The crucial but ignored dynamic in climate talks

At a recent lecture at King’s College, London, Dr Luca Raimondi, a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellow, introduced Amitav Ghosh as a writer who traverses the spaces in between fiction and non-fiction “to create continuities of experience across seas and continents.” It is hard to find a better description of Ghosh’s oeuvre. 

Dr Raimondi went on to say that genre-bending has not only become the distinctive feature of Ghosh’s writing but also immensely contributed to our understanding of the climate crisis as a crisis of imagination — an interpretation widely commended as one of the most important ways to think about our environment.

Speaking thereafter, Ghosh went on to prove once again why it is crucial to “imagine the unthinkable”. He began with the heartbreaking example of Ternate, a tiny island in the Indian Ocean archipelago once known as the ‘spice islands’.

Ternate is a place one would assume is far removed from the pathways of history, but the island has been, in fact, an important driver of global trade. It was once home to the tree Syzygium aromaticum from which clove is produced. The pricey spice made this little island much-colonised and powerful. Today, says Ghosh, this ‘tree of destiny’ is dying. In orchard after orchard, the trees stand “in drooping clumps, their branches leafless and trunks ashen.”

The farmers who tend to these trees are unanimous about the cause of their demise — climate change, which has led to erratic rain, blights and wildfires. The islanders’ experience of these enormous climate changes has thus placed them once again on the leading edge of history as they watch helplessly the tragic predicament of the trees they once treasured. Ghosh narrates that when he questioned a prince, a descendant of the erstwhile Sultans who once ruled the island, whether they would now cut back on carbon emissions, the prince replied: “Why should we cut back? That would be unjust to us; the West had its turn when we were weak and powerless, now it is our turn.”

Ghosh says he has heard similar sentiments across countries, be they Indonesia, China or India. For many, “the burden of History’s injustices far outweighs material realities and imminent threats of climate change.” Having to tolerate a disrupted environment is a sacrifice many are willing to make “for the sake of a wider national aspiration”. This is in much the same spirit that Delhi residents endure toxic levels of pollution to enjoy a certain standard of living despite knowing well that it is shortening their very lives, he adds. 

Imposing limitations on the carbon emissions of poor countries is widely seen as a covert means of preserving the economic and geopolitical disparities of the last 200 years. On a per capita basis, the carbon emissions of the global south are still a fraction of those of affluent countries. On the other side is the now widely prevalent notion that the global South is trying to deprive affluent nations of the hard-earned fruits of their success. In the US, for instance, limiting carbon emissions is perceived as an infringement of national sovereignty, Ghosh elaborates. 

This sense of heightened nationalism and geopolitical disparities have fundamentally stymied efforts to reach a global climate agreement. Although conflicts and national rivalries are fundamental drivers of climate change, these issues are rarely discussed in conferences on global warming, rues Ghosh, adding that such meets focus largely on technocratic and economic solutions.

Another crucial point he raised is that climate change is treated as a problem of governance that can be resolved through negotiations. However, there’s an inherent contradiction here. Institutions such as the UN operate on the assumption that all nations are equal and thus wealth and welfare should be justly distributed among all. Geopolitics though is about dominance and inequality. The repeated breakdown of climate talks points to a “different largely hidden reality of this unacknowledged dynamic,” he says.  

When climate change is framed as a matter of individual responsibility and consumer choice, it completely excludes countries’ ecological footprint related to the projection of power. For instance, the Pentagon is the single largest consumer of energy in the US and probably in the world. The US military maintains vast fleets of vehicles, ships and aircraft, consuming huge amounts of fossil fuels. The author thus concluded that as long as climate discussions continue to ignore such military-related greenhouse gas emissions, the world will keep going around in circles.

(Adapted for print from Amitav Ghosh’s annual lecture for the Global Cultures Institute at King’s College, London, to which DH was provided
exclusive access)