Climate Debt and Ecocide

Alex Scrivener World Development Movement Is climate change a form of Ecocide? Is climate change a form of Ecocide?

YES! Climate change is ecocide on a grand scale. • World Health Organisation estimates 150,000 deaths annually caused by Climate Change. • IPCC: Up to 70% of species could be extinct • Mass loss of ecosystems • Desertification • But if we accept that climate change is a crime? Who are the criminals? Climate debt: the concept • Rich industrialised countries have grown rich by pushing the world to the brink of climate chaos • Yet, 75-85% of impacts felt in global south • Northern countries have emitted more than their fair share • We will achieve climate justice only once we have repaid this debt.

Climate calendar

By 10 January – the average UK citizen has emitted as much as the average person in 33 countries! • 11 January we overtook Bangladesh and Kiribati. • Rising sea levels threaten to wipe Kiribati off the map and put 17 million people underwater in Bangladesh

By April 11

• We have already emitted more than the average person in 98 countries! • We overtake China on 18 May. We need justice…Climate justice • We will achieve climate justice once we have paid our climate debt to the victims of climate change. • We need to stop accruing debt (by stopping emissions) and start paying it off through funding adaptation and mitigation in the global south. So what are we doing to pay our climate debt? The good news

• There is some recognition of the “common but differentiated” responsibility of rich and poor countries for climate change • UNFCCC process distinguishes between developed countries and developing countries

The bad news UK still emitting far too much

-Official figure of 13% fall in emissions since 1990 a sham as it doesn't include aviation and relies on dodgy offsetting.

-- Real figure is more like 5%. Which is more to do with deindustrialisation (off shoring our emissions to China) than real change.

Taking funds from the aid budget… We distrubute most climate finance as loans… (…like crashing your car into someone’s house, then offering them a loan to make repairs…) …and pushing it through the undemocratic World Bank… Long history of resistance to World Bank Failure to consult communities… Extractive industries… Coal fired power stations… World Bank Clean Technology Fund • UK money helped fund a wind farm in Mexico built by EDF! • Local people forced to sign contracts they didn’t understand • Power generated sold to Walmart – none went to locals (7% of whom don’t have access to electricity) Other bad things we’re doing

• Promoting carbon trading as a way for us to get out of reducing emissions by “offsetting” • Promoting the financialisation of nature – allowing the rich to buy their way out of environmental obligations. What should we be doing?

• Climate finance is reparations. It should be additional to aid money • Should always be given as grants for adaptation. • Not through the World Bank

What can we do?

• We CAN achieve concessions through pressure on government. • Government reduced amount of adaptation finance given as capital after WDM campaign against climate loans • UK now putting some money into UN adaptation fund