WEIZMAN, Ines. On climate genocide & Di-Aping: "as recent climate research has demonstrated, much of the desertification of the Sahel is attributable to increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere”

Ines Weizman on Climate Genocide (2013): “Climate genocide… As the climate summit disbanded, with news of Di-Aping’s claim of “climate genocide” spreading, hundreds of thousands of protestors gathered outsdide the Bella Centre in Copenhagen. The fracturing of a political accord mirrored the disaggregation of the climate model, both caught in the ambiguous scales of environmental politics. Di-Aping’s responses to the colonial mentality of the G20 (“we had been asked to sign a suicide pact”) and his invocation of the death camps of the Second World War (“climate genocide”) were unexpected. Like a particle fired into view from an imperceptible background, Di-Aping’s dissident utterance aimed an succeeded in breaking all protocol. The idea that a Sudanese person would speak out in such a way in the context of a major international summit elicited derisory comments that suggested a lack of responsibility , disingenuousness and unproductive hyperbole. Di-Aping’s status as a speaking subject and chairman of 132 nations was called into further question because of the continuing criminal proceedings regarding war crimes in Darfur. What many commentators failed to realize is that it was precisely Di-Aping’s proximity to events in Darfur that provided him with a visceral sense of what the change in temperature meant, since as recent climate research has demonstrated, much of the desertification of the Sahel is attributable to increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere” (Ines Weizman (editor), “Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence”, Routledge, 2013; page 211).