The richest 1% of the world’s population cause twice as much carbon dioxide as the poorest 50%.
That same poorest 50% – 3.5 billion people – live overwhelmingly in countries most vulnerable to climate change, meaning that they are bearing the brunt of a crisis they did not cause.
And the UN has warned of a ‘climate apartheid’, as wealthy nations pay to escape overheating, hunger and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer.
These injustices are not an accident, they are deep rooted in Europe’s colonial projects. These projects were founded on the idea that wealthy countries can colonise new territories as a business venture. Their rainforests, wetlands, grasslands, crops and minerals have been decimated by the need for quick and competitive economic growth which could only be sustained by continual state expansion. The enslavement and removal of indigenous people by any necessary means was the only way that resource extrac…