14 December 2020 – by Dave Inder Comar
The failure of states to stabilise the climate, along with the scientific uncertainty of whether the planet can actually stay under 1.5 degrees C of total planetary warming,[i] suggests the real possibility that dramatic change and damage to the Earth will manifest by 2050 — and humans may not be able to prevent it. In a world plagued with global and enduring inequalities, these changes will also affect people and countries in a disproportionate and unjust way. Low-income nations, saddled by colonial legacies and inferior status in the global order, find themselves in difficult straits in preparing for climate change and are highly vulnerable with respect to climate-related disasters.[ii] As such disasters increase in scope, migration and displacement from low-income countries will accelerate, leading to tens of millions or even billions of displaced people from already distressed areas to richer countries.[iii]
Mitigating the scope of this crisis is imperative. But we must be very careful, and intentional, in putting forth the appropriate response. How governments intend to resolve the challenges of the climate crisis is as important as actually resolving the crisis itself. For example, it is not difficult to imagine an authoritarian response to challenges posed by climate change—either in those areas beset by climate damage, or in richer countries seeking to manage people movement, economic dominance, and challenges to the social order brought by displaced peoples or by an unhindered Nature. Traditional Hobbesian theory predicts that grave threats to life are the trigger for a Leviathan armed with broad, even dictatorial powers, in response to those threats.[iv]
The stakes, then, are not just the continued habitability of the planet. What is also at risk this century is the very concept of the inherent dignity of all people—the foundation for human rights and democratic norms. It is an open question whether the legal and political frameworks that protect this dignity will withstand the climate crisis,[v] a prospect which should trouble any true friend of civilisation and freedom, irrespective of political or philosophical belief.
The emergence of a cold-blooded and killing Leviathan—or set of Leviathans—in the decades ahead has already been previewed, and here I refer to the reprehensible and cruel responses of governments to the complex and deep-rooted issue of human migration to date. Climate change becomes the magnifier of displacement, the proverbial gasoline to the fire that will increase not only the levels of migration to come, but also the inhuman actions of governments already committed to the politics of the armed lifeboat—a world of militarised borders, aggressive anti-immigrant policing, and indefinite states of emergency and unilateral counter-insurgency actions against domestic and foreign political threats.[vi]
In this kind of world, the protections of international law and treaties are openly dispensed with as citizens in rich countries consent to floating bodies of children and their parents in the Mediterranean[vii] or in the Rio Grande,[viii] the existence of detention camps at international borders operated in criminal conditions,[ix] and even the Kafka-esque pronouncement that requires toddlers to appear in court to defend themselves at their own deportation proceedings,[x] all as permissible responses to displacement. The state of exception implemented after 9/11 brought with it the resurgence of torture,[xi] heinous wars of aggression against countries in the Middle East,[xii] and indefinite detention of enemies in illicit facilities where the rule of law is not permitted to have effect.[xiii] This state of exception has yet to be rescinded, and may very well serve as the model or even the backbone, for more perverse deviations from the rule of law as the climate crisis accelerates.
Citizens in high-income countries have broadly accepted brutish practices for decades against the displaced, irrespective of the government in power. In light of this, the political infrastructure has been established not just for an enduring form of climate apartheid[xiv] that divides the world into a devastated and inundated Global South and more protected (but still impacted) Global North; it is beyond that—much beyond that in fact—more terrifying, more broken, more monstrous than even the 20th century dystopian novels had the capacity to imagine. Those novels could not have foreseen climate breakdown, tens of millions on the move for food, water, and dignity, and the automated machines, virtual barriers, drones, and face-recognition cameras used to gatekeep away the displaced from refuge.
Human consciousness evolved to avoid the traumas associated with Nature; being eaten by a predator, finding food, seeking shelter. It may not have the same capacity to withstand the machine horrors, the uninhibited genocides and crimes against humanity, or the amplified propaganda and messaging systems implemented by some governments to maintain power and keep the reality of a forever-changed planet as removed and as remote as possible. We will all be living in an experiment: both with respect to the imminent breakdown of the climate system, but also with the technological and social response to it. There is simply no precedent for what we as a species, but also in our individual lives, are about to experience.
This ‘Century of Crisis’ and ‘Century of the Displaced’ represents more than a crisis of people movement. It is a crisis of our common humanity, and a crisis of democracy. How will this species elect to share the resources of this planet with one another? What are the institutions and values that we must build and hold in order to create a place in which all humans have basic dignity, the means to explore and exercise their freedom, and access to the shared bounty of the planet (or what is left of it)? How will we transition our extractive economies into an economic and political system that ensures balance and harmony with the planet and with each other? What are the choices we must make—not just as communities and nations, but also individually, as academics, professionals, lawyers, activists, and others—in order to avoid the flawed destiny of climate breakdown and to build a road to a better future?
These are questions that touch not just on politics and economics, but also on philosophy, spirituality, and notions of the ‘good life’. It has never been easier in human history to build a walled garden of pleasure, escape, and tedium, surrounded by crystal screens, the endless scrolling of apps, and empty communications with others equally as empty. But no matter how much this garden is exalted in the popular media or by the modern archons of control as ‘what we all should be doing with our lives,’ the bitter truth is this: the road to a shared global freedom—the road to global democracy, the road to a stable climate, the road to a dignified human future for both rich and poor, those seeking refuge and those providing it—will be built on sacrifice, hard work, and the constant presence of failure.
This is now the task at hand. This road that I speak of is a road that must be paved, and walked, in order for our descendants to even have a chance to live on a planet that is habitable, civilised, dignified, and just. It is a road that will take hundreds or even thousands of years to pave and to walk, requiring reformed and even new international institutions that can plan for multiple generations ahead, rectify the inequalities that are the roots of this crisis, provide for justice, and keep and maintain a fragile peace amongst a species that has never truly known what it means to live in peace in a global and unified way.
These institutions will take a long time to create—longer than you or I have on this planet. Thus, we will have to start this journey though we will never live to see what awaits at the end of such a grand intergenerational project, or even if it will end at all. Who dares to dream a dream that has such uncertainty at its core?
But you and I, living and breathing at this moment, have been given a tremendous and unique honour: the honour of commencing this process, starting this journey, laying the groundwork for those who will stand on our shoulders and become future giants of sustainability, democracy, justice, and peace. We can begin this process today, to give others who we will never meet the opportunity to live in harmony with one another on an Earth that is at peace with itself. We will never see the end of the climate crisis. That glory will belong to others. But we have the honour of beginning the process of solving the problems we have caused or prolonged. It is an honour unique to all of human history.
My friend: I hope to see you, and to walk with you, on this path and on the journey ahead. It is a long walk, so we best get started. Let us walk for as long as we can.
Dave Inder Comar is the Executive Director of Just Atonement Inc. He is also the managing partner of Comar Mollé LLP, a corporate technology firm with offices in San Francisco and New York. Licensed to practice law before the California and New York bars, Mr. Comar has been involved in corporate technology, human rights, and international law for fifteen years. He is passionate about using the law to maintain and preserve global civilization. He holds a law degree from the New York University School of Law, a Master of Arts degree from Stanford University and Bachelor of Arts degrees from Stanford University. He is an advisor to Earth Refuge.
References:
[i] Will Steffen et al. ‘Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene’ (2018) 115(33) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 8252 <https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115> accessed 25 November 2020 (“even if the Paris Accord target of a 1.5 °C to 2.0 °C rise in temperature is met, we cannot exclude the risk that a cascade of feedbacks could push the Earth System irreversibly onto a ‘Hothouse Earth’ pathway”).
[ii] J. Timmon Roberts and Bradley C. Parks, A Climate of Injustice (The MIT Press 2007) 83, 131.
[iii] Michelle Yonetani, ‘Disaster-related displacement in a changing climate’ Vol 65(1) – 2016 <https://public.wmo.int/en/resources/bulletin/disaster-related-displacement-changing-climate> accessed 22 November 2020; Melita H. Sunjic, ‘Top UNHCR official warns about displacement from climate change’ (UNHCR, December 9, 2018) <https://www.unhcr.org/493e9bd94.htm> accessed 25 November 2020; Baher Kamal, ‘Climate Migrants Might Reach One Billion by 2050’ (Inter Press Service, August 21, 2017) <http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/08/climate-migrants-might-reach-one-billion-by2050/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=climate-migrants-might-reach-one-billion-by-2050> accessed 25 November 2020.
[iv] Carl Schmitt, The Leviathan in the State Theory of Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol (first published 1938, George Schwab tr, Greenwood Press 1996) 31; Leo Strauss, ‘Notes on The Concept of the Political,’ in The Concept of Political (J. Harvey Lomax tr, The University of Chicago Press 1996) 90 (noting that for Hobbes, “the securing of life is the ultimate basis of the state”).
[v] Stephen Humphreys, ‘Climate change and international human rights law’ in R.Rayfuse and S. Scott (eds), International Law in the Era of Climate Change (Edward Elgar 2012) 56 (“In short, there are excellent reasons to suppose that climate change poses a near insurmountable challenge to the current human rights regime”);
[vi] Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement (The University of Chicago Press 2016) 142.
[vii] Helena Smith, ‘Shocking images of drowned Syrian boy show tragic plight of refugees’ (The Guardian, 2 September 2015) <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/shocking-image-of-drowned-syrian-boy-shows-tragic-plight-of-refugees> accessed 25 November 2020.
[viii] Adam K. Raymond, ‘The Story Behind the Viral Photo of a Drowned Migrant Father and Toddler’ (New York Magazine, 26 June 2019) <https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/the-story-behind-the-viral-photo-of-drowned-migrants.html> accessed 25 November 2020.
[ix] Adam Serwer, ‘A Crime By Any Name’ (The Atlantic, 3 July 2019) <https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/border-facilities/593239/> accessed 25 November 2020.
[x] Christina Jewett and Shefali Luthra, ‘Immigrant toddlers ordered to appear in court alone’ (The Texas Tribune, 27 June 2018) <https://www.texastribune.org/2018/06/27/immigrant-toddlers-ordered-appear-court-alone/> accessed 25 November 2020; Andrew Buncombe, ‘Trump administration admits migrant children as young as 3 appearing in court alone for their own deportation proceedings’ (The Independent, 28 June 2018) <https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/child-immigrants-us-court-border-family-migrant-immigration-trump-latest-melania-a8422101.html> accessed 25 November 2020.
[xi] Elisa Epstein, ‘CIA Contractor Details Torture of 9/11 Suspects’ (Human Rights Watch, 27 January 2020) <https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/27/cia-contractor-details-torture-9/11-suspects> accessed 25 November 2020.
[xii] Saleh v. Bush, 848 F. 3d 880 (9th Cir. 2017); ‘Iraq War illegal, says Annan’ (BBC News, 16 September 2004) <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm> accessed 25 November 2020.
[xiii] Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (first published 2003, Kevin Attell tr, The University of Chicago Press 2005) 3-4; Elise Swain, ‘It’s still open: will the Guantanamo Bay Prison become a 2020 issue? (The Intercept, 3 March 2019) <https://theintercept.com/2019/03/03/guantanamo-bay-carol-rosenberg-intercepted/> accessed 25 November 2020.
[xiv] UN Human Rights Council ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights: Climate change and poverty, Phillip Alston’ (17 July 2019) UN Doc A/HRC/41/39 <https://undocs.org/A/HRC/41/39> accessed 25 November 2020 [51].
