Neo Coexistence

A phenomenal responsibility would lie on the rich and developed world to support the poor and developing economies


Muhammad Jahangir Kakar November 12, 2021
The writer is a civil servant based in Quetta

We have had times when the existence of man was threatened by his common species. This came in the form of wars, destruction and holocausts. His equation of coexistence was put in distorts by how he lived with other human beings. The dynamics of his coexistence have now strategically changed and this has shifted the dimension of how he looked at his theory of peaceful coexistence. It is no more the question of his peaceful coexistence with his fellow men rather he has now to peacefully coexist with his environment. The Pandora’s box of climate change has yet to open up such novel things. It would henceforth be more the Revenge of Geography which will decide the Revenge of History.

The Neo Coexistence depends on how nations would stand up to the challenges of climate change rather than how they will sink to the Clash of Civilizations. This will require mindful national spending on social welfare sectors and basing the entire national development paraphernalia on sustainable or environmentally induced planning. In consequence thereof, the ties at the international level will waive immensely.

This Neo Coexistence is strange in itself as it is affected by a common threat which can be responded only through collective response and action mechanism. This is where the previous coexistence has to be shunned which divided people on the basis of race, religion and creed. This novel Neo Coexistence will ask the nations and their people to converge rather than diverge on one agenda of responding to climate change more meaningfully. This will keep political dicta, religious rhapsodies, racial upbeats and nationalistic divides off the business. There will not be any more cold or hot wars which the nations might be thinking off wiping out their so-called adversaries, as this time around it would be the Mother Nature doing it to all of us.

The threats off the climate affair are colossal though steady. How it would be reshaping the global politics is being determined from the international mobility of the World Powers and their allies in becoming more climate centric. The international politics of influence is being so massively affected by advocating new theories of peace and solutions containing chest full of climate actions. Though the new coexistence would remain centrally political to the core, the actions required would fall beyond the theatrics. The time has come the world should do away with the theory of War on Terror and embrace the theory of Neo Coexistence that questions the competitive and cooperative existence of the Man and the Environment.

New terms are being invented to decide how the world would look like bits of which are what the US Global Trends 2040 report also suggests recognising climate change as one of the decisive features of how world relations would ripple off and across. The biggest challenge would be how the developed and the rich countries of the world would keep the developing and the poor ones on board. Climate change and its associated threats for the latter are luxury to spend upon. As for the former, it is the question of survival of life on planet earth. This creates sharp division of how we as human beings would effectively communicate with environment on the other hand so as to complete our set of Coexistence. A phenomenal responsibility would lie on the rich and developed world to support the poor and developing economies of the world to fight this battle of survival.

History has dragged us once more in the post-WWII times where the then rich countries combined together to reconstruct Europe. This spirit is now being checked by times again where now the world has to stick together to reconstruct the life supporting ambience of planet earth by collectively, effectively and concretely respond to the threats off climate change and do our part in this era of Neo Coexistence.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 12th, 2021.

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