Adaptation Apartheid in “One Planet, One Chance”

The quotation I found most striking from the video was;

“No community with a sense of justice, compassion, or respect for basic human rights should accept the current pattern of adaptation. Leaving the world’s poor to sink or swim with their own meager resources in the face of the threat posed by climate change is morally wrong. We are drifting in a world of adaptation apartheid”

I thought this quote revealed a side to the issue of global warming that is sometimes glanced over, and that is the inequality associated with it. Developed countries have the capacity to deal with the environmental problems associated with climate change far better than underdeveloped parts of the world do. I think this is what is meant by adaptation apartheid. The actions we are taking and the pollution we are producing will affect people on the other side of the world far worse than it will affect us, so in a way it resembles the situation that existed in South Africa during Nelson Mandela’s adulthood; One community suffers while the other thrives. I think it is compelling that the video brings morality into the discussion, and I think more people would change their ways and be more concerned about the health of the planet if they saw what they were doing as “morally wrong”. If we are going to address climate change in a comprehensive way, then it is going to have to be a global effort in which everyone is the beneficiary. If developed countries can invest more in clean energy and sustainable institutions then globalization will become a clean process and the inequality may not be so pronounced. I think the imagery the video uses is effective at conveying this inequality it mentions by contrasting the consumerist west with the impoverished third world.