Climate Change Is Not Your Fault
Majidah Chowdhury, Junior Reporter, BA International Relations
Why do we need to recycle and be more mindful of our energy usage? Why do we need to make efforts to travel more sustainably and conserve water? Why do we need to reduce our waste and make more eco-friendly food choices? The harsh reality is that leaving your lights on for a couple more hours a day and consuming meat multiple times a week isn’t what’s destroying our planet; it’s governments and corporations. A survey held in 2021 found that more than 50% of the young people participating felt guilty over climate change, reflecting a burden carried by the younger generation, where their contributions played a minimal part in contributing to the deterioration of the planet.
Multi-billion dollar companies rely specifically on non-renewable energy sources and harmful extraction processes to earn profit and maximise their revenues. Even if some companies aim to make a move towards green energy, this still includes a significant amount of fossil fuels, which consequently contribute to the global carbon footprint. For example, despite Tesla pioneering the change towards electric vehicles, the batteries used to power the cars are manufactured by a process which requires fossil fuels.
The batteries are also made with lithium, where the extraction process has a high environmental cost through the mining of rare earth metals. Companies such as Amazon have a huge carbon footprint because of their massive logistics network, data centres (cloud computing), and energy demands for their warehouses and transportation. At its core, Amazon’s business model encourages overconsumption by promoting products that encourage people to purchase more and more goods. Furthermore, Apple heavily relies on the extraction of resources, such as lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements for its manufacturing processes, many of which are energy intensive and are powered by fossil fuels. Although claiming to have made strides in being carbon neutral, the manufacturing stages often take place in countries with more relaxed environmental laws, showing how sustainable production practices are not guaranteed to be enforced. Most shockingly, 100 of the biggest global companies emit 71% of the world’s greenhouse gasses, which is a blatant imbalance in the source of greenhouse gasses.
Billionaires also have a significantly higher carbon footprint than the average person. The richest 1% of the globe causes double the amount of emissions than the world’s poorest 50%. This lavish celebrity lifestyle makes it nearly impossible to practice what they preach about environmental awareness. For example, Leonardo DiCaprio has been a loud activist in highlighting the dangers of air pollution in Los Angeles and Delhi, despite taking 6 round trips on a private jet over 6 weeks in 2014. The Leonardo Dicaprio Foundation has donated more than 100 million dollars to over 200 climate-related initiatives and organisations, but was criticised by a charity watch organisation, called the WatchDog Group, for failing to address systemic drivers of climate change, such as capitalism, and for lack of transparency to where funds are specifically going. Former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore, has been a staunch advocate for climate action for years but faced widespread criticism in 2007 when it was reported that his Nashville home used significantly more energy than the average American home. This highlights the surface level activism demonstrated by celebrities and billionaires, as they ignore how their lifestyles, funded by capitalism, are a direct display of how a small percentage of the world misuses our finite resources.
No matter how hard the individual strives to play their part for the planet, the decisions made by governments outrun these efforts. The U.S. has long subsidised the fossil fuel industry through tax breaks, grants, and direct financial assistance. The oil and gas industry has received billions in subsidies over the years, such as tax deductions for drilling and exploration expenses, which can only be expected to accelerate under Trump’s second presidency. The Russian government also provides tax breaks and favourable policies to its energy giants like Gazprom and Rosneft, making fossil fuels more affordable within the country. This leads to continued reliance on carbon-intensive energy sources for domestic use and exports.
Individual climate-conscious decisions made by a single person have a limited impact in contributing to the deterioration of the planet, where corporations, governments, and billionaires are the biggest culprits, and have been for many decades.