The dangers of depoliticisation of the climate movement

Karim Miah is a fisherman from Bhola; his family has recently lost their home to the Cyclone Remal in May 2024 due to a breach of the embankment and is living under tremendous misery as his only source of livelihood, "fish", is disappearing from the "doria" (river). Karim Miah does not know about climate change, but he bears the wounds of this phenomenon on his flesh and mind. 

In another world, COP season has arrived, and it is time for most of the discussion on climate change to come to the forefront. The engagement of young people in this discussion has been one of the major shifts in the climate movement in the last five years, inspired by the iconic movement by Greta Thunberg. It has created greater awareness of climate change among young people in the Global North and possibly also a greater recognition of climate change at the UN. 

However, for the majority of young people in Global South countries, this climate awareness might not be embedded in the same language as in Global North but in lived experience of death and destruction like Karim Miah. 

Unfortunately, mainstream climate activism that has emerged in Bangladesh has copied the language of the Global North.

The climate activism in Bangladesh is politically insipid, that is, it acts in a very tokenistic way and does not confront the key political agents involved in the decision-making process of this climate breakdown. The entire imagination of the climate movement in Bangladesh is organised around seeking compensation from the Global North. 

The process of seeking this compensation is through a consensual negotiation process that is designed by the Global North. Over the last forty-five years, this negotiation process at climate conferences has not yielded any breakthrough, and the entire process of negotiation is fraught with anomalies and unhinged decision-making power to the Global North. 

On a more fundamental level, the Global North countries drain the Global South economy of commodities worth $2.2 trillion every year through net appropriations of raw materials, labour, and embodied labour in high-tech industrial goods. Net appropriation occurs when the prices of goods and services in the Global South are systematically lower, and these lower prices are enforced by international multilateral agencies. 

This process has been established by the Global North countries through their colonial imprints and their control and influence over the multilateral and UN agencies. If the Global South countries had received fair prices, they would not even need any external funding or would get overburdened with climate debts. 

The underlying driver of this drain of resources is the Global North's consumerism and production system that is dependent on the Global South's ecological destruction and labour exploitation. 

The Global North countries justify this hyperconsumption by massive greenwashing campaigns. For instance, the sheer deluge of climate-conscious, eco-friendly, sustainable products is produced by the expropriation of resources from the Global South. The Global North countries are establishing sites of Green Sacrificial Zones (GSZ) to continue their hyper-consumerist culture rather than organising their economy around servicing basic needs. 

The consumerism and the economic paradigm of the Global North are deeply political. However, the popular climate movement in Bangladesh does not even scratch the surface of the deeply politically charged discussions. It operates under a depoliticised techno-managerial space, avoiding direct confrontation, and provides justification and credibility to the Green Washing campaigns. 

The popular climate movements in Bangladesh are supported by foreign embassies and are visibly co-opted by false climate solutions by the Global North. The popular climate movement fails to acknowledge the deep-state political process that exacerbates the climate crisis. Instead, the popular climate movement in Bangladesh operates in a silo and does not have any alliance with mainstream labour, environmental justice, or Indigenous activists's networks. 

The slogans of climate change are technical in nature and do not reverberate the pains of the climate victim. People like Karim Miah do not even know that their rights are being violated. In fact, the representatives of the climate movement in Bangladesh do not represent the voices of people like Karim Miah. 

A large majority of climate movement organisations are driven by the motive of raising funds and gathering visibility rather than meaningfully engaging with domestic political actors and global political movements that can collectively push the Global North countries. 

However, Bangladesh has a rich history of organising powerful political movements against domestic and global injustice. The recent July mass uprising demonstrated the capacity of the young people to bring universal collective action to bring down a powerful fascist regime. Bangladesh also has a history of organising successful environmental justice movements. 

For example, Asia Energy, a powerful energy company with funding from a multilateral funding agency, had to stop its operation in the Fulbari open-pit coal mines in Dinajpur in the face of protests organised by the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Port, and Power (NCBD). Most of these movements have one common denominator: it's the direct engagement of those facing injustice and the mobilisation of political actors to influence the masses. 

Our hope is that in Bangladesh 2.0, a new climate movement emerges that is highly political in its approach. We hope that the new movement captures the language of the climate migrants, the low-paid labourers, farmers, fishermen, forest foragers, etc., and advocates for their rights, and their wound in the flesh finds expression in political slogans. 

The climate movement directly critiques and challenges the trade and economic paradigm of the Global North and works to meaningfully decolonise the economy and society from the clutches of the post-colonial extractions.

It creates strong allies with the existing environmental, labour, indigenous, and land rights struggles and new allies with the global movement for decolonisation in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and South Asia. A depoliticised and tokenistic climate movement is a danger for our future generations, as it does not have any teeth to hold the Global North countries accountable. 

Syed Muntasir Ridwan is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Catalyzing Sustainable Transformation (CaST) Network.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.