trends and future of sustainable development - TransEco

poverty and tend the world's lungs. According to Mugabe, the North has spit on the Kyoto protocol andhas severely violated human rights by its actions.The opposition between North and South is reconstructed as nearly insurmountable in Mugabe'srhetoric. There is a chasm between the ”suffering us” and the ”destructive, ignorant them”. For Mugabe,the North is so guilty and ignorant of the larger part of the world that it should take a giant leap to givethe South any hope that it could take human rights issues, the South's development needs and climatechange seriously. For Mugabe, some negotiation seems to be possible only after that. For now, thebarrier is blocked.Whereas Mugabe spoke on behalf of his own country, Meles Zenawi represented the African Unionthat consists of 53 African states, having nearly every African country as a member and thereforeforming a rather large share of ”the voice of South” (yet it must be kept in mind that South does not referonly to Africa). Despite that, his rhetoric considering this North/South mapping is rather different fromMugabe's. Before turning to discuss Africa or the North, Zenawi speaks of how climate change challengetests ”whether we as a global community are able to rise over our parochial interests to protect ourcommon destiny”. This is a call for identification of all the negotiators and all mankind; a call for barriercrossingidentification. For Zenawi, ”we” refers mostly to the global community, not merely to theAfrica(n union).Next comes the view of South, especially Africa. Zenawi reminds his audience that Africa hascontributed virtually nothing to climate change but it has faced the hardest consequences so far. TheNorth's actions are not left unsaid: as Zenawi relates, Africa's misery is the price ”for the wealth andwellbeing that was created in the developed countries through carbon intensive development. That isfundamentally unjust.” This forms, to some point, an unavoidable dichotomy between the North andSouth. However, Zenawi's reaction and rhetorical move after this differs much from Zimbabwe's: ”we arenot here as victims nursing our wounds of injustice of the past [...] but as stakeholders of the futurereaching out across the continents, so that together we can build a better and fairer future for all of us.”.This creates a possibility for a new dynamic between the past and the future, as well as the North andSouth. Zenawi calls Africa the continent of the future. This is a different voice from those that assignAfrica a mere victim's role. Africa – and perhaps we could hopefully broaden the reference to concernSouth – is elevated from an immobilized victim to an emerging active negotiator and stakeholder of thefuture.Nations maintained rather stereotypical North and South identities: developed nations admittedtheir responsibility for earlier emissions, but argued they are already bearing their responsibilitiesrelated to that issue. Developing nations considered themselves as unjustly suffering from the North'sactions, demanding financial compensation for adaptation – but not only for that; for developingcountries the climate change issue is strongly linked to broader development and inequality questions(this is discussed also in A Climate of Injustice, Roberts 2006). The North and South ”map” formedstrong boundaries that nations mostly maintained in their rhetoric, resulting in barrier-blockingidentifications. Yet some attempts for barrier-crossing identification emerged, especially from theAfrican Union.143