Climate change is going to cost a lot of money.
A 2009 study estimates that even if nations fulfill their promise in addressing climate change, the damages incurred could still reach up to $245 trillion from the year 2000 to 2200. If countries don’t take any climate action, costs could jump to a massive $1,275tn.
That’s either $1.2tn to $6.4tn a year, more than the entire economy of most countries.
While these figures are at best educated approximations, the point remains that the destruction caused by climate change will likely be expensive, especially for poorer countries like Bangladesh.
This is why we need to make those most responsible pay -- the fossil fuel industry.
Now, I know previous executive secretary of the UN climate talks, Christiana Figueres, said last year that we should stop playing the blame game with this industry. And maybe she’s right, at least from a diplomatic perspective. After all, she achieved what no one else had in bringing countries together to agree to the first ever international climate treaty.
But by the same token, it would be an error to just let fossil fuels companies get away innocent.
This is not just because a 2013 Carbon Majors study found that just 90 fossil fuel companies are responsible for 63% of greenhouse gas already emitted by humans.
It is also because these companies knew about the role their industry had in causing climate change as early as the 1970s, revealed by investigative research done by InsideClimate News last year. But instead of acting responsibly, many companies invested into spreading climate denial, which indirectly slowed down international climate negotiations.
And they did this without regard of the world’s poor and most vulnerable who are now set to face some of the worst impacts of climate change.
This is why the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines recently sent 47 fossil fuel companies, including Chevron, BP, and Shell, a 60-page document detailing how their actions violate basic human rights, including the right to “life, food, water, sanitation, adequate housing, and to self determination.”
Climate change is going to get worse, and all of us will be impacted. It’s unfair that our country should have to foot the bill for something it contributed very little to. It’s unfair that a country already struggling should further have to bear the damages caused by climate change
We should not forget that in 2013 the Philippines was hit by one of the deadliest tropical cyclones ever recorded, Typhoon Haiyan (also called Typhoon Yolanda). Never before had the Philippines experienced such a devastating climatic disaster that took more than 6,000 lives with storm surges almost as high as a two-storey building.
No amount of money from fossil fuel companies will ever make up for this, and for the millions that are and will be affected by climate change. But there are still losses and damages the fossil fuel industry should pay for.
The costs of rebuilding houses, finding new places to live, repairing infrastructure, these are all burdens the fossil fuel industry could be made to bear.
There is even a precedent for making multinational companies pay for the harm they knowingly caused. Similar to Big Oil, Big Tobacco lied for decades about the negative health impacts of smoking, and finally in 2006, they were made to pay $10 billion in fines.
However, instead of a one-time fine, perhaps a carbon levy imposed on major fossil fuel companies would be the best way to go, as argued by the Carbon Majors study previously mentioned.
Unlike a carbon tax, this would involve a much larger on-going fine, which would go directly towards those impacted negatively by climate change. The paper calculates that even a levy of $2 per tonne of CO2 emitted would result in $50bn a year.
That is five times more than what the tobacco industry had to pay, and this is just for one year (even though the tobacco industry should also be made to pay more). The added benefit of a levy is that it would force a societal shift to renewable energy at a much faster pace.
Bangladesh is suffering from climate change. Right now, most of the consequences are in small coastal villages that cannot be reached by car, and not many people outside the country have heard about. But climate change is going to get worse, and all of us will be impacted.
It’s unfair that our country should have to foot the bill for something it contributed very little to. It’s unfair that a country already struggling to meet the needs of all its people should further have to bear the damages caused by climate change.
The fossil fuel industry played a big part in bringing us to this current predicament. It is only fair that they should have to pay.
Meraz Mostafa works in climate change and development in Bangladesh.