Climate Policies Are Hurting The Poor, Not A Mildly Warming Planet

“Climate impacts hit the world’s poor the hardest”.

By sheer dint of repetition in countless “expert” reports and mass media articles, this line in the climate change narrative has become a truism.

According to the International Monetary Fund, “by hitting the poorest hardest, climate change risks both increasing existing economic inequalities and causing people to fall into poverty.” [emphasis, links added]

The World Economic Forum states that “the lowest income countries produce one-tenth of emissions, but are the most heavily impacted by climate change.”

It would seem straightforward that resolving the “climate change” problem would serve the poor the most, given that they are the hardest hit.

But, by a tragic turn of irony, moves to “fight climate change” are precisely what is hurting the poor most.

It is not “climate change” but the policies adopted in response to it that are the problem afflicting the poor the most.

“Fighting climate change” — which for most Western politicians and policymakers means achieving the “net-zero [carbon emissions] by 2050” policy target of the UN Paris Agreement — has thus also become a fight for the world’s most poor and vulnerable.

That the climate industrial complex claims the interests of the world’s poor within its ‘net zero’ agenda is a powerful lever in public relations.

The call to “save the planet” includes, by definition, ensuring the welfare of the world’s poor.

But making the fight even more about helping “the most vulnerable” gives the narrative of “fighting climate change” a philanthropic edge.

Philanthropy is universally admired, like Mother Theresa. It is a particularly attractive hobby for the rich who have made their fortunes and want to “give back” to society. Thus, Bill Gates or Michael Bloomberg’s self-proclaimed philanthropic interests in the global poor, public health, and climate change.

When discussions of climate change issues turn to helping the poor and the vulnerable, Africa quickly becomes the center of attention. Africa is the world’s second-largest and second-most-populous continent, both after Asia.

The share of the sub-Sahara African population living in extreme poverty, defined as those living on less than $2.15 per day (in international dollars adjusted for cost-of-living differences among countries), was 35% in 2021. This compared to the world average of 8.4%.

In 2019, out of the world total of almost 760 million people without access to electricity, sub-Saharan Africa accounted for almost 590 million or approximately 78%.

Without electricity or clean fuels such as natural gas, keeping warm (or cool), drinking water, cooking food cleanly, and getting enough light to read after the sun sets is not possible.

Most of us who take affordable electricity ‘24/7’ supply for granted are unaware of the existential constraint on people’s daily lives that a lack of electricity implies.

This was brought home brilliantly by Geoff Hill at a talk in the House of Lords in Westminster on Monday.

Geoff is an African correspondent for The Washington Times, the first non-American John Steinbeck Award winner, and has published with the Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg), The East African (Nairobi), and across the African continent.

With electricity unavailable or too expensive for 600 million people in Africa, vast areas of forest are being denuded for fuelwood or charcoal to cook and to warm homes by those who have no other fuel.

Faced with buying logs from a plantation or cutting them for free in the wild, people who don’t have enough money for food choose the latter. With deforestation, the land degrades and soon enough there’s a desert where the jungle once stood.

As Geoff points out, “Africa is losing its forest. Not just a few trees here and there: an area the size of Switzerland is cleared every year… A staggering 90% of the timber is used as firewood, commonly turned into charcoal, and sold in markets across the continent.”

There is a need for reliable energy, and at a price local people can afford. Without this, Geoff observes, the forest will continue to decline and, ultimately, vanish.

The impact of indoor pollution due to cooking with dirty solid fuels like charcoal and firewood on respiratory health and mortality of Africans is severe.

The death rate in Africa from indoor pollution in 2019 was three times that of the global average.

While 69% of the world’s population had access to clean fuels for cooking (such as LPG or electricity), only 19% of Africa’s population did so in 2020.

Conversely, the percentage of Africa’s population using dirty solid fuels (such as dung, firewood, or charcoal) for cooking was 77% in 2010; the world average was 41%.

Mr. Hill cites a global study that puts the mortality rate in Africa as higher than AIDS, malaria, and TB combined.

Africa — home to giant river systems including the Nile, Congo, Zambezi, and Volta — has abundant water. Dams and lakes are plentiful. But the challenge lies in getting water to where it is needed.

Urbanization in Africa has rapidly increased over the past 50 years, creating some of the world’s largest cities. Urban demand for water is huge and supply is often pitiful.

“Without water, hospitals can’t function, schools close, factories often must shut for hours at a time, food can’t be washed and diseases such as typhoid and cholera begin to spread.”

As Mr. Hill shows, the chronic water problems of African cities – either poor or undrinkable supply – mostly come down to a shortage of electricity required to pump water to where it is needed.

Read rest at Forbes