System change, not climate change!

Halting climate change and preventing further, catastrophic damage to the world’s ecosystems will require mass action against the very politicians and business interests that are gathering in Copenhagen for next week’s summit.

That much is clear from their abject failure to take the kind of action that would cut carbon emissions in any serious way. Leading climate scientists like James Hansen admit that Copenhagen is doomed and even say that no agreement would be better than the half-baked deals on the table.

These are centred around widely-discredited carbon trading schemes and carbon offsets. Capitalism doesn’t get more obscene that creating markets to buy and sell the very stuff that is killing off the planet’s life support systems. And it is not as if the schemes work.

As Carbon Trade Watch has shown, carbon trading does not actually reduce any emissions. It simply gives corporations greater room to manoeuvre through the sale of permits. Instead of cleaning up its act, one polluter can then trade these permits with another who might make “equivalent” changes more cheaply.

The EU Emissions Trading Scheme, the world’s largest carbon market (worth $68 billion in 2008) has consistently failed to “cap” emissions while the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) based on carbon offsets, which are also traded, routinely favours environmentally ineffective and socially unjust projects.

Hansen, who heads the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, says scathingly of carbon trading and offsetting: "This is analogous to the indulgences that the Catholic church sold in the middle ages. The bishops collected lots of money and the sinners got redemption. Both parties liked that arrangement despite its absurdity. That is exactly what's happening. We've got the developed countries who want to continue more or less business as usual and then these developing countries who want money and that is what they can get through offsets.”

So Copenhagen is aimed at preserving the status quo, whereby the very same market forces that have driven climate change are the only devices on offer for tackling exactly the same problem! We should not be surprised, however. The United Nations which hosts the summit has teamed up with big business in a “compact”, urging them to find “green solutions” towards a “sustainable economy”.

No treaty that binds countries to cut carbon emissions or face international sanctions will ever be signed so long as big business rules the roost at the UN as well as in the cabinet rooms of the world’s major governments. No treaty will ever be signed so long as the global economy remains driven by year-on-year increases in corporate profits and the relentless expansion of the production of commodities.

For Brown, Obama and the rest the priority is economic “recovery” based on a “return to growth”. In other words, back to the destruction of resources through an expansion of fossil-fuel based production and consumption. And they say there is such a thing as “sustainable capitalism”!

At Copenhagen, Climate Justice Action (CJA) wants to take over the summit for a day and set up a Peoples Assembly. The Danish state will no doubt try and prevent real voices disrupting the cosy, meaningless deliberations of the summit but CJA’s demand for “system change, not climate change” is absolutely right.

Copenhagen’s failure demonstrates clearly that the present capitalist system and its supine leaders have lost all legitimacy and authority. Creating permanent Peoples Assemblies in Britain and other countries as a step to transferring power out of the hands of the political, economic and financial elites and creating a democratic, sustainable society is definitely the way forward.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

Emissions of hypocrisy on the increase

Sonorous Presbyterian tones rumble through the room: “We have fewer than fifty days to save our planet from catastrophe.” Gordon Brown is preaching to the Major Economies Forum. Yet Brown and his government stand accused of being amongst the world’s greatest climate change hypocrites.

Hypocrisy no. 1
The Treasury has gone to court to defend the right of the state-owned RBS bank to finance companies involved in enterprises that pollute the planet, add to emissions and seize land from indigenous people.

Campaigners from Platform, the World Development Movement and People & Planet vowed to appeal after failing to convince a High Court judge to order a judicial review of the Treasury’s position on RBS investments. In particular they highlight Vedanta, which is mining bauxite on sacred land in Orissa in India. A scathing report from the government’s own business department accuses Vedanta of disrespecting the rights of indigenous people.

The Treasury hired a high-price QC to defend its position that it would be wrong to consider climate change and human rights when it evaluates the "commercial" interests of state-owned bank.

Hypocrisy no. 2
The government has been exaggerating its claims of reductions in CO2 emissions, according to the UK Statistics Authority. Sir Michael Scholar, the authority’s chair, has accused the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) of producing “unsatisfactory data”.

Scholar wrote to Tim Yeo, chairman of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, saying that a statistical bulletin released by the DECC in February “fell short” of the code of practice for government statistics.

The government claims CO2 emissions have fallen by 12.8% compared to 1990 levels. But almost a third of that is made up of carbon credits purchased by polluters in the EU trading scheme and do not represent actual cuts. The real reduction is more like 8.5%.

Scholar told the Commons committee: "In this case, the figures mentioned are, in our view, likely to be used by non-expert observers to judge progress in reducing CO2 emissions within the UK. We regard the quoted figures, and particularly the percentage change, as unsatisfactory in the context of that use."

Hypocrisy no. 3
The government own Climate Change Committee suggests that only the recession, resulting in less energy use by industry, can save New Labour from failing to meet targets. From 2003 to 2007 greenhouse gas emissions were falling at less than 1% each year, well below the target.

The Committee also said that much of the reduction in recent years has been in non-CO2 gases. CO2 emissions in the period 2003-07 averaged a 0.6% annual reduction. Where CO2 emissions have fallen, the extent to which this has been through implementation of measures to improve energy or carbon efficiency is very limited. Broadly speaking, it has been as a result of carbon offsetting.

Of course when it comes to hypocrisy, Brown is not alone in advance of the Copenhagen climate change summit in December. His EU colleagues talk big numbers but in reality, Germany, Italy and Poland have no intention of acting because they put achieving a return to capitalist economic growth before everything else.

And you could argue that the world’s number one hypocrite is China. If it was truly “the People’s Republic”, they would be acting now to prevent the impact of climate change on the Chinese people. As it is, Beijing is playing diplomatic games with the major economies over carbon emissions. Meanwhile, China is engaged in the large-scale buying up of resources in Africa and the Middle East with absolutely no concern for the environment.

Penny Cole
Environment editor

US and EU scupper climate summit

International talks preparing for the Copenhagen climate summit are in disarray and on the point of collapse, as the science is pushed to one side and the discussion descends into self-seeking wrangling. The United States says it will not sign up to an agreement that includes the Kyoto Protocol. Since other countries thought they were negotiating a successor treaty to Kyoto, this is a major blow.

The US wants historic responsibility for climate change on the part of the earliest industrialised countries removed from the picture and countries to set their own emissions reductions targets. But India and China say they will not sign up to any agreement that does not include Kyoto principles.

The existing protocol sets specific emissions target for each industrialised nation while allowing them to use carbon trading schemes to buy or sell “credits”. The protocol was never ratified by the US and the Obama administration has also declined to endorse it.

The European Union signed up to Kyoto but spokesperson Karl Falkenbert now agrees with the US. His smokescreen? "We look at the Kyoto protocol, but since it came into force we have seen emissions increase. It has not decreased emissions.”

All that is true, but the question is, why was it not made clear four years ago that Copenhagen was about negotiating an entirely new framework treaty? Starting on negotiations for a new treaty now means that talks will rumble on into 2015/2016 with no action taken.

At present, the only US offer on the table is a 17% cut from 2005 emission levels by 2020, and even that has not made its into law, though between the recession and carbon off-setting, the US could meet that target without making any real reductions at all.

Even the modest cap-and-trade scheme proposed by the Obama administration is foundering, as frightened Democrats give in to the Republican Right. The only legislation that looks likely to pass is an Energy Bill with a small commitment to renewables, and a rider allowing extensive drilling for new oil and gas off the Florida coast.

Organisations like the Association of Small Island States are in despair. The Maldives, Kiribati, and some of the Bahamas, would be inundated by sea levels more than one metre above current levels – which could happen by 2100, if warming is not kept to a minimum of 1.5%. Samoa, Fiji and other south sea islands have already lost hundreds of acres of coast to rising sea levels.

AOSIS representative Dessima Williams, from Grenada, said: "We face an emergency. We want commitments. We did not create the problem. Any mechanism currently in use is one we want to maintain. National actions are important but they are no substitutes for an international framework.”

But the survival of small island nations is not a priority at Copenhagen, nor drought, hunger, disease or wars over resources. The only priority is the need for capitalist business-as-usual.

There is a kind of liberal piety that says that China historically did not create the emissions, so should not hold back development by making substantial cuts now. But industrial development is not taking place for the benefit of ordinary Chinese. Poverty in the countryside, low wages in the factories and political repression everywhere are the Chinese realities. We should be demanding that all global industries start now to prioritise emissions reductions over profits – wherever they are located on the planet.

Profit-driven forms of production are unsustainable – in terms of climate and the eco-system, raw materials and human health – but capitalism will not vote itself out of prime position at the heart of all international debates. In the end, it will have to be physically removed by the mass action of millions – and we need to do it soon, for our own survival.

Penny Cole
Environment editor

Market can't meet climate change targets

The high-profile report of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) published this week, exposed all the weaknesses of the government’s policies, and addressed none of them.

At first sight, the CCC report makes seductive reading, with the highest targets adopted by any country, including a 42% reduction in emissions of all greenhouse gases by 2020. It details how the targets could be met with reductions in some sectors, and claims it is all entirely feasible “given power sector decarbonisation, energy efficiency improvements in homes, buildings and industry, and emissions reductions in transport”.

But in reality the report by the body set up to oversee progress on meeting statutory targets does no more than repeat the government’s existing (failed) strategy of relying on market forces to tackle climate change. So implementing the recommendations could push energy prices for consumers up an average of around £500 a year, driving more than 1.7 million Britons into fuel poverty, the report admits.

The section on transport is hypocrisy itself. The report says international aviation and shipping should be included in the “carbon budgets”, but no specific reductions for the sector are set out. Which allowed Lord Adair Turner, chair of the CCC, to say that airport expansion is not incompatible with achieving the targets.

A key focus of the report is the “decarbonisation of energy generation”. By raising the price of carbon, it is suggested, there will be market incentives for the rapid development of renewable energy. But as the government’s own renewable energy strategy admits “the market will need to determine which technologies should be used, and then deploy them”. The strategy continues: “In a market economy, policy alone cannot guarantee outcomes. How much these measures will deliver will depend on how energy companies, developers and investors in the market, and the supply chains which serve them, respond to the signals we provide.”

I think we know the answer to that already. They will respond as the banks did, greedily swallowing up any subsidy offered and continuing business as usual with no concern for homes, jobs or energy prices or indeed for the survival of life on earth.

One of the CCC report’s most revealing sections explains that “price formation for electricity occurs in a similar way to other commodity markets” – through short and medium-term contracts, spot prices and price/supply speculation. These are exactly the same disastrous trading methods that drove the financial sector over a cliff. Most people are unaware that greedy speculation lies behind their unaffordable bills.

The media got very excited about the report’s view that the government should not buy carbon offsets through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to meet targets, but focus on achieving real reductions in domestic emissions. However, the reports says reductions achieved through the European Emissions Trading Scheme should be allowed. Under this scheme,companies purchase credits based on claimed cuts in emissions in the developing world (usually through projects damaging to the poorest communities). So the idea that this report will give Britain “clean hands” in terms of exploiting the trade in carbon is nonsense.

And since the use of CDM projects has the effect of leaking additional credits into the EU system, keeping the price of carbon low, there will be no incentives whatsoever for the market to develop renewable energy. Another market failure is on the cards!

The report puts nuclear power high on the agenda, claiming it can be economical if the carbon price is high enough and the risks deemed acceptable. So, how high is that exactly? And will it cover the hidden costs – both environmental and financial – of mining uranium and storing waste?

Whilst the report recommends only coal-fired power stations that can be “retro-fitted with carbon capture and storage mechanisms by 2020” should be permitted, this is not going to stop the government giving the go-ahead to Kingsnorth and others. They will simply extract some flimsy promise from the energy companies to “do their best” and “continue the research” and give the go-ahead anyway.

And now that we are in the midst of a global recession and slump we need to face it – what is actually on the cards is not green energy, but a green light to the corporations to do whatever it takes to boost growth and profits. At the same time as the CCC report was published, Ed Miliband’s aptly-titled Department of Energy and Climate Change, announced the biggest-ever sale of high-priced licences for North Sea oil and gas, with 171 new licences offered to 100 companies covering 257 blocks of the North Sea. Fossil fuels and nuclear – that’s the government’s real energy policy.

Miliband, along with environment ministers from most of the world’s countries, is in Poznan in Poland this week attempting to thrash out the parameters of some new global deal on climate change. Barack Obama won’t be there, but he has made clear that he wants to go down this same market-driven, profit-oriented, public subsidised route. Some 16 years on from the first earth summit in Rio and 11 years on from Kyoto, the world is no further forward.

In 2005, the Stern report on the economic impact of climate change said it was a result of “the biggest-ever market failure” and that failing to deal with it would bring about an economic and social catastrophe. Since then we have suffered some dramatic experiences of the inability of the market to deliver what human beings need. Leaving the market, and governments who cannot see life beyond the market, in charge of tackling climate change is suicidal.

Of course it is important not to simply dismiss the work done by this very expert CCC, because it shows clearly that it is entirely possible to meet extremely challenging reductions targets, if the social and political mechanisms were in place to make it happen.

As the Charter for Democracy launched by A World to Win and others states: “We urgently need to eliminate speculation and profit as the basis for society, ensuring that both ecological care and basic human needs shape production, consumption and lifestyles.” Only in that way can we begin to make significant reductions in carbon emissions, and start to cope with, and reverse, the life-threatening legacy of 30 years of capitalist globalisation.

Penny Cole
Environment Editor

No security against climate change

New Labour’s characterisation of climate change as a “security threat”, second only to terrorism in the pecking order, indicates how the state intends to respond to the results of global warming. And we’re not talking drastic cuts in carbon emissions here but a huge increase in the powers of the state over ordinary people.

The so-called National Security Strategy published yesterday says that Britain faces the risk of severe floods and that flood defences will not prevent serious damage to homes and communities. Extreme weather events “will become more frequent and more severe”. Climate change “is potentially the greatest challenge to global stability and security and therefore to national security”, says the document.

“Rising sea levels and disappearing ice will alter borders and open up new sea lanes, increasing the risk of territorial disputes. An increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events - floods, droughts and storms - will generate more intense humanitarian crises, adding further stresses on local, national and international structures.”

This is the most dramatic and pessimistic statement on climate change the government has ever made. What is significant is that it was made in an assessment of “national security” risks rather than, let’s say, a statement turning down planning permission for a new runway or a coal-fired power station.

And if climate change is to be characterised as a security risk, then what is required is a security response. The main actions arising from this report are the expansion of the spy agency MI5 to 4,000 spooks – double the number in 2001. Funding for the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, which is run by MI5, will increase by 10%. And there will be four new regional counter-terrorist units in addition to those already operating.

A standby force of civilian experts, consisting of former judges and ex-police and army officers, already exists, and will be 1,000-strong by June. Readers of this blog will remember that when the floods took place in Gloucester last year, it was the chief constable who took charge not the local council. This deadly combination of increased state surveillance and control, plus a total failure to implement any reductions in carbon emissions or universal energy conservation measures, is the only response that New Labour’s market state can make to the challenge of climate change.

The government’s report acknowledges that many of the results of global warming are “likely to fall most heavily on those countries least able to deal with them, and therefore most likely to suffer humanitarian disaster, but also to tip into instability, state failure or conflict”. Two recent reports underline this reality.

Minority Rights Group International has tracked the impact of climate change on minority communities - from Roma in Hungary, Dalits in India and African-Americans in New Orleans and found they already suffer most from extreme climate events. And the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s report has mapped out the areas of the world which will be most vulnerable to climate change in the future and found that the worst impact will be on indigenous peoples many of whom are already living on the edge of survival.

But opportunities to profit from climate change forge ahead. In New York on Monday, “The Green Exchange” was launched, to trade in carbon “futures” with four new products based on European and US emissions trading schemes. It will compete with the largest existing carbon trading exchange - the European Climate Exchange and the Chicago Climate Exchange, both owned by London-based Climate Exchange plc. which posted a profit this year for the first time, with revenues up 249%. As the capitalists of northern England said during their 19th century hey-day, “where there’s muck, there’s brass”.

Penny Cole
Environment editor

Our next blog will be published on Tuesday, March 25