Fossil Fuels from the Global South’s Perspective
The story of the industrial revolution, as it is traditionally taught in the UK, is one of profound transformation. It was characterised by significant improvements to efficiency and quality of life, leading to the emergence of the modern age. One of the key developments during this period was the shift in energy production, with the discovery of oil as an energy source. Unlike previous forms of energy, oil did not require intense manual labour and was both efficient and economical to produce.
The rise of industrialisation and the increased use of fossil fuels are often associated with the Great Acceleration. This was a period in the 20th century marked by significant increases in population, life expectancy, Gross Domestic Product and literacy, among other indicators. Alongside this progress, there has been an intensification of human or ‘anthropogenic’ impacts upon the planet, with corresponding rises in carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases. This can create the impression that fossil fuels and their effect on the Earth’s systems were the primary drivers behind these improvements in our lives.
As a result, we find ourselves in the Anthropocene, a proposed geological epoch defined by human impact on the Earth’s systems. Within this narrative, several misconceptions persist, which pose the risk of delaying solutions to the climate crisis and dismissing those who have been most affected by it.
Misconception 1: ‘oil revolutionised industry because it took less labour and money to produce energy’
The history of oil exploitation in the UK is, perhaps unexpectedly, closely tied to imperial control over colonised territories. Both of the UK’s major players in the global oil landscape, Shell and British Petroleum (BP), have their roots in the concession of land and resources from these regions.
BP originally began as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, founded when a British businessman acquired land and exclusive rights to oil in what is now Iran. The company was later bought out by the British government and military. Local workers were underpaid, overworked, and subjected to the exploitation of the surrounding landscape, all while facing the threat of British violence if they rebelled (Aranoff, 2020).
A similar story unfolds with Shell, where the Nigerian Ogoni people were paid meagre wages for the extraction of oil on their land, with no compensation for the environmental damage caused. When protests erupted in response to these injustices, the leader of the movement was executed by Nigeria’s military government. Shell later faced accusations of complicity in the execution and ultimately settled out of court for 15,500,000 USD (Pilkington, 2009). The pattern here is one where the the socio-economic and environmental health of one country is sacrificed for the monetary benefit of another: the coloniser, who inflicts violence to keep control over the state.
With this in mind, it is imperative to ask: Did oil truly require less labour and money, or did it simply appear that way as the true cost was internalised into socioeconomic harm to colonised states, and into the environmental harm it is now causing? Were the benefits of oil primarily felt by the Global North, at the expense of the Global South?
Misconception 2: ‘improvements to people's lives was due to fossil fuel usage’
It is also important to question whether the improvements seen during the Great Acceleration were truly due to fossil fuel usage, and whether they were intertwined with environmental destruction. It is generally acknowledged and undeniable, however, that economic growth is closely associated with fossil fuel emissions (Onofrei, Vatamanu & Cigu, 2022). Conversely, it has been argued that as there isn’t a consistent link between health improvement indicators and economic growth, but rather with countries’ increasing focus on research and healthcare (Haines & Frumkin, 2021).
Could it then be argued that many of the improvements experienced by humanity over the last century are not inherently tied to fossil fuel use? This challenges the concept of ‘carbon lock-in,’ where the sunk costs of fossil fuel industrialisation seem insurmountable, and the environmental damage caused by emissions appears too severe to reverse. However, if the mindset of ‘carbon lock-in’ can be overcome, there may still be hope for a future with minimal environmental harm, without compromising people’s quality of life.
Misconception 3: ‘Blame for the climate crisis is universal as climate change was ‘human-induced’’
The proposed Anthropocene has faced criticism for offering a universal and apolitical explanation to why the climate has changed in the last two centuries (Moore, 2016), attributing the cause simply to ‘humans’ (Moore, 2016). In contrast, it can be argued that the major superpowers in the Global North that began such exploitative practices against the environment, established a system in which emerging economies are now virtually required to emit vast amounts of greenhouse gases to participate in the global economy. Moreover, it is the countries that have contributed the least to environmental degradation, often those that have been harmed by colonial powers in the past, that will disproportionately feel the effects of climate change: droughts, floods, displacement from rising sea-level, and increasingly severe climatic disasters. Many emerging economies that have managed to partially recover from past colonialisation do not have the luxury of divesting from fossil fuel countries like the UK. Their economies have been forcibly shaped and constrained by past colonial control, leaving them heavily reliant on fossil fuels to sustain their development.
Without considering who historically initiated the shift toward exploitative environmental practices on a global scale, and how past colonial control has forced emerging economies into a carbon lock-in, solutions to and reparations for the climate crisis will remain incomplete.