Uneven geographies of climate change

Carbon inequality

• Average per capita emissions in least developed countries are 40x lower than developed

• Wealthiest 10% responsible for as much as half of the cumulative emissions since 1990

• Norway's emissions are low until you look at everything consumed and imported - 2/3 occur in other countries

  • Norway 2nd in Europe for consumption per capita

  • Highest expenditure on housing and electricity

  • Lots of oil and gas exported which leads to emissions abroad

Ecologically unequal exchange

Hornborg and Martinez-Alier 2016

• core vs periphery regions

  • core enhances economic and envior performance by expoloiting and controlling the semi periphery and periphery

  • increases inequalities

  • Less dev countries usually have lower consumption and CO2 per capita but more vulnerable to CC impacts

• Example - textiles - only 1% of what's consumed in Norway is produced in Norway

  • Bangladesh - poor working conditions, less environmental regulations etc yet nearly all major retailers in Norway have productions there

  • Bangladesh also very vulnerable to flooding from SLR

  • Approx 97% of clothes donated in Oslo go to landfill

Ecological debt

Hornborg and Martinez-Alier 2016

• Ecological debt - developed nations owe formerly colonized countries due to their past and current exploitation and environmental damage and disproportionate resource use

  • Ecologically unequal exchange is an underlying source of most environmental distribution conflicts in our time

• Towards ecological justice

  • measure ecological inequality: assess disparities in material, land, labour, water etc

  • Strengthen environmental justice - support social movements and prevent pollution and extraction from disproportionately affecting poorer communities

  • Reform global policies: address unequal distribution of shared natural resources

Climate coloniality

Sultana 2022

We are still colonized but this time through CC, the development industry and globalization

• Colonialism - direct domination or control

• Coloniality - emphasizes the lasting structures and patterns of power that continue even after formal colonial rule has ended

• Climate coloniality - the continuation of colonial inequalities in the causes, impacts, knowledge systems and governance of CC

• Deepened through:

• FF capitalism  - econ growth depending on FFs

• Extractivism - displacement, deforestation etc

• Carbon colonialism - offset projects may restrict land use e.g. REDD+ - land grab and restrictions, lack of consent etc

• Powerful govs, corps and institutions often dominate global negotiation

e.g. mount elgon uganda

• Epistemology (ways of knowing)

  • Experiences and knowledge of affected communities are also essential for identifying risks and creating fair solutions

  • Indigenous, local, feminist and global south perspectives are frequently ignored or treated as less important

    • Creates epistemic violence - silencing or devaluation of people's knowledge and experiences

    • e.g. Greenland when Trump wanted to take it the stories and opinions of local people were often silenced

• Decolonizing climate knowledge

  • Listen to frontline communities

  • Value indigenous and traditional knowledge

  • Include local people in decision-making

  • Recognize multiple ways of understanding nature

Political ecology of low carbon transitions

Sovacool 2021

• The shift from FF based energy system to renewable and sustainable energy sources, aimed at achieving significant reductions in GHGs to mitigate CC

• Often seen as more equitable and just - better for people and the planet

• Enclosure - when public assets are transferred into private hands e.g. water companies in the UK

  • These private companies intensify efforts to penetrate into more remote of peripheral areas from which they can derive revenue

  • In Norway - 88% public ownership of hydropower vs 42% for wind power

• Exclusion (political) - unfair planning, policymaking or lack or presentation, recognitions and due process

  • e.g. Norway - government violating the Sami people's human rights under the UN convention

• Encroachment (ecological) - when a climate mitigation project damages the natural environment via pollution, carbon emissions or other ecological insults

  • manganese mining in the Kalahari - polluting water sources - risk to health

• Entrenchment (social) - when climate mitigation activity results in uneven patterns of dev or are not affordable or fairly accessible to all affected groups

  • Worsening inequality

  • e.g. solar panels are mostly accessible to wealthy people with large houses rather than shared or rental houses

Sovacool study:

• exclusion and entrenchment in >70% of articles

• all four in almost 1/3 of articles