From Climate Debt to Ecological Debt: An Earth-Eco-Socialist Reframing of the Niger Delta Crisis

The dominant framework for addressing environmental injustice in the Global South is the concept of climate debt. This framework focuses on historical carbon emissions. It proposes remedies through climate finance, technology transfer, and market-based mechanisms. However, it does not adequately capture the broader ecological destruction experienced in regions such as the Niger Delta. This paper argues that the crisis should be understood as an ecological debt crisis, rather than merely a climate debt problem. The study adopts an Earth-Eco-Socialist theoretical framework and uses the Niger Delta as a case study. It employs qualitative and critical analysis of literature on capitalist exploitation, ecological degradation, environmental justice, and sustainability. The paper examines how oil extraction, gas flaring, pollution, and community dispossession reflect deeper patterns of ecological exploitation affecting both humans and nonhuman nature. The findings show that climate debt discourse is limited. It reduces environmental harm to carbon accounting and promotes market-based solutions that fail to address the root causes of ecological degradation. In contrast, ecological debt captures the impacts of extraction, biodiversity loss, ecosystem destruction, and livelihood displacement. The Niger Delta demonstrates how capitalist accumulation generates long-term ecological and social harm that cannot be resolved through financial compensation alone. The paper concludes that Earth-Eco-Socialism provides a more comprehensive framework for environmental justice and sustainability. Moving from climate debt to ecological debt supports more transformative and reparative responses to ecological crises in the Global South.

Capitalist Exploitation, Climate Debt, Earth-Eco-Socialism

1. Bumpus, A. G., & Liverman, D. M. (2008). Accumulation by Decarbonization and the Governance of Carbon Offsets. Economic Geography, 84(2), 127-155. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

2. Foster, J. B. (2000). Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature. Monthly Review Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

3. Gudynas, E. (2011). Buen Vivir: Today’s Tomorrow. Development, 54(4), 441-447. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

4. Harvey, D. (2014). Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism. Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

5. Kovel, J. (2007). The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? Zed Books. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

6. Löwy, M. (2015). Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe. Haymarket Books. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

7. Martínez-Alier, J. (2002). The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation. Edward Elgar. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

8. Moore, J. W. (2015). Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. Verso. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

9. O’Connor, J. (1998). Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism. Guilford Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

10. Ojomo, P. A. (2024). Thinking Sustainability Through the Earth-Eco-Socialist Paradigm. International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, 8(4), 237-247. https://doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2024.804019 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

11. Salleh, A. (2017). Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx and the Postmodern. Zed Books. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

12. SDN [Stakeholder Democracy Network]. (2022). Ogoni Clean-up: Five Years On. Port Harcourt: SDN. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

13. Shiva, V. (2005). Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace. South End Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

14. UNEP [United Nations Environment Programme]. (2011). Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland. Nairobi: UNEP. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

15. Warlenius, R., Pierce, G., & Ramasar, V. (2015). Reversing the Arrow of Arrears: The Concept of “Ecological Debt” and its Value for Environmental Justice. Global Environmental Change, 30, 21-30. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

16. Watts, M. (2004). Resource Curse? Governmentality, Oil and Power in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. Geopolitics, 9(1), 50-80. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

17. World Bank. (2023). Global Gas Flaring Tracker Report 2023. Washington, DC: World Bank. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

• Methane Emissions from Municipal Solid Waste - Case Study in Cai Rang District, Can Tho City, Vietnam
• Youth Activism, Intentional Integration of Policies to Raise Awareness on Climate Change Action among the Youth
• Breathing Spaces: Environmental & User Experience in Dhanmondi and Zigatola Multistoried Apartments, Dhaka, Bangladesh
• Effects of Solid Waste Disposal on Soil Quality in Makurdi Metropolis, Benue State, Nigeria
• Environmental Impact of Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Borgu Local Government Area