Ecological agenda and the Global South: Growth, Environmental Justice, and Ecological Debt

Abstract

the present article outsets from the assumption that the environmental agenda is part of the power struggle in the International System and is interested in its intersections within the conflicts between the countries
of the North and Global South. In particular, it discusses the construction of the vision of these two blocs on the relationship between economic development and environmental preservation. Although, the concept of sustainable development has been able to overcome its antagonistic positions between development and environment, and then avoiding the boycott of the countries of the South to the agenda implemented by the UN, its emergence represented a gain of the idea of economic growth on the proposals of decreasing growth and redistribution. Yet, it has allowed
the maintenance of the neglect of the countries of the North and the South on ideas like Environmental Justice and ecological debt. For the countries of the South, in particular, this represents a lost opportunity on struggle against the reproduction of systemic and internal inequalities, thus reinforcing their position of dependence on the North.