By Reginald M.J. Oduor, Ph.D. – Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Nairobi
For decades now, the United Nations (UN) and its collaborators have been saying that humanity faces an existential threat due to “global warming” caused by human activities (“anthropogenic factors”). Then, in July 2023, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, declared, “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived. ” CNBC reported that Guterres relied on data released by the European Union and the World Meteorological Organization indicating that July 2023 was set to be the hottest month on record.
The UN has so intensely popularised the “climate crisis” narrative over the past five decades or so that anyone who questions it is now routinely dismissed as a “climate sceptic”, “climate denier”, “conspiracy theorist” or as “anti-science”. Nevertheless, just as Socrates famously said that the unexamined life is not worth living, so John Stuart Mill correctly observed that an unexamined belief is not worth holding because it is a mere dogma rather than a living truth.
The “climate crisis” narrative: A historical outline
The “climate crisis” narrative made its debut with the First UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden in 1972. Subsequently, in the same year, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) passed its Resolution 2997 XXVII to establish the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to monitor the state of the environment and coordinate responses to the world’s greatest environmental challenges. Environmental ethics also emerged as a distinct area of philosophical inquiry during the 1970s. In 1983, the UNGA appointed the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). The report of the Commission, popularly known as the Brundtland Report and published in 1987, called for sustainable development to deal with the twin challenges of environmental conservation and human development. In 1988, UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on the current state of knowledge about “climate change”.
Then came the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the “Earth Summit”, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 3 to 14 June 1992, on the 20th anniversary of the 1972 Stockholm environment conference. According to the UN, “One of the major results of the UNCED Conference was Agenda 21, a daring programme of action calling for new strategies to invest in the future to achieve overall sustainable development in the 21st century. Its recommendations ranged from new methods of education, to new ways of preserving natural resources and new ways of participating in a sustainable economy.” The UN goes on to write:
“The ‘Earth Summit’ had many great achievements: the Rio Declaration and its 27 universal principles, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity; and the Declaration on the principles of forest management. The ‘Earth Summit’ also led to the creation of the Commission on Sustainable Development, the holding of the first world conference on the sustainable development of small island developing States in 1994, and negotiations for the establishment of the agreement on straddling stocks and highly migratory fish stocks.”
As the UN explains, “Every year, countries who have joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meet to measure progress and negotiate multilateral responses to climate change.” These conferences are now popularly referred to as “COP”, which is an acronym for “Conference of the Parties”.
The UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012, commonly referred to as “the Rio+20 conference”, galvanised a process to develop a new set of goals that would carry on the purported momentum generated by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) beyond 2015, and that were adopted by the UNGA as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on 25 September 2015 to be achieved by the year 2030. The SDGs are part of Resolution 70/1 of the United Nations General Assembly, commonly referred to as “The 2030 Agenda”, whose full title is “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”.
Besides, the contemporary Western conservationist movement is now advocating for a “One Health Approach”. As I recently observed, the notion of “One Health” goes back at least to a symposium titled “One World, One Health: Building Interdisciplinary Bridges to Health in a Globalised World” organised by the Wildlife Conservation Society and hosted by The Rockefeller University on 29 September 2004. The symposium adopted “The Manhattan Principles on ‘One World, One Health’”, and declared: “Only by breaking down the barriers among agencies, individuals, specialities and sectors can we unleash the innovation and expertise needed to meet the many serious challenges to the health of people, domestic animals, and wildlife and to the integrity of ecosystems.” It also emphasised the alleged positive role of private sector players in this endeavour. In 2016, the One Health Commission, the One Health Initiative and the One Health Platform Foundation declared 3 November One Health Day to be observed annually. The proposed WHO Pandemic Agreement, which failed to make it for a vote at the 77th World Health Assembly but which is scheduled for further negotiation, is committed to the One Health Approach.
Furthermore, as Phidel Kizito explains, governments are now introducing “Eco levies” or “environment levies” “to reduce environmental pollution, encourage sustainable practices, and promote the use of environmentally friendly alternatives”. Taxes on cows and other ruminants such as goats and sheep, even if not designated as “eco levies”, still fall under this category of taxes because such animals are said to produce inordinate amounts of methane and nitrous oxide, thereby raising the concentration of “greenhouse gases” to dangerous levels. Similarly, levies on motor vehicles are now being introduced on the pretext that they discourage the use of “fossil fuels” that allegedly cause major environmental pollution. The revenue generated through eco levies is allegedly used to finance conservation projects such as the disposal of waste and the planting of trees. However, governments often impose them simply to increase the volume of the taxes they collect for use at their discretion.
Human dignity, human rights and environmental conservation
Among the central tenets of the “climate crisis” narrative are that the planet earth is on the brink of ecological disaster largely due to the actions of human beings (“anthropogenic factors”) that cause “climate change” in the form of “global warming”; that global warming is resulting in the disruption of ecosystems, increased adverse weather events, and an unprecedented high rate of pathogens transmitted from animals to humans (“Zoonotic diseases”); that the only way to reverse the imminent collapse of the earth’s ecosystems is to treat the well-being of humans, animals, plants, and even non-living things as deserving of equal attention (“One Health approach”); that it is therefore necessary to drastically reduce the human population, to deploy “sustainable” methods of agriculture, and to use environmentally friendly sources of energy commonly referred to as “green energy”.
However, the “climate crisis” narrative being promoted by Western billionaire self-proclaimed philanthropists and Western multinational corporations seldom addresses the fact that environmental degradation is in large part due to poverty. When a handful of people own large tracts of land and consign the abject poor to tiny spaces in slums in cities and towns and in rural villages, the environment is bound to be degraded through poor sanitation that pollutes waterways, results in inadequate disposal of household waste, and gives rise to the over-exploitation of land for agricultural purposes, among others. Yet it is these same “philanthropists” and corporations, the beneficiaries of the gross economic inequalities, who mainly fund research on conservation, and are therefore able to ensure that this vital issue remains largely unaddressed.
