The flip side of this more equitable trade system is one dominated by corporations. There is considerable concern among European NGOs that the Energy Charter Treaty, which gives investors the right to sue governments over policies that adversely affect their investments, is making headway in the Global South even as European governments announce their withdrawal from the treaty and begin to remove corporate-friendly provisions, like Investor-State Dispute Settlement clauses, from trade treaties.

The EU, along with the United States and several European governments, is also exploring what it calls “just energy transition partnerships” (JETP) with key countries like South Africa and Indonesia. These partnerships, focused on decarbonization, are a kind of Green structural adjustment program that pushes for reform of the economies of the target countries. But these JETPs differ from country to country and offer a possible opportunity for civil society in the Global South to critique Green colonialism and offer alternatives.

One mechanism gaining ground in recent years are debt-for-climate swaps. For countries in the Global South struggling with unsustainable debt repayments, the idea of reducing the burden through the protection of nature or the implementation of adaptation policies will be attractive. International financial institutions are quite bullish on these swaps. But most analyses suggest that they won’t substantially reduce either global carbon emissions or the debt burden of heavily indebted countries.

It all feels like one of those movie scenes where somebody is trying to escape from somebody else by throwing random shit and pulling down shelves to slow them down.

“We need to abolish the imperialist relationship.”

‘Okay, how about, uh, JETPs!’

“No, this isn’t enough, your corporations are exploiting the planet in search of infinite growth, we need to fundamentally change the economic system.”

‘Debt-for-climate swaps! Carbon capture and storage! Let’s give more money to local communities instead of those corrupt national governments! Random bullshit, go!’

the end result is that in 30 years time, there will be a bunch of retrospectives like “Oh, all these different and very impressive sounding ideas only reduced our emissions by 5% over the whole period, who could have possibly seen this coming? To make it up to the hundred million people who died in the 2044 Equator Incident, and the thousands being gunned down on the Turkish border every day, we must try our next idea: you get one bazingacoin for every tree you plant!”