The Arsonist Turned Fire Brigade

The Global North set the planet on fire, then showed up in a shiny truck labeled "Net Zero 2050" to sell the Global South fire extinguishers at a markup.

This isn't hyperbole. This is climate policy.

Pakistan emits less than 1% of global carbon.[1] In 2022, floods destroyed a third of the country and caused over $30 billion in damages and economic losses.[2] Meanwhile, the countries responsible for the bulk of historical emissions congratulated themselves for banning plastic straws and pledging carbon neutrality by mid-century.

The climate crisis gets framed as a technical problem. Graphs. Parts per million. Carbon budgets. But strip away the jargon and you'll see what it really is: a colonial problem. The same countries that extracted wealth from the Global South for centuries now export climate disaster while claiming to lead the solution.

Decolonizing the climate crisis means calling this what it is. The North doesn't get to play hero when it caused the catastrophe. The fire brigade doesn't get credit when the arsonist is wearing the uniform.

This article will expose the narrative you've been sold about climate action. It will show how millennial eco-lifestyles often mask ongoing exploitation. And it will reframe what real climate justice looks like when power shifts from the polluters to the people paying the price.

## What "Net Zero" Hides: Emissions, Exploitation, and Excuses

The story goes like this: The Global North leads on climate. Europe has ambitious emissions targets. The U.S. rejoined the Paris Agreement. Corporations pledge net zero. Technology will save us.

This story is a PR campaign masquerading as policy.

Look closer at those net zero pledges. Most rely on carbon offsets, which let polluters keep polluting while claiming credits from projects elsewhere. Many depend on technologies that don't exist at scale. And nearly all push the heaviest cuts decades into the future, long after current leaders leave office.

Meanwhile, fossil fuel expansion continues. The U.S. approved more oil and gas drilling in 2023. European countries reopened coal plants. Canada tripled tar sands production since 2000. The same governments signing climate agreements subsidize fossil fuel companies to the tune of hundreds of billions annually.

Then there's the spectacle of COP summits. Every year, thousands of delegates fly to conference centers to negotiate. Northern countries dominate the negotiations. Fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber representatives from vulnerable nations. The resulting agreements are voluntary, unenforceable, and riddled with loopholes.

COP27 took place in Egypt. Coca-Cola sponsored it. The summit produced a modest "loss and damage" fund with no binding commitments on how much wealthy nations would contribute. Activists called it a "down payment on justice." More accurately, it was a press release with no check attached.

This is the pattern. Big announcements. Distant deadlines. Continued extraction. The Global North gets to look responsible while doing the minimum and delaying the maximum.

The narrative protects power. It lets polluters claim leadership while exporting consequences. It turns systemic injustice into individual responsibility. And it erases the fundamental fact: the countries least responsible for emissions suffer the worst impacts while the countries most responsible debate whether they should do slightly less harm by 2050.

## When Green Is a Mask for Colonialism

Climate colonialism doesn't announce itself. It wears the language of sustainability.

Take lithium and cobalt mining for electric vehicle batteries. The "green transition" depends on these minerals. They get extracted in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chile, and Bolivia under conditions that devastate local communities. Mines contaminate water supplies. Indigenous land gets seized. Child labor remains widespread in cobalt extraction.[6] Meanwhile, the Global North consumes the finished products and congratulates itself for going electric.

Or consider carbon offset schemes. Northern companies and governments buy credits that supposedly balance their emissions by funding conservation projects in the South. Sounds elegant. In practice, it often means land grabs.

Carbon offset projects across Africa have displaced communities and violated land rights.[7] In the Amazon, offset schemes have led to conflicts over land rights. Communities that managed forests for generations get pushed out so corporations can claim carbon credits. The math works for accountants. For people on the ground, it's eviction with an eco-friendly label.

Then there's the debt trap. Climate disasters hit countries that already carry heavy debt burdens, often from loans connected to historical colonial extraction or structural adjustment programs. When floods or droughts hit, these countries borrow more to rebuild. The debt grows. Repayment requires more resource extraction or austerity that cuts social services.

Pakistan's 2022 floods illustrate this perfectly. The disaster affected 33 million people and killed over 1,700 people.[3] The disaster damaged or destroyed over two million homes. Agricultural losses were staggering. The country, already struggling with debt, now faces rebuilding costs that will take decades to repay. The nations whose historical emissions made the floods more likely offered sympathy and small aid packages. Pakistan pays the bill.

Across the Global South, countries face a choice that isn't really a choice: accept "green development" projects that replicate extractive patterns, or get cut off from climate finance altogether. Either way, power stays in Northern hands.

## The Real Cost: Floods, Debt, Land, and Lives

The numbers tell one story. The details tell another.

Pakistan's floods in 2022 submerged an area the size of the UK. Thirty-three million people were affected.[4] Entire villages disappeared. The death toll exceeded 1,700.[5] Crops rotted underwater. Livestock drowned. Disease spread through standing water.

This wasn't a natural disaster. This was the direct result of a climate crisis caused primarily by industrialized nations. Pakistan's contribution to historical emissions: negligible. Pakistan's contribution to climate suffering: massive.

Or look at island nations. Tuvalu is disappearing. Not metaphorically. The rising sea level makes parts of the country uninhabitable. The government is negotiating for land in other countries where its population might relocate. An entire nation faces extinction because of emissions it didn't produce.

In Kenya, the Kaya forests, sacred to local communities and home to unique biodiversity, face pressure from carbon offset schemes that prioritize global carbon markets over local stewardship. Communities that protected these forests for generations get sidelined in negotiations about their own land.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, droughts linked to climate change have become more frequent and severe. Food insecurity rises. Water scarcity sparks conflict. Millions of people are displaced. Meanwhile, the conversation in wealthy nations focuses on whether gas stoves should be phased out.

The pattern is consistent: the Global South experiences climate breakdown as an immediate threat to survival. The Global North experiences it as a policy debate.

This isn't unfortunate. This is structural. The same economic system that built wealth in the North through extraction from the South now exports climate catastrophe through the same channels. Colonialism didn't end. It evolved.

## Eco-Bliss and Baby Steps: How We Obscure Our Role

Here's a question for millennials who consider themselves climate conscious: where does your eco-friendly lifestyle come from?

That Tesla in your driveway? Lithium stripped from Indigenous land in South America. Cobalt mined by workers in conditions you wouldn't accept for yourself.

Those carbon offsets for your flight to Bali? Probably funding a project that displaced people from land they've lived on for generations.

That oat milk latte? Fine. But if your climate action stops at consumer choices, you're not addressing systems. You're curating an aesthetic.

Millennial eco-consciousness often amounts to colonialism with better branding. The consumption continues. The extraction continues. The exploitation continues. But now it comes with a sustainability report and a B-Corp certification.

This isn't about individual guilt. Individual choices matter, but they don't dismantle structures. The problem is when personal lifestyle shifts substitute for systemic demands. When buying the right products feels like activism. When reducing your carbon footprint becomes a personality trait instead of a political position.

Carbon offsets offer the clearest example. They let wealthy individuals and corporations maintain their lifestyles by outsourcing the solution to the Global South. The offset market often functions as a modern enclosure movement, turning communal land into tradable carbon credits. Local communities lose access and autonomy. Northern consumers get to feel good about flying.

Or take the obsession with recycling. Recycling matters, but for decades, wealthy nations shipped plastic waste to countries in Asia and Africa, calling it "recycling" when much of it ended up in landfills or oceans. The mess got exported. The responsibility got dodged.

The eco-lifestyle industry thrives on making systemic problems feel personal. If you buy the right things, use the right apps, follow the right influencers, you're part of the solution. This framing is convenient for everyone except the people suffering the worst climate impacts. They don't need you to buy a reusable water bottle. They need the countries that caused this crisis to pay reparations and stop extracting resources from their land.

The contradiction is sharp: millennials will research which coffee is ethically sourced but won't question why their government subsidizes fossil fuel companies or why "green" mining replicates colonial extraction. Lifestyle politics feels good. Structural change requires confronting uncomfortable truths about where wealth and comfort come from.

## Reframing Justice: From Carbon Counts to Power Balances

The dominant climate framework counts carbon. Tons emitted. Tons reduced. Net zero by 2050.

This framework obscures power.

A justice framework asks different questions. Who caused the crisis? Who suffers the consequences? Who profits from the current system? Who decides the solutions?

Answer those questions honestly and the Global North stops looking like a climate leader. It looks like a debtor that refuses to pay up.

The North owes a climate debt. This isn't charity. This is reparations for damages caused. Wealthy nations built their economies by burning fossil fuels and extracting resources from colonized regions. Those nations are responsible for the vast majority of historical emissions. The bill is due.

What does paying that debt look like?

First, direct financial transfers to countries facing climate disasters. Not loans. Not conditional aid packages. Grants that let nations rebuild and adapt without adding debt.

Second, debt cancellation for countries trapped in cycles of borrowing to recover from climate impacts. The moral absurdity of forcing countries to repay loans while they're underwater from floods caused by someone else's emissions should be obvious.

Third, technology sharing. The North hoards green technology behind patents and intellectual property law. This slows the global transition and forces the South to buy expensive technology to solve a problem it didn't create. Open-source renewable technology. Share research. Stop treating climate solutions like profit opportunities.

Fourth, stop extractive "green" projects. No more lithium mining that displaces Indigenous communities. No more carbon offsets that function as land grabs. No more shipping toxic waste to poorer countries and calling it recycling. If the transition to renewable energy replicates colonial extraction, it's not a solution. It's a rebranding.

Fifth, center Global South leadership in climate negotiations. Countries on the frontlines of the crisis understand what's needed better than diplomats from nations that won't face sea level rise or catastrophic droughts for decades. Shift decision-making power to those most affected.

## Indigenous Know-How That's Already Leading

While governments debate, Indigenous communities have been practicing climate resilience for centuries.

In Peru, the Potato Park protects over 1,300 varieties of potatoes through traditional farming methods that maintain biodiversity and soil health. This isn't nostalgia. It's advanced ecological management that adapts to changing conditions better than industrial monoculture.

In Kenya, communities around the Kaya forests have long practiced rotational use and sacred protection of forest areas. These practices maintain ecosystem health and carbon storage. When outside projects try to impose top-down conservation, they often fail because they ignore the knowledge already embedded in local practice.

Across the Amazon, Indigenous peoples manage vast areas of forest with lower deforestation rates than protected areas run by governments. Their stewardship isn't romantic. It's effective. And it comes with a deep understanding of ecosystems that Western science is only beginning to appreciate.

The pattern repeats globally. From the Arctic to the Pacific Islands, Indigenous communities hold knowledge systems that prioritize long-term ecological balance over short-term extraction. These systems aren't primitive. They're sophisticated responses to complex environments, refined over generations.

Yet climate negotiations routinely sideline Indigenous voices. Carbon offset projects override Indigenous land rights. "Green" development follows the same pattern as old development: Northern experts decide, local people comply.

A decolonized climate agenda would reverse this. It would recognize that the communities who maintained ecological balance while the North industrialized hold essential knowledge for the transition. It would mean funding Indigenous-led conservation, respecting land rights, and letting communities that never caused the problem lead the solution.

## Don't Tell Me How to Live: Demand Who Pays

Decolonizing climate action requires specific demands, not vague commitments to "do better."

Demand wealthy nations fund a real loss and damage mechanism with binding commitments and transparent accountability. Not pledges. Not future promises. Money in the bank, controlled by representatives from affected nations, not Northern bureaucrats.

Demand immediate debt cancellation for countries facing climate catastrophe. If Pakistan is underwater from emissions it didn't produce, canceling its debt is the bare minimum.

Demand an end to carbon offset schemes that displace communities. If a company or country wants to balance emissions, the solution is emitting less, not buying land in the Global South and calling it climate action.

Demand technology sharing. Patents on renewable technology should be waived for Global South nations. If the transition is urgent, hoarding solutions behind intellectual property law is indefensible.

Demand that climate finance comes as grants, not loans. Forcing countries to borrow money to adapt to a crisis they didn't cause adds insult to injury.

Demand the North stops expanding fossil fuel production while lecturing the South about emissions. The hypocrisy is staggering. You don't get to approve new drilling and then tell developing nations they need to transition faster.

Demand representation. Climate negotiations should be led by those most affected, not dominated by Northern diplomats and fossil fuel lobbyists.

These aren't radical demands. They're the minimum requirements for justice. The fact that they sound radical reveals how normalized climate colonialism has become.

## What a Decolonized Climate Agenda Looks Like

A decolonized climate agenda starts with a simple premise: the countries that caused the crisis don't get to control the response.

It means the North stops framing itself as the savior and starts acting like the debtor it is. It means reparations, not charity. It means listening to communities that have managed ecosystems for generations instead of imposing top-down solutions.

It means ending the extractive patterns that created the crisis in the first place. No more mining operations that destroy Indigenous land in the name of green technology. No more carbon markets that turn forests into financial products while displacing the people who protected them.

It means wealthy nations take responsibility for historical emissions and current impacts. Not through empty pledges and distant deadlines, but through immediate financial transfers, debt cancellation, and technology sharing.

It means recognizing that climate justice and decolonization are the same project. The crisis can't be solved by replicating the power structures that caused it. As long as the North extracts resources from the South, as long as the North exports disaster while hoarding solutions, as long as the North controls negotiations about problems it created, the crisis will deepen.

The Global North built its wealth on extraction and emissions. Now it wants to lead the response while maintaining that wealth and power. That's not leadership. That's propaganda.

The arsonist does not get to run the fire brigade. If the Global North wants to claim any moral authority on climate, its first job is to pay the damages it caused. Then step aside and let the people who've been managing the consequences lead the way forward.

The fire is still burning. The question is whether the North will finally acknowledge who started it and who deserves to control the response. Anything less isn't climate action. It's climate colonialism with better marketing.

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## Citations

[1] Britannica. "Pakistan floods of 2022." Pakistan contributes less than 1 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. https://www.britannica.com/event/Pakistan-floods-of-2022

[2] World Bank. "Pakistan: Flood Damages and Economic Losses Over USD 30 billion." October 28, 2022. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/10/28/pakistan-flood-damages-and-economic-losses-over-usd-30-billion-and-reconstruction-needs-over-usd-16-billion-new-assessme

[3] World Bank. "Pakistan: Flood Damages and Economic Losses Over USD 30 billion." The floods affected 33 million people and more than 1730 lost their lives. October 28, 2022.

[4] Earth's Future, Wiley Online Library. "The Pakistan Flood of August 2022: Causes and Implications." The flood affected one-third of the country, internally displacing about 32 million people. March 13, 2023. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2022EF003230

[5] Red Cross UK. "Pakistan Floods 2022." Over 1,700 people lost their lives. https://www.redcross.org.uk/stories/disasters-and-emergencies/world/climate-change-and-pakistan-flooding-affecting-millions

[6] Multiple sources document child labor in cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including reports from Amnesty International and UNICEF.

[7] Progressive International. "Carbon Markets and the New Scramble for African Land." The growing demand for carbon offsets has sparked violent land grabs, frequently infringing upon the rights of local and indigenous communities. January 2, 2025. https://progressive.international/wire/2025-01-02-carbon-markets-and-the-new-scramble-for-african-land/en/

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