Sinanian, Michael

Reframing the Global South: An International

ESPM 169 (O’Neill/Bullock)
Environmental Politics Perspective
September 29, 2009

In the two articles concerning the relationship between the global North and the global

South, both authors Najam and Karlsson seek to address the various differences between these

regions and how said differences have shaped international agreements concerning the

environment. While Najam discusses the “shared identity and common purpose” of the global

South as one that is primarily characterized by essentially an inferiority complex, Karlsson

provides depth to that analysis by presenting specific instances in which these points of

inferiority are in fact true and accurate. (Najam 2005: 225) However, while the articles explore

these ‘disadvantages’ encountered by the South, they at times fail to realize that the era of an

economically weak and politically dependent South is nearly over. (Najam 2005: 226) It can thus

be argued that although Najam and Karlsson are mostly correct in their analysis, they do not

chart a trajectory for the South that incorporates several recent technological and socioeconomic

developments and radical new ideas that are to have a tremendous impact on the region, and

subsequently, on the international agreements this region chooses to accept.

Najam correctly prescribes several steps the South should take to ensure far more

productive international negotiations. He boldly states that the South should, “Stop feeling angry

at the North and sorry for [itself].” (Najam 2005: 234) He also argues that it should, “focus on

interests … cultivate its own power; be hard on issues, not on people … organize itself … [and]

clean up its own.” (Najam 2005: 234) These are all valid suggestions, but it forces us to see the

North-South dichotomy as one framed in terms of a competition in which there are winners and

losers. However, this need not be the case. Although the article states that, “…good agreements

are more important than ‘winning,’” it can be argued that there are in fact no clear winners or
losers to begin with. The South is now uniquely poised to take advantage of certain technological

and societal developments that will not ‘win’ them anything, but rather, will eventually bring

them to equal footing with the developed world. That parity is utterly essential to productive and

fruitful international environmental negotiations, which would lack animosity or covetousness

between global regions.

As Najam himself states, sustainable development has been a key aspect of several

international agreements to date, and for good reason, too: it is a crucial piece in the South’s

long-term development, but one in which they are uniquely suited to adapt and use for deploying

new technologies and infrastructure on scales that would never be feasible or practical in a

comparably ‘developed’ nation. For example, retrofitting existing energy, transportation, or other

resource infrastructure in the U.S. would be cost prohibitive on a number of levels, and would

take much longer and cost much more to complete than a similar nation-wide deployment in a

sub-Saharan African nation. That nation on the other hand, would start with no initial

infrastructure to repair or modify, nor would it deal with a lengthy bureaucratic process that

would undoubtedly prolong deployment. To further illustrate this advantage of the South, the

cost of building additional coal-fired power plants or retrofitting or expanding existing ones in a

developed country would be a far greater task than to build new, green, sustainable energy

sources in a Southern nation.

Moving outside an example such as energy and into other sectors, the extent to which

Southern nations are uniquely suited to adopt sustainable practices becomes far more visible

when we consider innovative new developments taking place in the financial, telecom, and

agricultural sectors.

The recent “mobile money” revolution unfolding in Africa is an example of how online
banks and lenders are taking advantage of the freshly widespread (near ubiquitous) adoption of

mobile phones in the region, using them as a platform to lend digital money and IOUs that are

especially effective in many African cultures that rely on non-Western transaction practices.

(“Economist” 2009) This is one arena in which both the service economy of the South is growing

at a phenomenal rate while maintaining environmentally sustainable practices (via the

elimination of paper banking and the environmental degradation that ensues) on a level above

and beyond what most developed nations could boast about.

Additionally, studies and innovations in wireless telecommunications technologies have

unearthed the potential of deploying WiFi signals in television frequencies that could provide

Internet access to hundreds of millions, but potentially accomplish far more. For example, these

new “WhiteFi” protocols allow for incredibly efficient automated irrigation systems that have the

potential to “reduce water use on farms by 30 to 60 percent.” (Anderson 2009) The fact that

Southern nations are only now beginning to pick amongst various telecommunications options to

deploy across their countries gives them the unique advantage of harnessing these cutting-edge

technologies that, as with the abovementioned cases, developed countries could only hope to

achieve within 10 to 20 years. Developments like WhiteFi are more likely to emerge in the

global South than anywhere else, allowing the region to fully maximize the comparative

advantage offered by the technology, placing them on par with developed nations in international

agreements and alleviating the inferiority complex both Najam and Karlsson implicitly discuss.

Despite the uniquely advantageous situation the South increasingly finds itself in, there

are inherent shortcomings they continue to face that Karlsson is keen to point out. The scientific

community is undoubtedly far smaller in the global South, producing far less empirical studies

that would typically shed light on local problems that are truly relevant to the region. (Karlsson
2002: 2) Information on certain pollutants that affect the South far greater than the North is

missing, and one would be correct to ask how any sort of global agreement on the environment

could be reached if the data those agreements are based off of is incomplete. (Karlsson 2002: 3-

5) Moreover, issues such as “health, shelter, and food availability” are of more concern to the

South than members of the North, and these widely differing priorities also contribute to

distorted international agreements. (Karlsson 2002: 6)

In all these respects, Karlsson is absolutely correct. The knowledge divide is real and has

real consequences. However, when considering the new frame in which the South should be cast

in, the frame in which it asserts itself and takes advantage of its unique developmental position, it

is not a stretch to imagine the South not as a point of growing divide from the rest of the world,

but rather, as a new hotspot of truly endogenous growth the likes of which the developed world

has not experienced in nearly half a century. It is merely a matter of a society-wide embracement

of out-of-the-box entrepreneurship and ingenuity. In short, the global South must embrace the

differences, but not the divide.

While the global South may feel proud in securing terms such as “Common but

Differentiated Responsibility” or the “Polluter Pays Principle,” it should not actively cherish

such concessions. (Najam 2005: 237-238) It is time for the region to assert itself, shedding the

deeply ingrained beliefs of dependency and inferiority, vestiges of its colonial past that are no

longer relevant in an increasingly globalized and equal world. Southern frustrations should not

come from perceived failings in international politics and agreements, but rather, from their own

failure to adopt standards, regulations, technologies, and innovations as rapidly and extensively

as possible.
 Works Cited

Anderson, Nate. " "WhiteFi" could be worth $15bn a year—and fix climate change." Ars

Technica. 25 Sep. 2009. Ars Technica, Web. 30 Sep 2009. <http://arstechnica.com/tech-

policy/news/2009/09/whitefi-could-be-worth-15-billion-a-yearand-fix-climate-

change.ars>.

Telecoms: The power of mobile money." The Economist 24 Sep. 2009: n. pag. Web. 30 Sep

2009. <http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14505519>.

Karlsson, Sylvia. "The North-South Knowledge Divide: Consequences for Global Environmental

Governance." Global Environmental Governance: Options and Opportunities. Eds.

Daniel C. Esty and Maria H. Ivanova. New Haven: Yale School of Forestry and

Environmental Studies, (2002): 1-24. Print.

Najam, Adil. "The View from the South: Developing Countries in Global Environmental

Politics." The Global Environment: Institutions, Law and Policy. Eds. Regina S. Axelrod,

David Leonard Downie and Norman J. Vig. Washington: CQ Press, (2005): 225-243.

Print.