MALAIKA MAHLATSI: Climate change caused by the rich, but the poor pay the price

A few weeks ago, Tropical Cyclone Freddy ripped through southern Africa, leaving devastation in its wake.

The longest-lasting tropical cyclone ever recorded in the world, it made multiple landfalls in Madagascar, Malawi, and Mozambique (and to a lesser extent, Zimbabwe and Mauritius), resulting in almost 1,000 deaths.

At least 679 of these deaths occurred in Malawi. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, with over half a million of these being in Malawi. The country has declared a state of disaster after as it battles, among other things, a crippled power grid, with the hydroelectric dam rendered inoperable by the storm.

Over the past five years, floods and cyclones have devastated countries located in south-eastern Africa. In 2019, Cyclone Idai, one of the worst tropical cyclones on record in the Southern Hemisphere, left thousands dead in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, and Mozambique. The storm caused over US$3 billion in damages, with over US$1 billion in infrastructure damage.

Just six weeks after this devastation, Cyclone Kenneth made landfall in Mozambique, bringing with it powerful winds and heavy rains that led to the destruction of homes, displacing hundreds of people. The two cyclones brought widespread flooding and the destruction of almost 780,000 hectares of agricultural crops.

Six months later, nearly one million people, including 160,000 children under the age of five in northern Mozambique, were still facing food shortages and a nutrition crisis.

These devastating tropical cyclones are caused by climate change – warming global temperatures as a result of excessive emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide.

These emissions occur in industrial production and large-scale agricultural processes that occur mainly in developed and semi-developed countries. The United States, China, and Russia have cumulatively contributed to the greatest amounts of carbon emissions since 1850.

But they’re not alone.

According to the most recent data from the Global Carbon Atlas, the top five countries that have produced in aggregate the most carbon also include Germany and the United Kingdom.

By 2020, India and Japan were also among the highest emitters globally.

In Africa, Libya, South Africa, Algeria, Egypt, and the Seychelles are the leading emitters, though they collectively emit far less carbon than the developed world.

With the exception of Mauritius and South Africa, none of the countries that have been impacted by severe tropical cyclones in the last five years are significant emitters of carbon. In fact, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, which have borne the brunt of climate change, are some of the lowest emitters in the world.

But like the Pacific Region, they have paid the heaviest price.

The Pacific Region refers to a global region that includes parts of Southeast Asia and Oceania. Oceania includes Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, as well as Australasia.

In the context of global discourses on climate disasters, the Pacific Region refers specifically to 14 Pacific island countries, namely: the Federated States of Micronesia, Cook Islands, Nauru, Fiji Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Palau, Vanuatu, Samoa, Niue, Solomon Islands and Tonga; and five territories - Tokelau, Guam, French Polynesia, Pitcairn Island, and New Caledonia.

The region, known as Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs), has a population of just over 9 million and is extremely geographically diverse. But while the region may be diverse, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), there are significant commonalities between the island countries and territories that can be summed up as small size and land and water insecurity, limited economies of scale and isolation from markets, agricultural homogeneity and food import dependency, growing dependence on fuel imports, relative poverty, growing populations and urbanisation, fragile ecosystems, and susceptibility to natural disasters.

These challenges are at the heart of the region’s emerging food insecurity problem, at the centre of which, according to the International Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, is climate change.

According to some researchers, the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the periodic variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the eastern Pacific Ocean which determines the development and distribution of cyclones within the region, is being severely affected by the rising ocean temperatures.

The increasingly irregular climate pattern of this oscillation is causing extreme weather in the Pacific region, often resulting in floods as well as droughts. For the PICTs which depend greatly on agriculture and fishing as a source of livelihood and for subsistence, the implications are devastating.

The climate change crisis facing the region is also caused by capitalism. According to the European Commission Joint Research Centre and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, the US and China are jointly responsible for 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming and lead to climate change.

The Pacific Region, on the other hand, is responsible for only 0.03% of global emissions. Yet, this region bears the brunt of the developed world’s industrialisation, while it suffers environmental and economic losses that are impeding food security.

The link between capitalism, power relations, and global inequalities cannot be denied. Poor countries are paying a heavy price for the industrialisation of rich nations who, in the process, refuse to take responsibility.

At the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the People (COP27) held in Egypt in November 2022, world leaders and policymakers were asked to set up loss and damage funds for vulnerable countries to navigate climate-related disasters.

They refused.

Furthermore, the meeting failed to secure commitments from many developed nations to stop greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

This effectively means that countries like Malawi and Mozambique will continue to experience severe tropical cyclones while Germany, China, the US, Japan and others continue to grow their gross domestic product through industrial production, with no regard for the destruction to planetary ecosystems and human civilisation.

It’s a colossal injustice that civil society and governments of developing countries must relentlessly challenge at the upcoming COP28 in the United Arab Emirates. It’s the most significant step towards the realisation of climate justice for Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, the PICTs, and those who are on the margins.