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
