Last week Dark Matter Labs hosted 12 hours of vital conversations for the launch of the Planetary Civics Inquiry. At a time of rule-breaking, global conflicts, shrinking aid budgets, deepening inequality, and planetary crisis 🌱 thoughtful reflection is crucial.
I joined the panel ‘A New Internationalism: Ecological Assets as Emerging Terrains of Competition and Conflict,’ chaired by Zehra Zaidi OBE. We explored governance in a world where resource conflicts and ecological crises transcend borders. The discussion was rich, bringing together diverse voices—from Tory politicians like The Rt Hon Anne-Marie Trevelyan to Bahraini diplomats, think tank leaders, and activists. The mood was sombre, as it should be. We debated how to foster a new ethics of collective action on a planetary scale – because the crises we face don’t respect borders.
Anders Wijkman rightly pointed out that our growth model created both the prosperity we take for granted and the crisis we are in. I argued that resistance to this model has, perhaps, laid the groundwork for a different future. The ‘Bayelsa Commission of Inquiry into Oil & Gas Pollution’, which I chaired for four years, described the devastation in Nigeria’s oil-rich Bayelsa state as “environmental genocide”⚠️. Our 2023 report continues to call for oil companies to clean up after 70 years of pollution – pollution that has shortened life expectancy, destroyed livelihoods, and wiped out critical carbon sinks.
The principles of ‘repair, restore, replenish’ are not unique to Nigeria’s Niger Delta. Resistance movements like Oilwatch Africa have long demanded a break from extractive capitalism and a new ethics of production – one rooted in obligations to replenish and remediate. These ideas are deeply embedded in Africa’s cosmologies and histories, emphasising the symbiosis between humans, nature, and even inanimate objects. Could they form the foundation for a ‘new moral economy’ – a ‘new planetary civics’?
Achille Mbembe, in ‘La Communauté Terrestre’, recalls his grandmother’s deep environmental stewardship – a way of thinking we urgently need 🌿. Acclaimed artist Otobong Nkanga explores these themes in her work, weaving together landscapes of extraction to reveal a shared planetary experience. These perspectives offer a way forward – a ‘planetary civics of substructure’ that connects thought and action.
So, where do we go from here? More conversations like this are desperately needed. Rethinking our growth model is urgent – but so is reimagining our relationship with the environment. Not as nostalgia, but as survival. The transition to a new economic model is an opportunity to reshape consumption patterns, yet the rush for critical minerals suggests world leaders remain stuck in old paradigms. Time is not on our side, but this conversation was necessary, timely, and long overdue. ⏳🌍
#PlanetaryCivics
#EcologicalGovernance
#CriticalMinerals
#NewInternationalism
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