Why we should be wary of billionaire-driven climate solutions
The climate crisis is a result of our profit-driven system and solutions devised to tackle it often fall short. We must consider an approach that empowers marginalised, local communities to devise their own solutions to the challenges they face
As the challenges posed by climate change intensify, it is time we take a look at our approach to addressing it, and alter it to suit our unique circumstances. While billionaire-driven global initiatives may claim to be solutions, they are often money-making opportunities for those in power and end up reinforcing the profit-driven system that exacerbates climate change. These initiatives also overlook the unique geographical circumstances of actual frontline communities and as a result, fail to make an impact.
We must consider taking an approach that empowers marginalised, local communities to devise their own solutions to the challenges they face. To that end, adopting the Just Transition framework that seeks to transition into a green economy, while also supporting frontline communities is the optimal solution.
In the typical process, the implementer designs a project based on assumptions on how to make the vulnerable more resilient to climate change. Subsequently, they deploy manpower and strategies in the community, without verifying the sustainability or determining whether the community even wants the project.
Many initiatives likely draw upon existing literature without fully considering the unique contexts, landscapes, and ecological factors that shape the problems faced by the community. I believe that problems are area-specific, and solutions can often be found within the community itself.
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For instance, we frequently impose interventions in Climate Smart Agriculture, even though the people in the area are already practising this extensively. Similarly, we may introduce integrated farming practices, which the locals are already familiar with. Their underlying issues or crises may not be related to agriculture at all.
Their problems could stem from a lack of access to resources such as forests, which have protected them across generations. There are numerous issues within local communities for which people are suffering, and they may not have the ability to voice their opposition to any initiative or faulty system in place.
Listen closely to the community's voice and heed their wisdom. Each individual within it possesses a wealth of knowledge and experience in addressing long-standing issues. As an implementer or researcher, it is crucial to engage with the community and demonstrate that you come in peace, so to speak.
By doing so, you may be pleasantly surprised by the community's innate understanding of agency, stewardship, advocacy and critical thinking, all of which are essential components in finding effective solutions to problems.
Deciphering billionaire funding
The climate crisis is a multifaceted issue that lies at the intersection of various crises affecting our nation, such as racial, economic, gender, lack of democracy and housing crises. These crises are interconnected and a result of our profit-driven system that allows wealthy individuals to accumulate wealth and power at the expense of those who bear the brunt of these crises.
While most of us are grappling with the consequences of these crises, some billionaires have positioned themselves as "experts" on the climate crisis, using their wealth to promote their own agenda and overpromising that technological innovation and open markets can solve all our climate-related problems.
Unfortunately, the business and philanthropic investments of these billionaires often exacerbate the issues they claim to be solving. They tend to support solutions that align with their own interests, which often come with personal benefits and profit margins.
Despite their contributions to the climate crisis, each of these billionaires give a tiny fraction of their wealth to address the issue, and a small percentage of the money they donate goes to climate justice groups.
The fact remains that despite the positive publicity or professed good intentions, numerous billionaires involved in climate funding also derive benefits from the very system that their efforts purport to combat. The wealth that they possess has been obtained from the very communities that are situated on the frontlines of the climate crisis and rely on their philanthropy for survival. Their supposed "expertise" is less about resolving the climate crisis and more about wielding power and control.
If these billionaires aspire to reduce emissions and rebuild communities that have been left behind, they ought to relinquish their status as saviours and decision-making authority to those who have always possessed the practical knowledge and expertise to tackle this challenge: the individuals who reside on the frontlines.
Why should those who have inflicted harm on frontline communities have the power to decide how they can be healed?
There is no easy solution to this problem; only the power of frontline communities can bring about genuine change. It is crucial that we work together to hold billionaires and the system that benefits them accountable. Although this may seem like a formidable task, there are ways that you can lend your support.
Just Transition
Just Transition is a collection of principles, practices and processes aimed at creating a regenerative economy that emphasises holistic approaches to production and consumption cycles, with a focus on waste reduction. This vision-led strategy is designed to build economic and political power, and it emphasises the importance of shifting away from an extractive economy. The transition must be just and equitable, and it must address past harms and create new relationships of power for the future through reparations. Without a just process, the outcome will never be achieved.
After centuries of global plunder, the profit-driven industrial economy rooted in patriarchy and white supremacy is severely undermining the life support systems of the planet. Transition is inevitable. Justice is not.
However, as frontline communities, we are often faced with navigating many contradictions. We have seen that the fight against climate change has now become a big business opportunity. In this context, it is important to recognise approaches that will only worsen our ecological and economic crises. We call these "false solutions."
The following definitions of false solutions offer a political compass that ought to govern our responses and ensure that the solutions are viable for our regional and organisational contexts.
False solutions consolidate political power and wealth
In order to address the climate crisis, "economically and politically viable" solutions are promoted, including carbon trading and other market-based incentives. Sadly, this assumes the harmful and incorrect notion that the laws of capitalism supersede those of nature. These undemocratic systems put the interests of the wealthy and powerful above the needs of the planet and its inhabitants. They don't help us get closer to Just Transition.
False solutions poison and displace communities
Nuclear, fracking, "clean coal," incineration and even prisons are offered as economic transition solutions to the climate crisis, but only continue to harm the health of people and the planet. The path of extracting, transporting, processing, and consuming these technologies is paved with communities riddled with cancer and reproductive and respiratory diseases, among other devastating health impacts.
These false solutions turn low-income communities, communities of colour and Indigenous communities into sacrifice zones.
False solutions transform the climate crisis into a carbon crisis
The climate "crisis" is a symptom of a deeper crisis: resource-intensive industrial production of the dominant dig, burn, dump economy. Addressing only carbon emissions without challenging the growth-at-all-costs economy doesn't resolve the real crisis.
This is not to say that carbon doesn't matter, but it is not the only thing that matters. Techno-fixes like titanium oxide cloud seeding or injecting carbon into the sea bottom are not solutions for the climate crisis, rather they are money-making opportunities.
It is unclear whether these carbon technologies will even work. It is highly likely that they'll have unintended consequences. These efforts avoid the real solutions of reducing pollution at the source.
Md Faisal Imran is a Senior Research Associate cum Lecturer at the Center for Sustainable Development (CSD), University of Liberal Arts of Bangladesh.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.
