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Given
the greatly lowered expectations thrust upon us by world leaders in
advance, it came as no surprise that the outcome of the UN Climate
Change Conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December did not
include mandatory, binding, and enforceable greenhouse gas emission
reductions. Thus, action was delayed once again.
With
the U.S. yet to enact climate
legislation in any form, Washington sent two top leaders at the
last minute to orchestrate things in favor of globalized
capital, which is bent upon maintaining its hydrocarbon-based economy.
Secretary of State Clinton made an appearance to announce that rich
nations would provide financial aid to poor ones to help them adapt to
what is quickly becoming runaway climate change. This was despite the
fact that leaders of the Global South, who have been demanding that the
industrial North pay its climate debt, have made it clear they do not
want charity but reparations for the damage done to their ecosystems,
coastlines, islands, agriculture, water supplies, and human health
caused by global warming.
President Obama,
who managed to tear himself away from the escalation of the war in Afghanistan and Nobel Peace Prize
festivities, finally appeared on the last day of deliberations. He
announced that the U.S. would cut greenhouse gas emissions by a mere 17
percent below 2005 levels by 2020. This amounts to only a four percent
reduction by the 1990 standards set by the rest of the world and shapes
up poorly indeed next to the 40 percent called for by island nations,
currently being inundated by rising sea levels and countries that are
losing their alpine glaciers and fresh water supplies. He pretended to
crack the whip to get delegates to act, but the effect was akin to 40
lashes with a wet noodle since little was accomplished in the way of
solid climate mitigation or adaptation measures.
After
Obama and Clinton arrived, the situation in Copenhagen became increasingly more
repressive and undemocratic. Accredited delegates from major NGOs were
officially banned from the conference. With the exclusion of the vast
majority of nations, a small group of about two dozen world leaders and
their negotiators met behind closed doors on the final day of the
two-week summit to cut a secret deal. Among the chosen were the representatives
of China, India, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico, whose economies are on the
rampage.
The
measures they already had on the table were basically accepted, but are
not impressive. China had pledged a 40 percent reduction by 2020 in the
“energy intensity” of its economy, and India had aimed to reduce carbon
emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 25 percent. These are
only energy-efficiency measures, which will ultimately lead to greater
energy use in the long run as these economies expand and grow.
South Africa had promised to slow the
growth of its emissions to 34 percent below the current annual rate.
Little real progress is expected there since powerful transnational
mining interests use most of the energy and release
most of the pollution in that country.
In
the meantime, the wealthy nations of the northern hemisphere will
continue with various frauds and market-based solutions such as carbon
trading and offsets that will merely create more fictitious capital for
Goldman & Sachs and offer the illusion of cutting greenhouse gases.
As
the planet continues to melt down, they will proliferate more so-called
clean-development mechanisms such as destructive mega-dams and nuclear
reactors that are dirty through and through,
and phony efforts to save the rainforests that will lead to their
decimation with sterile tree plantations. The ruling rich will try to
get away with it, as the climate crisis deepens and the world’s poor
and oppressed bear the brunt of intensifying natural disasters.
The
conference got off to a bad start when negotiations were suspended on
the very first day after the delegates from the poorer G77 nations, led
by Sudan, complained—and rightly so—that the richer ones would be
wriggling out of their obligations to make drastic cuts in their
carbon-dioxide emissions. The G77 and the Bolivarian Alliance for the
Americas (ALBA), led by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, denounced the COP 15 deal
as a cop-out.
Evo Morales, indigenous president of Bolivia, placed the blame for the
global ecological crisis squarely on the capitalist system—where it
belongs. In an interview on “Democracy Now,” he called for limiting
global temperature rise to one degree Celsius, and he was absolutely
right to do so. We can cool down the planet if we draw down carbon by
leaving all fossil fuels in the ground and by establishing a
zero-growth, zero-waste, steady-state, green, sustainable
democratically-planned socialist economy powered by genuinely clean
energy.
The
Danish government faithfully proved its subservience to the fossil-fuel
industry, whose lobbyists were working overtime and calling the shots
at the conference. The mass movement of thousands demanding climate
action and justice in the streets of Copenhagen was met with brutal
force by the Danish politi, who pepper
sprayed, beat, and arrested protesters. Even accredited delegates were
clubbed as they tried to leave the Bella Center.
Climate
crisis activists are currently being held in jail, and there is an
international campaign to win their release.
To
their shame, reformist Greens and liberal think tanks, who are always
willing to compromise and settle for the bare minimum, have hailed the
Copenhagen climate accord as a step forward even though they admit it
falls short of their expectations.
It
is clear that despite the numerous actions that occurred around the
world, the movement must involve the vast majority of toilers in each
society on the planet who are committed to mobilizing ceaselessly if we
are to wrest the productive forces away from the capitalist class and
expropriate them for eco-friendly purposes. That is the only we way we
can possibly save Mother Earth from ecological collapse.
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