The term ‘climate colonialism’ has been coined in recent years and refers to ‘the exploitation of resources of the Global South by Global North nations’. This ties into climate justice, whereby nations in the Global South tend to be more adversely affected by the impacts of climate change than their wealthier Global North counterparts despite their minimal warming emissions.
Countries in the Global South argue that it is at the hands of the Global North nations where climate change has been exacerbated through their imperialist, capitalist and consumerist societies for generations; ‘Climate change, colonialism and capitalism are structural – and not contingently – linked’.
Reiterated in a report, Greenpeace UK affirms that ‘it is people of colour who, despite having contributed the least to the climate emergency, are now “disproportionately losing their lives and livelihoods by the millions because of it”. Thus, the term ‘climate colonialism’ being used to describe how climate change due to global warming came about through the colonial empires of European nations in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
The Global North’s Legacy of Colonialism in the Global South
As the colonial empires have long plundered the available natural resources from colonized nations of the Global South, without consequences, this has led to a long history consisting of centuries of the exploitation of people and natural resources. Until now, communities from the Global South continue to be colonized and oppressed, including in Palestine, Kashmir and Western Africa – all of whom are subjected to military occupation and continue to face environmental challenges.
Palestine – which has been occupied by Israeli forces since 1948, continues to be exploited for its natural resources, including water and natural gas. Under the guise of the ongoing ‘war’ in Gaza, the besieged strip’s maritime offshore gas reserves are currently being looted by Israel.
Similarly, Kashmir’s water resources are being exploited by India, causing waste that damages the water and soil. However, the recent discovery of lithium poses a new threat of further dispossession of indigenous Kashmiris from their ancestral lands, while jeopardizing the region’s fragile ecology, as India continues to exploit Kashmir’s rich natural resources for its ‘development’ interests.
Instances of many Global-North projects are a continuum of a colonial legacy existing to this day, and enforcing detrimental oppressive conditions for many communities in the path of the capitalist interests of corporations. Today, deforestation and land grabs are still common, and the use of violence, with many instances recorded as human rights abuses.
This includes Indigenous populations and residents being forcibly removed from their homes and denied their right to return. This occurs most notably in the Amazon rainforest where deforestation is happening at an alarming rate, in conjunction with Indigenous tribes being dispossessed from their ancestral lands.
More than half of the world’s population lives in Latin America, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, regions ‘most vulnerable to climate change’ and already experiencing cross-border migration due to extreme impacts of climate change. It is estimated that by 2050 there could be around 143 million internal climate migrants, leading to a huge displacement of people and resulting in a climate-driven migration crisis.
In its annual impact report, Greenpeace UK states that Global North countries are responsible for over 92% of carbon emissions. Thus the current environmental crisis is said to be ‘the legacy of colonialism’. This is echoed by various experts, holding the view that legacies of colonialism are alive in the present.
Insights from Indigenous Perspectives
Previous reports by the IPCC have been largely criticised for their lack of authors from diverse backgrounds, causing the issue of colonialism leading to climate change being ignored for a long time. However, the IPCC’s sixth report, partly published in 2022, was the first time the word ‘colonialism’ was used in the report’s summary.
It has been largely proven that the bushfires of Australia in 2019-2020 were not solely a result of climate change, but ‘amplified by the colonial displacement of Indigenous people from their lands and the disruption of their land management practices that skilfully used controlled burning to help landscapes flourish’. Indigenous scholars have drawn connections between Western power practices and their plundering of natural resources without considering its effect; ‘Western colonial legacies operate within a paradigm that assumes they can extract its natural resources as much as they want, and the Earth will regenerate itself’.
The Fight for Reparations
As early as 2009, countries from the Global South have been fighting for reparations by the Global North as they bear the brunt of the greenhouse gas emissions that their richer counterparts continue to produce.
At COP15, those belonging to the Global North made an annual pledge of USD 100 billion to help the Global South adapt to the changing climate. However, a report published by OECD found that these ‘richer nations’ failed to reach the promised amount, and only managed to pay about half of the reparations they initially promised between 2013-2016, despite a supposed ‘yearly increase of climate finance by richer to poorer nations’.
More so, these funds took the form of loans, burdening already struggling nations with more debt. Arguably more surprisingly, these loans are large non-concessional loans which inevitably perpetuate poor people in an ongoing cycle of debt.
Loss & Damage Fund
COP27 in 2023 laid out the framework for a ‘Loss and Damage Fund’ which set out to provide funding for vulnerable countries suffering the consequences of climate change at an alarming level. With many hailing the agreement as a monumental decision, history shows that the richer nations often fail to make good on their promises, and due to a lack of internal regulation, can sometimes leave their poorer counterparts, worse off.
The World Bank is operating the Loss and Damage fund. It is said that the Global South is at a disadvantage when it comes to benefiting from decisions made by the World Bank – as its colonial outlook continues to deepen inequality in the Global South and benefit the powerful countries of the Global North.
Another flaw of this fund is its lack of enforcement as contributions are voluntary, allowing rich nations to continue evading responsibility despite their large historical and continuous emissions. For instance, the U.S. pledged a meagre sum of $17.5m – despite being the largest oil and gas producer and historically, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
The fundamental flaws in the design and operation of the loss and damage fund maintain the long-standing inequality between the richer and the poorer nations. This demonstrates the Global North nations showing little concern and effort to restore, repair and mitigate the centuries-long damage it has done to the Global South countries, and no binding system in place to hold polluters accountable with mounting climate concerns.
