Doha Climate Crisis Talks Will Find Critical Clash Of Interests

Conflicts of interests will dominate the upcoming Doha climate crisis meet while the common interest of the humanity will be pushed aside as big capitals are calculating potential gains and possible losses in the emerging climate crisis market. But, the planet’s climate health is turning worse while conflicting capitals are fighting each other.

In its recent report, the World Meteorological Organization said: The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reached a record high – 390.9 parts per million in 2011, “which is a 40 percent increase over levels in 1750, the period humans began burning fossil fuels in earnest”. Levels of other heat-trapping gases including methane, nitrous oxide have also jumped to record altitude. The amount of excess heat prevented from escaping into outer space was 30 percent higher in 2011 than it was in 1990.

Plants and oceans’ capacity to absorb the excess CO2, said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud, “will not necessarily continue in the future” as these natural sinks have been saturated.

Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided, the World Bank’s recently released report, said: All nations will suffer the effects of a world 4C hotter, but it is the poorest countries that will be hit hardest by food scarcity, rising ocean levels, cyclones and droughts. Without significant emissions reductions, the planet’s average temperature could climb by 4C by as early as 2060.

Most vulnerable cities in developing nations including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mexico, Mozambique, the Philippines, Venezuela and Vietnam have been identified in the WB report

Almost immediately before the release of these two reports, a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report said in November: This planet’s temperature will increase by 6C within 88 years, which is triple the goal of the 2009 Copenhagen Accord. Although global carbon intensity is down, energy-related carbon emissions grew by 3 percent from 2010 to 2011.

According to the report, the US carbon intensity and energy-related emissions fell while these reductions were matched or exceeded by a number of industrialized countries including France, the UK, Germany and Italy and they were offset by rising emissions in a number of countries including China, Australia, Turkey, Argentina and India.

Leo Johnson, partner of the PwC, writes in the report’s introduction: “It’s time to plan for a warmer world. Even doubling our current rate of decarburization would still lead to emissions consistent with 6 degrees (Celsius) of warming by the end of the century.”

To meet the Copenhagen Accord’s target, Johnson writes, decarburization by 5.1 percent annually is an imperative. In 2011, the world reduced its carbon intensity by 0.7 percent. “[N]ot once since World War II has the world achieved that rate of decarburization but the task now confronting us is to achieve it for 39 consecutive years.”

Countries have already started facing impact of the climate crisis. Randy Astaiza reported in Business Insider (“11 Islands That Will Completely Disappear When Sea Levels Rise”, Oct. 11, 2012):

Kiribati is negotiating with Fiji to buy up to 5,000 acres of land to relocate its population as that’s their last resort, “as the tides have reached […] homes and villages” of the Kiribati people. Most of its population has already moved to one island, Tarawam, after the rest of their land disappeared in the ocean. A sea level rise of just three feet would submerge the Maldives, the world’s lowest-lying country. Seychelles, the Torres Strait Islands and Palau are facing the absolute uncertainty in the face of ocean’s rising water. Palau’s “coasts are being eroded, its local farmlands tainted by seawater, and its valuable reefs threatened.” The UN declared the approximately 100 residents of Tegua, part of the Torres Strait Islands, the first climate change refugees in 2005. The island of Vanikoro is sinking along with rising sea levels. Micronesia is being eroded away by the sea waters. High tides inundate the Carteret Islands, destroy its crops, wells, and homes. The highest point of the Tuvalu is less than five meters above sea level, but most of it is less than a meter above. Total population of these island-countries is hundreds of thousands.

In 2009, an Andhra University scientists’ research finding published in the Journal of Geophysical Research said Indian summer monsoon rains have been decreasing steadily over the past three decades, a trend not seen in the 19th century.

The monsoon impacts agriculture and water supply, and on these depend the lives of more than a billion South Asian people.

Bangladesh with worsening floods, storms and sea surges is looking at a grim future in terms of climate crisis. Countries in other continents are also facing the same gloomy future.

Assessments and predictions on global sea level bear bleak message. The rise, according to the EPA, is eight inches since 1870; the National Academy of Sciences’ 2009 predictions suggest that by 2100, the level could rise between 16 inches and 56 inches, depending how the world responds to changing climate.

This, obviously a very little description, global climate crisis reality stands as a background of the two-week 2012 UN Climate Change Conference – COP 18 (18th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change)/CMP 8 (8th Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol), which will kick off on November 26 in Doha.

The conference has to search for a legally binding international framework for carbon emission cuts beyond 2012 as the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period will reach to its demise within a few weeks. Financing for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) is also in the conference agenda. Six countries will compete to be the host the GCF: Germany, Mexico, Namibia, Poland, South Korea and Switzerland.

After the Copenhagen COP failure in 2009 and the deal in Durban COP 17 the climate negotiation process made small achievement: the GCF with $100 billion a year to help the poorest and most vulnerable countries to cope with climate crisis.

The climate crisis diplomacy begins at this point. Economies have respective interests, which get reflected in the climate diplomacy. A number of the climate diplomacy actors are powerful.

A number of countries, fewer than the number in the original 1997 Protocol, prefer a Second Kyoto Protocol ready to roll on January 1, 2013 while another group’s choice is non-participation in the process. Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Russia probably will not sign up to the Second phase. Probably, the Second Kyoto Protocol will only find the EU countries, Australia, Norway and Switzerland to sign.

Extension of the Kyoto protocol is probably Brazil’s priority while a number of countries prefer bigger emission cuts.

The US signed the Kyoto Protocol but never ratified it. The US’ argument is: The Protocol didn’t impose any binding commitments on big emerging economies including China, India and Brazil. The Chinese line of reasoning is: China is a developing country; so it shouldn’t face the same requirements of emission reduction as the Western countries face. The Western countries have polluted the atmosphere for centuries, says the Chinese contention.

It should not be hoped that the US-China debate will be resolved in Doha.

Funding of the GCF is an area of debate. The European Council’s choice is private sector and market mechanism. The choice stands on a foundation of economic interests. But, market doesn’t favor the poor and the weak, and market doesn’t follow democratic principles.

Along with these interest-positions, powerful climate crisis is creating changes in areas including perceptions and politics in a number of major economies that are influential in climate diplomacy. Parts of a number of economies or sections of capitals are finding new “horizon” for reaping profit.

Current series of extreme weather trajectory is changing public perception in the US. A recent poll by Rasmussen found: 68% of Americans perceive climate change as a “serious problem”. In July, a poll by the Washington Post found 60% of the Americans surveyed perceived climate change was real. Some ultra-conservative politicians are also now concerned with the crisis.

In the US, in terms of climate sensitivity, it’s a big shift. In a Rasmussen poll in 2009, only 46% of Americans perceived climate change was a serious issue. In 2010, Gallup found 48% of Americans perceived the seriousness of global warming was exaggerated.

Two major hurricanes within 14 months including the superstorm Sandy, the recent extreme weather, record high temperatures are pushing the US people connect the changing weather and the climate crisis. This year, 2012, is the warmest year on record in the US, the warmest spring on record, the third-hottest summer on record, and July was the hottest month since weather records began in 1895. About 60 percent of the contiguous US faced drought conditions.

Obama was explicit on the climate crisis issue after his reelection. In his victory speech, in his first press conference since winning reelection, he mentioned the “destructive power of a warming planet”. “Climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children's future”, said Obama. He said: “I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions.” The US president said: “[W]e’ve got an obligation to future generations to do something about it.”

These statements are different from the utterances of his predecessors. But, sometimes, wishes turn solo. Uncertain politicalscape makes many journeys impossible.

Big businesses with relationships to potential climate crisis market are super-active in the US: the catastrophe-modeling, catastrophe risk companies, insurance industry, reinsurers, designing and construction industry, neo-fuel industry, and many others. A section of them has already got involved while another is getting prepared to get involved in the emerging climate crisis market. Companies are planning to invest billions of dollars to construct carbon capture and storage (CCS) mechanism, and infrastructure. Concepts are being floated to build safer nuke power plants.

As an asynchronous reality, the climate crisis deniers’ camp is still strong. Millions of dollars were spent by oil and gas lobby (OGL) to promote oil, gas, and coal interests. Fossil fuel-friendly campaigns were launched. Political maneuvering is there. Lobbyists know the art of making bubbles, painting rosy pictures and propagating fabricated threats.

A section in the fuel-conservative camp has not liked Obama’s reelection. To the section, the reelection is synonymous to “the empowerment of government over the liberty of the individual and free markets” and “a profound rejection of the benefits of free enterprise”.

A highly profitable industry gets big amount of subsidies. Its anger with scientific findings on climate crisis, and political support to the fact of the crisis is not without reason. The profit margin, the industry apprehends, may get squeezed. So, there is the free-market US think tank the Heartland Institute, the American Petroleum Institute, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity concerned with market’s liberty.

Market competition is pushing down coal industry in a number of countries. Its competitor is natural gas.

In the UK, nuclear, wind, wave and tidal energy industries – more than 1,000 companies – have made an unprecedented joint appeal to ministers not to abandon their commitment to combat climate change. They want a legally binding decarburization target for electricity generation. But the government lacks uniform position on the issue, a reflection of conflicting interests.

Similar conflicts of interests, essentially conflict of competing capitals, are overwhelming economy and politics in countries. At the same time, states, as a single state or as a group, represent conflicting interests also. Climate crisis diplomacy reflects these conflicting interests while people’s interest is thrown out from agenda.

A glimpse of history helps in these moments of inaction.

Droughts brought collapse of the Classic Maya civilization over centuries. The Maya people’s agriculture got disrupted, big cities gradually crumbled down, people abandoned cities, instability and political collapse followed. Research by Douglas Kennett, environmental anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University, found the agonizing fact. (D.J. Kennett et al, “Development and disintegration of Maya political systems in response to climate change”, Science, Vol. 338, November 9, 2012, p. 788, doi:10.1126/science.1226299)

However, part of mainstream is now concerned with the climate crisis. The crisis will not only ultimately hurt drive for profit, but endanger profit’s cherished status quo also.

“We will never end poverty if we don’t tackle climate change. It is one of the single biggest challenges to social justice today”, the WB chief told reporters on a recent conference call. The statement tells the urgency.

But, capitals have not yet resolved own conflicts. So, the crisis remains unattended by its sections, remains on bargaining table.

Now, it’s universally accepted, other than a few deniers, climate crisis is a planetary crisis, a human crisis. Now, there are at least 25 million climate refugees. More than 1 billion people, most of them are poor, live in low-lying coastal areas. The planet is facing climate catastrophe. To the people, climate crisis is not a hoax. To avoid irreversible damage to humanity, the present pattern of economy – the maximization of profit – has to be changed as essential steps are not taken simply to maximize profit.

Energy Inequality And Energy Poor, Ignored Aspects Of Energy Crisis

The crisis in energy has cropped up on the soil of class interest as energy consumption moves along class line. In the present day world, the more a class possesses the more energy it consumes, and as a consequence, wars the class wages for accumulation and for maintaining its high-energy consuming life style aggravate the energy situation pushing it to the level of crisis.

High-carbon consuming life style based on private property at majestic level is threatening the poor, whose life is limited within the narrow neighborhood of low-carbon consumption. Capital is trying to impose its burden of energy-squandering sin on the masses of the poor, who are not even aware of capital’s business-of-future as capital keeps them in the dark of ignorance. The business-of-future is going on with the complex carbon trading, and the tapping of solar energy and “transporting” it across continent and sea. A section of capital is concentrating in this area of energy with all the possibilities of depriving the poor.

Energy crisis is usually viewed as a contradiction, gradually turning difficult to resolve, between the dwindling supply of oil and its increasing demand. Most of the discussions concentrate into this precinct, and thus overlook other aspects of the crisis. Even, the supply-demand aspect is viewed only in the perspective of advanced capitalist countries. Consequently, the entire discussion fails to look into other basics related to the crisis.

The discrepancy in the distribution of energy between the centre and the periphery, and between the people at the bottom and the absolute minority group at the top is not usually raised in the discourse on the energy crisis. But, referring the World Development Report 1986 the World Commission on Environment and Development (popularly referred as the Brundtland Commission) said: The growth of energy demand in response to industrialization, urbanization, and societal affluence has led to an extremely uneven global distribution of primary energy consumption (Our Common Future).

With intensified class war being waged by capital, aggravating economic situation, increasing inequality, lessening of access to the basics of life, deteriorating ecological reality, especially the calamities getting created by climate change, the food crisis, lack of democracy for the people including little scope for peoples’ participation in political life in most countries, especially in the Third and Fourth Worlds, lack of accountability in these societies, safeguarding the interests of the capitals involved in these countries, patronization of comprador and/or plundering ruling segments in these lands, and dominance of accumulating, at times, plundering and/or speculating interests have worsened the crisis. These have created energy crisis encompassing the life of billions at the bottom.

Little rays of light have reached the life of the people in many countries in the periphery though lots of money were and are being spent in the energy sector. But, the people do not know the plan, the design, the fund allocated, the allocation procedure, the contractor selected, the selection procedure, etc. All these are known only to the dominating segment, the bureaucrats, and the local collaborators of the capital from the center of the globalized system. These vested interests decide all related issues, reap the fruits, and have luxurious life. The crisis breeds profit. The people have to pay, in all way, through hardship, increased labor, repayment of external debt, loss of crop yield or low yield, loss of wage and working day or through longer working hour, higher prices of essentials, etc., although they have no or little access to the facilities. In countries the crisis turns out a funnel for squandering of public money on the one hand, and putting burden on and increasing suffering of the people on the other.

The energy crisis in the centre of the world system and in the periphery is not the same. The factors are different. These manifest in different ways and behave differently. The concepts of priority, risk, vulnerability, etc. also differ in these two parts of this divided world. In the centre even, the energy issue is dealt by the dominating interest in its way, not by the people. And, its interest lies in the quicker and higher, in relative term, profit. Most of the discussions on energy crisis miss this aspect also.

The world view of the dominating classes in the present world system is manifested in its concept of “free” market that includes free trade, free flow of capital, market mechanism, monopoly, etc. and this is one of the conveyors that carry the seed of crisis in the energy sector. This is the practice/approach/mechanism of the world capital even after The Great Financial Crisis.

One of the ways for overcoming the energy challenge faced by the world requires technologies superior to those available today. Cost-competitiveness of renewable energy technologies is also needed to face today’s energy crisis.

But, capital will not invest in any technology if the rate of profit is lower in the technology. The same is with investment in research and development. Capital will pump out the last stock if return is immediate and higher by drying out the stock. Capital will get engaged in speculation if it finds higher gains there than investing in any future energy source. Capital will not move an inch until peak oil or destruction of forest or some other issue appears as a threat to its profit, and until renewable energy, etc. appear as a promising market. It will even find out ways to reap profit from the growing problem of global warming. Capital will not provide energy to the poor unless it is needed for regeneration of capital and unless the poor appear a lucrative market than the speculation in bubble market. This basic nature of functioning of capital is related to energy crisis.

Energy merchants are now getting interested in the 4 billion low-income people in the base of the world economic pyramid as they form a market. Their “willingness to pay” as consumers is actually a yardstick for measuring the low-income people’s dominated position/strength/weakness/tolerance/intolerance to get appropriated, and to measure their aggregate purchasing power, which is capital’s power to widen the surplus labor time of the people, and an incentive to capital to let the low-income people have access to energy.

The World Resources Institute estimated that the total "base of the pyramid" household energy market in Africa, Asia, eastern Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean to be $433 billion (The Next 4 Billion).

Already, the private sector, the “angel” of prosperity, has stepped in the crisis-ridden energy sector. Its “loneliness” is being overcome by the warm company of “public” sector, a patronizing hand of state at the cost of public money. An attractive name has also been innovated by the creative souls: public-private partnership, a flag to be kept unfurled till the private owners give up “shyness”, limit to their capacity, to grab the public share. “[P]rivate sector involvement in energy has been increasing. Between 1990 and 1999 seventy-six developing countries introduced private participation in their electricity and gas sectors by awarding more than 700 projects and investitures of shareholdings in electricity and gas enterprises. These transactions involved private investments totaling almost US$187 billion. While middle-income developing countries have led this revolution, low-income countries also have been active participants” (Penelope J. Brook and John Besant-Jones, “Reaching the poor in the age of energy reform”). The merchants of this market are innovating models targeted at the billions at the bottom. Prospects and promises for profit will determine the pace of capital to this market. But the “promise and prospect” of the market is a limitation of capital at the same time.

These aspects can’t and should not be ignored while looking at the issues related to energy crisis. These are, indeed, views based on class. But, the issue of energy crisis will bog down into confusion if it’s not viewed from class perspective. Interests of the dispossessed, of billions of working women and men, can’t be overlooked and ignored while discussing the energy crisis as the billions of toiling masses is vital, brain and heart, for civilization, is significant for the existence of our planet, as this billions make progress possible, as with creativity and labor power this billions create resources for making further achievements humanity requires and aspires. Civilization neither can be moved forward nor can be taken to further heights by keeping this billions energy-starved. Capital, starving and striving only for profit, nourishes the energy inequality as it stands opposed to the interests of the billions of energy poor. But, a system making energy inequality its integral part can’t be an efficient system for sustaining life on the Earth. This perspective shouldn’t be ignored while looking at the issue of energy crisis.

[This is the introductory part of the chapter, “Energy Inequality and Energy Poor”, in The Age of Crisis (2009) by Farooque Chowdhury, a Dhaka-based freelancer. This has slightly been modified for clarity and completeness. For identification, the part can be considered as part 1 of the chapter.]

Of Birds, Rivers And Greed

Greed leaves no place for singing birds and murmuring rivers. Maximizing accumulation is the force that drives greed. Appropriating nature and labor is the cheapest way greed finds for maximization of accumulation.

But birds sustain a living ecology. Rivers flow to the same destination: sustain life.

Birds and rivers are required also for cruel appropriators as the greedy group loves only their sustenance, and a living ecology is needed for sustenance, and birds and rivers are part of ecological system that help sustain life. But turning inconsiderate to life and ecology, to birds, rivers, air and soil is the irony of appropriation. Thus appropriators are directly in conflict with ecology.

Facts from almost all lands, from the North and the South Hemispheres reveal the trend: onslaught on ecology.

In Europe, according to a Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme survey, 36 species of farmland birds including the skylark and the meadow pipit have declined in their number: from 600 million to 300 million between 1980 and 2009. Britain is one of the worst suffering countries by losses to its farmland birds. The EU enforced farming policies are the catalysts for this catastrophe. Destroying hedgerows, wetlands and meadows has “contributed” to this bird-massacre.

What's the “holy” reason for the destruction? It's more and more; more profit.

Ittefaq , a leading Bangla Dhaka daily, reported on May 24, 2012: Industrial wastes, including effluent and smoke from 16 re-rolling mills, 49 brick kilns and other industrial units including paper pulp, fertilizer, textile, dyeing, battery, rubber, plastic factories, more than hundred in numbers, are threatening life and occupation of around three hundred-thousand dwellers in Roopganj, an almost industrial area near the Bangladesh capital city Dhaka. The residents are not feeling safe with air and water. There is noise pollution. Wastes are being drained into the Sitalakkhaa and Baaloo, two rivers running through the area.

These two incidents, part of a process, one from an advanced capitalist country and another from a peripheral country, are not isolated facts. Now-a-days media around the world carry thousands of similar news and facts that unravel relations between the type of economy and defacing of the ecology and environment. Now-a-days ecological crisis threatening all forms of life in this earth need no explanation. Even masters of this on-going ecocide – the owners of capital – don't dare to publicly deny the crisis, their sin.

About two years ago, WWF, the international organization involved in the area of ecology, said in its Living Planet report: A second planet will be required by 2030 to meet our needs as over-use of Earth's natural resources and carbon pollution have become critical. If all human being in this world used resources at the same per capita rate as the US or the UAE, four and a half planets would be needed. More than 70 countries were exhausting their freshwater sources at an alarming, unsustainable rate. About two-thirds of these countries experience water scarcity ranging from moderate to severe. In 2007, the world's 6.8 billion humans were living 50% beyond the planet's threshold of sustainability. The report highlighted the rich-poor ecological gap. In 1970-2007, an index of biodiversity showed a world decline of almost 30%. In the tropics, it was alarming: 60%.

No brain with logic will claim that the acts are isolated from the world economic system: capitalism. “From the outset,” Joe Bageant, author of the book about working class in America Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War , writes, “capitalism was always about the theft of the people's sustenance. It was bound to lead to the ultimate theft – the final looting of the source of their sustenance – nature.” (“Our Plunder of Nature will End up Killing Capitalism and Our Obscene Lifestyles”, Countercurrents , July 13, 2010 )

“The main feature of capitalism is the seductive assertion that you can get something for nothing in this world.” (ibid.) Owners of this system, the capitalists, Joe continues, “hate any sort of cost.” They, he describes, “remain unimpressed by global warming, or melting polar ice caps, or Southwestern desert armadillos showing up in Canada , or hurricanes getting bigger and more numerous every year.”

These are the elites in control of the world environment in continents and countries. “Just before the economy blew out,” according to Joe, “these elites held slightly less than $80 trillion. After the blowout/bailout, their combined investment wealth was estimated at a little over $83 trillion. To give some idea, this is four years of the gross output of all the human beings on earth.”

This massive money power takes hold of political power. Owning this unimaginably monstrous money-political power system they put their footprint on ecology that is changing the planet's environment irreversibly.

This system, the masters of the system in the center, in the periphery, in between the center and the periphery, try their best to maximize profit by minimizing cost, by appropriating labor, robbing nature, grabbing everything within their reach, putting costs on public. Pollution, destruction of ecology and ruination of nature thus creep into public domain – a human concern.

Acts of the masters are turning into crime, crime against the planet, against posterity, against humanity.

The World Future Council leaders said: “These are crimes against the future … These are crimes that will not only injure future generations, but destroy any future at all for millions of people.”

The Council has called for appointing “ombudspersons for future generations”, “guardians appointed at global, national and local levels whose job would be to help safeguard environmental and social conditions by speaking up authoritatively for future generations in all areas of policy-making. This could take the shape of a parliamentary commissioner, a guardian, a trustee or an auditor, depending on how it best fits into a nation's governance structure.”

But questions are there: How far the ombudspersons can act where power structure, economy and political power is of, by and for polluters, grabbers, eco-murderers? If they can act, then, why do environment law/court/ministry/inspectors, depending on arrangement in countries, can't act? What will happen if polluters grab that proposed holy post as have happened in countries by different lobbies/interests/gangs? What's the guarantee that the proposed holy persons' observations/edicts/verdicts will be implemented? Are not there instances of trampling/violation of all basic, fundamental, moral, ethical, human, natural, principled rights/practices/conventions/laws/rules around the world, in countries?

Out of their sense of urgency the WFC leaders' suggestion sounds nice, but not functional. It's detached from reality, the socio-economic-environmental -political reality.

What's the reality?

An answer is provided by Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster in their seminal analysis What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism: A Citizen's Guide to Capitalism and the Environment (2011): Capitalism is a system that must continually expand, a system that, by its very nature, will eventually come up against the reality of finite natural resources, a system geared to expansionist growth in the search for profits that will inevitably transgress planetary boundaries.

By its very nature the system stands against ecology and environment as its only concern is profit, nothing else. Standing for environment will lead to questioning the ever hungry system.

Pushing 1 billion persons down to extreme poverty, and enriching a few, whose consumption is threatening the planet is one of the major “contributions” of the system. Other than the hungry and starved, there are energy poor, electricity poor, water poor, information poor, basic rights poor, safety poor, they are the poor masses deprived of honor and dignity, and there are the food rich, energy rich, electricity rich, water rich, information rich, luxury rich, power and privilege rich, resource rich, consumption rich, the rich few controlling everything.

Imbalance and inequity at this level can't sustain environment and ecology. The first one, imbalance and inequity, is linear, ever expanding while the later one, environment and ecology, demands diversity, tolerance, consideration, accommodation. Observance related to environment turns hollow and chattering if this aspect of political economy is ignored.

One of the books edited by Farooque Chowdhury from Dhaka is the recently published The Great Financial Crisis, What Next, interviews with John Bellamy Foster .

Deny Global Warming, Intimidate A Scientist, And Pocket Some Money

Denying the fact of global warming is “not” a sin. Intimidating a scientist providing facts on global warming is “not” an offence. These are in the interest of a bigger interest: an economy warming up and periling the world, and in eternal wish of perpetuating status quo. A section of the world masters clutch this pattern of praxis.

Michael E. Mann, a scientist at Penn State University , experienced this “sweet” fact. His research confirmed the fact of global warming. The results of his study were published in Nature in 1998. His finding showed a recent unprecedented alarming global temperature increase, and the increase in temperature is linked to human induced activities, to cars, factories, etc. Many other later studies have confirmed the finding. But the scientist was persecuted by conservative forces for telling the truth.

The data Mann got appeared the shape of a hockey stick as these were put as a graph, and the name, Hockey stick graph , and a confusion were brought to the Earth. His finding was used prominently by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Hockey stick graph angered global warming deniers, and Mann was made “a target of right-wing denial campaigners.” A section of scientists tied to status quo and a section of politicians of the same feather vigorously opposed it and created confusion. The opposition ultimately appeared in true color – status quo politics. Conservatives and capital joined hands in denying the fact.

While seeds of confusion were being sown Mann had to bear “the full brunt of attacks by climate change deniers, including death threats and accusations of misappropriating funds,” as The Guardian said. (“Death threats, intimidation and abuse: climate change scientist Michael E. Mann counts the cost of honesty”, March 3, 2012 ) “Among the tactics used against Mann were the theft and publication, in 2009, of emails he had exchanged with climate scientist Professor Phil Jones of East Anglia University . Selected, distorted versions of these emails were then published […] in order to undermine UN climate talks due to begin in Copenhagen a few weeks later”. Using those emails to kill off the climate negotiation was “a crime against humanity, a crime against the planet,” Mann said. (ibid.)

A number of policy foundations threw a barrage of intimidation to Mann. These “were set up by privately-funded groups that included Koch Industries and Scaife Foundations and bore names such as the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity and the Heartland Institute. These groups bombarded Mann with freedom of information requests […]” He was served with a subpoena by a Republican congressman to provide access to his correspondence. The aim was to intimidate the scientist. He was “attacked by Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican attorney general of Virginia who has campaigned to have the scientist stripped of academic credentials. Several committees of inquiry have investigated Mann's work. All have exonerated him. Thousands of emails have been sent to Mann, many deeply unpleasant. ‘You and your colleagues… ought to be shot, quartered and fed to the pigs along with your whole damn families', said one. ‘I was hopin [sic] I would see the news and you commited [sic] suicide', ran another.” “‘On one occasion, I had to call the FBI after I was sent an envelope with a powder in it', Mann adds. ‘It turned out to be cornmeal but again the aim was intimidation. I ended up with police security tape all over my office doors and windows. That is the life of a climate scientist today in the US .'” (ibid.)

Mann's book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars is coming out in April. “The book details the ‘disingenuous and cynical' methods used by those who have tried to disprove his findings.” (ibid.)

Intimidating Mann is not an isolated act. This type of activities has connection to bigger money. But, ultimately this comes to public view. Intimidators and global warming deniers are exposed. One such story is Chicago-based Heartland Institute's.

The institute's documents related to its donors, spending and anti-science strategy were leaked recently. The institute is one of the leading deniers in the US that strains to create confusion in the public “mind” by saying that “climate change is a controversial, unproven theory.”

The leaked documents prove that the oil-rich Koch brothers donated $200,000 to HI in 2011and before. The Koch brothers' involvement makes HI a shill for oil companies. The brothers have backed climate-denier Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign.

One of the documents reveal HI's plans to spend $100,000 to build an anti-climate change curriculum for schools that “shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain — two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.”

Recently, David Suzuki writes, someone sent documents from the HI's board of directors' Jan. 17 meeting to persons and organizations including DeSmogBlog, a website devoted to exposing the climate change denial. “The documents confirm much of what we already knew about Heartland […]” Suzuki says: HI doesn't publicly reveal its funding source and expenditure. “These documents indicate that Heartland has offered U.S. weatherman blogger and climate change denier Anthony Watts close to $90,000 for a new project. They also reveal that Heartland funds other prominent deniers, including ‘Craig Idso ($11,600 per month), Fred Singer ($5,000 per month, plus expenses), Robert Carter ($1,667 per month), and a number of other individuals' […] And even though it has received funding from wealthy individuals and corporations in the fossil fuel and tobacco industries, including the Koch brothers and RJR Tobacco, it gets most of its money from a single anonymous donor”: $4.6 million in 2008. “The papers also confirm that the institute's primary mission is to discredit the established science of human-caused climate change.” (“It's time that climate-change deniers were exposed”, Feb. 21, 2012 )

Citing leaked documents Josh Israel and Brad Johnson expose 19 major corporations backing the HI. The documents reveal “the think tank's plans to teach students that climate change is a hoax […]” ( ThinkProgress Green ) The institute, however, “ deemed at least one of the documents fake and some tampered with.” The think tank's 2010-2011 “corporate backers included Altria Client Services Inc. : $90,000, Amgen , USA : $25,000, Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. : $5,000, AT&T : $100,000, BB&T : $16,105, Comcast Corporation : $35,000, General Motors Foundation : $30,000, GlaxoSmithKline : $50,000, Microsoft Corporation : $59,908, Nucor Corporation : $502,000, PepsiCo, Inc. : $5,000, Pfizer : $130,000, Reynolds American Inc. : $110,000, Time Warner Cable : $20,000.” (Jaeah Lee, “Which Major Corporations Are Backing a Climate-Denier Think Tank?”, Mother Jones , Feb. 18, 2012 ) Other companies included Diageo: $10,000, Eli Lilly & Company: $25,000, KCI: $115,000, LKQ Corporation: $24,500, XL Group: $35,000. Combined contributions of the companies exceeded $1.3 million for an array of projects. The AP independently verified their contents. ( ThinkProgress Green ) HI also collects money from Philip Morris parent company Altria and the tobacco giant Reynolds American. (Cory Doctorow, “Leaked climate-change denial lobby docs came from water scientist”, Feb. 21)

However, a number of companies have issued statements about their contributions, but none have committed to ending their support for the HI. A Diageo spokesperson said: “Diageo provided a small contribution (nearly two years ago) […] related to an excise tax issue. We vigorously oppose climate skepticism and our actions are proof of this. We will be reviewing any further association with this organization.” A GlaxoSmithKline spokesperson said: “GSK absolutely does not endorse or support the [HI]'s views on the environment and climate change. We have in the past provided a small amount of funding to support the Institute's healthcare newsletter and a meeting.” While disavowing climate denial, Microsoft has indicated no intention to stop its in-kind tax-deductible contributions to the think tank. General Motors defended the HI as “careful and considerate.” Forecast The Facts has established a petition to GM asking them to stop funding climate denial. ( ThinkProgress Green ) It's only part of a story. There are also other parts of the denial story.

Money business with the global warming issue is quite old. In 2010, after analyzing publicly available campaign finance records the Climate Action Network (CAN) stated that “a number of European companies are supporting climate legislation blockers in the U.S. by funding the campaigns of republican candidates to the U.S. Senate.” The CAN finding was that a number of big European industrial companies including Arcelor Mittal, GDF Suez, BP, BASF, Bayer and Lafarge already spent a total of 171.000 Euro on candidates. “They are funding almost exclusively Senate candidates who have been outspoken in their opposition to comprehensive climate policy in the U.S. , and candidates who actively deny the scientific consensus that climate change is happening and is caused by people. These companies are simultaneously lobbying against aggressive emissions reductions in Europe – and are arguing that such reductions should not be pursued until the United States takes action”, it said.

Indicating the climate change deniers Bryan Walsh writes: “[T]hey refuse even to believe that a problem exists — despite an overwhelming scientific consensus that says it does. One of America 's major political parties has, in effect, adopted denial as policy.” (“Who's Bankrolling the Climate-Change Deniers?”, Time , Oct. 4, 2011 )

Citing sociologists Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State University and Aaron McCright of Michigan State University Bryan writes: “[C]limate denialism exists in part because there has been a long-term, well-financed effort on the part of conservative groups and corporations to distort global-warming science. That's the conclusion of a chapter the two researchers recently wrote for The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society . ‘Contrarian scientists, fossil-fuel corporations, conservative think tanks and various front groups have assaulted mainstream climate science and scientists for over two decades,' Dunlap and McCright write. ‘The blows have been struck by a well-funded, highly complex and relatively coordinated denial machine.'” (ibid.)

“Fossil-fuel companies like Exxon and Peabody Energy — which obviously have a business interest in slowing any attempt to reduce carbon emissions — have combined with traditionally conservative corporate groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and conservative foundations like the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity, to raise doubts about the basic validity of what is, essentially, a settled scientific truth. That message gets amplified by conservative think tanks — like the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute — and then picked up by conservative media outlets […] and cable TV.

“For both Big Oil and Big Smoke, that playbook is lethally simple: don't straight-up refute the science, just raise skepticism and insist that the findings are ‘unsettled' and that ‘more research' is necessary. Repeat that again and again regardless of the latest research, and you help block the formation of the solid majority needed to create any real political change. (ibid.)

Climate crisis denial is well organized. Claims have been made that lobbyists including the Western Fuels Association funded efforts to undermine the scientific basis of climate crisis explanation. In 1998, the American Petroleum Institute organized discussions between oil companies, trade associations and conservative think tanks. The API provided fund for research critical of the Hockey stick graph. In June 2002, the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists published a paper arguing against the IPCC findings and the Kyoto Protocol.

Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway's Merchants of Doubt (2010) cites collusion between private corporations, conservative think tanks and conservative scientists to create confusion so that scientific consensus on current burning issues are not questioned as the burning issues have been blazed by the present economic world order.

Since long, climate crisis issue has turned into a political issue. A section of capital is fully in politics with the issue. Sections of conservatives deny the fact of climate crisis while the rest of the human society is concerned with the facts. Contradictory activities and interests have made it also a class issue. Interests opposed to people, especially the poor are well aware of it. All their activities, in economy, politics, diplomacy, propaganda, in bargaining conclaves, in education, in scientific pursuits, reflect this. All their efforts are to keep people unaware, uninformed, misinformed, demobilized. It's not only labor's, entire people's interests also stand opposed to the status quo interests in the global warmsphere.

However, there is effort and hope as “Mann insists he will not give up. ‘I have a six-year-old daughter and she reminds me what we are fighting for.' […C]limate change deniers and their oil and coal industry backers have overstepped the mark and goaded scientists to take action. He points to a recent letter, signed by 250 members of the US National Academy of Science, including 11 Nobel laureates, and published in Science . The letter warns about the dangers of the current attacks on climate scientists and calls ‘for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them.' ‘Words like those give me hope', says Mann.” ( The Guardian , op. cit.) The more people get mobilized the more there will be hope.

Democratic Struggle And The Struggle For The Environment Are Tied Together

By Fred Magdoff & Farooque Chowdhury

Interview of Professor Fred Magdoff by Farooque Chowdhury on climate crisis

“People's democratic struggle and the struggle for the environment should be intimately tied together. If the environmental issues are brought front and center within the people's struggles it might even result in more support for change”, said Fred Magdoff , co-author of What Every Environmentalist Needs To Know about Capitalism, A Citizen's Guide to Capitalism and the Environment (with John Bellamy Foster. MR Press). I n an interview, first carried by MRzine , Fred Magdoff, professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont and adjunct professor of crop and soil science at Cornell University said: “We should oppose all ‘market oriented' so-called ‘solutions'. They are not actually solutions, but rather just a new way to make money.” Prof. Magdoff writes frequently on political economy. His most recent books are The Great Financial Crisis (written with John Bellamy Foster, MR Press) and Agriculture and Food in Crisis (edited with Brian Tokar, MR Press).

In the backdrop of climate crisis threatening millions of people around the world and their struggle for democratic life, and the coming climate talks in Durban, CoP 17, Fred Magdoff ( FM ) was interviewed in late-November, 2011 on climate crisis by Farooque Chowdhury ( FC ), a Dhaka-based freelancer. Following is the text of the interview:

FC: We know CoP 17 is going to begin in Durban . What issues should the most affected/vulnerable countries raise in the conference?

FM: The most affected and vulnerable countries are clearly concerned about the lack of urgency felt by the wealthy countries. The crux of the issue is to get a commitment from the United States , Europe, and Japan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There is some indication that China is beginning to move in that direction, although its rapid pace of growth may outweigh efforts to reduce emissions. Although effects are already felt in the U.S. and Europe , the most difficult results of climate change have been felt in the poorer countries and among vulnerable people. The sea level rise along with warming is necessitating the transfer of Alaskan villages away from the coast. Seawater intrusion in Vietnam 's Mekong Delta region is causing salinity to develop in some of the rice soils, reducing their productivity. The melting of the Andean glaciers has already resulted in water shortages during the dry season.

FC: There is the debt crisis in Europe . The Great Financial Crisis has not retreated to its den. What will be the probable impact of these on the CoP 17?

FM: The theme that is commonly expressed by those wishing to do nothing is that a movement to restrict greenhouse gas emission would cost jobs. Fewer coal miners, less electricity generated (if coal powered electric generating plants were closed down), and so on. So they say that this is not the time to do something that would cost jobs. Of course, it is just an excuse. If a transition was planned and done well many jobs could be created. Also, what kind of society and economy do we have that would say that we need to continue polluting so people can work? This is not only an irrational economic/social/political system but also a dangerous one.

FC: In the backdrop of conflicting interests of major polluters, which is essentially conflict of interest of related capitals for their accumulation, what should be the negotiating strategy of most vulnerable countries in CoP 17?

FM: Far be it from me to give advice to the most vulnerable countries. They seem to be very well aware of the political problems. They have previously tried a number of innovative strategies and I am sure that they will continue to do so.

FC: Is there any change in the climate crisis negotiation scenario since the CoP 16 in Cancun ?

FM: The position of the wealthy countries has if anything solidified and hardened. There is an Guardian (UK) article of November 20, 2011 that is titled “ Rich nations 'give up' on new climate treaty until 2020” and has as its subtitle: “ Ahead of critical talks and despite pledge for new treaty by 2012, biggest economies privately admit likelihood of long delay.” This, of course, has been greeted by the most vulnerable with dismay and anger.

FC: As a participant, you presented a key note paper in the Mother Earth conference in Bolivia . There is the Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia . A ministry in the country looks after these rights. Have the deliberations and call of the conference, and the step by Bolivia made any impact in today's discourse on climate crisis?

FM: I think that Bolivia played a very important role following the failure of Copenhagen meetings in December of 2009. Just bringing so many people together in Cochabamba , Bolivia in April of 2010 was quite a feat. The discussion was very good as was the final declaration of the conference. One of small things that happened was the exposure to the large group of how the United States was using a money offer in order to get Bolivia and Ecuador to sign on to the Copenhagen statement drafted mainly by the wealthy countries. A cabinet minister from Ecuador said that she was authorized to tell the assembled people that Ecuador refused the money but was prepared to offer the United States the same amount of money if it would agree to sign the Kyoto protocols. Needless to say, there was plenty of laughter after that statement.

FC: Is there any conflict, but not articulated, between the dominating economic interests and people's interests in the position emerging economies have taken in climate crisis negotiation?

FM: YES! The main conflict is one of the interests of capitalism as a system and of its most powerful representatives. Since at the heart of the issue is the normal way capitalism functions — it has to continue growing or else it's in crisis and has no other goal other than the accumulation of more and more capital. It would take a VERY enlightened leader of one of the leading rich capitalist countries to even attempt to take on the vested interests that are perfectly happy with the way things are.

FC: If “yes”, how to resolve this contradiction or what program should be there from people's perspective in the emerging economies?

FM: This is certainly a very difficult question to answer. Perhaps an equivalent of “direct action” activism is needed by the most vulnerable. Maybe disrupting the workings of the UN or other world organizations might get some positive results.

FC: A portion of capital is now-a-days active to make a climate deal as climate crisis threatens its domain. At the same time, to a section of capital, climate crisis appears a potential market. How to ensure people's interests in this market that is making climate crisis a commodity?

FM: I think that we should oppose all “market oriented” so-called “solutions.” They are not actually solutions, but rather just a new way to make money. They give the appearance of accomplishing something, although they are rife with fraud and do not solve the problem even if well carried out.

FC: What role can people's organizations play in respective countries/societies that can impact climate crisis negotiation? Should these only be confined in raising demands, organizing demonstrations, etc. or along with these, widen public space through mobilizing people in positive, locally practicable approaches?

FM: It is up to the creativity and energy of the people to develop new approaches to the negotiations. It is not clear to me how to negotiate when one group is not really interested. This is something like what is happening in the U.S. Congress where the Republican Party has absolutely no interest in negotiations, whatever the consequences.

FC: Can participatory climate assessment at local level be a tool, a better one than mere forming human chains, etc. for a shorter period, to make people actively aware and to actively mobilize them on the climate crisis issue?

FM: Using a participatory assessment to make people aware of their climate and the implications of changes that are occurring can certainly be useful. It is also important to start discussions and even planning at the local level for sea level rise, droughts, floods, hot weather, etc. — whatever is most relevant to the local or regional situation. There are low-tech ways of lessening some of the detrimental effects.

FC: Will not climate crisis negatively impact people's democratic struggle?

FM: I think that the people' democratic struggle and the struggle for the environment should be intimately tied together. The climate crisis, as well as the other environmental crises that are occurring, should make it clearer to people that these are crises of the system itself. And the only meaningful way to deal with social as well as environmental problems is to organize a new society based on equality, democracy, and care for the environment. So the issue itself provides another argument against the capitalist system.

FC: Should the crisis be viewed as a potential threat to people's struggle for a decent, democratic life?

FM: The way I view it, while making things more difficult for people, climate changes provide another argument against the capitalist system and provides more urgency to seek systemic changes. If the environmental issues are brought front and center within the people's struggles it might even result in more support for change.

FC: Is not there the need to include climate demands in the program for democratic struggle, targeting the global and local climate criminal capitals that are snatching away atmospheric space from people?

FM: Absolutely. This must become a central part of the struggle. And I would broaden the issue to other types of environmental degradation — chemical pollution of air, water, and food; overfishing by factory-size boats causing depletion of fish stocks; soil erosion and degradation; depletion of fresh water supplies; etc.

FC: Can organizing climate crime tribunals at respective levels be a forum for active mobilization and protest by climate-poor?

FM: Yes. I think that this is one of the ways that more attention can be focused on the issues and on the intransigence of the wealthy countries.

FC: Thank you, for the interview.

The politics with climate crisis

The NewAge Editorial, November 6, 2009
There is the biggest stake: investment, private financing for reducing emissions in the underdeveloped countries. There are investors with trillions of dollars willing to get engaged in the climate crisis business. So, there are corporations, lobbyists, brokers, a section of politicians, a section of media. The climate crisis business-walas, however, need a framework to secure their investment and return, writes Farooque Chowdhury

CLIMATE crisis is not beyond politics and geopolitics. Market is there in climate crisis. Profit is there also. So, the stakes are. And, the stakes are of trillions of dollars. It is the stakes of the rich. People have a stake there in climate crisis. It is their life. And, this life has not been designed and determined by them. It has been imposed on them. They have been and are being compelled to live in it, in a life of hunger, poverty, ignorance, uncertainty, insecurity. The hunger is not only of food; the poverty is not only of resources; the ignorance is not only of formal education; the uncertainty is not only with unemployment; the insecurity is not only with shelter. They are poor in terms of energy, travel, entertainment, luxury, water, food, air, dwelling space, atmospheric space, information, rest, technology, organisation, power, squandering and indulgence, climate, and all other aspects of life. Here lies the seed of contradiction: those enjoying and squandering much and those having nothing or near to nothing to squander. It is the old ‘story’ of two worlds: of the rich and of the poor. Climate politics stands on this earth of contradiction, a contradiction between having a life of too much and a life of having least. The contradiction, representing the stakes of the social groups and sections of capitals, gets reflected in geopolitics. So, market is overpowering science.
The ice extent in the Arctic Sea is changing at an unexpected rate. The rate of change in ocean acidification is also unexpected. With the receding of ice, opening up of new shipping routes and extraction of new resources turning profitable the Arctic is now a new region for competition. Capital is taking a stand, stubborn and uncompromising, as capital, as a whole, is going through crisis, a crisis of diminishing prospect for profit in manufacturing sector and a debacle in speculation, in its casino economy. So, the prospect in Copenhagen appears bleak. Sunita Narain, from the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi wrote on October 25 in India Environment Portal: ‘It is now more or less clear that the world will not be ready with an ambitious legally binding agreement at Copenhagen, which sets interim targets for industrialised countries or the funds and technology for participation of developing countries. Already the Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding targets for the industrialised countries is being bashed.’ She posted another comment three days before that: ‘As the clocks tick to Copenhagen, how low is the world prepared to prostrate to get climate-renegade US on board? Is a bad deal in Copenhagen better than no deal?’ Patrick Bond from South Africa wrote point blank: ‘Global climate governance is gridlocked and it seems clear that no meaningful deal can be sealed in Copenhagen on December 18’ (MRzine, October 25). Michael Levi in his article ‘Copenhagen’s Inconvenient Truth’ says the odds of signing a comprehensive agreement in December are vanishingly small.
Climate crisis reality is now reflecting warmth of conflict of interests. Advanced capitalist countries are standing opposed to poor underdeveloped countries. Europe is standing opposed to the United States. China, India and Brazil are being questioned by the US. The Bangkok negotiations, wrote Bond, ‘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 Kyoto Protocol is excessively binding to the North and leaves out several major polluters of the South, including China, India, Brazil, and South Africa.’ Rich countries are opposed to rich countries. The deadlock in climate crisis negotiation was stark since long. To some, Copenhagen should make a breakthrough while a few others consider it as interim. These two approaches represent two economic interests. The Chinese are planning to talk their national policies while the Japanese have announced a target for emissions cuts. Despite the ‘symbolic value’ of the memorandum of understanding between India and China in mid-October it signifies the two major players’ seriousness in finding out an alternative.
Tension is increasing between Europe and the US. Veiled threats of bringing in tariffs were made from the US side. A number of European negotiators complained that the US was trying to change the rules of the game too much. Europe has a plan to put up on the order of 2 to 15 billion euros a year by 2020. Europe expects similar numbers from the US. But they know that the Americans cannot show up in Copenhagen with similar numbers. There are problems in the US domestic politics. The American people are not still willing to accept proposals for providing finance and other support to poor, underdeveloped countries to help them cut their emissions. According to a major US poll, there is a sharp drop in public concern about global warming. The American politicians are struggling with healthcare and unemployment issue. ‘[I]n the US,’ Bond wrote, ‘the balance of forces is fluid. On 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 Defence Fund and Natural Resources Defence Council – are ploughing ahead with carbon trading strategies, hoping to salvage some legitimacy for Obama.’ The US demands commitment to action from developing countries. There is also difference in stakes among the Europeans. The French strategy is protectionist.
There is the biggest stake: investment, private financing for reducing emissions in the underdeveloped countries. There are investors with trillions of dollars willing to get engaged in the climate crisis business. So, there are corporations, lobbyists, brokers, a section of politicians, a section of media. The climate crisis business-walas, however, need a framework to secure their investment and return. They also calculate risks that include political and currency. The seekers of profit from the climate crisis are asking for political assurance to secure their business with crisis on a long-term basis along with highest expected return, loan guarantee for investment in low-carbon technologies, feed-in tariffs for renewable energy, and many other privileges and mechanisms to make investment lucrative. There is the issue of energy subsidy in poor countries. Then, there is the question of governance of the climate crisis capital: who will govern it? Will it be the World Bank? Who will monitor the flow of the climate crisis capital? Will it be the OECD? Reparation for the North’s climate debt to the South is a major issue. Africa, it is assumed, will take a stand in Copenhagen.
Now it is known to many that climate crisis policies in many countries have been and are being designed by corporations. Their profit is dependent on fossil fuel, its peak, renewable energy and its technology, etc. Many climate crisis lobbyists are from electricity, coal, aluminium and mining industries. ‘The influential fossil fuel industry has consistently tried to undermine political action on climate change. Using industrial front groups such as the US “Global Climate Coalition” and the “International Climate Change Partnership”, oil, coal and car interests have targeted the credibility of climate science and climate models, and scare-mongered about the possible economic and employment impact of reducing CO2 emissions. They have repeatedly tried to deflect attention away from the West’s responsibility to clean up after the mess it has created, ignored the cost of ‘no action’, and have moved to suppress the development of clean and climate-friendly alternative solutions.’ The weight of political influence of these ‘greenhouse mafia’, as dubbed by many, depends on respective economic weight. The neo-liberals have their own approach to reap from the climate crisis: privatise, hand over everything to market, and market now tells: accumulate profit by accumulating emissions, then, go for efficiency. Market still has not found any incentive to build low-carbon economy. It should not be forgotten that profit of one industry in a country often is dependent on the emission reduction target in another country. Clive Hamilton has discussed this in his book Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change. Australia’s primary concern is to protect its coal industry. It gets profits from China.
The politics with climate crisis most of the times revolves around the issue of emission level, percentage of its reduction, its baseline, etc. The rich must reduce and must take a hard and binding target for emission reduction so that the poor get an atmospheric space. Between 1990 and 2006, CO2 emissions of the advanced capitalist countries increased by 14.5 per cent. Between 1980 and 2005, the total emissions of the US were almost double that of China and more than seven times that of India. The world cannot afford a long-term target (2050) based on a shifting baseline year. The South has the right to develop with strategies for low-carbon growth. Many advanced capitalist countries are trying to change climate convention that allow them to continue their high per capita emission and secure more of the atmospheric space, put emission limit on non-Annex-1 countries, partially putting the burden of adapting to climate crisis on non-Annex countries. The advanced capitalist countries have already occupied more than a fair share of the atmospheric space. Their purpose is to sharpen own economic competitiveness in markets that they enjoy and control. Their tool is further liberalisation of market. They try to control discourse on climate crisis, and misinform and mislead media. There are a number of examples of inaccurate reporting in the media. Mystifying science with climate-related questions and obscuring details are a few of the tactics of these countries. Powerful governments and corporations use ‘divide and rule’ tactics to undermine the voices of the poor, underdeveloped countries.
‘The question before the world is’, writes Narain in the book Climate Change: Politics and Facts, ‘how to recommit the industrialised world to serious reduction in its emissions?’ ‘International negotiations on climate change,’ she continues, ‘to put it politely, stink. The mood is … belligerent.’ The much-touted CDM is, Narain says, ‘a convoluted, cheap and corrupt mechanism.’ Bond says one of the reasons behind ridiculing Kyoto ‘by serious environmentalists is its provision for carbon trading rackets which allows fake claims of net emissions cuts. Since the advent of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, the Chicago Climate Exchange, and Clean Development Mechanism projects and offsets, vast evidence has accumulated of systemic market failure, scamming, and inability to regulate carbon trading.’ There is the need, according to Bond, to rapidly transcend Kyoto’s weak, market-oriented approach. Narain suggests to set up a global trading system based on equal per capita entitlements, or agree on a carbon tax on the developed world, so that the fund can pay for national actions to mitigate emissions, including avoiding emissions from deforestation, agree on the fund for adaptation, based not on charity, but the right to development of the poor and the victims of climate change. Equity issues rightly remain at the forefront of the negotiations. ‘Equity’, she says, ‘is the first prerequisite for an effective climate agreement. So, the world must accept equal per capita emission entitlements so that the rich reduce and the poor do not go beyond their climate quota.’
The demands, in this perspective and articulated by Climate Justice Action, are leave fossil fuels in the ground; reassert people’s and community control over production; re-localise food production; massively reduce over-consumption, particularly in the North; respect indigenous and forest peoples’ rights; and recognise the ecological and climate debt owed to the peoples of the South and make reparations. The climate crisis has taken the character of political problem with many political variables. The geopolitics of climate crisis compels many to fear that climate change negotiation is in for a train wreck towards Copenhagen. Bond then expects ‘a wave of courageous direct-action protests against climate criminals and the prospect of “Seattling” Copenhagen… on December 16.’
Farroque Chowdhury occasionally translates. His recent book is The Age of Crisis