Reconsider responsibility

The world is a shared home to more than 8 billion people, but resources and opportunities are unevenly distributed. Deep inequalities cut across areas such as wealth, education or access to medicine. This disparity also extends to greenhouse gas emissions and how the impacts of climate change are felt, with the hardest burdens often falling on those least responsible for them. The poorest half of the world population emits only 12 per cent of global carbon emissions but will suffer 75 per cent of expected income losses due to climate change. Wealthy countries have historically been and still are the predominant emitters of greenhouse gases, and they have more means and capacity to address climate change than their poorer counterparts – so why aren’t they assuming responsibility?

Humans tend to think of their own community first. As a consequence, we have built many of our systems and structures on the underlying assumption that our own needs are more important than those of others. This mindset often leads us to prioritize our own benefits, while being willing to accept negative impacts elsewhere. One example is the export of plastic waste with the aim to manage plastic emissions cheaply. About 74 per cent of this exported plastic waste is sent to Asia, often to places unequipped to adequately deal with it.
Carbon offsetting is another example of how negative impacts are shifted to other regions. Through offsets, countries, businesses or individuals invest in carbon-reduction projects, like forest preservation or tree planting, to balance out their own emissions. Around 93 per cent of offsets used by the top 50 companies with net-zero targets are implemented in lower-income countries, such as Indonesia, Colombia and Peru. However, offsetting also often shifts the negative effects to these other countries – a practice called “carbon colonialism”. In Uganda, for instance, forest offsetting projects have displaced people from their homes or traditional lands, leading to increased conflicts and violence.

Solar geoengineering – an approach to cool the Earth by reflecting sunlight back to space, for example by spraying aerosols into the stratosphere – follows a similar pattern. If governments or companies unilaterally decide to pursue this approach on their own, they risk unpredictable impacts that could alter regional weather and affect food and water supply, leading to significant consequences for others.
These examples show how those responsible for the negative outcomes often shift burdens elsewhere and fail to address the underlying problems.

If we see ourselves as part of a global community, we recognize that global problems require global solutions, and that pushing negative impacts to another part of the world is not a responsible solution. Relying on carbon offsetting and solar geoengineering is not only externalizing the negative impact, but it is at best a superficial fix for climate change because it avoids committing to the real solution: cutting out greenhouse gas emissions directly by phasing out fossil fuels.

For unavoidable emissions, offsetting is still a helpful approach, but it should avoid shifting harm to communities and ecosystems elsewhere, and promote collaborative, inclusive strategies – establishing stricter regulation and adequate prices for carbon credits. A promising example for local ecosystem conservation to increase carbon storage is known as the Peatland Code in the United Kingdom. Healthy peatlands are great natural carbon stores, with the UK alone storing an estimated 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon. The Peatland Code encourages the restoration and management of peatlands within the UK, ensuring that carbon sequestration benefits are retained locally and equitably. By promoting projects that directly benefit local communities and ecosystems, it provides a model for avoiding the negative impacts of carbon colonialism and fosters more responsible environmental stewardship.