Copenhagen Conference on climate change
The Copenhagen Conference on
climate change concluded with an accord, hastily cobbled together in
last-minute negotiations on the evening of Friday 18 December between US
President Barack Obama and the leaders of major developing nations – China,
India, Brazil and South Africa. This accord, not a binding treaty, is merely
an expression of aims, recognising as it does the scientific case for keeping
the rising in global temperatures to 2ºC. It calls upon developed countries to
provide $10bn a year until 2012, rising to an annual sum of $100bn by 2020, to
support developing countries adapt to climate change and to mitigate its
effects. This sum falls far short of the $100bn a year that is required
according to the EU estimates. In addition to the paucity of funds to help
developing countries, the accord says nothing about who pays to whom.
Disappointing cuts by developed
countries
The US has promised to cut its emissions by 17 per
cent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels, which reduces to a miserly 3 per cent
on the levels of 1990, the baseline year under the Kyoto protocol; the EU has
pledged a cut of 20 per cent on 1990 levels; and so too has Japan, but by
reference to 2005 levels, which amounts to a single-digit reduction compared to
1990; most developing countries, China and India included, have agreed to curb
the future growth of their emissions, with China committed to reducing the
growth of her carbon dioxide output per unit of gross domestic produce by 40 to
45 per cent by 2020. Many countries, instead of committing themselves to a
single target of reduction in emissions, have merely pledged to abide by a
range. The EU, for instance, has hinted that it will deepen its cuts to 30 per
cent below 1990 levels if other countries too agreed on ambitious targets.
The cuts promised by the developed countries fall
far short of what is necessary to prevent the emissions growth to catastrophic
levels. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has made it perfectly
clear, and the Group of 77 plus China have repeatedly demanded, that developed
countries need to reduce their emissions by 40 per cent below 1990 levels by
2020 and by 90 per cent by 2050.
The developed countries, who together account for
half of all global emissions and are responsible for changes in global climate
resulting from accumulated greenhouse gasses emitted by them over the past two
centuries, by their refusal to make the necessary deep cuts in their emissions,
have disappointed environmentalists and hundreds upon hundreds of million of
poor people round the world, who are the most likely victims of erratic
rainfall, melting glaciers, rising sea levels and the resultant inundation of
coastal areas, extreme and freak weather conditions, consequent upon this
failure.
Bitter reaction from
developing countries
No wonder, then, that a large number of developing
countries were bitter about the outcome. Lumumba Di-Aping, thte leader of
G-77, likened the rich countries’ stance to genocide. Many of these countries
were furious at what they rightly perceived as a deal imposed on them by the
most powerful. During the heated discussions in the UN’s principal meeting
room, which were still continuing as the sun rose on Saturday (18 December)
morning, a Venezuelan representative cut her own hand to symbolically
demonstrate how the rich countries spilled the blood of the poor.
Accord – not a treaty
It being starkly clear by 9am on Saturday morning
that Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua were implacably opposed to the
accord, the latter could not be formally adopted as a decision of the UN
meeting, for such a decision required consensus among all participating
countries. Instead, the decision-making body of the UN opted for the much
weaker option – the “decision to note” the existence of the accord. The
result is that it leaves countries free to sign up to the accord if they so
wish, while requiring a consensus at a new general meeting so as to turn the
accord into the basis for a fresh UN treaty on climate change.
The section of the accord designed to indicate
commitments to reduce emissions by big economies is blank, but is supposed to
have been filled by the end of January 2010. That gives the UN a further six
months of hard bargaining and tough negotiations to win approval, followed by
an attempt at turning such approval into a treaty – possibly at another climate
conference under the aegis of the UN planned for Mexico City in December 2010.
The UN Conference in its entirety did not feel able
to endorse the proclamation, which concluded two years of tortuous and detailed
negotiations, built upon more than a decade of prior talks. For two decades
the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has been recognised, but thus far
there has been only one attempt at a globally binding treaty – the failed 1997
Kyoto protocol, which never met with US ratification and placed developing
countries under no obligation.
President Obama described the Copenhagen vacuous
declaration as an “important breakthrough”, saying that it is “the
first time in history all major economies have come together here in Copenhagen
to ensure that international action to significantly reduce emissions is
sustained and sufficient over time”.
The truth is that the Copenhagen accord fell
abysmally short of that which is required to avert catastrophic climate
change. Even the Financial Times, in it leading article, entitled
‘Dismal outcome at Copenhagen fiasco’, described the accord as “worse than
useless” and “the emptiest deal one could imagine” (21 December
2009).
To avert catastrophe on the climate front requires
global cooperation and collective action. Further, it requires developed
countries to cut their emissions drastically and agree to a generous transfer
of funds and technology to developing countries in order to enable the latter
to cope with, and adapt to, climate change. Unless this is done, the next
conference in Mexico will only prove to be a repeat performance of this year’s
Copenhagen.
Two positive outcomes
The only two positive outcomes of Copenhagen are:
first, that five of the current and future large emitters of carbon – the US,
China, India, Brazil and South Africa – agreed for the first time that
scientific evidence dictates “deep cuts in global emissions” to prevent
average temperatures from rising more than a disastrous 2ºC; second, that China
made a commitment to join the global fight to reduce climate pollution.
According to Jeremy Symons of the National Wildlife Federation, China’s
measurable pledge to back global efforts to reduce carbon emissions was the
conference’s most important development. “This breakthrough”, he said,
“is important for the global climate efforts, as well as encouraging the
[US] Senate to move forward and deliver the climate and clean energy bill to
the president”, adding that “China will act, and the China excuse is off
the table”.
Socialism the only
solution
While the China excuse would doubtless be off the
table, there is one basic problem of which the likes of Jeremy Symons take no
note, that is, the driving force behind capitalist production. Profit is the
regulator of production under capitalism and the extraction of “the maximum
profit is the motor of monopoly capitalism” (Stalin). In its never-ceasing
chase after maximum profit through “the exploitation, ruin and
impoverishment of the population of a given country”, through “the
enslavement and systematic robbery of the peoples of other countries,
especially backward countries”, and through “wars and militarisation of
the national economy”, monopoly capitalism cares not a hoot about ‘trifles’
such as climate change. It does not hesitate for a moment in trampling upon
human life, and the prerequisites for a decent human existence, if these stand
in the way of securing by it of maximum profit. The clogging up of the world’s
cities with motor cars, and the resultant pollution, are just one example of
the madness of life under capitalism – driven solely by the need of monopoly
capitalism to secure the maximum of profit.
Undoubtedly, public pressure can force the leading
powers to reduce somewhat the emission of greenhouse gases and provide some
amelioration in the near future. That, however, is not the solution.
Only the overthrow of capitalism, and its
replacement by socialism, whose basic law is “the maximum satisfaction of
the constantly rising material and cultural requirements of the whole of
society through the continuous expansion and perfection of socialist production
on the basis of higher techniques”, can lay the real basis for tackling
climate change and other urgent problems facing humanity. In other words,
those who want to aspire to be green must become red first.[1]
NOTE
[1]
The remarks appearing in quotation marks in the preceding two paragraphs come
for Joseph Stalin’s epoch-making pamphlet Economic Problems of Socialism in
the USSR, pp 39-41, FLP Peking 1971.