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Fight Against Climate Change

 


Climate Change is Political

First, the term ‘climate change’ must be put into political-economic context; nature is not simply metamorphosing independently of human action. Earth’s temperature has warmed by 1.3 degrees Celsius since the inception of the modern industrial order under the Western capitalist powers. We were first losers of this system during the era of direct colonialism and today we are bearing environmental costs that high-carbon-emitting Western countries have externalised.

It is thus that many in Pakistan and elsewhere are again calling for climate reparations, decarbonisation and debt cancellation. The belated attention that the floods have garnered globally have forced the usual suspects in the ‘international community’ to mobilise some money for relief, and the state will gladly accept whatever it can get.

Charity is Not Enough

Many Pakistanis at home and abroad have done much to support relief work on-ground.

But it is important to understand that the imperative of planetary survival demands more than charity.

While it is laudable to donate what we can when times are bad, it is more important to come together to prioritise preventive action as charity will not prevent environmental collapse.

Progressives Must Unite

 All of this is about politics. And things will only change when a mass political consciousness evolves to inform mass political struggle at home and abroad. 

The question of ecology has brought toge­ther many progressives around the world, and it is arguably the one single concern that can force a meaningful political coalition to develop across Pakistan’s unevenly developed and divided society.

Beyond photo-ops, both our military overlords and mainstream politicians in Pakistan are almost unconcerned with medium- and long-term matters like climate change. Yes, events like the current floods make clear that climate-change-related chaos is also an urgent concern in the short term, but progressives will only force this question into the mainstream by demonstrating the same urgency and unity of purpose in building a meaningful political alternative to the establishment-centric game of musical chairs as they have in mobilising relief.

                                                                                                                                                   -Published in Dawn

-Thank You-

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