OXFORD CLIMATE SOCIETY
  • About
    • What We Do
    • Who We Are
    • Our History
    • Advisory Board
    • Our Sponsors
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Videos of Past Events
  • Education
    • The Oxford School of Climate Change
    • Capstone Projects
    • Climate Change and Policy Lecture series
    • COP information
    • Climate Library
  • Action
    • Sustainability Action Guide
    • Decarbonise Oxford
    • College Sustainability Workshops
    • Legacy Campaigns >
      • Sustainability in the Curriculum
      • Oxford Climate Action Plan
  • Media and Arts
    • RISE zine
    • Anthroposphere: The Oxford Climate Review
    • Interdiscplinary Fine Art
  • Blog
    • Articles >
      • International Climate Policy
      • Global Perspectives
      • What you need to know about...
      • Past Blogs
    • Event summaries
  • Get Involved
    • Join Our Teams
    • RISE Submissions
    • Subscribe to our Newsletter
  • Alumni Network
  • Contact
  • Donate

Past Blogs

A variety of blog posts

People not Polar Bears-Asad Rehman on Climate Justice and Colonialism

10/12/2019

0 Comments

 
A summary of Asad Rehman's, (Director of charity War on Want) talk on 'Race, Empire and Climate Change' which explains how climate change perpetuates the injustices f colonialism.
By Mathilda Alexander
Picture

Coinciding with the start of COP25 and in time for the impending general election, Asad Rehman’s talk on Monday 2nd December 2019 shed light on how global inequality caused by colonialism is being amplified by climate change, and how the UK needs to act in accordance.
 
Rehman began by outlining the aims and work of War on Want, the radical anti-poverty human rights climate justice organisation for which he is executive director. Unlike other charities, War on Want was one of the first who dared say no to Neoliberalism, and refuses to make political compromises that tacitly accept the capitalist system responsible for global inequality.  War on Want has been committed to supporting movements in the global South since its inception and aims to provide justice, not charity, by identifying and tackling the root causes of inequality.
 
Climate change is at the heart of any consideration of global injustice, as a cause and consequence of colonialism. The urgent need to change the story we tell about climate was threaded throughout Rehman’s talk-current narratives fail to acknowledge the urgency of the crisis for the world’s most vulnerable. The endurance of the polar pear perched on an ice berg as the rallying image for climate action is painfully revealing of our blindness to the human costs of climate change on the global south as we speak.
 
In the words of Asad Rehman, “stop using the fucking polar bear and move on!”.
 
We may feel shocked by so violent a reaction to the cute and fluffy polar bear image, but far more shocking is the neo-colonial mentality behind the halfhearted commitments to climate action attitudes by the global north. Current pledges from the Paris Climate Agreement are leading us towards warming between 3-4 degrees. Whilst this will be problematic for the global north, it will be catastrophic for the world’s poorest. Just one degree of warming is already causing heatwaves that killed 1200 people in Pakistan and led to India’s fifth largest city, Chennai, with a population of 8.7 million people, running out of water.
 
It’s easy to argue for political compromise when it’s not your life being compromised on the front lines of the crisis. For Rehman, climate inequality can only be explained in the context of colonialism, the doctrine of discovery and enlightenment thinking which sanctioned the sacrifice of human life in the pursuit of profit.  The global North has been built and financed by the historic exploitation of the global South’s resources and people, with Britain estimated to have stolen $45 Trillion from India, making the global South dependent on the global North. If we don’t acknowledge our own debt, we risk a climate apartheid, where the wealthy pay to escape, and the rest of the world suffer.
 
So, what should we do? Rehman argued we must start telling a story of solidarity that unites people in empathy with the global south and combats the elitism of the environmental movement. The working class are right to shun a movement that emphasises individual consumer responsibility; we should instead work towards a profound transformation that challenges neoliberalism.
 
This means leaving behind the assumption that we can continue to prioritise profit by simply “greening” our economy. Transitioning to renewable energy at current rates of consumption requires the extraction of resources which exploits the global south. Huge mining projects all over Latin America are already causing huge environmental, exacerbating water shortages in Chile. To sacrifice the most vulnerable in order to remain politically and economically dominant would be to continue the legacy of colonialism which are so quick to denounce  vocally.


0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    OCS Media Team

    The latest in climate science, policy, perspectives and more from the OCS team.

    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017

    Categories

    All
    Adaptation
    BEIS
    Climate Justice
    Communication
    COP23
    COP24
    COP26
    Coronavirus
    DEFRA
    Eco Guide
    Economics
    Event Summary
    Extreme Weather
    Food
    Food Reviews
    Fossil Fuels
    Gender
    Global Perspectives
    Government
    Impacts
    International
    Local
    Nature
    Oceans
    Plastic
    Policy
    Pollution
    Race
    Solutions
    UK
    UNFCCC
    USA
    Women And Climate Change

    RSS Feed

Developing informed climate leaders
www.oxfordclimatesociety.com
  • About
    • What We Do
    • Who We Are
    • Our History
    • Advisory Board
    • Our Sponsors
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Videos of Past Events
  • Education
    • The Oxford School of Climate Change
    • Capstone Projects
    • Climate Change and Policy Lecture series
    • COP information
    • Climate Library
  • Action
    • Sustainability Action Guide
    • Decarbonise Oxford
    • College Sustainability Workshops
    • Legacy Campaigns >
      • Sustainability in the Curriculum
      • Oxford Climate Action Plan
  • Media and Arts
    • RISE zine
    • Anthroposphere: The Oxford Climate Review
    • Interdiscplinary Fine Art
  • Blog
    • Articles >
      • International Climate Policy
      • Global Perspectives
      • What you need to know about...
      • Past Blogs
    • Event summaries
  • Get Involved
    • Join Our Teams
    • RISE Submissions
    • Subscribe to our Newsletter
  • Alumni Network
  • Contact
  • Donate