Drowning Out The Rest: The West’s Dominance of the Climate Crisis

Abstract

My project was a literature review prepared for HONOR 231: "Western Civilization” and Global Public Policy about inequity in responsibility for, consequences from, and responses to climate change between the developed and developing world, described as the "West" and the "Rest". The three themes discussed are the sharp mismatch in greenhouse gas emissions and the burden of climate change effects observed between these worlds; the historical and current theme of exploitation of “the Rest” by “the West” in ways such as colonialism and resource extraction that has organized the world into regions prepared to deal with environmental disasters and those that are not; and climate imperialism, enabling Western countries to utilize wealth and power, acquired through economies built on fossil fuels and the exploitation of poorer regions, to shape climate policy in their favor, and escape responsibility for their actions.