“Solidarity, Not Charity!”: Finding Solutions to Combat the Negative Effects of Covid-19 on the Environment

St. Gallen, Switzerland. Today, the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) held its first sessions on an issue that is as pressing as it is complicated: managing the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the environment. In a debate that quickly became heated, old fault lines emerged along the divide of the so-called Global North and South, as many developing nations have less developed environmental protection infrastructure. The more developed nations’ demand for them to fix this was met with resistance.  The delegate of Venezuela passionately accused the more developed nations of pointing fingers and demanding improvements many nations, including his own, could not implement. “My people are starving, many of them have no electricity and live in great poverty,” he opened, “tell me where we are meant to procure funds for expensive environmental projects when our citizens live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to make ends meet?” The plea was echoed by many other delegates, with the delegate of South Africa further pointing out that developing countries are already punished enough by environmental destruction, a problem they largely did not create. “The Global North is responsible for the majority of pollution and environmental destruction, yet the Global South gets to suffer the consequences, such as overfished seas and the effects of Global Warming. South Africa has an incredible biodiversity, and we expect the Western countries to accept responsibility for their actions and offer us support, so we can counteract the destruction they have brought about.” What they need, to quote the delegate of Ethiopia, is “solidarity, not charity”, the understanding that finding a solution is a joint responsibility and the Western nations should not see their involvement as a matter of charity, but accepting responsibility. The delegates called for the establishment of an international organization to help implement environmental protection measures, an idea that found support with delegations such as Canada and the United States. 

However, while everybody agreed on the need for support and action, determining the nature of this support caused further friction in the committee. The delegation of the United States argued that believing in the success of financial assistance would be “completely delusional” and highlighted the difficulty of finding the money for it, especially in the current times, when most countries are reeling

from the impact of Covid-19 on the economy. Instead, the focus should be on offering know-how and practical assistance in the form of workshops, sharing of machinery and technology, and expert guidance. Other delegates focused on the difficulty of finding a solution implementable for all countries, with the German delegation for instance stressing that any viable solution “must take into consideration every target country’s different position and circumstances”. 

Despite some tensions and conflicting opinions, these first sessions showed the commitment and motivation of the delegates to finding real, implementable, and practical solutions. The discussions remained civil and respectful at all times, creating favourable conditions for further productive sessions tomorrow.