Hi, I’m Bima, a year 1 Environmental Studies student from National University of Singapore. I am an Indonesian and I am very excited to share my point of view on the environmental problem around us, especially surrounding the rapid economic progress in low-income countries, such as my home country.

The Paris Climate Agreement stated low-income countries will continue to strive towards reducing poverty and famine, while being supported financially by higher-income countries to move towards a more environmentally-friendly economy. To be honest, in my opinion, financial support alone is not enough. As high-income countries keep exploiting their counterparts for their natural resources and cheap labours, poverty shall remain. Additionally, the adverse effects of climate change is mainly felt by these low-income countries as well because of the lack of money. For example, unstable harvesting due to increase in frequency of extreme weather conditions.

Effect of Hurricane Maria on the Puerto Rican farmer in 2017. Image taken from Victor J. Blue of New York Times

It is easy for high-income countries to move on to these sustainable but more expensive approaches since they have more money. However, let us take a step back and be reminded that they are wealthy precisely due to their environmentally damaging actions in the past.

There is no point for me nor the lower-income countries to complain now about the past. Anyway, climate change is everyone’s problem. Skeptics believe that pursuing rapid economic progress while caring for the environment is an insurmountable barrier, especially in commodity-dependent countries surviving in today’s hyperconsumerism culture.

Consumerism Culture Cartoon. Taken from Pat Machado in Artstation.com

However, I saw this as an opportunity to research on various green economy that can be implemented in less affluent countries. So guys, stay tune to see the fruits of my research 🙂