When the
Patrick Bond
The Bullet- Socialist Project [
October 25, 2009
http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/265.php
On a day that 350.org and thousands of allies are
valiantly trying to raise global consciousness about
impending catastrophe, we can ask some tough questions
about what to do after people depart and the props are
packed up. No matter today's activism, global climate
governance is grid-locked and it seems clear that no
meaningful deal can be sealed in
The recent
Conference of Parties functionaries confirmed that
Northern states and their corporations won't make an
honest effort to get to 350 CO2 parts per million. On
the right, Barack Obama's negotiators seem to feel that
the 1997
North, and leaves out several major polluters of the
South, including China, India,
levels) are impossible now. Obama's people hope the
world will accept 2005 as a new starting date; a 20%
reduction by 2020 then only brings the target back to
around 5% below 1990 levels. Such pathetically low
ambitions, surely Obama knows, guarantee a runaway
climate catastrophe - he should shoot for 45%, say the
small island nations.
The other reason
environmentalists is its provision for carbon trading
rackets which allow fake claims of net emissions cuts.
Since the advent of the European Union Emissions
Trading Scheme, the
Mechanism projects and offsets, vast evidence has
accumulated of systemic market failure, scamming and
inability to regulate carbon trading (see a website
launched today www.350reasons.org).
A final reason we need to rapidly transcend
weak, market-oriented approach is that devastation
caused by climate change will hit the world's poorest,
most vulnerable people far harder than those in the
North. Reparations for the North's climate debt to the
South are in order. The European Union offered a
pittance in September, while African leaders are
stiffening their spines for a fight in
reminiscent of
Since discussing this threat six weeks ago in a ZNet
column, subsequent
offered me a sobering reminder of Northern
stubbornness, on two fronts - those whose interests are
mainly in short-term capital accumulation, but also the
mainstream environmentalists who are only beginning to
grasp the huge strategic error they made in
Negotiating the Environment
In the first camp, Obama's people are hoping
non-binding national-level plans will be acceptable at
the two main proposed bills - Waxman-Markey which
passed in the
Kerry-Boxer which is under Senate consideration - will
do far more harm than good.
Don't take it from me; the best source is Congressman
Rich Boucher, from a coal-dominated Southwestern
told a reporter last month, precisely because it would
not adversely affect his corporate constituencies. The
two billion tons of offset allowances in the
legislation mean that "an electric utility burning coal
will not have to reduce the emissions at the plant
site," chortled Boucher. "It can just keep burning coal."
Boucher was one of the congressional rednecks who
wrecked Obama's promise to sell - not give away - the
carbon credits, and then bragged to his district's main
newspaper, the Times News, that "this helps to keep
electricity prices affordable and strengthens the case
for utilities to continue to use coal."
Boucher and company are also working hard to disempower
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from
regulating CO2. This was accomplished in Waxman-Markey,
and upon introducing his legislation, Senator John
Kerry gave the game away by noting EPA regulatory
authority is not gutted in his bill now, only so that
it can be gutted later, so as to provide "some
negotiating room as we proceed forward."
The Senate bill has all manner of other objectionable
components, which hard-working activists from Climate
SOS, Rising Tide
the Center for Biological Diversity, Biofuelwatch and
Greenwash Guerrillas have been hammering at.
Hence in the
the far-right, the fossil fuels industries are intent
on making Obama's climate legislation farcical - and
have so far succeeded. In the centre, the main
establishment 'green' agencies - such as the
Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources
Defence Council - are plowing ahead with carbon trading
strategies, hoping to salvage some legitimacy for
Obama, because these bills are a 'first step' to more
serious emissions reducation, they claim.
Yet
in
aim of smashing any residual benefit of the
Protocol - such as potential binding cuts with
accountability mechanisms - and then allow these
dynamics to play out in a manner that locks in climate disaster.
So just as in 1997, when Al Gore introduced carbon
trading into the initial deal - and subsequently broke
an implicit promise by failing to get the
both Clinton and Bush) to ratify the Protocol - there
is every likelihood that if an agreement in
were reached, it would be as worthless as
Which brings us to quandaries faced by two other
forces: the ordinary environmentalist in the
perhaps a typical fan of useful www.grist.org blogs -
and activists based in the so-called
have to deal with the most adverse impacts of climate
chaos in coming decades.
Grist's Jonathan Hiskes recently reacted to the first
dilemma by characterizing Goddard Institute for Space
Studies director James Hansen - the most celebrated
Hansen not only put his body on the line this year in a
high-profile arrest at a
and testified repeatedly against carbon trading, but
also endorsed Climate SOS, to Hiskes' dismay.
Why rail against Hansen? Hiskes claims that when
describing Obama's bills as "worse than nothing,"
Hanson and other 'no-compromise types' ignore "the
historical precedent of legislation that is deeply
flawed at first evolving into something effective and
durable. The original Clean Air Act did not address the
acid rain crisis, an omission not corrected until 1990.
The original Social Security Act did not include
domestic or agricultural workers, effectively excluding
many Hispanic, black, and immigrant workers."
The obvious difference is that those two laws empowered
environmentalists and workers against enemies. They had
universalizing potential and could be incrementally
expanded. In contrast, Obama's climate legislation is
so far off on the wrong track - by commodifying the air
as the core climate strategy and empowering the fossil
fuel industries - that the train cannot be steered away
from its over-the-cliff route. Just let it crash.
(Oh bummer, the same seems to be true of 2009
legislation and fiscal programs for the economy and
healthcare, which empower banksters, derivative
financiers, energy firms, insurers and others who
caused the problems in the first place.)
The second force caught in the quandary of climate
politics is Penang-based
its many admirers, who insisted at
Kyoto Protocol be retained because, first, at least it
offers the possibility of a binding framework, and
second, countries not presently liable under
should still have the right to increase emissions so as to 'develop.'
I'll grant the first point, for if
block
could indeed be much weaker. On the other hand, if the
EPA actually used its powers to reduce the top 7500 or
so largest point-sources of
would be far stronger than carbon trading legislation
which lets polluters off the hook.
The main problem with TWN's 'development' argument is
that a great deal of CO2-emitting economic activity and
resource extraction in the
considered 'maldevelopment' - and for environmental,
socio-economic and moral reasons should halt.
Here in
relationship to the so-called 'minerals-energy complex'
generated a political bloc so powerful that it is now
in the process of building $100-billion in new
coal-fired and nuclear plants. Their strategy is to
keep offering the cheapest electricity in the world to
UK/Australian (formerly SA) mining/metals firms,
including Anglo, BHP Billiton, Lonplats and Arcellor-Mittal.
By way of background, state supplier Eskom lost
$1.3-billion last year gambling on aluminum futures.
Forty percent of SA's CO2 emissions can be traced to a
handful of the largest firms, including the dangerous
oil-from-coal/gas operator Sasol. And cheap electricity
for the mining/metals firms contrasts with
wickedly-high price hikes (a 250% projection from
2008-11) for ordinary people, which in turn contributes
to the intense demonstrations now destabilizing dozens
of municipalities (the Centre for Civil Society
documents these daily in our Social Protest
Observatory, at www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs).
Moreover, as corporations export profits and dividends
to London/Melbourne headquarters, our vast balance of
payments deficit gives The Economist magazine cause to
rate
In sum, it is impossible to argue that SA's
world-leading per capita CO2 emissions represents 'development.'
One way to address this maldevelopment - especially
from exports of CO2-intensive minerals and cash crops,
as well as manufactured goods transported by air and
ship - is import/export taxation.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy proposed a small
import tariff (the equivalent of 4 cents per litre of
petrol) last month: "Most importantly, a carbon tax at
the borders is vital for our industries and our jobs."
In the
are also making noises along these lines.
Sarkozy's small incremental tax will not change
consumption patterns. Explains Soumya Dutta from the
People's Science Movement, "In
affluent society, whenever gasoline or diesel prices
are raised by even 6-10%, there is an initial hue and
cry. Within a month, things settle down and the
consumption keeps growing - invariably."
The South Centre's Martin Khor condemns Sarkozy's move
as 'climate protectionism,' remarking, "It would be sad
if the progressive movement were to support and join in
the attempts by those who want to block off products
from developing countries in the name of climate
change." He is correct to label such taxes
"self-interested and selfish bullying acts."
More generally, says Khor, "We shouldn't give the
powerful countries an excuse and legitimacy to use
climate or labour or social issues to block our exports
and get away with it through a nice sounding excuse."
Of course, the details of the French strategy, and
indeed its protectionist orientation, must be
criticized. But the most crucial factor when imposing
any kind of sanctions - whether a carbon tax or trade
sanctions against Burmese regime or
ruling party - is the consent of those affected who are
themselves struggling for change, a point Sarkozy
hasn't factored in. An Alternate Strategy for
How might one? Turning a carbon tax into a positive
funding flow for the
Daphne Wysham of the Institute for Policy Studies.
Proceeds should go directly to the countries whose
products are being taxed, for the purposes of explicit
greenhouse gas reduction.
These nuances in national-level strategic debates
should be tackled by Northern activists bearing in mind
the Global South's genuine development aspirations.
Regardless, core principles of the progressive movement
are non-negotiable. In advance of
Center protests, here are demands articulated by
Climate Justice Action:
* leaving fossil fuels in the ground;
* reassertingpeoples' and community control over production;
* relocalising food production; * massively reducing
overconsumption, particularly in the North;
* respecting indigenous and forest peoples' rights; and
* recognising the ecological and climate debt owed to the
peoples of the South and making reparations.
If the center is not holding, that's fine: the wave of
courageous direct-action protests against climate
criminals in recent weeks - and the prospect of
'Seattling'
reflection of left pressure that will soon counteract
that from the right. It's our only hope, isn't it. *
Patrick Bond directs the
Centre for Civil Society.
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