Rebel Youth report
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| Climate change is "a question of life or death" |
The topic of climate
change and the Kyoto protocol has been an issue of attention to some Communist
and Worker’s Parties as COP17 2011 UN Climate Conference took place in Durban this
December. This has included a proposal for a special conference of Communist
Parties on climate issues to be held in South Africa.
Climate change is an
important struggle for all progressive youth in Canada. The YCL-LJC Canada debated
the question of climate change at it’s 25th Central Convention of
the YCL last year (to read the final resolution click here and scroll down to Part 5) and resolved to make
the environment, and especially climate change, of particular concern to the
League.
The Kyoto Protocol (1997)
is essentially an international courtesy rule or guiding chart. It is part of
the larger United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Both are aimed
at fighting global warming. Kyoto
generally sets 1990-level emission goals for Green House Gases (GHG) and
expires next year. Almost exclusively,
the goals have not been met.
To implement Kyoto three
flexible mechanisms are outlined in the Protocol that fit within the frame-work
of the global capitalist economy: 1. Trading in emission rights; 2. Joint
implementation and; 3. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
The United States
never signed Kyoto. This December, following
the COP17 meeting, the Harper Conservative government also formally withdrew Canada
from the Protocol.
COP 17
In an editorial
article in The Morning Star noted
that legal measures for a new legally binding treaty on global warming by 2015
were watered down on the pretext that countries could not sign up to negotiate
a legally binding deal without knowing if it would be fair to poorer countries (The
Morning Star is one of the few English-language socialist newspapers in the
world which continues to publish a daily print edition. It is politically linked with the Communist Party of Britain).
“That's a perfectly
reasonable argument on the face of it, but there's much more to it than that,”
the editorial said. “[I]t's largely not countries that pollute, it's companies”
they added, noting two basic questions: can developing countries can afford to
forgo industrial development? and, could they control the big transnationals even
if they wanted to? Furthermore, “international legally enforceable agreements
also raise the question of just how they would be enforced.”
Are these conferences “set-up
to fail” the writers asked?
Life or death
The Communist Party of
Australia (CPA), in their intervention to the 13th International
Meeting of Communist and Worker’s Parties (IMCWP) in Athens this December, spoke
directly to what is at stake with these negotiations.
Quoting Bolivia's
President Evo Morales addressing the Copenhagen Climate Change summit in 2009, the
CPA said it is a struggle of "the culture of life and the culture of death”
where “The culture of death is capitalism, its highest and most dangerous form,
imperialism. The culture of life is that of the Indigenous peoples, the South,
and all the oppressed and exploited people on our planet.”
Likewise, The
Morning Star said that “One can only feel for countries such as Grenada,
whose delegate made the telling point that ‘while you are debating, we are
dying.’ The Star quoted one speaker at the conference who warned that “action
against climate change in 2020 will come a decade too late for poor people on
the front line - they urgently need it now. Their lives are already ravaged by
floods, droughts, failed rains, deadly storms, hunger and disease and we know
that these disasters will get worse and more frequent as climate change bites.”
Ecology or social progress – a false dilema
Another of the communist
parties to recently address the Kyoto question was The Progressive Party of the
Working People of Cyprus (AKEL), which is currently the leading force in the
ruling coalition of Cyprus making it the only communist-led government in the
European Union.
In a statement issued
shortly before the Durban meeting and the 13th IMCWP, AKEL noted
that there is a wide range of opinions about future obligation periods with
developing countries wanting to extend the Protocol for the developing
countries, with funding for emerging and developing countries (for example to upgrade
GHG emitting technologies), while developed countries are demanding a new
agreement which includes commitments from all countries on the planet (especially
China, India and Brazil).
“The dilemma between
the need to protect the environment and combating poverty, between combating
climate change and economic development is a false dilemma and only when we
realise this, will there be a solution” the AKEL concluded.
The real question is the market vs the
environment
AKEL also criticized
capitalism’s solutions to the environmental crisis. “[P]olicies which seek to regulate the
problem through the mechanisms of the market, such as the Pollution Trading
System, which with its implementation has not only not recorded progress but
has created a pretext for those responsible for great emissions to continue
polluting without reductions, cannot offer a solution to the problem of climate
change - as they cannot offer a solution to the problems of poverty,
unemployment and so many other social problems the peoples of the world are
facing” they said.
A similar point of
view was made by the Australian communists who noted that, in response to the
growing environmental crisis, “the Australian Government has played a leading
role in trying to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a political agreement” – for example
adopting a carbon tax to enable big Australian corporations to participate in
global carbon markets, “to buy the right to pollute at the expense of the
development of poorer nations” the CPA said.
“The carbon tax has
served as a diversion from taking serious measures to reduce Australia's carbon
footprint, the largest per-capita in the world,” they said. Instead, “Government
support for market-based policies has stifled almost all voices that question
this policy and effectively ruled out the planning, regulation and legislation
for the necessary measures to ensure a sustainable future.”
Comprehensive, just and audacious
In the Parliament of
Cyprus AKEL also passed a special resolution on the question of climate change.
In introducing the resolution AKEL noted that they approach the Conference “with
a critical disposition, but at the same time with interest.”
We expect and demand “that
the rich countries of the North take a decision and assume their
responsibilities towards the poor countries of the South. The drawing up of a
binding and Active agreement for the restriction of pollution and the
simultaneous provision of substantial assistance - economic and technological -
towards the poor countries of the South to tackle and adapt to the climate
changes is imperative and not to burden them with more responsibilities” they
said.
The resolution called
on the UN and member states to push for a comprehensive, international, just,
ambitious and legally binding agreement beyond 2012, founded on the
international system of regulations of the Kyoto Protocol. Any agreement must
have “strict political, economic and legal obligations for the provision of
assistance to the developing countries, recalling that the poor countries are
the ones most exposed to the impact of climate change and have the least
capacity to adapt.”
This is similar to the
viewpoint of the Communist Party of Canada which in at its 2010 Central
Convention called for deep cuts in the climate emissions by the imperialist
countries, “climate reparations” owed to the oppressed people’s of the world,
and that climate change agreements “be strong, legally binding, comprehensive,
and audacious, and be based on international solidarity, peace and respect for
sovereignty, self-determination and democracy, as well as employment and social
progress.”
Again, as the CPA has
said, “despite their immense wealth and political power, [the corporations] can
be constrained. With a massive mobilisation of working people we can begin to
take steps towards environmental sustainability and towards the social
transformation necessary to complete this process.”
Conference failure shows problems with
capitalism
Although the UN
announced the conference was a success, many scientists and environmentalists
noted that the conference failed to set necessary targets. AKEL agreed. While
noting that a positive step in the Conference was Cyprus´ inclusion into Annex
1 of the Protocol (the island country will reduce emissions by 20-30% in
relation to today's realities) “yet again it has been confirmed that for the
sake of interests and economic profit the big polluters do not make concessions
and compromises.”
“[T]he environmental and ecological crisis is
nothing else other than the direct consequence of the ruling world economic
model of development” AKEL said.
This sentiment was
echoed a few days later at the International Meeting of Communist and Worker’s
Parties in Athens by the South African Communist Party (SACP). Noting that climate change that will impact
most severely on continents like Africa and low-lying island states, the SACP
said that “Capitalism is a system based on profit and not on social and
environmental need [and it] is incapable of resolving the climate crisis - as
is apparent from the stance of the major capitalist powers in the current COP17
process.”
“[F]ailure to ratify
and extend the Kyoto Protocol or coming out without another alternative binding
agreement in Durban has got very serious implications for our planet and the
future of humanity” the SACP said in there intervention.
In it’s editorial on
the Durban conference The Morning Star quoted World Development Movement
policy officer Murray Worthy:
When [...] Worthy said the outcome of the talks had been a ‘spectacular
failure’ he wasn't overstating. ‘Developed countries have behaved shamefully,
blocking meaningful progress on tackling climate change. They have refused to
acknowledge their historical responsibility for the crisis, either by agreeing
to reduce their emissions or by providing finance to help developing countries
deal with climate change.’ And that hits the issue squarely.
The Morning Star also noted that no sources of money were found
for the establishment of a green climate fund to channel billions to poor
countries to help them cope with impacts of global warming such as floods and
drought, and pursue sustainable development.
Climate change, an important issue for
communists
The South African
communists called climate justice “another arena of struggle” that the entire
left should “take up in earnest” which “will also require that we forge links
with both domestic and international progressive ecological movements, also as
a crucial component of internationalist working class solidarity.”
Communists and the
left “have to navigate a contradiction facing many developing countries like
ours, the simultaneous necessities to grow our economies and the destruction to
the environment brought about by ecologically unsustainable growth paths” and
therefore the SACP is calling for a “climate justice international conference
of communist and workers parties in South Africa in 2012” to bring together
communist and workers parties to debate and engage matters relating to the
climate.
Similarly, AKEL “pledge[d]
that we shall continue the struggle and our efforts to safeguard not only the
present, but also the future of the planet and our children. The tackling of
this environmental and ecological crisis, which is of vital importance,
constitutes a component part of the struggle for a more just and peaceful
world.”
The sense of urgency
was also echoed by the Communist Party of Australia who noted that “Capitalism
has always failed to meet the basic needs of hundreds of millions of people.
With the climate crisis, it will eventually fail all humanity. The struggle for
sustainable development is in essence a struggle to restrain and restrict
capitalist corporations and to compel an end to environmentally damaging
production processes.”
Similarly, the Australian
communists said that “The struggle is to save our planet, for peace, for
survival, for basic human rights such as jobs, food, health services, education
and clean water. It is the struggle for socialism.”
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