to ensure this transformation is
pro-migrant, pro-poor and pro-women:
· Decolonize the international trade, investments and finan-
cial architecture and redress ecological colonialism. A GND
must commit to limit and redistribute wealth, including the
establishment of a multilateral debt restructuring framework
to counter the global debt crisis, address tax evasion and
illicit financial flows that drain the South of resources
critical for the provision of public goods.
· Advance the longstanding call for climate debt or repara-
tions from developed countries to compensate for emitting
the vast majority of historical carbon emissions, as well as
for the loss and damage incurred by ecological harm over
centuries.
· Move to create care economies that deliver on human,
economic and social rights.
17 Women's Working Group on Financing for Development (2020). `Feminists want system change, not
climate change.' YouTube.
108
7. CLIMATE LINKED-MIGRATION:THE RIGHT TO MOVE AND THE RIGHT TO STAY
· Recognize that there is a right to move and a right to stay.
No matter what the options are, fundamental human rights
must be upheld and protected.
As feminist climate justice advocates, we must engage in inter-
sectional advocacy towards justice. Neoliberalism and capitalism will
always be at odds with this vision. But we will also not give up on our
beautiful planet and will work hard to create regenerative and care
economies.
Todd Miller and Alejandro Gonzalez explore how climate change is fuel-
ing the rise of right-wing populism. He looks at how increasingly draconian
immigration policy in the US both impacts and is driven by the conditions of
climate-displaced migrants in Central America.
Securitizing the crisis: Climate policy at the U.S.
border
TODDMILLER
Todd Miller is an Independent Journalist based in Tucson,
Arizona.
When sixteen year old Juan de Leon Gutiérrez left Tizamarte,
Guatemala to go to the United States in April 2019, the drought had
already set in. The coffee plants were dying where he had worked in
the fields for $3 per day. The family was rationing and only eating one
meal per day. He had told his mother Transito Gutiérrez: "Mommy I am
going to cross over the border and I will send you money. It may not be
every day, but I will when I can." 18
Even so, Transito didn't want her teenage son to go to the US where
Juan was hoping to join his brother. Hardship and even death had long
18 Abbott, Jeff (2019). `'I lost my son': Guatemala mum mourns boy who died in US custody.' Al Jazeera.
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been part of Washington's deterrence strategy on its southern border.
And, as more people are being displaced in Central America on a
heating globe, US border policy is quickly becoming its climate policy.
Juan was not alone. Between 2017 and 2019, twelve other families
facing similar circumstances had departed Tizamarte for the US. And
the intensifying droughts in Tizamarte was but a microcosm of a larger
Central American problem. An area known as `the dry corridor', which
extends over Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and beyond, has left
1.4 million people at risk of hunger due to a combination of drought and
torrential rain and floods. Eight in ten households were resorting to
"crisis coping mechanisms," according to the World Food Programme
(WFP).19 More than 25% could not afford a basic market food basket,
and 30% of those who have migrated from the dry corridor cited
weather as their main reason.
As climate scientist Chris Castro put it: In Central America "the wet
gets wetter, the dry gets drier, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
Everything gets more extreme." 20
The term "catastrophic convergence," coined by sociologist Chris-
tian Parenti in his book Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New
Geography of Violence, frames well what Castro was describing. As in
many places around the world, today's ecological disruption exacer-
bates already-existing and long-standing economic and political crises
that have already pushed people to the furthest brink.
In Guatemala the catastrophic convergence is vivid. The country
has long had a system more beholden to economic oligarchies (both
multinational corporate and local elite), and its structural political
and economic precarity can be traced in many ways to the United
States. Since 1900, the United States has blasted the atmosphere with
700 times21 more carbon emissions than Guatemala, El Salvador, and
Honduras combined. With so many factors at hand, it is difficult to
parse out exactly how many people are on the move due specifically to
climate change. However it is estimated that as many as one in three
19 UN World Food Programme (2019). `Erratic weather patterns in the Central American Dry Corridor leave 1.4
million people in urgent need of food assistance.' UN.
20 Miller, Todd (2017). `Central America: `We're facing an unprecedented calamity'.' Upside Down World.
21 DataBlog (2009). `A history of CO2 emissions: How are `emissions debts' influencing the Copenhagen
negotiations?.' The Guardian.
110
7. CLIMATE LINKED-MIGRATION:THE RIGHT TO MOVE AND THE RIGHT TO STAY
people could be displaced for climate-related reasons across the globe
by 2070, many from Central America.22
In this reality, the United States has built over the last 25 years a
foreboding border apparatus. Countless billions of dollars have been
spent on 700 miles of walls, surveillance technologies, and more than
20,000 armed Border Patrol agents, not to mention the US pressure,
financing, and training of Mexican immigration, police, and military
forces to patrol its southern border with Guatemala and Belize.23
The Department of Homeland Security has long been aware of the
serious droughts inflicting the Central American/Guatemalan country-
side and understands it as a driver to migration.24
But this awareness has not led to any discussion of a climate status,
but rather a more long term strategy to prepare US borders for "mass
migration." 25 US border strategy has long been one of "deterrence"
including the possibility that the crossing would put people in "mortal
danger," as put in a 1994 Border Patrol strategy memo.26
In Juan's case, that proved to be true.
When the US Border Patrol arrested him after crossing in early
April, he was placed in a detention center for children. Two weeks later,
he fell ill and died on April 29, one of many children who died in US
custody in 2019.
"I lost my son," a devastated Transito told Al Jazeera. Unless
something changes, this will continue to be the inevitable result of US
climate policy in the 21st century.
22 Lustgarten, Abrahm (2020). `The Great Climate Migration.' New York Times.
23 Miller, Todd (2014). `Mexico: The US Border Patrol's newest hire.' Al Jazeera.
24 Soboroff, Jacob and Julia Ainsley (2019). ` Trump admin ignored its own evidence of climate change's impact
on migration from Central America.' NBC News.
25 U.S. Department of Homeland Security (2013). `DHS Climate Action Plan.' U.S. Department of Homeland
Security.
26 US Border Patrol (1994). `Border Patrol Strategic Plan: 1994 and Beyond.' DocumentCloud.
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Climate change never comes alone
ALEJANDRO GONZÁLEZ
Alejandro González is a Researcher at Universidad Autónoma
De Madrid in Madrid, Spain.
Irregular precipitation has made the Dry Corridor in Central America
one of the most sensitive areas to climate change in the world. El
Salavador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala are the most exposed
to floods and droughts alike, and all fall within the top 20 countries af-
fected by climate change. Between 2014 and 2019, these countries have
witnessed losses of between 50 and 80% of crop yields, and farmers
that produce basic grains are at greater risk of poverty or extreme
poverty. Peasants used to rely on traditional knowledge for starting the
cropping periods, but this is no longer feasible. Unpredictable weather
conditions - such as the interruption of the wet season by dry period
and the rise in floods - means loss of control over growing conditions.
With 60% of people in the Dry Corridor relying on subsistence
agriculture, those who have had their crops ruined by long standing
droughts now have to look for instant, short-term jobs on a daily basis
in order to survive. Several reports have noticed a growing circulation
of migrants within the Dry Corridor countries performing informal jobs.
Women tend to migrate more than men to other countries, as they face
restricted access to local land and few other working alternatives, while
having to continue assuming care tasks.
The number of people having to migrate has increased across the
world. For Central American families, this often looks like one family
member migrating to the US, while the rest stay to care for the children
and elderly. These roles have traditionally been shared between men
and women - however, as climate hazards start to deplete the means
of subsistence linked to land, and hostile immigration policies making
border-crossing more perilous for women, migration to North America
has become predominantly male. Even when relatives abroad manage
112
7. CLIMATE LINKED-MIGRATION:THE RIGHT TO MOVE AND THE RIGHT TO STAY
to send stable remittances, marriages are not expected to be reunited
anymore. Families are regularly broken apart - a story told by the
infamous images of children detained at the US Southern border.
Ajust visionfor climate migration
MARÍA FACIOLINCE & DANIEL MACMILLEN
VOSKOBOYNIK
María Faciolince is the Power Shifts Project Lead at Oxfam,
based in Barcelona, Spain; and Daniel Macmillen
Voskoboynik is Co-Founder And Co-Editor at The World At
1C, based in Barcelona, Spain.
A world wracked by climate violence is a landscape of displace-
ment. Rising seas shaving coastlines. Farmlands depleted by saltwater
and extreme heat. Encroaching deserts. Coastal communities pum-
melled by cyclones. Ancestral territories deemed unlivable by extreme
temperatures.
In eastern Africa, from Djibouti27 to Mozambique28, millions have
been displaced by torrential rains, droughts, and cyclones. In the
Pacific, where low-lying island nations are particularly vulnerable to sea
level rise, preliminary research suggests29 that people in over two-
thirds of households in Tuvalu and Kiribati would consider migration as
a response to environmental shocks. In Central Asia30, environmental
27 Fagan, Laureen (2019). `Africa's `climate refugees are already here - and there.' Africa Times.
28 Wachiaya, Catherine (2020). `One year on, people displaced by Cyclone Idai struggle to rebuild.' UNHCR
UK.
29 UNU-EHS and UNESCAP (n.d.). `Climate change and migration in the Pacific: Links, attitudes, and future
scenarios in Nauru, Tuvalu, and Kiribati.' United Nations University.
30 Blondin, Suzy (2018). `Environmental migrations in Central Asia: a multifaceted approach to the issue.'
Central Asian Survey 38(2), p. 275-292.
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
transformations have been documented as strong contributory factors
in the movement of millions.
In 2017, nearly 68.5 million people around the world were displaced
- a third by extreme weather. From the World Bank to the United
Nations, various institutions predict that between tens of millions to
up to a billion people could be displaced by climate change within the
next three decades.31 But even these estimated figures are likely to be
undercounts, given the often intricate ways in which climatic factors
intertwine with others. In addition to being a direct driver of movement
through intensified extreme weather events (typhoons, floods, forest
fires), the slow violence of climate change is an injustice multiplier,
accelerating other deprivations and drivers of movement.
So in a reality of escalating climate-induced migration, what do
justice-centred approaches to displacement look like? One possible
approach calls for an almost paradoxical double-right: the right to stay,
and the right to move.
The right to stay
The opposite of displacement is emplacement: rooted connection
within a territory, which requires the conditions necessary to
reproduce life in it. Yet, increasing fragility driven by climate
31 Nature Climate Change (2019). `From migration to mobility.' Nature Climate Change,9(895).
Illustration by Tomekah George
7. CLIMATE LINKED-MIGRATION:THE RIGHT TO MOVE AND THE RIGHT TO STAY
violence has led to many communities being displaced in situ.32 Loss of
place, and its life-giving environment, leaves communities stranded in
their own territories without the ability to sustain their livelihoods.
Resettlement and migration are often forwarded as a mitigation
strategy, but what social, economic and political protections are needed
for communities to live with dignity in their own homes? Enshrining the
right to stay involves everything to protect the rights of populations:
from bold climate mitigation measures to ensure a safe climate, to
strengthened land rights for indigenous communities and smallholder
farmers, to active policies to support rural communities, to debt relief
measures for the Global South, and gender-sensitive strategies to
protect women and girls.
32 Feldman, Shelley and Charles Geisler (2011). `Land grabbing in Bangladesh: In-situ displacement of
peasant holdings.' Future Agricultures.
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
The right to move
But efforts to secure emplacement must live with the reality that
significant displacement is underway and inevitable. Even with current
levels of global heating, many territories are destined to be unlivable, if
not already unlivable. The right to move is the right to have a pathway
to safety, and mechanisms to rebuild a dignified life in a new territory.
The obstacles to `the right to move' are numerous. Regimes of
border imperialism, policing frontiers and criminalising those seeking
to cross them in the hope of a better life, are being strengthened by
the year. Displaced communities today meet the reality of detention,
deportation and death, whether in the marine graveyards of the
Mediterranean, or the dangerous crossings of the Darien Strait. Simply
by extrapolating from the state of migrant rights protection today, we
can easily envision a future of `climate apartheid'. 33
In addition, the architecture of protection for climate refugees is
minimal, although some early cornerstones are emerging.34 But even
access to what is legally possible can be economically unrealistic. One
study of rural communities in Malawi35 found that `climate change is
likely to increase barriers to migration rather than increasing migration
flows.' The aforementioned studies on attitudes towards migration
across the Pacific found that the majority of people would not be able
to afford the movement they deemed necessary.
The questions that remain
Climate displacement will stretch the contours of migration in
unprecedented ways, and many questions remain. What kind of legal
measures can protect the rights of those forced to uproot their lives by
a systemic ecological crisis? How can protect `new' rights in a context
where existing protections for migrants and refugees are being so
33 UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights (2019). `UN expert condemns failure to
address impact of climate change on poverty.' UN OHCHR.
34 Mahecic, Andrej (2020). `UN Human Rights Committee decision on climate change is a wake-up call,
according to UNHCR.' UNHCR.
35 Suckall, N et al., (2017). `Reduced migration under climate change: Evidence from Malawi using an
aspirations and capabilities framework.' Climate and Development 9(4), p. 298-312.
116
swiftly eroded? How can we address the cultural-spiritual challenge of
belonging in a landscape that is continuously degrading and chang-
ing? What is needed to face the challenge of changing demographic
and social conditions in local communities receiving climate refugees,
which in many cases are already facing significant climatic stress?36
36 McDonnell, Tim (2019). `Climate change creates a new migration crisis for Bangladesh.' National
Geographic.
117
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Illustration by Molly Crabapple
118
8. FOREIGN
POLICY
US and UK foreign policy has seen decades of systemic support for au-
thoritarian oil and gas producers. In June 2019, the Court of Appeal (England
& Wales) decided that Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt and Liam Fox and other
key British ministers had illegally signed off on arms exports to Saudi Arabia
without properly assessing the risk to civilians.1 Since July 2020, the UK re-
sumed arms sales to Saudi Arabia despite continued fears that the Saudi-led
bombardment of Yemen has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The strategic value of oil was a key factor in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and BP
and Shell lobbied Tony Blair's government about their commercial opportu-
nities in the country. The war and preceding and subsequent conflicts in
the region cost hundreds of thousands of lives and destabilised the region.
The military-industrial complexes of the West are also significant emitters of
greenhouse gases2 - the US Department of Defense is the world's biggest
single consumer of commercial energy, consuming more than Nigeria, a
country of almost 200 million.3 In this way, the war economy presents a threat
to human life in more ways than one.
Beyond seeking an immediate end of arms sales to fossil fuel producers,
human rights abusing regimes and all parties involved in conflicts such as
1 Sabbagh, Dan and Bethan McKernan (2019). `UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia unlawful, court of appeal
declares.' The Guardian.
2 Wearing, David (2018). AngloArabia: Why Gulf Wealth Matters to Britain. Polity Press.
3 Crawford, Neta C. (2019). `The Defense Department is worried about climate change - and also a huge
carbon emitter.' The Conversation.
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
that in Yemen, it is possible for a globally just Green New Deal to imagine the
transition of arms industry jobs, skills and resources to renewables and oth-
er non-military outputs. Countries and regional blocks of countries who are
using their power to negotiate preferential trading terms for the corporations
registered within their territories, would be forced to consider more equitable
terms and humane outputs.
Dismantling green colonialism
HAMZA HAMOUCHENE
Hamza Hamouchene is the North Africa Programme Coordinator
for Transnational Institute, based in London, UK.
2020 started with an unprecedented oil price crash, as Russia and
Saudi Arabia vied to compete with US shale oil producers. The plunge
in oil prices was unparalleled and drove straight into pandemic lock-
downs. Oil prices reached negative values as some oil producers in the
US paid buyers to take oil from them for lack of storage capacity. The
impact was brutal among oil companies, especially in the high-cost US
shale oil sector. As for oil-producing countries such as Algeria, Libya,
Nigeria as well as Venezuela, Ecuador and Iraq, economic strain was
added to already precarious economies with mounting budget deficits
and a haemorrhaging of financial reserves.
Against this backdrop, some wondered whether this signalled the
end of the fossil fuel industry and oil dependency. Caution however
must be exercised. Adam Hanieh perspicaciously warns that this
juncture could be an opportunity for the oil majors to concentrate
capital and centralise control of the industry by getting rid of smaller
producers.4 A transition away from fossil fuels really depends on our
capacities to build effective political and economic alternatives.
In the popular imagination, when we talk about energy, we talk
about coal, oil and gas. Most of these resources (especially the latter
4 Hanieh, Adam (2020). `When oil markets go viral.' Verso Blog.
120
8. FOREIGN POLICY
two) are extracted from the South. In fact, much of anything that is con-
sumed in the North has been taken from the South, whether through
agribusiness, intensive forestry, industrial fish farming, mass tourism
and I would argue, even the renewable energy sector.5 Set in motion
from 1492 with the conquest of the Americas, this system is charac-
terized by a belief that the resources of others are for the taking. Iraq
and Libya warrant more attention here as they are the recent victims
of the violence caused by fossil fuels and the western fighter jets and
bombs that go searching for their abundance.6 It lives on through debt,
trade and investment structures that have seen limited benefits for the
majority of people living in countries rich in mineral and metal wealth.
While certain Western governments portray themselves as
pro-environment by banning fracking within their borders and setting
carbon emission-reduction targets, they offer diplomatic support to
multinationals registered in their territories, just as France supported
Total to exploit shale resources in their former colony, Algeria.7 This
hand in glove relationship between multinational corporations and
governments of the countries in which they're registered (usually in
former colonies) continues. While Chinese companies increasingly
appear in the world's largest companies (by revenue), they repeat
colonial attitudes towards resources and labour while the remaining
multinationals that make up that list appear disproportionately from the
US (e.g. Walmart, ExxonMobil UnitedHealth and Chevron), and Europe
(e.g. Royal Dutch Shell, Total, BP, Glencore). They profit from the labour
and resources that make up their complex supply chains.
Sophie Chapelle and Olivier Petitjean. Shale gas: how Algerians
rallied against the Regime and Foreign Oil Companies. Multinationales.
org. June 2016. Can be accessed here.
5 Hamouchene, Hamza (2019). `Extractivisim and resistance in North Africa.' Transnational Institute.
6 Klein, Naomi (2016). `Let Them Drown: The Violence of Othering in a Warming World.' London Review of
Books.
7 Chapelle, Sophie and Olivier Petitjean (2016). `Shale gas: how Algerians rallied against the Regime and
Foreign Oil Companies,' trans. Susanna Gendall. Multinationals Observatory.
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Decarbonisation and Foreign Policy in the Middle
East
DAVIDWEARING
Dr. David Wearing is a Lecturer in Department Of International
Relations at University Of Southampton, based in London,
UK .
Like the major oil and gas corporations, airlines and car manufac-
turers, and perhaps those firms dealing in oil based products such as
petrochemicals, plastics and fertiliser, the world's most powerful states
have their own reasons for maintaining the carbon based economy.
They represent an obstacle to decarbonisation every bit as formidable
as ExxonMobil or Royal Dutch Shell.
That hydrocarbons are the lifeblood of the world economy means
that the huge oil and gas reserves of the Middle East constitute a
vital strategic prize. This is why the region has been the site of such
sustained and violent inter-state conflict since the end of the Second
World War. Moreover, with a rising China dependent on oil and gas
imports from the Persian Gulf, where US power continues to dominate,
Washington derives enormous structural power from current patterns of
energy production and consumption.
The profits generated from the sale of oil and gas are also of great
interest to states as well as corporations. The sovereign wealth of the
major oil producers is one of the most significant sources of liquid
capital in the world. The combined sovereign wealth of Saudi Arabia
and the other Gulf Arab monarchies amounts to $2.9tn, while corporate
and private wealth in those states adds up to a further $3tn. These
"petrodollars" can be "recycled" to the benefit of Western states.
Petrodollar investment in the US, UK and France is made by the
Gulf states as much in the interests of regime security as in the ex-
pectation of a favourable economic return. The links between Western
finance and the Gulf Arab monarchies developed in the context of
imperialism, where monarchical rule has been able to entrench itself
122
8. FOREIGN POLICY
and fend off more progressive social forces thanks to the decisive
backing of Western states.
This is even more obviously true in respect of the major arms pur-
chases made by the Gulf monarchs, which in turn equip the Western
powers to continue their role as the monarchies' protectors. If Western
states are to adopt the Green New Deal policies needed to ensure our
survival, they themselves will need to be radically transformed.
In the next piece, Justin Podur, provocatively asks whether it will be pos-
sible to shake off the imperial and racist roots of the original New Deal and
poses whether we might, instead, seek to operationalise five year plans that
aim to undo a violent past.
Leaving behind the racist and imperialist baggage
of the original NewDeal
JUSTINPODUR
Justin Podur is Associate Professor in Faculty Of Environmental
And Urban Change at York University, based in Toronto,
Canada.
The original New Deal, and its champion, Franklin D. Roosevelt, are
credited with saving the US economy from the Great Depression and,
perhaps, saving the country from socialism. The story is told in Stan
Cox's new book The Green New Deal and Beyond where he powerfully
narrates the story8:
In 1932, US unemployment was at 24%. The New Deal started by
designating $3.3 billion for public works, an amount larger than the
entire federal budget 3 years before. Roosevelt created new agencies
to try to steer private industry into a gentle, voluntary form of economic
8 Cox, Stan (2020). The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can.
City Lights Publishers, p.9.
123
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
planning. In 1935, the Supreme Court struck down one of these initia-
tives (the National Recovery Act), but the same year, the New Dealers
started a Works Progress Administration (WPA) that hired eight million
unemployed Americans to build public infrastructure.
The New Deal also took place in a time of unremitting White terror
towards Black people in the US South. New Deal programs helped
cement racial inequalities. Federal relief agencies paid locally prevail-
ing wages, allowing lower wages in the US South. Black sharecroppers'
government benefits were kept by their white landlords. White planta-
tion owners would receive federal compensation for cotton extracted
from land, and then turn around and evict the Black tenants that
worked the land anyway. Social Security did not cover farm workers or
domestic workers - the occupations that employed two thirds of Black
workers. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) required banks to
perpetuate segregation: "If a neighbourhood is to retain stability, it is
necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same
social and racial classes," the FHA underwriting manual instructed.
Despite this, the New Deal faced elite opposition, and so Roosevelt
reduced stimulus funds by 25% between 1936-8. Unemployment went
back up to 19%. In the end, the New Deal was not the answer to the
Depression. That answer came in the form of a war. First supplying
Europe, then sending the US military to World War Two. According to
Patrick Renshaw (quoted by Cox), the US spent $321 billion on World
War Two, more than its total spending from 1790-1940. During World
War Two, unemployment went down to 1.2%.
The New Deal took place in the age of imperialism. India, Africa,
much of southeast Asia, were colonies. The Philippines and Cuba were
US possessions. Other lands that the US had taken - Puerto Rico and
Hawaii - still are. In the Arab world, the British sponsored the House of
Saud, dismantled and subordinated the economies of the Levant and
Egypt. By the time of the New Deal, the US empire was pushing the
British empire out of the fossil fuel-rich Middle East. In 1945 Roosevelt
met the Saudi king at Great Bitter Lake in the Suez canal, moving Saudi
Arabia into the US' system. What economists Jonathan Nitzan and
Shimshon Bichler call the "weapondollar-petrodollar" global economy
was established.
124
8. FOREIGN POLICY
Illustration by Tomekah George
The Saudi dictatorship would ensure that the price of oil would
favour the US, which would get back what it paid for the oil in weapons
sales. The hundreds of billions of dollars of sales of military hardware
would be conducted in US dollars, the reserve currency of all the world,
which enabled the US to print money and accumulate wealth at the
expense of every other country.
While ending facism through World War Two was necessary, it
paved the way for a US economy built on conflict. Underpinning this
system is a regime of permanent US warfare that has killed millions
in the decades since the New Deal, including the dropping of nuclear
bombs on Japan, the high-tech destruction and aerial bombardment
of Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan,
Palestine, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Yemen and other countries, covert
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
operations in every country in the world, and the imminent threat of
nuclear catastrophe. It is an empire based on endless war and fossil
fuels.
Climate change is one of its life-destroying consequences. In
making the US the wealthiest society in human history, the stimulus of
the New Deal played a much smaller role than the stimulus of World
War Two. The long-term wealth of the US was guaranteed not by either
stimulus, but by the consolidation of a global empire with the US at its
centre.
Given this context, can the New Deal be divested of its racist and
imperialist baggage and reinvented to save the world from climate
catastrophe? At the end of The Green New Deal and Beyond, Cox
suggests a series of ways that a Green New Deal could include justice
for the financially and energy-impoverished peoples of the world. This
starts not with greening the US military, as Elizabeth Warren suggested
on the US campaign trail, but with disarming and dismantling it, as well
as the militarized police in the US, both of which are disastrous fossil
fuel consumers while also being implicated in persistent human rights
abuses. Protecting and expanding Indigenous land bases will not only
redress some of the horrors of colonialism, but also reduce carbon
emissions from land use. In some places - like Haiti or the Democratic
Republic of Congo - the use of energy will actually have to increase for
there to be any economic justice.
If we are going to have to discard baggage one way or another, in-
ternationalists might find more interesting experiences and tools from a
study of the Five Year Plans of communist China and the Soviet Union
and of India when it was socialist. These countries' economies and
polities have had many flaws, and their planning processes have had
many errors, all of which have been amplified by Western propaganda
as efficiently as the West's colonial genocides and massacres have
been minimized. It may be productive to study how vast, poor countries
devastated by imperialism tried to plan for development within severe
constraints - including a hostile empire.
126
127
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Illustration by Molly Crabapple
128
9. WHOPAYS?
DEBT,
REPARATIONS,
AND
ACCOUNTABILITY
Climate change harms are here. This chapter explores who must pay for
the impacts already occurring, as well as efforts to limit warming to as close
as 1.5°C through a rapid, democratic and justice-centred green transition. This
means paying for adaptation projects designed to effectively increase resil-
ience to inevitable climate change. It also means repairing the consequences
of extreme weather and slow-onset events like sea level rise or desertification,
and enabling global decarbonisation.
What climate change harms need repairing?
The five hottest years on record have all taken place since 2015. This has
taken a significant toll on older people, carers, and day-labourers who work
outside. Deadly heatwaves and vector-borne diseases proliferate, and rural
populations must travel ever further for clean water. More severe droughts
(leading to desertification, land degradation and food and nutritional insecu-
129
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
rity) are being caused by a confluence of rising temperatures, erratic rainfall,
and rising sea level.1 Reduced crop yields resulting from these droughts lead
to hunger and poverty, and extreme temperatures affect habitats, pushing
species to extinction, and farmers to untold hardship. These factors interact
with pre-existing political instability, conflict, displacement, migration, eco-
nomic exclusion.
The cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons that we see today are bringing
noticeably heavier rainfall, causing more flooding, stronger winds, and bigger
storm surges. Existing insurance schemes are insufficient for the scale and
frequency of such events. In November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan2 devastated
the Tacloban region of the Philippines. It led to 6,000 deaths, damage or de-
struction to one million homes, and four million people being displaced. Of
the approximately USD$10 billion of damages caused3, only a small fraction
was covered by insurance (between USD$300 700 million4). Insurance is
not available for slow-onset events, nor where extreme weather events are
becoming increasingly regular. Insurance also requires countries at the fore-
front of experiencing climate change impacts to pay for expensive premiums.
In December 2019, the Philippines Human Rights Commission held that civil
and criminal law may be leveraged against the largest carbon companies for
materially increasing the risk of harm to its residents.5
In March 2019, Cyclone Idai struck Mozambique as well as Malawi and
Zimbabwe. It was one of the strongest storms on record. Within weeks, Cy-
clone Kenneth, identified as the strongest cyclone in Mozambique's history,
surprisingly hit the north of the country. Never, since records began6 has
Mozambique been hit by two such strong storms in one year. The cyclones
left over two million people in need of humanitarian services, over 1 million
children in need of humanitarian services, 648 people dead, and infrastructure
1 Ware, Joe and Katherine Kramer (2019). `Hunger Strike: The climate and food vulnerability index.'
ChristianAid.
2 Reid, Kathryn (2018). `2013 Typhoon Haiyan: Facts, FAQs and how to help.' World Vision.
3 OHCHR (2014). `Typhoon Haiyan: UN human rights expert calls for urgent debt relief for reconstruction in
the Philippines.' OHCHR UN.
4 Rupp, Lindsey (2013). `Philippine Typhoon Haiyan's Cost to Insurers Estimated at $300-$700million: AIR.'
Insurance Journal.
5 Amnesty International (2019). `Philippines: Landmark decision by Human Rights Commission paves way
for climate litigation.' Amnesty International.
6 Shaw, Diana (2019). `Mozambique: urgent aid needed after Cyclone Kenneth.' Red Cross Blog.
130
9. WHO PAYS? DEBT, REPARATIONS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
destruction, displacement, the spread of cholera, and crop damage.7 Cyclone
Idai alone destroyed more than 1,720,000 acres of crops including corn, cas-
sava, beans, rice and groundnuts such as peanuts. The hunger and poverty
impacts were exacerbated by the fact that the cyclone arrived following a
drought related to the El Niño period, during which normal tropical precip-
itation is disrupted, triggering extreme weather events. The latest Southern
Africa Development Community's Food and Nutrition Security Report, shows
that 41 million people are now hungry in Southern Africa, compared to 29.4
million people in 2018. Years of unpredictable weather, inconsistent harvests,
storms are eroding gains made toward poverty eradication and improved
health. Chronic malnutrition impedes the functional and cognitive develop-
ment of children.8
The fallout from extreme climate events such as Cyclone Idai are unequiv-
ocally gendered. Women and girls are already often at a greater distance from
water collection points, sanitation facilities and health centres, which may be
in unsafe locations, exposing them to additional protection threats such as
sexual and gender-based violence in times of crisis. With the destruction of
health facilities, pregnant women have limited access to support for delivering
their babies safely. Girls are more likely to miss out on school following the
damage wrought to schools and learning materials following the cyclones.9
Mozambique said it needed USD$3.2 billion to recover10 - yet, the IMF agreed
an emergency loan of just USD$118.2 million to Mozambique following Cy-
clone Idai.11 The average person in the US emits 51 times more carbon than the
average person in Mozambique.
In China, the JuneJuly 2016 flooding that killed more than 833 people,
destroyed upwards of 400,000 houses and displaced more than 6 million peo-
ple was made significantly worse by human-caused climate change.12 In the
Caribbean, Hurricane Dorian - the most intense tropical cyclone to strike the
7 Shaw, Diana (2019). `Record-breaking two cyclones hit Mozambique: urgent aid needed after Cyclone
Kenneth.' Red Cross Blog.
8 CARE Press (2019). `Cyclone Idai 6 months on: CARE issues dire warnings as studies show 41 million face
hunger in Southern Africa.' CARE.
9 ReliefWeb (2019). `From cyclone to food crisis: ensuring the needs of women and girls are prioritized in the
Cyclone Idai and Kenneth responses.' ReliefWeb.
10 AP (2019). `Mozambique seeks USD 3.2 billion to recover from cyclones.' Business-Standard.
11 Suffee, Zak (2019). `IMF loan to Mozambique following Cyclone Idai "shocking indictment" of international
community.' Jubilee Debt Campaign.
12 Climate Signals (2018). `China Floods June-July 2016.' Climate Signals.
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Bahamas in 2019 - showed both the US' intransigence to support through al-
lowing temporary visas to survivors, and the ways in which similar intolerance
is wielded from inside frontline countries as Haitian migrants disproportion-
ately impacted by property damage were promptly deported.13
Globally, the impact of extreme natural disasters (whether or not linked to
climate change) is equivalent to about USD£520 billion annually, and forces
approximately 26 million people into poverty each year.14 In 2019, 24.9 million
people were newly displaced by about 1900 disasters across 140 countries
and territories.15 Climate change specific disasters are now occurring at a rate
of one per week16 and are set to cost at least $300 billion per year going
forward.17
The IPCC's September 2019 Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere
in a Changing Climate18 concluded that warming oceans, melting ice, and
rising sea levels are already affecting everything from coral reefs to the nearly
10% of the global population living in low-lying coastal areas--and negative
impacts will greatly worsen in the future.19
Reparation in this context requires more than houses being built on new
territory, money or assets. It will require a public acknowledgement about the
true role of climate change and its key perpetrators, the universally enshrined
right to dignified migration, and ways of remembering ancestral connections
to lost land through creative arts.
As of 2015, the Global North is responsible for 92 percent of excess global
CO2 emissions - the US and EU alone are responsible for 49 percent of total
territorial CO2 emissions between 1850 and 2015.20 The average CO2 emis-
sions (metric tons per capita) of citizens in countries most vulnerable to climate
change impacts, pales in comparison to the average emissions of a person in
the US, Canada, Australia, or UK. The global poor many of whom survive
13 Mahdawi, Arwa (2019). `The plight of Hurricane Dorian evacuees offers a frightening vision of `climate
apartheid.' The Guardian.
14 The World Bank (2016). `Breaking the link between extreme weather and extreme poverty.' The World Bank.
15 IDMC (2020). `Global Report on Internal Displacement 2020.' IDMC.
16 Harvey, Fiona (2019). `One climate crisis disaster happening every week, UN warns.' The Guardian.
17 Leahy, Stephen (2017). `Hidden costs of climate change running hundreds of billions a year.' National
Geographic.
18 IPCC (2019). `Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.' IPCC.
19 Mulder, Natasha (2019). `Surviving climate change and migration in Bangladesh.' ActionAid.
20 Hickel, Jason (2020). `Quantifying national responsibility for climate breakdown: an equality-based
attribution approach for carbon dioxide emissions in excess of the planetary boundary.' The Lancet 4(9).
132
9. WHO PAYS? DEBT, REPARATIONS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
on less than USD$2 per day generate almost no greenhouse gas emissions
but are disproportionately impacted by climate change impacts. This is gro-
tesquely unfair and requires a global response that is both reparative and
proportional. These impacts also sit upon colonial extraction and continued
trade and investment practices that left previous colonies in politically, social-
ly and economically precarious positions. Indeed, colonialism fundamentally
reconfigured the world economy: India's share of the global economy shrank
from 27 to 3%, while the UK benefited by approximately USD$45 trillion from
its colonial rule of the Indian subcontinent alone.21 While China's share shrank
from 35 to 7%, Europe's share exploded from 20 to 60%.22
The legacies and impacts of slavery, colonialism , discrimination and
neo-liberal policies contribute to a deepening of climate change impacts. Co-
lonial practices (such as producing sugar, coffee, rice, and cotton cultivation
on large slave plantations continue) continue to be indicators for per capi-
ta levels of poverty today, while neoliberal trade policies have continued to
perpetuate inequities. This is important, because climate change magnifies
existing patterns of social and material inequality, in addition to inequities in
economic and political agency.23
Even if we start responsibility from the industrial revolution - and not from
1492 - ActionAid, Christian Aid, War on Want and Friends of the Earth calcu-
late that in order for a country like the UK to do its fair share to limit global
warming to 1.5°C, it would have to reach net zero by 2030 and support at least
the same level of emissions reductions in low-income countries overseas,
in addition to enabling increased resilience and repairing loss and damage.
It could undertake this support by: enabling sustainable energy access for
all; promoting agroecological farming; stopping the public financing of fossil
fuels' eliminating tropical deforestation from its supply chains; supporting sus-
tainable urbanization; scaling up public climate financing for decarbonisation
initiatives; providing additional public climate financing for climate adaptation
and resilience, and repairing the consequences of climate change impacts
already occurring through social protection and access to public services.24
Universal passports for those fleeing inhabitable lands could also be issued
21 Hickel, Jason (2018). `How Britain stole $45 trillion from India.' Al Jazeera.
22 Hickel, Jason (2015). `Enough of aid - let's talk reparations.' The Guardian.
23 Bruhn, Miriam (2010). `Did yesterday's patterns of colonial exploitation determine today's patterns of
poverty?.' World Bank Blogs.
24 Christian Aid et al., (2020). `The UK's Climate Fair Share To Limit Global Warming to 1.5 degrees.' Christian
Aid.
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
with supportive and welcoming re-settlement processes.
In order to do this, progressive redistribution is essential - with the rec-
ognition that across and within countries, the highest per capita of carbon
emissions are attributable to the wealthiest people. Those subjected to hous-
ing shortages, food deserts, health inequalities, disproportionate exposure to
environmental hazards and energy poverty in the UK cannot be expected to
pay as much as the CEOs of UK-based fossil fuel giants towards funding local
and global initiatives. Those taking multiple holidays, consuming luxury goods
and services, and driving in luxury cars have a far greater responsibility and
capability.
Individual emissions generally parallel disparities of income and wealth.
While the world's richest 10% cause 50% of emissions, they also claim 52% of
the world's wealth. The world's poorest 50% contribute approximately 10% of
Illustration by Tomekah George
9. WHO PAYS? DEBT, REPARATIONS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
global emissions and receive about 8% of global income. Wealth increases
adaptive capacity, meaning those most responsible for climate change are
relatively insulated from its impacts.
Moving away from state accountability, it is also essential to note that a
relatively small number of global corporations are directly responsible for
the bulk of emissions. The 2017 Carbon Majors Study25 found that just one
hundred fossil fuel companies generate 71% of anthropogenic greenhouse
gas emissions. Electricity producers, metals and engineering consortia, car
makers, construction companies, petrochemicals and agriculture giants are
among the greatest consumers of the energy generated.
In the 1980s, oil companies like Exxon and Shell carried out internal as-
sessments of the carbon dioxide released by fossil fuels, and forecast the
planetary consequences of these emissions, including the inundation of en-
tire low-lying countries and regions, disappearance of specific ecosystems,
destructive floods and water stress causing unprecedented global change.
26The same companies funded misinformation campaigns to enable business
as usual.
Chevron, Exxon, BP and Shell together are behind more than 10% of the
world's carbon emissions since 1966. They originated in the Global North, and
its governments continue to provide them with financial subsidies and tax
breaks. According to the CSO Equity Review Coalition, state subsidies
for fossil fuels are almost double the USD$140 billion spent on
subsidies to renewable energy - and increase to USD$4.7
trillion when indirect subsidies are included.27 States
and corporations must do more to give us
any chance to meet the `1.5°C to stay alive'
ambition.28
Litigation which challenges state
handouts to fossil fuel companies,
25 CDP (2017). `The Carbon Majors Database:
CDP Carbon Majors Report 2017.' CDP.
26 Hall, Shannon (2015). `Exxon knew about climate
change almost 40 years ago.' Scientific American.
27 CSO Equity Review (2019). `Can climate change
fuelled loss and damage ever be fair?.' CSO Equity
Review Coalition.
28 Sealey-Huggins, Leon (2017). `"1.5 to stay alive":
climate change, imperialism and justice for the
Caribbean.' Third world Quarterly 38(11), p.2444-2463.
135
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Illustration by Tomekah George
the failure of corporations to plan to decarbo-
nise and to get polluters and their governmental
enablers to pay for current climate change impacts
is burgeoning throughout the world. The Netherlands
v. Urgenda Foundation case29 was a watershed mo-
ment for the climate justice movement, forcing the state to
do more to meet its fair share of action, and give us a chance of
meeting Paris Agreement ambitions. Using similar mechanisms, children
are seeking intergenerational justice30 and Peruvian farmers demanding fiscal
contributions for the cost of flood defenses in our already warmed world.31
A globally just Green New Deal would require reparations. This includes
reparations owed not only due to disproportionate greenhouse gas emissions,
but also the unfair trade and investment regimes and economic policies that
have curtailed the potential to protect people and planet over profit. Repara-
tion would require debts to be cancelled (removing onerous loan conditions)
and the structures of unequal trade and investment be dismantled and rebuilt
more equitably. Reparation would require a transition from competition to co-
operation, and centre the undoing of the systems of oppression that put some
communities disproportionately on the frontline of climate change impacts. It
would mean moving to re-using, sharing and consuming less but living well,
with abundant access to education, healthcare, housing, arts, clean water
and food, and a sustainable environment for current and future generations. It
means repairing climate harms.
29 Climate Case Chart (2015). `Urgenda Foundation v. State of the Netherlands.' Climate Case Chart.
30 Sanson, Ann V. and Susie E. L. Burke (2019). `Climate change and children: An issue of intergenerational
justice.' Children and Peace, p. 343-362.
31 Nugent, Ciara (2018). `Climate change could destroy this Peruvian farmer's home. Now he's suing a
European energy company for damages.' Time.
136
9. WHO PAYS? DEBT, REPARATIONS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Luciano Lliuya v. RWEAG: litigatingfor climate
justice
ROXANA BALDRICH
Roxana Baldrich was, until recently, Policy Advisor For Climate
Risk Management at Germanwatch, based in Bonn, Germany
A Peruvian small-scale farmer and mountain guide is taking bold
steps for climate justice
Saúl Luciano Lliuya v. RWE AG is the first climate change lawsuit in
which a court found (in November 2017) that a private company could
potentially be held liable for climate damages from its emissions,32
allowing the case to progress to the evidentiary stage. With support
of the environmental NGO Germanwatch and the foundation Stiftung
Zukunftsfähigkeit, Peruvian small-scale farmer and mountain guide
Saúl Luciano Lliuya decided to take his fate into his own hands and
do something about the climate risks that he and his community are
facing. In 2015, he sued the German energy giant RWE, the biggest
single emitter of CO2 in Europe. He wants the company to assume its
share of responsibility for the adverse impacts of climate change. In this
concrete case, "adverse impacts" means that, due to climate-induced
glacial retreat, a glacial lake above the Andean city of Huaraz has
grown in size and threatens to overflow or even break its dam. The
plaintiff 's property along with large parts of the city are at risk of a
devastating flood that would affect around 50,000 people. Saúl Luciano
requests the court to determine that RWE is liable, proportionate to its
historical GHG emissions, to cover the expenses for appropriate safety
precautions. This could mean, for example, paying part of the cost of a
much bigger dam and/or a pumping system at the glacial lake.
The plaintiff himself explains his motivation for the lawsuit as
follows:
32 Toussaint, Patrick (2020). `Loss and damage and climate litigation: The case for greater interlinkage.' Reciel:
Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law.'
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Every day, I see the glaciers melting and the lakes in
the mountains growing. For us in the valley, the threat is
immense. We cannot simply wait and see what happens. For
me, RWE is partly responsible for the risks that threaten us
in Huaraz. According to scientific studies, the lake above my
hometown is growing because of accelerated glacier melting.
RWE is one of the world's biggest emitters. But so far, these
companies have not assumed any responsibility for the
consequences of their emissions. You don't have to be a legal
scholar to see that this is wrong. That is why we demand that
they now at least install flood protection at our glacier lake.
And even better, that they should stop contaminating the
climate in the future so that all people can survive. We used
to be powerless, but we aren't anymore. This is about our
protection and about justice.
Saúl Luciano is aware that his plight is not an isolated one. He
hopes that his lawsuit will set a precedent and benefit others who are
threatened or impacted by climate change. The final goal of climate
change lawsuits is the establishment of global corporate legal account-
ability as well as global political responsibility for climate change. In
order to contribute to that goal, Saúl Luciano and his lawyer wanted to
create a `test case' that would be replicable in many other countries.
Therefore, their claim is based on the general nuisance provision under
German civil law (§1004 BGB). Nuisance is one of the oldest and most
widely used causes of action, and provisions similar to §1004 exist in
many other jurisdictions. What is more, it can be used both, when there
is a risk of nuisance or actual nuisance. Applied to climate change
lawsuits, this means that it can be used to ask for the financing of
adaptation measures, or for compensation for climate harms.
While the facts of the "Huaraz Case" are still being evaluated in
the ongoing evidentiary phase,33 the court's recognition that a private
company could potentially be held liable for the climate change related
damages of its emissions marks a significant development in law. This
might inspire other plaintiffs to make similar claims, or other judges to
take similar decisions.
33 Climate Case Chart (2015). `Luciano Lliuya v. RWE AG.' Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
138
9. WHO PAYS? DEBT, REPARATIONS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
While corporations must be held to account for the consequences of their
emissions in remote villages, far from where they operate, they must also pay
reparations for their subjection of violence in communities where they directly
extract:
Corporate profiteering in the Niger delta
KEN HENSHAW
Ken Henshaw works for We The People, based in Port Harcourt,
Nigeria.
From Corporate Profiteering and State Repression to a Just New
Deal in Nigeria's Oil Niger Delta
From the start, the business of oil extraction in Nigeria's Niger
Delta operated as a deadly mix of corporate profiteering and state
backed repression. From the early 1950s when oil exploitation gained
momentum, the relations of production have followed the patterns
of commerce established by western traders and colonial powers,
essentially characterized by a wedlock of rapacious profits facilitated
by military/armed repression. For instance, in 1895 - over 60 years
before the commencement of crude oil export from Nigeria - the British
Navy burnt down Brass, a thriving Niger Delta trading site, to secure a
palm oil monopoly for the British owned Royal Niger Company. About
2000 died in the process. Upon independence in 1960, the substitution
of the Union Jack for independent Nigeria's green and white flag did
not alter the character of the oil business. Nigeria's sovereign security
forces continued in the same vain.
At no time in the decision-making chain on oil extraction were the
indigenous people of the Nigeria Delta, in whose farmlands, rivers
and creeks crude oil is found, consulted, considered or valued. From
the start, the partnership was between state and companies, and the
drivers were always profit and plunder by any means necessary. The
history of oil exploitation is littered with corporate and state abuses
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
against communities whose only crime is demanding a new and fairer
deal.
In 1990, the people of Umuechem community where Shell has
extracted crude oil since 1958, went on a peaceful march demanding
a new deal from the company and the Nigerian government. Shell had
promised roads, hospitals, schools, electricity and job opportunities
when they arrived in the community thirty years earlier. Fast forward
three decades, none of the promises had been kept. In its place, the
farming and fishing community was exposed to pollution, land grabs
and loss of livelihoods. In response to the peaceful protest of the
Umuechem people, Shell called in tactical units of the Nigerian police
who burnt everything, killing 100 people in the Umuechem massacre.
Nobody has been held to account. Shell continues to extract crude oil
on its terms in Umuechem.
In the same period, the same level of state supported repression
was unleashed on the Ogoni people. This time it was the Nigerian
army acting in the interests of Shell. Again, the people had peacefully
demanded a new deal from Shell and the Nigerian state. Thousands
of community members were killed, raped and exiled. The leadership
of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, which included Ken
Saro Wiwa, were executed on the recommendations of a stage-man-
aged military tribunal.
In defense of oil companies and their reckless extraction, the Nige-
rian government continues to attack communities in the Niger Delta
using special units of the armed forces. In November 1999, the military
killed 2,500 people in the village of Odi. In 2005, 17 persons were killed
in Odioma for demanding community benefits. In 2008, Twon Brass,
Epebu, Agge and Uzere communities were attacked. In 2019 alone, at
least 3 communities in the Niger Delta were attacked and burnt by the
military.
Today, after 6 decades of oil extraction, the Niger Delta is one of the
most polluted, poverty stricken and militarized places on earth. For the
indigenous people of the region, every attempt to define a new deal
has consistently resulted in cruelty and death. For them, any kind of
transition must depart from the rather narrow fixation on jobs; it must
address the consequences of decades of reckless and mindless oil
extraction. A just transition and a new deal has to repair the ecological
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9. WHO PAYS? DEBT, REPARATIONS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
disaster occasioned by oil pollution in the Niger Delta which has
eliminated the livelihoods of the people. A just transition must seek to
provide justice for the countless victims of oil company inspired and
state sanctioned abuses. A just transition must include reparations to
the people of the Niger Delta for the years of mindless expropriation.
Beyond being green and environment friendly, the new deal has to
be people inspired and centered. It must be a deal fashioned by the
people, within the context of their reality and addressing the peculiarity
of their needs. Every previous deal has been the product of the wedlock
between oil-multinationals and governments, fixated on profits and
enforced with terror.
In this next piece we turn to action. In response to finding out that BP
was sponsoring an exhibition on Assyrian leader Ashurbanipal's empire, ruled
from ancient Iraq, Yasmin Younis joined an activist theatre group to `take over'
the museum and highlight BP's campaign to `artwash' its history. A history
which has seen BP executives aiming to ensure they "get a fair slice of the
action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq" despite experts foreseeing
thousands of civilian deaths.
Building a climate movement that can reshape
foreign policy
YASMINYOUNIS
Yasmin Younis is a First-Year Law Student at St Louis University
School Of Law in St Louis, Missouri.
Global movements see young people utilizing their power by
voicing their grievances, organizing in different youth-run climate
change organizations,34 and using all available platforms to make their
demands heard and spread. Polluters Out's (PO) twitter campaign
34 Wikler, Maia (2019). `5 Youth-Led Climate Justice Groups Helping to Save the Environment.' Teen Vogue.
141
PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
showed the power of social media in garnering the attention of BP's
directors and CEO.35 PO argues that the campaign's pressure helped
start a conversation with the very leaders of the corporation, which
opened seemingly unimaginable doors.
From petitions to campaigns to evidence of the environmental
harms produced by such corporations' failures to administer environ-
mentally conscious practices, action is required. Movements can target
corporations by disrupting their ability to recruit and retain talent as
perfectly exemplified by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement's
#PullUpOrShutUp campaign36 which globally calls out corporations on
racial inequity and discrimination. Politicians and governments brush
over climate activists because they don't find their demands realistic
and credible and the fossil fuel industry has too much influence; how-
ever, if movements can control the conversation through the industries
themselves, then will we see the beginnings of policy change.
Countries in the Global North as the early industrializers - as well as fossil
fuel companies and the agro-industry - have a unique responsibility pay to-
wards meeting our rapid decarbonisation ambitions, and to ensure communi-
ties least responsible for climate change are not left to fend off the impacts of
it without adequate adaptation measures, social protection and reparation. In
addition, though, trade and investment regimes that entrench inequalities and
create dependence, must also be left behind. So, too, must debt and a system
of granting loans that appears humanitarian but is, in fact, toxic. As Black Lives
Matter protests abound, we are also inspired to re-think the concept of when
time starts running for culpability to pay towards climate impacts. For so long
the debate has been between 1850 and much later dates, all the way to 1990.
Climate change multiples inequalities set in motion through colonialism, slav-
ery, patriarchy. Why, then, would reparations to repair climate change impacts,
decarbonise and adapt, not seek to transform the social vulnerabilities that
deepen our crisis? Climate change harms magnify existing patterns of social,
material, economic and political inequality and exclusion. Groups and peoples
35 Fallahi, Isabella (2020). `Polluters Out is a New Youth Coalition Pushing for Divestment from Fossil Fuels.'
Teen Vogue.
36 Abraham, Tameka (2020). `Sharon Chuter on the #PullUpOrShutUp Campaign and Real Change in the
Beauty Industry.' Byrdie.
142
9. WHO PAYS? DEBT, REPARATIONS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
already experiencing social, material, political and economic exclusion (for ex-
ample, on the basis of poverty, gender, age, indigenous or minority status and
disability, national or social origin, birth or other status) are disproportionately
negatively impacted by climate change harms. A Global Green New Deal can
have a transformative impact if the root causes of exclusion are redressed and
repaired, and resources are redistributed to allow for universal flourishing in a
low carbon future.
Colonial Debt and Reparations
BROULAYE BAGAYOKO
Translated by Romane Prigent.
Broulaye Bagayoko is a Permanent Secretary for Coalition
Of Alternative Debt And Development (Cadtm Africa in
Bamako, Mali.
Slavery, beginning as early as the 16th century, seized thousands of
capable African families. Gold, which represented the most significant
African natural resource, lined the pockets of French banks. Jules
Ferry, former president of the French Council, declared in 1885: "the
colonies represent, for the wealthy countries, the most profitable capital
placement". Many African countries, upon earning their independence,
were left with imposed colonial debts transferred to newly-established
independent governments
Fast forward and during the Cold War, loans enticed African
countries to steer away from socialist policies and rewarded corrupt
African governments for creating welcoming environments for foreign
investment in place of focusing on the well-being of citizens.
Tied-aid has become emblematic in the African continent. For
instance, a country may loan 1 million CFA francs to Mali while impos-
ing a (albeit reduced) interest rate. The loan is given on the condition
that Mali purchase 1 million CFA francs worth of goods from this
same - supposedly "donor" country. This ultimately results in indirectly
subsidising large companies in the Global North, and charging the
African people the interest rates for the burden of doing so.
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Any historic "investment" in roads, railroads, harbours was in-
tended to facilitate the export of African natural resources to Europe's
metropolitan centres. Tunisia even went into debt to buy its own land
back from its colonisers. While slaves have never received reparations
for being sold, the British government was - in 2015 - still paying slave
owners reparations for their lost property upon the abolition of slavery.
Southern countries, rich in minerals, are forced to export more and
more mineral resources to sustain the industries of developed coun-
tries. The looting and exploitation of colonised economies played a role
in the underdevelopment of these countries, which we call "economic
migrants". Most colonised countries never recovered from this pillaging.
France threatened Haiti with another military invasion and the
reestablishment of slavery if it did not pay a compensation of 150
million gold francs. The World Bank of the 1950's supported the colonial
powers through loan grants. Certain conditions attached to the loans
were imposed on the borrowing nations, including population control
measures which disproportionate targeted poor women. Belgium
transferred its debt to the World Bank, incurred by the Belgian colonial
government, to Congo. Congo received 120 million dollars of loans, of
which 105.4 million dollars were spent in Belgium.
"Colonisation is a crime against humanity" stated Emmanuel
Macron in February 2017 in Alger. Indeed, but it is not enough to ac-
knowledge it: these crimes must be tried and repaired for. The first step
would be to recognise that the countries considered as "indebted" are
in fact the creditors and to correct this particular view of the world. The
second step consists in paying reparations for these human, economic,
and ecological crimes committed in history, consistent with the call
made by Thomas Sankara,37 President of Burkina Faso, on 29 July 1987,
at the 25th African Unity Organisation Summit in Ethiopia.
37 Sankara, Thomas (2018). `A United Front Against Debt (1987).' Viewpoint Magazine.
144
9. WHO PAYS? DEBT, REPARATIONS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Debt cancellation and reparations - Southern
movement perspectives
LIDY NACPIL
Lidy Nacpil is a Coordinator for Asian Peoples' Movement On
Debt And Development, based in Manila, Philippines.
Debt servicing has put incredible constraints on public spending for
essential services or "social protection" in the Global South, but it also
has done a lot more harm than that. Illegitimate debts, debt servicing
and conditionalities all straightjacket us. This injustice sits upon the
historical, social, and ecological debts owed to the peoples of the
South, since colonialism, and they form the major bases for our call for
reparations.
First let's talk about debt. The so-called "debts of the South"
have grown steadily, and during some periods quite dramatically, over
the years. The major debt relief programs of international financial
institutions and bilateral lender of the past two decades - the Highly
Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief program launched in 1996
and ënhanced in 1990, and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI)
announced in 2005 - were heavily criticized for offering too little relief
for too few countries.
In fact, a lot of the debts covered by HIPC were not being serviced,
thus debt relief mainly functioned as a way of clearing up creditors'
books from uncollectible loans. In addition, these initiatives exacer-
bated other problems by requiring compliance with conditionalities
including cuts and caps on social spending and freeze on salaries of
public employees including teachers. Furthermore, these initiatives may
have provided some ease in debt payments and reduction in outstand-
ing debts but beneficiary countries considered to be no longer severely
indebted had much less access to highly concessional loans and
instead were compelled to borrow from financial markets with much
higher interest rates and increase their domestic borrowings.
The Covid-19 pandemic brings into sharp focus once again the
problem of debt and the urgent need for real solutions and not just
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
temporary, very short term relief. Unfortunately the offers as of the
time of this writing from international financial institutions led by the
IMF and from bilateral lenders led by the G20 again involve very little
relief for too few countries. The IMF announced its debt relief initiative
in April 2020 with $500 million to be provided through its Catastrophe
Containment and Relief Trust to cover the debt payments for 6 months
in 2020 of twenty-nine countries considered to be the poorest and
most vulnerable. The G20 announced within the same month, the
Debt Service Suspension Initiative which involves simply a delay of
debt service due from 1 May 2020 to 31 December 2020. Countries
eligible to apply only include those in the list of the World Bank's
International Development Agency (IDA) and the United Nations' list
of Least Developed Countries - a total of 76 countries. The amount of
debt service to be suspended if all eligible countries apply and all G20
countries participate is only about USD$11 billion. The G20 offer only
covers 3.65% of all the debt service payments to be made in 2020 by
developing countries.
It must be noted that the debt service being canceled and/or
suspended are only those to be paid to official creditors. Nearly half of
public external debt is owed to private lenders. Many campaigns and
movements - south and north - are calling for deeper, wider cancel-
ation (and not just suspension) of public debt payments for a much
bigger number of countries and for a longer period of at least 4 years
as an immediate response to the pandemic and the economic crisis,
and in addition for decisive steps to be taken for more comprehensive
and lasting solutions to the debt problem, including total and uncon-
ditional cancelation of outstanding debt stock and changes in the
international financial architecture and borrowing and lending policies
to prevent the re-accumulation of debt.
One of the key obstacles to debt solutions is how a debt crisis or
debt distress is defined. For a long time creditors have held the view
that there is a global debt crisis when many countries are not making
their debt payments in full and on time. And countries are in debt
distress if they are experiencing difficulties in servicing their debts.
From the perspective and experience of peoples of the South - we have
been in a permanent debt crisis, as debt payments continue to occupy
a significant share of public spending and prioritized over vital needs
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9. WHO PAYS? DEBT, REPARATIONS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
such as basic services and economic policies that promote social
justice, address poverty and inequality, build climate resilience and
address loss and damage associated with climate change harms, and
pave the way for equitable and post carbon development.
Debt injustice is more than the impact on public spending for the
well-being and rights of people and communities, and more than the
economic vulnerability to exogenous shocks. Loans, access to credit
and debt relief have long been used as leverage to impose policy
conditionalities, and this practice continues in various guises. The
impact of many of these conditionalities, including tight austerity
measures and privatization of essential services, are just as worse if not
even worse than the debt problem.
Many debts peddled by lenders and incurred by governments in
the name of their people were not actually used for the real benefit of
people and many loan-financed projects have actually been harmful
for communities and the environment. And yet these illegitimate debts
are paid using peoples' money. Calls to address illegitimate debts as a
priority must be renewed.
At the same time, the debt problem must be seen from a broader
and historical view, in order to pave the way for strategic, just, fair and
long lasting solutions The problem of the debt is a consequence of a
long history of colonial and neo-colonial plunder of the resources and
wealth of the South. It is not a coincidence that the first lenders to
most southern countries were their colonizers, purportedly as part of
the assistance and solutions to the impoverishment in the South. And
this justification to massive lending and borrowing continues to this day
through international financial institutions that continue the same work.
We are incapable of generating wealth - much of our countries'
wealth - natural resources as well as wealth generated by our hard-
working people - leave our countries in the form of illicit financial flows,
capital flight, profit repatriation, interest payments on unsustainable
and illegitimate debts, losses from underpriced exports and overpriced
imports and unfair trade relations. The wealth that stays inside our
countries is mostly controlled by elites and big corporations. This is
borne by hard facts - on balance, there is a net outflow of resources
from the south to the north. This requires structural reparations for
Southern nations.
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
One of the biggest myths that continue to be perpetuated is that
we lack wealth and capital, justifying the overzealous pursuit of loans
on the part of many Southern governments, and the supply driven
lending, unfair trade arrangements, and invasion of our economies and
markets by northern and international elites, their financial institutions
and their corporations. What we must fight for is not just debt cancel-
ation but reparations, for the historical social, economic, ecological and
climate debt owed to our people. And we must wage this fight as part
of a broader struggle to transform the fundamentally flawed system
that has been built on and perpetuated injustice and inequality in
various dimensions, while devastating our people and our planet.
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9. WHO PAYS? DEBT, REPARATIONS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
Illustration by Molly Crabapple
150
10. EPILOGUE
Avi Lewis
Avi Lewis is a Co-Founder of The Leap, and lives on the unceded territory
of the shíshálh (Sechelt) and skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) nations in British
Columbia, Canada.
This little book is a big deal.
Its pages amplify a global chorus of hard-won wisdom. Each section rings
like a bell, with calls to action grounded in community, speaking clearly in the
shared air, the enveloping atmosphere of resistance.
European and North American climate activism has been electrified by
the emergence of the Green New Deal, which has rapidly shifted the terrain
of political possibility bringing forward solutions at speed and scale, to con-
front not just the planetary emergency, but the compounding crises of gaping
inequality, white supremacy, and pandemic.
But just as each crisis is nested in the pre-existing conditions that gave rise
to and exacerbate it, so must proposals like the GND ground their tender new
roots in the rich soil of the movements that came before it. In this case, into
the whole earth: the movements for global justice.
To be clear: it would be unconscionable to fight for a massive build-out of
green public housing, clean mass transit, and renewable energy in the rich
communities of the Global North if that process simply unleashed a whirlwind
of extraction and exploitation in frontline communities in the Global South.
That might be a Green Deal for some but there would certainly be nothing
new about who benefits and who pays the price.
On the other hand, the prospect of such a transformation that is led by, and
accountable to, social movement and Indigenous leadership around the entire
planet that would be a new deal indeed, and the prospect is thrilling. It is an
invitation to begin the life-saving work of repair.
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PERSPECTIVES ON A GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL
In our short film, Message from the Future II: The Years of Repair, we allow
ourselves to imagine what would get us to the starting line. The cascading
uprisings, the rent strikes and essential worker movements that must arise
and explode across borders, lifting the raised fist of solidarity to the rusty iron
fist of oppression. This vision is not a prediction, but a rough sketch, a map
drawn in the colours of a liberatory imagination. And so we also imagine the
treasure on that map: the territory under repair.
On a material level, it's a picture of an economy that places high value on
repairing stuff, to quiet the endless sucking sound of consumerism. This kind
of repair must rest, of course, on a much more structural one: repairing basic
human rights to infrastructure, safety nets, truly universal public services.
Most importantly, though, it means repairing relationships. And that in-
volves both truth and reparations. First, making visible the ongoing flows of
colonial extraction and accumulation; then, reversing them. Overturning the
very logic of debt. Halting the indefensible transfer of wealth from South to
North, then reversing the jet stream of extraction so that resources, technolo-
gies, medicine and more, start flowing the other way.
And there is an even deeper form of repair to which we are called: we need
to re-pair. To re-connect ourselves as a global community. To draw back the
guillotine's blade that severed us from each other, from traditional wisdom,
from the web of life. This re-pairing is the work ahead first hearing and see-
ing each other, connecting our struggles and our stories, ultimately knitting
together a movement of movements that can dream justice into being.
In a historical moment of epic crisis and equal possibility, the whisper of a
genuinely Global Green New Deal can, and must, build to a roar.
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PERSPECTIVESONAGLOBALGREENNEWDEAL
Promises of a `green new deal' (GND) have captured the imagination
of climate activists, scholars and policymakers across Europe and
North America. In combining the struggle against climate breakdown
with the fight for economic and social justice, the GND framing
makes a long overdue case for a holistic, proactive economic, social,
cultural and political response to climate change in the Global North.
However, what would it mean for the GND to work on a global level?
How can we think beyond the boundaries of national politics, in
favour of a truly transnational approach? What would it take for
the transition to democratic, decarbonised, resilient and reparative
systems to work for the global many, not the few? Unless grounded
in principles of global justice, the promise of green jobs and
infrastructure in the Global North could simply mean a continuation
of colonial patterns of inequality and exploitation around the world.
Perspectives on a Global Green New Deal tackles these questions
head on. Harpreet Kaur Paul and Dalia Gebrial bring together the
insights of climate justice experts from around the world, to explore
the key themes that will define the future of any equitable and just
global green new deal.
ISBN 978-1-5262-0870-5
Copyright © 2021 Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung
Cover illustration © 2021 Tomekah George
Book design by Daniel Norman.
www.global-gnd.com