Kyoto's Answers t At the forthcoming G8 Summit meeting in Scotland, world leaders and businessmen will focus on the three interrelated issues of war, poverty and climate change. But these problems cannot be solved by such people, since it is they and their economic and political systems, which have caused the crisis in the first place. Here Sheila Malone argues that only public ownership and democratic planning have a chance of finding solutions to the current crisis of climate change. 1 Greenhouse gas emissions are being poured into the atmosphere at the staggering and unsustainable rate of seven billion tons annually 16 the current crisis of climate change. Climate world, already ravaging lives and communities, and threatening catastrophes against which most of us will have little protection. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that the earth's temperature will rise by anything from 1.4 to 5.8 percent by the end of this century, due overwhelmingly to our dependency on fossil fuels as our main are being poured into the atmosphere at the staggering and unsustainable rate of seven billion tons annually. Emissions have risen by just in the last decade, and are set to rise still more dramatically in the future. The result has been to upset the delicate The unifying idea of the anti-globalisation 'Another World is Possible' is never more relevant than to change is a time bomb ticking away in our energy source. Greenhouse gas emissions the on environmentally friendly projects 20 per cent in the last 50 years, by 10 per cent - for instance, it has recently stopped subsidies for solar panel installation. is also forging ahead with huge road and airport expansionschemes. Carbon emissions Kyoto Protocol Tony Blair has recently pledged to make climate change a priority issue, and a flurry of paperwork is already emerging from Downing Street. This includes the UK Sustainable Development Strategy, as well as a new government service 'Environment Direct', which is all about consumer choice in pollution. Typically New Labour, most of these initiatives are long on words and short on funding. In fact, at the same time as mouthing this sort of 'greenwash' is government actually cutting back for support It dioxide continue to increase under this government, by 2.2 per cent in 2003 and again by 12 per cent in 2004 (DTI figures, Guardian 01.04.05). It will therefore fail to meet even its mild reduction target under the Kyoto Protocol. Governments and business are making much of this recently agreed and first legally bindir global treaty on climate change. Kyo: commits thirty-four of the most industrialise: nations to an overall cut in CO2 emissions t:
o Climate Change five per cent of 1990 levels by the year 2012 This is hardly anything to get excited about. since most climatologists agree that in fact a reduction of 90 per cent by at least 2050 is needed. Also the biggest polluter of all. the USA, responsible for 36 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions has refused sign up to the treaty at all, saying this would damage its economy. Actually, the US's present stance is unlikely to continue. This is because of the central method for implementing Kyoto, that is the creation of a market to trade in carbon emissions - an idea first thought up by the USA itself, and potentially much too lucrative to miss out on. The Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme (CETS) is a mechanism thoroughly in line with imperialism's noo-liberal policies. It promotes the idea that, just as for everything else, the unfettered 'free' market is the solution to climate change. Pollution is turmod into a commodity from which to make profit. Under the CETS, countries who have agreed to the cuts targets are given 'emissions credits' to pollute within that limit. They can either use up the whole allowance, "bank' some credits for the future or sell them to another polluter on the open market. If a polluter wants to exceed their allowance they can buy spare credits earn more from another or in so-called investing through pollution reduction schemes such as the Clean Development Mechanism. Under Kyoto therefore, corporate capitalism will not only be able to continue to pollute with minimal restriction, but also be able to make handsome profits. Significantly, the UK has already spent £215 million on its trial trading scheme, in anticipation of the money to be made. Kyoto's new carbon market enshrines the domination of the already big and powerful multinationals. Not surprisingly, they have some thoroughly imperialist schemes for "offsetting' pollution in the North onto the poor countries of the South. With World Bank assistance, hundreds of thousands of hectares of land in third world countries are to be given over to 'carbon sinks' - vast tree plantations to soak up CO2 gases. In addition to their questionable science, these displace communities, destroy local agriculture and create dependency, just as externally imposed monocultures have done in the past. In Brazil, the World Bank is funding a eucalyptus plantation and as Heidi Bachram argues, While plantations have their own ecologically destructive qualities such as biodiversity loss, water table disruption and pollution from herbicides and pesticides, their social impact is equally devastating to a local community. Lands previously used by local people are enclosed and in some cases they have been forcibly evicted.... The workers on such plantations have little or no health and safety protection and are exposed to hazardous chemicals and dust particles.... Similar disregard exists for the natural environment. Thus the fisher folk in the regions around the plantations in Brazil are poverty-stricken and devastated due to the pollution caused by over-use of pesticides and herbicides, which contaminates rivers and water sources and kills fish. In some cases, the water in streams and rivers has entirely dried up because the non-indigenous eucalyptus is a thirsty tree! Under Kyoto therefore, corporate capitalism will not only be able to continue to pollute with minimal restriction, but also be able to make handsome profits. The eN Brater The New Trade in Sea: = 31=: Socialism. Vo. 15 :::=
• : : 118 You can now buy Carbon Neutral motoring and air travel and live in a Carbon Neutral home, courtesy of this carbon dumping on the poor. fossil fuels finally run out, it actually pays chere companies to car our pellion rather n the rich North are also led to believe the! need not change their polluting lifestyles Limitless exploitation of capitalism Capitalism operates on the basis that the earth's resources are there for limitless exploitation, and that market forces will oil. and i tar Nora, under the guise of the spurious 'war on terror' governments are Iso putting in place repressive legislatior hich can conveniently deal with disser and protest when major ecological disasters begin to occur. There has always been colonised countries to subjugation and pillage by imperialism and its local elites, whether to military conquest or economic deforestation, huge dam building and so on position by indigenous peoples has oft en based on an understanding of the ne to respect the limits of nature's resources in order to survive. Our 24-hour fossil fuel driven economies want us to deny this. But it is at our peril. The by mid century to halt the escalating effects of global warming cannot be done without a comas bending insulation, more andere recycling and so on our attitude to and behaviour towards our environment, both individually and When fossil fuels finally run out, the in the meantime, the most recent report of the UN Millennium Ecosystems Assessment, the work of 1,300 scientists in 95 countries, estimates that we have already used up two thirds of the earth's resources, irreversibly damaging Capitalism's profit-driven ecosystems. overproduction and over-consumption is proving unable to halt this catastrophe. Production for use, not profit Social and ecological movements have increasingly joined together to campaign for an alternative. Many struggles on health and food focus on the high human cost of pollution. Others campaign for better and
affordable public transport, instead of the overuse of the private car. There is also a debate about what kind of renewable energy sources would best replace fossil fuels, for example wind or solar power. Some in the environmental movement have even raised the issue of using nuclear power. (See the article by Alice Cutler in this issue for arguments against this Whatever the switch, the important issue is the rejection of the idea that economic growth must mean the maximum exploitation of human and natural resources. This is the "productivism' of capitalism that has led to commodification and alienation in our relation to our environment, but which is presented as the only model of development, whether in the rich North, the former Soviet bloc or in the developing countries of the South. need and needs, not their profits. The unifying idea of the anti-globalisation movement that 'Another World is Possible' is never more relevant than to the current crisis of climate change. This is the 'productivism' of capitalism that has led to commodification and alienation in our relation to our environment, but which is presented as the only model of development 19