G7 neoclimatism to aggravate Global South’s climate challenges

In its updated data, the World Meteorological Organization estimates that extreme weather and climate and water-related hazards have caused almost 12,000 disasters between 1970 and 2021. The UN specialised agency assesses $4.3 trillion in economic losses and a death toll of more than two million.

The developing countries bore the brunt with over 9 in 10 deaths and 60% of economic losses as people in Africa, South Asia, South and Central America and small islands are 15 times more likely to die from climate change. Should developed countries meet their promises of climate finance and shift focus from strategic or systemic rivalries, these deaths and economic losses could be prevented. So far, they have failed.

In 2009, advanced economies pledged $100 billion a year to poor countries by 2020 and at COP21 agreed to continue their collective mobilisation objective through 2025, setting a new collective quantified goal from this floor to help strengthen the developing countries in coping with the climate challenges.

Even as it was a slither of developing countries’ actual requirements, not only richests missed the target; they didn’t ensure climate finance was “new and additional.” Furthermore, developed countries undermined developing world’s progress in health, education, women rights, poverty alleviation and sustainable development goals by diverting development aid budget to climate change action.

G7 leaders agreed to accelerate efforts in response to the Glasgow Climate Pact that urges them to “at least double” their collective provision of climate finance to help developing world achieve balance between climate mitigation and adaptation as well as jointly mobilize $100 billion through 2025. Given they haven’t met their prior pledge over the last four years (2020 and 2023), expecting them to meet the new goal will be a mere phantasm.

At summit, G7 states committed to realise a “fully or predominantly” decarbonised sector by 2035 without giving a timeline for phasing out “domestic unabated coal power generation” to keep 1.5°C rise within reach after Japan, which derives about 30% of energy from coal, and Germany lobbied against setting a deadline.

Japan’s and US support to counter climate challenge have invariably been ambiguous. Tokyo is a staunch supporter of Kyiv in the Ukraine conflict; two Japanese companies, Mitsui and Mitsubishi, hold a combined 22.5% stakes in Russia’s Sakhalin-2 plant. Despite its strong opposition to Moscow’s invasion, the Kishida government is allowing its firms to retain shares — buttressing Russia’s “war machine”.

Environmentalists and countries such as South Korea have been expressing profound concerns over the Japanese decision to discharge one million tons of potentially radioactive Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station water into the Pacific Ocean for it threatens health and life of millions of people and aquatic creatures.

Oceanographers and marine biologists continue to witness inconsistency between assurances and “quantity and quality of the data” and perceive “real implications for ocean life and the human lives” as well as find “an abundance of data demonstrating serious concerns about releasing radioactively contaminated water.”

G7 communiqué welcomed steady progress of decommissioning work at the plant and Japan’s “transparent efforts” based on scientific evidence; questions linger about transparency of the water discharge as experts say the Japanese data shouldn’t be taken at face value and Pacific Islands and neighboring countries raise concerns.

President Joe Biden is counting quite heavily on Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to portray himself an unfaltering climatist; he too has greenlit one of the largest drilling projects, Willow project, that will intensify the devastating impacts of climate change. In fact, the “climate president” has granted more drilling licences than did his anti-climate predecessor during his 25-month term.

Protectionism, whether through tariffs and sanctions to gain leverage in negotiations or shifting manufacturing back to the country, is also a defining attribute of Biden’s coercive economic policy. While “de-risking and diversifying” in the communiqué serves as a catch-all strategy to ensure the G7 domination in economic and technology sectors; his IRA seeks to dominate the group members by tempting their businesses.

Biden’s protectionism is equally hurting Asia-Pacific economies. The US president vetoed congressional resolution that sought to levy tariffs on solar panel imports from Southeast Asian countries — Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Once domestic production comes online, tariffs will be reinstated after June 2024.

It indicates the US is sparing no area to thrive outside its jurisdiction and politicising climate change to control each and every sector of the global economy. This also sums up the shifty character of the G7 commitment to a “prosperous (and) secure” Asia and the Pacific, the most disaster-prone region in the world. More critically, this effort to exploit climate change for dominance will eventually exacerbate Global South’s climate challenges.

The developing countries have suffered immensely in the hands of the world’s most industrialised nations. It was symbolised by G7 communiqué to provide $21 billion against a requirement of $56 billion.

Before 2022 G7 summit, a damning analysis singled out the wealthy group’s failure to deliver its pledged vaccines for 600,000 deaths (one every minute) in the poor countries. It found Canada and the UK as the “worst offenders” and slammed each of the members that had “massively betrayed” the developing world, exposing their commitment to inoculate the Global South.

Prior to the recent gathering, a new study exposed the gluttonous character of the richest alliance by revealing it owed low- and middle-income countries $13.3 trillion in unpaid aid and funding to climate change action. Rather than reimbursing what they owe, well-heeled economies are demanding of them to pay $232 million a day in debt repayments without committing a single cent to the vulnerable countries such as Pakistan, which saw $30 billion in damages and losses from the recent catastrophic flooding even though it contributes less than 1% to global emissions.

In Hiroshima, G7 has not only failed to respond to climate crisis the least developed countries and small island states are facing in the form of unprecedented deaths and a “disproportionately” high cost of up to 30% of their GDP. Biden Inc neoclimatism and behaviour as a corporation, aka profit-only approach, will erode the environment and aggravate the problems of the developing world.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19^th, 2023.

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