Climate Change doesn’t win elections, but the economy does…

It is evident that, despite promises, the global south is unable to remove national economic growth and pride as its main priority. Despite economists such as E.F. Schumacher and Kate Raworth advocating for human flourishing and sustainable economic stability over endless growth, with Schumacher stating “The substance of man cannot be measured by Gross National Product” there is a clear international determination to exponentially maximise. Shockingly, evidence suggests Chinese officials often misreport data on carbon emissions and GDP increases, reflecting the global preference for growth over carbon reduction and climate security.

This is shown by the withdrawal of the USA from the Paris Peace Conference on 1 June 2017. With a GDP of $29.17 trillion, one would expect the US to lead from the front, encouraging other nations to tackle individual climate goals. However, their abrupt withdrawal reiterates the resounding message that on an international scale, no country is willing to sacrifice economic loss in exchange for tackling one of the largest global problems today.

Arguably, the Chinese determination to build their economy cannot be critiqued simply because their development has come at a time of climate crisis. After all, only 100 years ago, many nations benefited from the industrial revolution, generating 2.3 trillion tonnes of CO2.

However, we cannot simply allow all countries to freely pollute just because other countries already have. Instead we need to change the narrative that economic growth is the only marker of success, and adopt a more sustainable international mindset, live within our means and begin to pursue an economic stability that respects the fragility of our environment.

To understand why climate change is so often placed behind economic interests we need to understand the nature of the issue further. Climate change, pollution and environmental degradation are all examples of the effects of a phenomenon described by literary scholar Rob Nixon as ‘slow violence’. Slow violence is violence that occurs so incrementally over time that it isn’t recognised like other forms of violence but can be just as destructive in the long term. This can be easily seen in the gradual changes to global temperatures and ecosystem disruption which have had disastrous consequences over the last century.

When placed against the more pressing concerns of economic growth and prosperity this slow violence is too easily ignored by our political systems and the wider public. This is especially prevalent in western countries where the consequences of climate change are milder. Many would rather focus on issues closer to home like cost of living and taxation. In the US, only 37% of voters saw climate change as a key issue in the 2024 elections whereas 8 in 10 saw the economy as displayed here:

This feeds into another critical problem which is liberal democracy’s inefficiency in tackling long term issues. Issues like climate change are rarely placed at the forefront of election campaigns due to the needs of politicians to see quick results in their short stints in office. This makes the idea of sacrificing potential economic growth with heavy investment in mitigation and adaptation policies unappealing. There’s therefore little incentive for politicians to focus on climate change policy.

However, it would be a mistake to say that because slow violence happens steadily that it is not felt. Like fast violence, slow violence still kills and causes great suffering, simply look at the examples of the Spanish floods in October which stand as a clear example of the devastating effects extreme weather can have when exacerbated by climate change. The problem is it’s harder to distinguish the actors which cause it and hold them accountable. Often the causes can be so ingrained into society that blame lies within the structure itself, like in polluting industries and governments. All this does is leave the victims without the opportunity for justice and for their plight to be ignored in favour of more short-sighted thinking.

The underlying theme that stops Environmentalism from being politically equal to Economy, is the fact that we still don’t know how to identify who should take on this clean-up job. Early environmental campaigners fervently spoke out against the industrialisation of the west as the sustaining cause of harm to our planet. This outlook on Eco-Responsibility is one that has maintained a strong streak through to the present day, with activists like Greta Thunberg claiming “colonialism, imperialism, oppression and genocide by the so-called Global North” is the cause of problems. However, in the wake of Covid-19 economies have been slow to recover. In the US, for example, the national deficit is projected to keep increasing for at least the next 7 years as highlighted in statistics published by the Congressional Budget Office. This is also true for many of the other Western nations.

As stated in this article there is no incentive and no financial means by which state actors who have previously benefited from industrialisation would actually be able to tackle climate change. It is therefore almost impossible to assign blame and hold to account Governments on a matter which they know might ripple their economies (that is without possibly impeding national sovereignty).

A more contemporary outlook on environmentalism would be to rightfully assign blame to those states that both benefit from industrialisation and also present with a unique institutional ability to pay. Economies that can pay, should pay. After all, the entirety of the planet is benefitting from industrialisation. Every nation that one could try to assign responsibility to, will attempt to shirk that responsibility. By arguing that China, the US and Russia contribute to 38% of global emissions (and also boast the largest economies) nations with better public-spending outlooks find it easy to stand against international pressure. Hence, the problem of who’s responsible for this cleanup is once again unsolved.

It is clear to anyone looking at this from an historical perspective, that there are examples of other issues getting in the way of a solid national economy. At one time, Rights of individuals and workers posed an extra cost that would hinder economic efficiency. Similarly, basic Healthcare and other provisions of the state were once seen as merely an economic burden. In just the same way, it is absolutely reasonable that we can assign blame to states to deal with such an issue as though it were second nature. In just the same way we can apply pressure from both the international and supranational level in order to properly regulate actions of these states. Without this optimism we will never incorporate the environment into our economy as an inherent and supporting feature.

As previously mentioned, the competitive and individualistic nature of international economies, slow violence and the difficulties in assigning blame and responsibility for the clean-up job have all culminated in humanity’s inability to successfully tackle climate change so far. This lack of progress has thus created fertile ground for the need for a new, impactful and collaborative approach driven by the act of holding nations accountable for implementing positive change. The most practical solution to what is one of humanities most pressing issues is the establishment of a supranational NGO which would encourage collaboration internationally and position solving climate change as a common global goal of the utmost importance.

A supranational NGO is an organisation where member nations cede some degree of power and sovereignty to the group to help enact change collectively. Member states would be taxed proportionally to GDP in order to help finance mitigating the devastating effects of global warming and the organisation would have the power to hold countries responsible to climate reduction targets by punishing violations and non-compliance through the use of tariffs, fines and additional taxes. This organisation would facilitate clear communication, coordination and the collaboration of ideas through regular meetings between member nations with the explicit mandate to fight global warming.

This organisation would learn from the many failings of previously responsible groups who have failed to deal with the climate crisis such as the G7. Despite their enormous wealth and historically high emissions, the G7 will only be committing $20 billion dollars to help developing countries in the crisis which is only 1.1% of the $1.9 trillion per year the world is spending on subsidies to countries that are destroying nature (Green Peace). The group can be further attacked on their ‘weak commitments’ as whilst promising to keep global warming below 1.5°C they have continued to invest in gas thus showing a bizarre political disconnect from science and in addition to this, their commitment to phasing out coal is simply too little, too late and a rapid phasing out of all fossil fuels - coal, oil and gas - is urgently needed to keep 1.5° within reach. The NGO I am proposing that is the most practical solution to the crisis would improve on the G7’s errors by holding members accountable and ensuring frequent meetings and communication as the G7 merely met annually, in addition an explicit climate change mandate would see successful and positive climate action.

So, will the financial cost of decelerating Climate Change continue to jeopardise our futures?