Climate Colonists

If you have read any of the rest of my blog, you will know that I'm forever interested in how seemingly ‘different’ subject areas intersect. Of course, the idea of intersectionality is nothing new, but our tendency to neatly categorise all we come across is still pervasive. One thing that interests me greatly is the intersection between environmental issues and those of race and postcolonialism (or neo-colonialism). As it stands, these issues are tightly intertwined; but, we as a nation seem unwilling to admit it. The global dynamics of race, domination and power created by colonialism pervade in the midst of our climate crisis, and we, as a colonising nation, continue to perpetuate these dynamics. The UK declares itself the leader of tackling the climate crisis, yet continues to see the rest of the world (particularly developing countries) as its dumping ground. Let me provide a few examples.

Example 1: We Are the (Second) Biggest Wastemen on the Planet

The UK is the second biggest producer of plastic waste in the world, second only to the US. But as self-proclaimed leaders in the global fight against climate change, we must dispose of it responsibly, right? Wrong. The EU has (only recently) banned such things, but the UK continues to export two thirds of its plastic waste to developing countries such as Malaysia, Pakistan, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Turkey. These countries lack the infrastructure to deal with our thousands of tonnes of waste on top of their own, and the majority of it ends up in the ocean.

This is classic ‘not in my backyard’ (NIMBY) behaviour, something rooted in this country’s disregard for the social, economic, and environmental health of poorer communities. Can you imagine the uproar if these exports were reversed, if thousands of metric tonnes of plastic from Pakistan, for example, were being dumped in the UK, or even a neighbouring European country like France or Germany?

A trickle down of colonial attitudes, of the binary of ‘civilised’ and ‘uncivilised’, now masked as ‘developing’ and its implied opposite ‘developed’, tells us that our lands and our people are those worth protecting from environmental crisis, worth being cleared of waste. Poorer nations are seen as disposable, as collateral damage in our quest for an idea of the ‘greater good’. Waste, wastefulness, and wastelands are not to be associated with the Western world. If we can’t see something, it’s not our problem. The rest of the world is simply our dumping ground.

Example 2: We Fund Foreign Fossil Fuel Projects

As the alleged leader in the fight against climate change, the UK is surely investing a lot of money in green energy? Nope. In fact, the UK has invested £750m in a gas plant project in Mozambique (among billions on other fossil fuel projects internationally), something that Friends of the Earth claims is also fuelling insurgent violence there.

Communities are being uprooted so that private companies can mine for resources, causing social and political conflict and environmental destruction. And UK taxpayers’ money is funding it. The government has been facing increasing criticism for this and will face a legal challenge later in the year over claims that its funding of the project is incompatible with the Paris climate agreement, but many ministers still back it.

As the next example will also demonstrate, this is another symptom of our environmentally colonising presence in the world, where we see other countries as resources to be plundered for our gain. It is a profit-above-everything approach which dehumanises the communities affected.

Example 3: We're Committed to Destroying the Environments of African Countries

I studied the destruction caused by oil extraction in the Niger Delta in my final year of uni. So, I was simultaneously pleased and saddened to learn in February this year that the supreme court ruled that Nigerians can bring claims for compensation and cleanup against Shell in the UK. I was pleased because this has been a long time coming – the destruction has been ravaging the delta for decades since oil was discovered there in 1958 – but saddened because it is predicted that cleanup will take 30 years and billions of pounds, and it has already cost so many lives and livelihoods.

I studied this issue in the context of neo-colonialism: a country that we colonised, that became independent 1960, is still being exploited by and made subservient to us. Oil extraction not only leads to the destruction of environments but also to political instability. Frequent oil spills and pollution destroys the livelihoods of communities in Nigeria's Ogoni region, making what was once a beautiful and abundant environment one of the most polluted places on earth. Our constant hunger for unsustainable energy ravages the countries we dominate. Again, imagine the uproar if the roles were reversed here.

There is a certain brand of environmental racism that all these examples represent. It is no coincidence that all of these countries are largely non-white, that their cultures are significantly different from our own. The colonial attitudes trickle down, where environmental violence is justified more the further we can distance ourselves from the humanity of its victims.

So What Now?

A YouGov survey recently revealed that, although around 70% of British respondents recognised that other countries have been impacted by climate change, the same amount said they had not been personally impacted, and 1 in 4 said that they would not support a single proposed change in policy to tackle climate change in the UK. People know the effects of climate change, but they are unwilling to take action unless it directly affects them. The UK’s NIMBY-ism pushes developing nations in front of this force, accepting their people as collateral damage in our destructive trajectory.

Even the language of globalised climate talk that I have used in this post contains a certain bias which reinforces these attitudes. What do we mean by a ‘developing’ country? This word implies a binary, where the word ‘developing’ also suggests its opposite, ‘developed’. In this binary, developed countries are fully formed and untouchable, there is no improvement needed, they have a certain high ground on those who have not reached this pinnacle of ‘development’ yet. It is a linguistic device which contributes to the justification of the exploitation of developing nations; by this logic, these countries are malleable, open and vulnerable to being the world’s test subjects and dumping grounds.

So what can we do with all of this? I think there is an urgent need to forge a global identity, to question the constructed boundaries that ideologically separate our nations, to undo this harmful nationalism which declares ‘not my country, not my problem’ and reinforces a colonising superiority complex. Eventually these problems will affect us indiscriminately. There are no nations when it comes to nature.

I write this because I’m frustrated and disappointed, because I know we can do better. Our country has the infrastructure to do so much in the fight against climate change, but instead we masquerade under empty words, we shift the responsibility to less affluent countries, and we continue to fuel the global dominance of racial and climate injustice. How can individuals be expected to motivate themselves to create change when those who represent them are doing the opposite? We only have one earth, and we all live on it.