Those most harmed by capitalism also suffer the worst climate impacts.

Evidence

Adding insult to injury, the losers of the global capital relations game are also those who are facing the worst effects of the unfolding climate catastrophe. The floods in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul in 2024 left 1,000 people either killed or injured and 150,000 homeless. That same year, southern Africa experienced its worst drought in a century, leaving more than 21 million children deeply malnourished as crops failed. These climate disasters are very bad news for people who are threatened by famine and destruction, but as philosopher Kohei Saito points out, the constant extraction that underpins our capitalist economy is largely made invisible to citizens in the Global North. And international capitalists have even found a silver lining. The climate mitigation efforts of the African and Latin American governments are all novel market opportunities for foreign businesses to take advantage of. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 304

Categorization

• SEED: The final sentence is a sharp angle: climate mitigation in the Global South repackaged as market opportunity for Northern capital.
• XREF: connects to: Capitalism’s incurable flaw is its inability to provide for the world’s majority — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 594

Broader Connections

• Capitalism’s incurable flaw is its inability to provide for the world’s majority #expands (0.72) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 594