ConDemned to climate change as profit comes first

The ConDems’ answer to the stark warnings contained in the latest scientific assessment of climate change is to put forward policies that will actually intensify the ecological crisis.       

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report shows that humans have used up between a half and two thirds of the amount of emissions possible before we dangerously overheat the planet.

But the government’s response to the 5th IPCC report on climate change can be summed up as follows:

• Chancellor George Osborne states he does not want the UK to be at the forefront of tackling climate change
• Energy minister Michael Fallon wants to end the obligation on energy companies to fund improved insulation in people's homes.
• Justice minister Chris Grayling says that fracking for shale gas is the way forward
• Climate Change minister Owen Paterson says that climate change is not all bad - fewer people will die in the winter for example.

In other words, the ConDems will do everything in their power to serve the interests of the energy corporations and the banks who finance dirty fuel. And it is the same reaction from governments right across the globe.

Since the IPCC is all about modelling trends, maybe somebody should model the trends of global government responses to their reports.

Here are statistics that could be input into a new International Panel on Capitalist Climate Chaos model:

• Since the 4th IPCC report published five years ago an additional 200 billion tonnes of CO2 have been released into the atmosphere.

• CO2 emissions are 60% higher than at the time of the first IPCC report in 1990.

• To avoid dangerous climate 60% of energy will need to come from renewables by 2030 (International Energy Agency). We are on track to achieve just 18% globally.

• An industry report predicts that world coal-fired power plant capacity will increase more than a third from 2010 to 2020.

• The role of gas in the global energy mix will increase by one third in the period from 2010 to 2018.

• The UK Treasury wants 30 new gas power stations built.

• Every climate summit has failed to achieve a global binding agreement on reducing emissions.

You might ask how is it possible for governments to go on financing the work of the IPCC and even to say they believe that climate change is happening, but at the same time to continue along this path?

It is because they exist only as functionaries of a capitalist hegemony that attempts to rule every aspect of human society at this point. Everything is predicated on production for profit. Competition for markets means costs are constantly being driven down.

And it’s got a lot worse since the recession, which coincided with publication of the  previous IPCC report. So Osborne can say that being competitive is more important than tackling climate change.

Desperate for solutions, it seems that some members of the IPCC are putting their faith in a renewed carbon market. This time, market forces will be shut out, unlike previous schemes such as the EU model that had to be bailed out and restructured recently. They believe this could enable governments, finally, to agree binding limits on emissions. It's all a pipedream.

Our present planetary social and economic system cannot make progress when global co-operation and mutual assistance are needed. No amount of pressure on governments and states is going to change this fundamental.

In the scales against this we can put modest progress towards environmentally sensitive production, recycling, pollution reduction, carbon sequestration and development of renewables.

All the efforts of scientists, researchers, businesses and foundations to find a different way of living and producing, are not wasted. They represent a road map for the future. The climate scientists who are holding up a mirror to the system are allies of fundamental change.

But they and we must stop wasting our time stirring and stirring the empty pot of international climate talks and market “solutions”. Instead we need to write a new plan based on meeting people's needs and not on generating profit, for growth in equality and fairness rather than growth in commodities, and for a democratic, bottom-up political structure where we can make this happen.

Penny Cole

Environment editor

Climate deniers losing the battle for public opinion

As the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) prepares to publish its latest scientific assessment tomorrow aimed at informing policy makers, the deniers are readying themselves for a new assault on the truth.

Since the previous 2007 fourth assessment report confirmed the reality of anthropogenic climate change – that is change resulting from human activity – companies like Exxon Mobil, other fossil fuel corporations and free market champions like the filthy rich Koch brothers have spent huge sums of money trying to undermine it.

They have funded fake science and personal attacks on scientists. "Big hitters", like former chancellor Nigel Lawson have been recruited to the campaign. They have repeatedly rehashed denialist nostrums for publication in the right-wing press, including the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph.

But the result of all their efforts is that only 11% of British people believe that the climate isn’t changing as a result of human activity, according to a recent poll, and in the US, the figure is the same.

Yale University continuously tracks US public opinion and finds that Americans’ belief in the reality of global warming increased by 13% over two and a half years, from 57% in January 2010 to 70% in September 2012.

And the number of Americans who say global warming is not happening fell by almost half, from 20% to just 12%.

The reaction in Australia to the decision of new right-wing prime minister Tony Abbott (who famously called climate change "crap") to shut down the government-funded independent Climate Commission just two days after taking office, confirms that the deniers are on the wrong side of public opinion.

The commission was headed by Tim Flannery, one of the world's top climate scientists. It produced groundbreaking studies on the potential for solar power and the background to the extreme weather currently experienced in Australia.

In a matter of days Flannery and his colleagues were back in business as a publicly-funded, independent foundation. Individuals, companies and organisations from all over Australia sent in money to restart the work.

As Flannery points out, 123 heat records were broken across Australia last summer and the bushfire season has begun already, at least a month early. Australians know crap when they see it.

The IPCC has dealt as best it can with the fact that the rate of warming has slowed over the past 15 years. Scientists are still not entirely agreed on the reasons for the hiatus, though the absorption of heat by the deep oceans is a major suspect.

To accommodate this uncertainty, the report widens the predicted range of lowest and highest temperature increase scenarios from between 1.5C to 4C to between 0.9C and 5C.

And in the final analysis the science shows that humanity is on course over the next few decades to raise global temperatures by more than 2C compared with pre-industrial levels.

However, the fact that the public is increasingly immune to climate deniers' self-serving message, does not mean politicians will be galvanised by this report to act on climate change. Quite the opposite.

Here’s just one example. David Cameron's adviser preparing for next year's global climate summit in Paris is one Tara Singh, a former lobbyist for the energy corporation Centrica. I don't think she will be proposing a binding deal on emissions reductions or cuts in fossil fuel subsidies.

Just as the Australian people themselves are now having to sustain climate science so we will all, as a global population, have to find ways to act on it through a renewal of democracy, legal protection for our natural home and a co-operative, sustainable energy economy based on insulation and renewables.

Penny Cole

Environment editor