Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Does The Guardian want military invasions of countries which fail to reduce CO2 emissions? Author Jojo Metha laments the Paris Agreement has no enforcement clause – but she shies away from describing exactly how future agreements could be enforced, and what the world would do to replace the lost energy production.
To stop climate disaster, make ecocide an international crime. It’s the only way
Jojo Mehta and Julia Jackson
Wed 24 Feb 2021 18.16 AEDTOutlawing ecocide would hold governments and corporations accountable for environmental negligence. We can’t wait
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The Paris agreement is failing. Yet there is new hope for preserving a livable planet: the growing global campaign to criminalize ecocide can address the root causes of the climate crisis and safeguard our planet – the common home of all humanity and, indeed, all life on Earth.
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The science is clear: without drastic action to limit temperature rise below 1.5C, the Earth, and all life on it, including all human beings, will suffer devastating consequences.
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Currently, much of humanity feels hopeless, but the establishment of ecocide as a crime offers something for people to get behind. Enacting laws against ecocide, as is under consideration in a growing number of jurisdictions, offers a way to correct the shortcomings of the Paris agreement. Whereas Paris lacks sufficient ambition, transparency and accountability, the criminalization of ecocide would be an enforceable deterrent. Outlawing ecocide would also address a key root cause of global climate change: the widespread destruction of nature, which, in addition to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, has devastating impacts on global health, food and water security, and sustainable development – to name a few.
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Conviction for ecocide would require demonstrating willful disregard for the consequences of actions such as deforestation, reckless drilling and mining. This threshold implicates a number of global and corporate leaders through their complicity in deforesting the Amazon and Congo basins, drilling recklessly in the Arctic and the Niger delta, or permitting unsustainable palm oil plantations in south-east Asia, among other destructive practices.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/24/climate-crisis-ecocide-international-crime
According to her bio, author Jojo Metha is an Oxford trained lawyer based in the Netherlands.
The Netherlands utterly depends on Russian gas for heating in winter. Thanks to a fracking ban, hostility to nuclear power, and the unexpectedly rapid depletion of North Sea gas fields, domestic Netherlands energy production is in steep decline. Imported Russian gas produced by intensive drilling in the Siberian Arctic is keeping Dutch homes warm in winter, and helping to keep the lights on.
From what I saw of visiting the Netherlands, they might talk the talk, but they like their comforts – Dutch home heating is usually cranked up pretty high in winter. So good luck convincing Dutch people they have to start living like paupers, for the sake of the planet.
via Watts Up With That?
February 25, 2021 at 12:15AM
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