Climate Crisis :Global South's victim syndrome and Global North's winner takes all attitude creates a world that loses all

An alternative narrative that is shaping up for sometime within the climate change community is the role of Global South. The Global South feels that it rightfully deserves financial help and the developed world needs to provide this. While the Global North seems to be avoiding all responsibilities

There are many things wrong with this approach. One, it makes the Global South a victim or a sufferage of the developed world. Second, this victim mindset shapes the debate between these two parts of the world, which means that it becomes a blame game or worst it seeks financial aid for making changes to climate mitigation strategies.

The challenge with this approach is that it plays to rules of the same lobby that has denied climate change for the better part of last few decades. If we look at the rule book developed by Exxon to muddle and divert the climate debate. One of its clearest component is to admit the climate crisis publicly but then work behind the scenes to ensure that no policy change is ever carried out that will actually affect the polluting industry. Not only that it is clearly shows that Exxon actually funded research to create a false narrative that the climate activists were creating a false scare and even tried to discredit the climate crisis research.

According to a newspaper report, Frank Sprow, then Exxon’s head of corporate research, sent a memo to colleagues a few months later articulating what would become a central pillar of Exxon’s strategy.

“If a worldwide consensus emerges that action is needed to mitigate against Greenhouse gas effects, substantial negative impacts on Exxon could occur," wrote Sprow. “Any additional R&D efforts within Corporate Research on Greenhouse should have two primary purposes: 1. Protect the value of our resources (oil, gas, coal). 2. Preserve Exxon’s business options."

Sprow’s memo was adopted by Exxon as policy, he said in a recent interview.

The developing world or the poorer economies has convinced themselves that the cost of transitioning from a fossil-based or polluting economic growth to a green or sustainable economy is a costly and difficult oneaffair. They do not have the resources to do so nor do they want to slow down, hence the developed world should pay for this transition. I have shown that both the transition cost and the mitigation cost required are beyond their current capacity to fund.

But that does not mean it is beyond their ingenuity to fund. They have to find a way to build a market for green technology, they have to find a way of getting their growing economy to fund and invest in sustainable growth. Everything cannot be left to the rest of the world. To solve this is everyone’s problem and there are many solutions to it.

There are twenty-one economies for whom coal, petroleum, and natural gas account for a majority of merchandise exports; in six of these countries, fossil fuels represent more than 90 percent of those exports (see figure 2). Even in a world where some nonrenewable energy generation continues, the economic models of these countries will require reinvention.

Nineteen of the 21 countries that have fossil fuels as their largest exports fall into the Global South. That does not mean that the Global South needs or their narrative is being driven by these 19 countries. It can be influenced by these countries as they have an inherent bias to protecting their exports and their economies. But the larger countries which drive the narrative for the global south like Brazil , China and India are the largest consumers or importers of these fossil fuels. Another interesting statistics the largest investor in atleast natural gas is the government of global north countries. The approach that the leaders are taking towards climate change individually is also important.

China sees climate change technologies as a clear opportunity for growth and in creating industries that never existed. It has become the largest and lowest cost producer of solar panel, lithium batteries and even EV cars by following a state sponsored model of owning everything in the supply chain from minerals to dare I say the customer. This does not mean it has given any carte-blanche to its industry to curtail the use of fossil fuels. But its use of gas and solar continues to rise rapidly, though coal and oil still dominates usage.

The global south can be divided into three buckets for the sake of understanding its motivation. First, as pointed out in the graph is countries which are highly dependent on the fossil fuels for export and economic growth. These countries will bear the highest cost of transition and will see a contraction in economy if they were to move away from fossil fuels. The estimates for contraction range from 10 per cent to 50 per cent this is just not bearable by the economic, social or governance structure in these countries. It will lead to collapse of all three and these companies will indistinguishable from a war ravaged economy. Expecting these countries to commit to roadmap to suicide is not practical.

The second bucket is made up of large economy like China, India, Brazil and South Africa. They are large consumer and even importers of fossil fuels their economy is growing and they do not want to curtail its growth by shifting to renewables too fast as to disrupt that growth. Moreover, they do not want to put curbs on fossil fuel and realted companies or penalize the extraction industry for its destructive impact on the climate.

These large economies have more than their fair share in the global narrative and they seem to be adopting the same rule book as Exxon did with muddling the climate debate. The rule is talk about the problem but reduce the severity of the problem or the urgency of action by muddling the facts and pass the balme to the developed countries while doing nothing. This basically plays well into the hands of the entrenched fossil fuel lobby not just present in these countries but those that are suppliers to this country. Ignoring the urgency of the action by the Global South is also self destructive as the rise in temperature is already causing droughts, flash floods and extreme weather situation disrupting its population and its livelihood more than the global north.

The Global North is looking at the crisis as a financial opportunity and feels that it can recover the economic growth lost to China by lending capital for the transition. Capital that it would earn interest and income .

The third bucket is made up of countries that have neither fossil fuel resources nor a share of voice in the global narrative. Some of these countries are small and maybe may be affected more by the climate crisis but they have no voice to have differentiated or better treatment.?The Global North is looking at the crisis as a financial opportunity and feels that it can recover the economic growth lost to China by lending capital for the transition. Capital that it would earn interest

and income.

The climate crisis is not just a financial crisis, it is also a human crisis. The people of the Global South are already suffering from the effects of climate change, and these effects are only going to get worse if action is delayed. The markets have limits set out for returns so it is unlikely that the requirement for the countries can be funded through the market route. It is only if the global market rules are changed very thoroughly by the regulators that the capital flows change. Investment flows have to change from traditional instruments to green bonds. The periphery has to become mainstream.

Government needs to take the lead in financing the transition to a green economy that is fair and just, and that puts the needs of their people before market profits.

--ends