Nithin Coca
World leaders are gathered in Glasgow, Scotland, for what many consider the most important climate change talks in global history. COP26, as this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference is known, is the largest diplomatic gathering since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The negotiations are meant to be based on scientific findings and policy proposals—not entirely apolitical, but less politically tinged than, say, discussions concerning transnational migration or human rights violations. That’s because, when it comes to climate change, countries are judged on the merits of their plans, not their political systems or their respect for civil liberties. While it is widely recognized that how a nation organizes itself has a direct bearing on its human rights record and its approach to freedom of the press, climate action and democracy generally aren’t seen as connected.
In fact, many commentators argue that democracy is actually detrimental to ambitious climate policy. According to this view, the United States is the most advanced democracy in the world, yet it has failed to durably participate in global climate agreements like the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement, both of which were initially championed by Democratic U.S. presidents before being abandoned by their Republican successors. Meanwhile, China’s one-party state has consistently invested in mass transit systems and led the way on renewable energy, illustrating a contrast between messy democratic systems—in which minority interests and climate deniers can derail progress—and efficient authoritarianism.
There’s just one problem with this view: The evidence shows the exact opposite is true. Despite congressional gridlock and failure to consistently adhere to international climate accords, the U.S. has actually exceeded its Kyoto climate targets since 2005, with overall emissions dropping by 11 percent. Meanwhile, China, despite its lofty statements and rhetoric, has seen its own emissions rise by 43 percent in the same time-period. And despite President Xi Jinping’s pledge to peak China’s emissions by 2030 , there’s been no sign of a slowdown, even as the country’s per capita emissions rival those of other industrialized countries. Just last year, China built more coal-fired power plants than the rest of the world combined. It’s also increasingly financing dirty energy abroad. While major U.S. financial investors like Citigroup, BlackRock and PNC have pledged to reduce fossil fuel financing, Chinese banks are now the top investors in fossil fuels globally.
The reason may be something fundamental yet largely ignored at climate talks: civil liberties.
While Congress has failed to pass meaningful climate legislation, environmental activists have exercised their rights by mounting successful campaigns to block or delay new fossil fuel projects like the Keystone XL pipeline and a planned coal export terminal in Oakland. Similarly, grassroots pressure campaigns have forced Western pension funds and major universities to divest from fossil fuels, while shareholder activism has forced many banks and private companies to do the same.
As the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter and a country that gives diplomatic and economic support to some of the most abusive authoritarian regimes in the world, China is the main culprit—but it is not alone. Other top per capita emitters include oil-producing countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela—all of which are, to varying degrees, authoritarian. And all have turned to China as a willing customer of oil and gas as they seek to replace slackening demand in Europe and North America. Beijing’s largesse has helped it to buy silence from these countries at venues like the United Nations when it comes to human rights abuses in China, such as the atrocities being committed in Xinjiang against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups.
This raises an important question: If China’s diplomatic clout depends on its ability to coerce smaller countries that rely on it to buy their fossil fuels, would it be willing to give up this power by embracing clean energy? Many analysts believe that Indonesia’s weak response to Chinese incursions into its territorial waters or into the nearby South China Sea are connected to its dependence on Chinese demand for coal—particularly after Jakarta saw what happened to neighboring Australia, whose coal exports plummeted after it called for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19. If China wasn’t building new coal plants and importing record amounts of Indonesian coal, would Jakarta have a reason to stay silent?
Much of the progress the world has made on tackling climate change is due to the work of activists and civil society groups—not the dignitaries gathered in Glasgow.
When authoritarian regimes like China, Saudi Arabia or Iran participate in events like COP26, the global community is merely hoping that they’ll do the right thing. After all, no one—not even citizens of these countries—have much direct influence over what their rulers do. But in Democratic societies, politicians are still accountable to their citizens, who can exert power and have a more meaningful say in their futures. In fact, much of the progress the world has made on tackling climate change is due to the work of activists and civil society groups—not the dignitaries gathered in Glasgow.
In India, for example, local activists mounted a years-long campaign to force the cancellation of a massive, coal-powered steel plant in the eastern state of Odisha , which finally succeeded in 2016. More recently, activists have put up fierce resistance to a planned coal plant in Kenya—which would be the first coal-fired power plant in East Africa—causing several delays and putting the project’s future at risk. And in Sweden, climate groups played a key role in a 2019 decision to ax plans to build a new natural gas terminal.
Taken together, these cases add up to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. According to a report from the Indigenous Environmental Network and Oil Change International , Indigenous resistance alone has stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one-quarter of the combined annual output of the United States and Canada. Imagine how much progress on curbing emissions would result if countries returned control of Indigenous lands back to their original inhabitants.
Even in China, there used to be some limited space for local activists and community groups to challenge state decisions. But since Xi became president in 2013, the space for such expression has dramatically constricted. Now, activists in China fear meeting the same fate as the Tibetan environmentalist A-nya Sengdra, who was arrested in 2018 for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”—a notoriously vague charge that is often used as a pretext to round up dissidents—when his only crime was to oppose alleged corruption and illegal mining activities. Sengdra was tortured and denied access to a lawyer before being sentenced in 2019 to seven years in prison.
As Yaqiu Wang, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, put it in a recent tweet, “An unaccountable government that disrespects freedom of speech, citizen participation, and other basic human rights is ill-equipped in addressing climate change, even if it wants to.”
Yet, around the world, the ability of Indigenous and grassroots activists to challenge projects detrimental to the climate is under threat. A recent report by the monitoring group Global Witness has documented a worrying rise in attacks and killings of environmental defenders in many countries, including key Chinese trading partners like the Philippines and Colombia. The report’s authors connect this directly to the climate crisis, arguing that “meaningful climate action requires protecting defenders,” and that “without significant change ... both the climate crisis and attacks against defenders will continue to worsen.”
Contrary to the narrative of authoritarian efficiency, democratic rights are key to progress on climate change. Democratic governments are increasingly recognizing that empowering communities, addressing issues of environmental justice and protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples are part of the solution to the climate crisis. Perhaps there is a top-down, science-driven scenario in which an authoritarian system like China’s succeeds in curbing emissions, but there’s no evidence for it yet. There is, however, ample evidence that grassroots empowerment can drive climate action.
Until the global climate community accepts that reality, real progress toward science-driven climate goals will be hard to come by.
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