Economic model that led to climate crisis will not be the solution, says sociologist

The Sixth FAPESP 2024 Lecture brought to São Paulo from Guinea-Bissau the intellectual Miguel de Barros to speak about “Climate change, energy transition and food sovereignty in Africa: challenges and alternatives”.

By José Tadeu Arantes  |  Agência FAPESP – Any substantive response to the climate crisis must include tackling the huge asymmetries between the Global South and Global North, and ridding the former of neoliberalism and neocolonialism. This was the main gist of the talk on “Climate change, energy transition and food sovereignty in Africa: challenges and alternatives”, delivered by sociologist and researcher Miguel de Barros as the Sixth 2024 FAPESP Lecture.

Born in Guinea-Bissau in 1980 and a social organizer since he was 14, Barros is a co-founder of the Amílcar Cabral Center for Social Studies (CESAC), head of the non-governmental organization Tiniguena, a member of the Council for Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), and a participant in several other entities. He was responsible for formulating public policies in Guinea-Bissau and other African countries involving environmental sustainability, food security and gender inclusion, among other issues.

In a presentation containing a wealth of quantitative data, Barros highlighted the contrast between natural resource riches and dramatic poverty in most of Africa. “Eighty percent of the continent’s arable land lies idle, even where there’s an abundant supply of water. Owing to the forms of energy production in the Global North, Africans face serious land access and productivity problems. In 2022, we lost 11% of our arable land and by 2050 we’ll have lost 18%, according to projections. Right now, 200 million Africans are going hungry, and in 2050 the number could reach 600 million so that 30% of the population will be suffering from food insecurity and the inability to produce food crops or control what we may call their food systems,” he said.

One of the consequences will be even greater impoverishment of women. “In African agriculture, 67% of the workforce is female. Women do most of the conservation of spaces, production, processing of produce, safeguarding of seeds, and cooking. What’s most important of all, however, is that this female labor isn’t just decisive in the market, it also guarantees long-term transmission of know-how and of the most endemic varieties known as creole seeds. In other words, we’re facing a triple whammy: a reduction in production capacity, impoverishment, and fragilization of the human component of production,” he said. 

Barros noted that 57% of Africans lack access to electricity and that the Global North accounted for 69% of the power consumed worldwide in 2022. “A French or German citizen consumes nine times more electricity than an African citizen. Three sectors consume the most electric power: arms manufacturers, food conservation, and leisure. In Africa, only four countries have power grids with 100% coverage. Until last year, there were three. One more has now joined them,” he said.

Weather is not always the only factor impacted by climate change. “It’s mostly about social justice,” he said. “Seven of the ten countries that most suffer from pollution are African. And only seven of Africa’s 54 countries have systems for monitoring pollution. Why is pollution important? The tragedy of COVID killed 6.9 million people. But climate pollution, not to mention garbage and waste, kills 9 million people per year in Africa. No one is talking about that,” he said.

Turning to the issue of waste, he said, “Mauritania is the place where most of Microsoft’s waste is dumped. There are ports where fishing is now impossible. In the Niger River delta, people can’t get drinking water or fish or farm because of the pollution produced by France. And now they’re navigating on top of oil pipelines. Widening the view still further, Daewoo, a Korean multinational, bought the equivalent of 150 soccer pitches in Madagascar to grow a fuel crop as a monoculture and has completely privatized Madagascar’s capacity to produce food and create economic stability. This has led to what everyone now recognizes: Madagascar as an unstable country where military coups keep happening.”

These and other issues led Barros to an emphatic critique of neoliberalism and neocolonialism, which he blamed for perpetuating inequality and exploiting African resources. He argued that the climate crisis is actually a crisis of social and economic justice exacerbated by unsustainable economic and industrial practices that benefit the Global North to the detriment of the Global South. “In the neocolonial model, the neoliberal model, Africa is chosen as a reserve of raw materials, with no right to transform these raw materials but the obligation to buy them all back in the form of products made in the Global North. This model has led us to exhaustion of the soil due to overexploitation, to poverty due to the displacement of people, to a regime of monoculture instead of productive diversification. And this model increasingly influences our food regime,” he said.

Underscoring the importance of ethical diplomacy in the relations between countries, and of nature-based solutions in the context of each country, he added: “What I want to draw your attention to is that we’re facing a climate emergency. We’re facing a colonial emergency. This colonial emergency has brought us to a situation in which our endogenous capacity has been expropriated, but it has also robbed us, for example, of all the ways and means of combating climate phenomena. It makes no sense to believe that the behavior that has led to this destruction will be the solution to the problem. Technology won’t be the solution to the climate problem. Lifestyle is the key factor.”

Barros has been a social organizer and activist since he was 14 (photo: Daniel Antônio/Agência FAPESP)

The Sixth FAPESP 2024 Lecture was coordinated by Carlos Alfredo Joly, emeritus professor at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), and moderated by Maria Hermínia Tavares de Almeida, senior researcher at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP), a think tank based in São Paulo city. Professor Marco Antonio Zago, President of FAPESP, and Professor Fernando Ferreira Costa, chair of the multidisciplinary committee that organizes the FAPESP 2024 Lectures, also participated in the opening session.

Zago recalled that he had met Barros last year at a meeting in Portugal and was impressed by him as “a representative of modern Africa, an intellectual of present-day Africa, discussing African problems about which we know nothing”, and invited him to make this the focus for his FAPESP 2024 Lecture.

A recording of the complete Sixth FAPESP 2024 Lecture, “Climate change, energy transition and food sovereignty in Africa: challenges and alternatives”, including the opening session, is at: www.youtube.com/live/_WR-S_CRR7A.