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Australia: Pre-Conference - Colonial Context
How does your footprint reflect the economy of your country, including its colonial relations?
The country of Australia has the 17th highest GDP per capita – A measurement taken by dividing the Gross Domestic Product by the population to get a measurement of the average person’s wealth. An interesting coincidence is that Australia also has the 17th highest carbon footprint.
Additionally, due to our colonial relationship with the United Kingdom, Australia remains very inclined to western lifestyle with close ties to Europe and the USA. Virtually all of our culture depends on the use of electricity, and thus carbon emissions, as we have become accustomed and dependant in this modern era. As a result of this, countries like Australia and the USA have a higher carbon footprint. This is due to Australia having sufficient funds in exporting goods and services which allows the country to afford using more electricity.
Australia was colonised by the British in 1788, about 200 years ago, meaning that they would have brought over some developed technology. As the British had more control over the newfound land they were able to clear more land and bring more convicts to work in Australia. There were more people working in Australia which meant that they could produce more goods to sell, therefore increasing their carbon footprint by releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This effect can still be seen in the present as Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions per capita was 8.58 metric tons in 1960 and was increased to 16.35 metric tons. It is certain that these emissions have increased in 2017 due to Prime Minister’s, Malcolm Turnbull, unfulfilled promises in reducing carbon emissions.
How are the effects of climate change related with power imbalances among countries or within countries?
The effects of Climate Change are much less on richer, ‘developed’, countries as opposed to third-world countries with less power. For example this video shows international companies cutting down trees in Papua New Guinea. The Papua New Guinea people were told by a company to sign a form but did not understand what it meant. This is a power imbalance as they do not have the same the level of education as each other. In contrast, if a modern Australian of European descent was put in a similar situation, they would have had the education to comprehend the form due to being wealthy enough to afford education.
Multinational corporations tend have a higher revenue than smaller nations GDP. For example, Apple has a higher GDP than two-thirds of the world’s countries. This is because high demands in products drives companies to manufacture more; meaning they need more space. Multinational corporations meet these expectations by exploiting developing nations (also known as a host nation). This is easy for them because these nations are desperately getting all the money they can get. Thus, if a host nation attempts to speak out against the multinational corporation in their land, the multinational corporation can threaten to withdraw from the country and endanger their economy. Though it is beneficial for the host nations wealth, it harms the environment as the factories use fossil fuels such as, oil, gas, and coal.
This blog post was made in collaboration with Kirana Pranowo, Jake White, and Daniel Wilson.
Sources
http://time.com/4209510/climate-change-poor-countries/
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/19/1/012008/pdf
http://www.who.int/globalchange/GenderClimateChangeHealthfinal.pdf
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC
