Why is Norway investing in the Amazon Fund when it has gigantic state-owned mining operations destroying the Amazon?
This paradox, or contradiction could be dismissed as merely a really expensive greenwashing campaign. Maybe Norway never cared about the Amazon in the first place, and it was just all a big PR stunt.
But what we found is more complicated than that. What our research revealed is instead a more typical ‘the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing’ scenario in big governments, where each Ministry has its own ambitions. Some are committed to environment and philanthropy. Others are interested in profit maximization, even if it means applying lower environmental standards abroad than at home.
Norwegian investment in Brazil — both ecophilanthropic and eco-catastrophic — is uncoordinated. There’s a mismatch between stated values and aims, and execution. There’s charity on the one hand, and then instrumentality, on the other.
This schizophrenic investment is better than nothing, some might argue. At least Norway is paying it’s danegeld to absolve its sins — even if the actual reparations would be orders of magnitude greater.
What this study revealed most of all, is that we need to stop bamboozling ourselves into thinking that philanthropy is good, when not extracting is actually what will solve the problem. We might as well be open about our contempt for nature and humanity if we choose to follow the race to the bottom.
And countries like Norway might attempt to absolve themselves by throwing their hands up in mea culpa: “If we don’t do it, another country will.” The toxic international relations soup we are all swimming in makes it near impossible for virtuous countries to have unsustainable businesses in a sustainable way. We need to fix the race to the bottom with a global corporate tax, moving away from fossil fuels, and towards a circular economy that doesn’t require toxic tailponds and deepsea mining. Until we get some adequate global governance, it’s just going to be gangster capitalism or technofeudalism which runs the show.
Check out my new article out with Fernando Palazzo in Climate and Development confirming Hickel et al’s hypothesis of Global North to South aid outmatched by extraction at a 30-to-1 ratio.
Many thanks to the Climate Social Science Network for funding this study.
(‘The Amazon is Over!’ Advertisement for development in the Amazon, in our paper.)