Young climate activists - why they should always include African, Asian or South American individuals

Sunnuntai 26.1.2020 klo 17.30 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Young climate activists were allowed to take part in Davos Economic Forum. However, it appears that the message of requirement for huge conceptual changes in the economic thinking throughout the world is still not taken seriously. When discussing economy, world leaders seem to forget the environment when one has to decide between healthy environment and economic growth. It is completely forgotten that a functional economy requires healthy environment, and that limitless growth is not possible in a planet with limits.

Notably, American Press (AP) initially left a young black African climate activist Vanessa Nakate out of a group photo showing young climate activists attending the Davos meeting. The other activists were young white Europeans. This omission may be more serious than mere reading of the news item suggests. It prompted questions about racism, but in a way more worrying is that the only representant of activists outside the traditional industrialized countries was left out, intentionally or non-intentionally. The problem with this is that the environmental problems involve the whole globe.

As pointed out by Vanessa Nakate, the climate problem is largely caused by the massive energy consumption (mainly using fossil fuels) of traditional industrialized countries. However, presently African, Asian and South American countries are increasing their energy consumption (also mainly using fossil fuels), and without a strong contribution to climate actions from the traditional Third World countries, effective actions cannot be done. This is required, as China is already emitting most carbon dioxide in the world, and countries like India and Brazil are rapidly climbing in the statistics. An increase of energy production in those countries should be environmentally clean, which is presently not the case: while the energy consumption utilizing fossil fuels has decreased in Europe for the past 20 years, it has markedly increased in Asian and African countries. Although the use of energy per person is much lower in those countries than in traditionally industrialized countries, the new energy should be produced without fossil fuels if one tries to combat climate change. And this cannot be achieved without active movement against climate change.

There is also another environmental problem, which mainly concerns the traditional Third World countries. The marked increase in human population has occurred outside the traditional industrialized countries, where population increase is close to 0. Biodiversity loss, decreased fertility of land, deforestation and such like would be of concern even if we could solve the climate problem. The overconsumption and excessive fossil fuel use, and overpopulation are thus questions that require concerted action from people at all corners of the world. In view of this, intentional or non-intentional omission of a climate activist from Africa is an unfortunate incidence. (BTW, all the young activists are female, where are all the young men).