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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

A question of climate justice

by

Wesley Gibbings
223 days ago
20241127
Wesley Gibbings

Wesley Gibbings

It was not among the plan­et’s finest hours, but the out­come of COP29, held in Baku, Azer­bai­jan, last week at min­i­mum con­firmed the in­dis­pens­abil­i­ty of mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism as a sin­gu­lar­ly im­por­tant mech­a­nism for achieve­ment of col­lec­tive sur­vival strate­gies.

It could have all end­ed in ab­solute sham­bles but did not. That will cer­tain­ly be on of­fer when the “1.5 to stay alive” slo­gan born in the Caribbean is con­clu­sive­ly proven un­vi­able through lived ex­pe­ri­ence. Al­ready, ex­treme weath­er events in Eu­rope and North Amer­i­ca have dis­pelled pri­or no­tions of in­vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty on the part of the big and strong.

In Baku, mean­while, there were walk­outs, vo­cal dis­sent and dis­gruntle­ment, hyp­o­crit­i­cal pos­tur­ing, and con­tin­ued re­sis­tance to the modal­i­ties that sig­nal moral and fis­cal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the cur­rent state of af­fairs. In the same way, it should not be tak­en for grant­ed that there is cog­ni­tive uni­for­mi­ty among the ranks of the de­vel­oped coun­tries (whose undis­put­ed role in get­ting us to where we are is well es­tab­lished), there can al­so be the mis­take of as­sum­ing mono­lith­ic con­di­tions among the rest of us small is­land states.

As de­vel­op­ing coun­tries, we are not all start­ing from the same point when it comes to the “en­er­gy tran­si­tion”—or the grad­ual move­ment away from re­liance on fos­sil fu­els to re­new­able sources of en­er­gy. Con­se­quent­ly, there is stud­ied mute­ness on some fea­tures of the de­car­bon­is­ing project by some of us, ur­gent des­per­a­tion from most oth­ers, and the ret­i­cence of geopo­lit­i­cal favour on the part of some … with Jan­u­ary 2025 in full view.

Fol­low close­ly what is hap­pen­ing right here in the Caribbean in T&T, Guyana, and Suri­name. Con­sid­er phe­nom­e­nal GDP growth in Guyana– suf­fi­cient to launch an un­prece­dent­ed de­vel­op­men­tal leap–and the prospects for Suri­name in its state of chron­ic eco­nom­ic in­sta­bil­i­ty.

Then look at the Drag­on field’s OFAC com­pli­ance. Come, there­by, face to face with a tan­gled web that com­bines every­thing that is dif­fi­cult about the COP agen­da for some. Note that Guyana’s be­lat­ed tem­per­ance about the next moves be­lies pri­or vo­cal ac­tivism, and Suri­name’s own qui­et con­tem­pla­tion of the de­vel­op­ment game even in the face of ab­so­lutist lan­guage that shares its fears as a low-ly­ing coastal ter­ri­to­ry.

We have most­ly been care­ful in what we say and nu­anced the lan­guage of cri­sis to re­flect the im­per­a­tives of de­vel­op­ment in mea­sures of “jus­tice.” What, in­deed, can be “just” about a de­layed res­cue from pover­ty and de­pri­va­tion and re­luc­tant largesse de­rived from the pro­ceeds of what is now be­ing pro­hib­it­ed?

I re­mem­ber the school bul­ly who passed us in the class­room aisle and de­liv­ered heavy blows to the back of our heads. “Whap! Sor­ry.” “Whap! Sor­ry.” And then up front with the mock­ing of­fer of icepacks for our buzzing heads.

This all makes for a menu of pos­si­bil­i­ties and im­pos­si­bil­i­ties in pur­suit of so­lu­tions to the fast-rolling tide of the cli­mate cri­sis. One point five can and will be sur­passed and there is every in­di­ca­tion that even as we wit­ness the ear­ly signs, death and de­struc­tion are fore­see­able, ex­treme sce­nar­ios.

Like an icepack to the back of the head, a non-bind­ing com­mit­ment of US$300 bil­lion a year, in the face of spurned re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, is not en­tire­ly in­con­ceiv­able when pow­er con­fronts vic­tim­hood. With a US$1.3 tril­lion tab through to 2035, we stayed in the room as the fig­ures dwin­dled and the fight­ing con­tin­ued.

There is every in­di­ca­tion we will do this again. It is just that Belem No­vem­ber 2025 fol­lows Jan­u­ary 2025 in Wash­ing­ton DC. And, if COP29 fell short on the dough (re­mem­ber that US$100 bil­lion by 2020?), COP30 seems des­tined to short­change the world in the tran­si­tion col­umn.

On the mar­gins, once again, will re­main un­set­tled ques­tions sur­round­ing the fu­ture con­duct of car­bon mar­kets, eq­ui­table dis­tri­b­u­tion of the pains of tran­si­tion through coun­tries, com­mu­ni­ties, and de­mo­graph­ics, and the gen­er­al treat­ment of loss and dam­age claims.

Not far be­hind, and in the back­ground, will re­main the spec­tre of gross in­jus­tice for which there can be no stan­dard de­f­i­n­i­tions. So, yes, mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism has sur­vived the per­ilous path so far, but as we see on oth­er fronts it is pos­si­ble to sit around the ta­ble and talk while yield­ing a whip of out­ra­geous ne­glect and im­puni­ty. 


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