[We praise charity efforts to combat climate change in countries
like Bangladesh as generous, without critiquing why they are made
necessary in the first place.]
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THE MODERN FORM OF COLONIALISM: CLIMATE CHANGE  
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Tapti Sen
June 15, 2023
Inequality.org
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_ We praise charity efforts to combat climate change in countries
like Bangladesh as generous, without critiquing why they are made
necessary in the first place. _

,

 

I am from a disappearing nation.

My country, Bangladesh, is one of several
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risk of becoming submerged
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or completely by rising sea levels caused by climate change in the
coming decades. 75 percent
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the country lies below sea level. 

Bangladesh, a tropical country on top of a low-lying delta, is no
stranger to flooding, especially during monsoon season. But the extent
to which this flooding has taken place in recent years is
unprecedented. Flooding in Sylhet and other northeastern districts of
Bangladesh between May and June of 2022 displaced an estimated 15
million people 
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approximately 9 percent of the country – and toppled hundreds
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villages in 2022 alone. Flooding and torrential rains in July 2020 led
to the submerging of  nearly a quarter of Bangladesh
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All of this flooding and damage has taken an undeniable toll on the
nation. Data demonstrates that between 2000 and 2019, Bangladesh
suffered $3.72 billion dollars
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of economic losses due to climate change. Despite its low carbon
output both historically
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present-day
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the country is disproportionately impacted by climate change due to
its location.

International and humanitarian organizations have responded to these
annual crises as they always do: with donations
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and donation requests to combat climate problems is a flawed approach.
Humanitarianism stems from noble intentions, but societies have grown
complacent with philanthropic interventions during crises, which avoid
the duty to deal with structural issues. 

We praise charity efforts as generous, without critiquing why they are
made necessary in the first place. Take, for example, the members of
the Bangladeshi army who gave up a day’s worth of their salary
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flood-related fundraising efforts. Some international organizations
are enacting  preventative measures
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climate disasters. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs, for instance, has established
different anticipatory action frameworks
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what they deem “high risk countries,” which allowed them to
allocate relief funds to Bangladesh even before the monsoon flooding
started this year. Given the subsequent toll of the floods, it’s
clear that even these preventative measures aren’t enough to
mitigate these disasters. 

All of this considered, it’s no surprise that numerous Bangladeshi
politicians, who formerly took on active roles during national
humanitarian crises, took a back seat
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We talk about Bangladesh’s climate crisis as if it was inevitable,
as though Bangladesh is simply a victim of its location.

But the reality is much more sinister. Developed nations are largely
responsible for the state of Bangladesh’s climate catastrophes.

Between 1765 and 1938, Britain plundered almost $45 trillion
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from the Indian subcontinent. Within this looting was “the
financial bleeding of Bengal”
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filled not only with the ransacking of its treasuries and towns
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money,  but the exploitation of its workers and artisans
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complex and raw materials alike. It’s no surprise that British
colonization and imperialism goes hand in hand
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considering that the Industrial Revolution demanded cheap raw
materials and money in order for factories to produce and over-produce
and pollute. Essentially, it’s not inaccurate to say that a major
reason for Bangladesh’s climate and flooding crisis is its
colonization under the British Raj. 

When we talk about CO2 emissions and responsibility, we need to focus
on cumulative historical emissions, as those are the causes of the
ongoing climate crisis. The data shows that 23 rich, developed
countries, including the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom,
and France are responsible for half of all historical CO2 emissions
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with more than 150 countries responsible for the other half.

Up until 1950, more than half
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historical CO2 emissions were emitted by Europe, with the vast
majority of European emissions being emitted by the UK. While the
UK’s carbon imprint has lessened since then, should it not take
responsibility for the consequences of its past actions? And today,
rich countries like the U.S., Germany, and the UK are among the top 5
CO2-emitting countries
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Why should Bangladesh have to suffer for the past and present
extravagances of its colonizers? 

Developed countries are primarily responsible for our current climate
crisis, but it is developing countries that are the most vulnerable
to its effects
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Global warming, which has increased the economic inequality gap
between the Global South and Global North by a whopping 25 percent
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punishes the economically vulnerable over the rich, the colonized over
the colonizers, and it’s clear, therefore, that this climate crisis
isn’t just an environmental issue: it’s about colonialism and
imperialism and poverty and every systemic structure that has
inequality enshrined in its foundations. 

Developed countries must take responsibility for the climate crisis
they initiated by paying reparations for developing countries. And
there’s a number of ways they could do this.  

One very tangible way for developed countries to pay reparations is
the reallocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). SDRs are
supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets maintained by the
International Monetary Fund. Certain numbers of them are distributed
to banks and treasuries around the world, allowing financial
institutions fallback options when they need to dip into their
financial reserves during crises. However, SDRs are currently
allocated by quota, which means that low-income developing countries
like Bangladesh receive 1.4 percent
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high-income developing countries like China receive 22 percent
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and rich countries such as the US and the UK receive over 60 percent
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Of course, rich countries rarely
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if ever, need to dip into their SDRs, whereas low-income
countries often
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upon theirs. Ending this quota system and reallocating SDRs to the
countries most vulnerable to climate change is a feasible way to
dedicate  existing resources to climate change mitigation.
Considering that they don’t even use their SDRs, developed countries
have no incentive not to do this.

In the same vein,  countries could assist developing countries in
undertaking various climate mitigation and adaptation
projects. Climate mitigation
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actions that involve reducing the levels of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere, either by reducing the point source pollution (eg. the
burning of fossil fuels for electricity) or by enhancing the sinks
that store these gases (eg. forests). 

Currently, around 63 percent
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Bangladesh’s energy comes from natural gas. While the government
is exploring [[link removed]] alternate
renewable energy sources, the country is already enduring a massive
energy crisis
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to widespread load-shedding
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Bangladesh can’t just simply make the switch from one energy source
to another. However, developed nations could funnel resources towards
Bangladeshi projects to develop renewable, well-explored sources of
energy such as tidal 
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stopping a bad situation from getting worse. 

Climate adaptation is just as necessary as climate mitigation.
Developed countries could aid in numerous climate adaptability
projects, including working with local farmers to develop new
agricultural practices less vulnerable to the floods, strengthening
coastal tracts of land, preventing the salinization of already scarce
drinking water, or building “climate-friendly towns.”
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NGOs have aided Bangladesh in these ventures, developed countries
should also use their own resources in this transformation.

But climate change devastation simply can’t be avoided through
mitigation and adaptation techniques alone: frontline countries need
financial support to repair from inevitable disasters. The economic
costs among developing countries for these losses and damages is
expected to reach $200-580 billion
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2030. The Glasgow Dialogue
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2021 UN Climate Change conference (or colloquially, COP26) in response
to calls from developing nations regarding assistance during
environmental climate crises.  Zowa Shawoo, scientist at the
Stockholm Environment Institute, outlines different principles the UN
and developed nations could use for financing loss and damage,
like providing a needs-based finance on a country-by-country basis
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ensuring that national systems are used to distribute the funds
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All countries owe climate refugees recognition and safe harbor.
Over 21.5 million people
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the world have already been displaced due to climate change. However,
many countries, including the US
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don’t actually recognize climate refugees as “refugees”. Those
who face persecution not from other people but from human-induced
environmental threats are often unable to apply for asylum or access
shelter, food, or basic necessities. This neglect causes climate
refugees to , as NPR puts it, “fall between the cracks”
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Developed nations act less concerned about climate change because, in
the next few decades, at least, disasters and sea-level changes
won’t entirely disrupt or affect them (and also
because corporations profit off environmental degradation
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But we fail to recognize how global and interconnected our world is
now. Bangladesh, for instance, is among the top exporters of textiles
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underwater, that void can’t easily be filled by some other
developing country taking up the burden. While climate change losses
may seem relatively small now, the positive feedback loop of global
warming
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each and every one of them will have massive global ramifications in
the future. 

At its core, climate change is a form of genocide — not only human
and environmental genocide, but  cultural genocide too. With every
inch of Bangladesh that goes under, every village that’s lost, every
province flooded, a part of Bengali culture disappears with it:
customs forgotten, ancestral homelands abandoned and submerged. Those
of us from developing and formerly colonized countries have already
lost so much, have already had so much of our histories erased through
the imperialism and dehumanization of our peoples. We are
strong—undergoing colonization necessitated that strength—but how
much more can we bear? 

If Bangladesh sinks – _when_ Bangladesh sinks – it won’t be an
abstract environmental loss, but the last breath of a people that
started dying the minute the British landed on Indian soil. Developed
countries created this climate disaster. Now they need to fix it. 

_Tapti Sen is an Inequality.org Next Leader at the Institute for
Policy Studies._

_Inequality.org has been tracking inequality-related news and views
for nearly two decades. A project of the Institute for Policy Studies
since 2011, our site aims to provide information and insights for
readers ranging from educators and journalists to activists and policy
makers._

_Our Inequality.org contributors come from the United States and
around the world. Our focus throughout: What can we do to narrow the
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* Climate Change
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* Bangladesh
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* colonialism
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