The Centre for Climate Justice, alongside the Climate & Community Project and Third World Network, celebrated the launch of a new joint research report titled “Exporting Extinction: How the international financial system constrains biodiverse futures“ by hosting a panel this past Tuesday. Named “Placing the biodiversity crisis in the global economy: From extraction and extinction to vibrant futures,” this panel brought together speakers Chee Yoke Ling, Ana Di Pangracio, and Fadhel Kaboub along with presenter and commentator Jess Dempsey.
After posing one of the key questions of the panel, “What is it about capitalism and an unequal world order that drives unsustainable patterns of land use and really frightening levels of biodiversity loss?,” moderator Thea Riofrancos set the stage for the panel’s discussion by sharing that “what this report does, and why it is so important, is that it digs into what we might call the global political economy of biodiversity loss. And it turns out that it’s the financial mechanisms, trade mechanisms, and the monetary system that put especially globally south governments in positions of adopting unsustainable patterns of extraction and unsustainable development models.”
Co-author of the report Jess Dempsey explained one of the key findings of the report that is best visualized by an iceberg model shown below:
Dempsey explains:
“Above the water line, are the direct drivers of biodiversity loss. The extraction.
Underneath are things states do that support those direct drivers, which are substantial and entirely contra biodiversity targets. In all five case studies, we saw that governments continue to approve, subsidize, and expand the extractive developments that erode biodiversity.
Our study results are specific to the countries we studied, but it is well known that these dynamics affect many countries across the Global South. For decades, scholars have described Global South states as subordinate in the international financial system. That is, they are structurally disadvantaged, facing ongoing economic instability and subject to constant threat of capital flight, loan defaults, and shocks based on changes to commodity prices and to monetary policy decisions made elsewhere.
Our research shows how this subordination generates strong incentives to expand and deepen the industries most in conflict with countries’ environmental objectives. These structures, and the unequal pressures they exert, therefore represent a significant underlying driver of biodiversity loss.”
Chee Yoke Ling shared that “this research is very powerful, because it’s making us look very hard into how the rules have to be changed, or else we will never save the planet.” She discussed the intersection between environmental and social framings of the biodiversity crisis saying, “it’s not about conservation, it’s really about structural injustice.”
Ana Di Pangracio reflected on how the continuous expansion of Argentina’s soy industry over the last several decades has been supported by the wide range of political parties that have held power, in part for the nation’s economic dependence on commodity exports and obligations to restructuring mandates by international financial institutions. “However, she says that this “economic development model has not been able to mitigate the ongoing financial and economic crisis. It is a model that exacerbates biodiversity harm and socio-environmental conflict and brings more poverty and dependence.
Fadhel Kaboub’s presentation brought the same perspective of systemic subordination to another continent sharing, “today, Africa imports 85% of its food, not by accident, by design.” Analyzing the root causes of this, he said “we cannot decarbonize a system that hasn’t been structurally and economically decolonized yet.”
For more on these discussion topics, watch the full webinar recording and access the research report below.
Spanish and French translations of this report will be available soon.
