The Colonial Roots of the Climate Crisis |
As world leaders prepare for climate summits such as COP30, the global conversation remains focused on emissions targets, green technologies and future commitments. Yet historians and climate scholars argue that this framing overlooks a deeper truth: the climate crisis did not begin in the modern industrial age, but in the centuries of colonial rule that reshaped the planet’s ecosystems for profit.
Climate change, they argue, is the long afterlife of empire. From the 16th century onwards, European colonial powers transformed........