What, how, how much and for whom to produce? Those are the questions that must be answered. Science and technology are capable of many wondrous things but the answer for the future does not lie in scientific inventions of geo-engineering and other new technologies. New technologies should not mean limitless, reckless economic growth propelled only by capitalist motives. Scientific advances can help resolve certain problems. Nor is the solution in the creation a new speculative market. In the name of the environment, hedge and pension funds, venture capitalists and commodity traders have come together claiming stewardship Nature.
Corporations are promoting more capitalism under the ambiguous name of “green economy.” The term "green economy" means commodifying and marketising nature. According to proponents, the mistake of capitalism is that the free market had not gone far enough and that recurring energy, climate, environmental and food crises are results of “gross mis-allocation of capital”. Thus, “green economy” capitalism is going to fully incorporate nature as part of its capital. They are identifying the specific functions of eco-systems and bio-diversity that can be priced and then brought into a global market as “Natural Capital.” The architects of the "green economy" believe the instruments of the market are powerful tools for managing the “economic invisibility of nature”.
"Ecosystems provide trillions of dollars in clean water, flood protection, fertile lands, clean air, pollination, disease control - to mention just a few. These services are essential to maintaining livable conditions and are delivered by the world's largest utilities. Far larger in value and scale than any electric, gas, or water utility could possibly dream of. And the infrastructure, or hard assets, that generate these services are simply: healthy ecosystems. So how do we secure this enormously valuable infrastructure and its services? The same way we would electricity, potable water, or natural gas. We pay for it." - a report by The Ecosystem Marketplace.
Living under the religion of profit and loss in a market church controlled by it capitalist clergy, makes almost anything negative sound positive. The logic goes like this: A rainforest in Bolivia, for example, not only serves the people who make their lives in it, but also provides environmental benefits to the world at large by sucking climate-altering carbon out of the atmosphere. That value can be calculated in economic terms and be used as the basis for payments to governments and the peoples living in those forests as incentives for their preservation. This idea of ‘payments to preserve’ may sound solid in theory, but it is the reality on the ground that has many in Latin America up in arms. The current financing mechanism of choice is carbon offset credits, essentially permission slips purchased by corporations and governments to allow continued dumping of carbon into the stressed atmosphere. As Latin American environmental and indigenous leaders point out, carbon offsets are a recipe to keep the planet on the same trajectory toward steep climate change, with people in impoverished countries, like Bolivia, paying its harshest price. Environmental and indigenous groups also warn that when their water and lands become just another global commodity up for trade, the loss of control is soon to follow. Looking at the big global plans ahead for their natural resources, what many see is a 21st century version of the resource theft.
Indeed under capitalism we don't value the natural world properly but we should not confuse "value" with "price". It is argued that to conserve or protect the resources and functions we need from nature, we need to ascribe a financial value to them and bring them into the market. Then we will pay the proper price for nature and stop destroying it. Large sectors of global business only see "the green economy" as an extremely profitable business sector.
The goal is not just to privatize material goods that can be taken from nature, such as wood from a forest, but also to privatize and moneterize the functions and processes of nature, label them environmental services, set a price and then bring them into the market. In the same report, the contributors already have estimated annual values for these environmental services. An example of “green economy,” is the program REDD (Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). REDD's purpose is to isolate one of the functions of forests - its ability to capture and store carbon - and then measure how much CO2 it can capture. Once the value of the potential carbon storage of the forest has been estimated, carbon credits are issued and sold to rich countries and big corporations who then use these to offset, or buy and sell, polluting permits in the carbon markets. For example, if Indonesia, which has a deforestation rate of 1,700,000 hectares per year - only deforests 1,500,000 hectares next year, it will be able to sell in the REDD market, the carbon credits for the amount of CO2 that is stored by the remaining 200,000 hectares. In theory, REDD provides a monetary incentive for not deforesting. In actuality, corporations purchasing credits can release into the atmosphere the amount of CO2 they paid for. In other words, carbon credits are polluting permits for the rich. Additionally, only countries that reduce their deforestation will be able to put carbon credits in the REDD market. So if a region has always preserved its forest, they will not be able to sell any carbon credits from reduction of deforestation. So what is happening now, for example, in some parts of Brazil, is that in order to be prepared for REDD, trees are being cut with the purpose of increasing the deforestation, so that, tomorrow, the reduction of the “deforestation” will be higher and the amount of carbon credits that can go into the market will be bigger.
Friends of the Earth explains "European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) - the largest carbon market mechanism in the world – has failed to deliver genuine carbon emissions reductions. Instead it has allowed companies to make massive profits out of the system without changing their business model or cutting carbon emissions."
It places all its faith in markets, despite the recent financial and economic crises. The lessons provided by the chronic failure of deregulation and market-based approaches have been ignored.
Banks and multinational companies, are using the phrase “green economy” as a smokescreen to hide their plan to further privatise the global commons and create new markets for the services nature provides for free. “Out of this Trojan horse will spring new market-based mechanisms that will allow the financial sector to gain more control of the management of the global commons,” the World Development Movement NGO warns. "Instead of contributing to sustainable development and economic justice, this “corporate green economy” would lead to the privatisation of land and nature by multinational companies, taking control of these resources further away from the communities which depend on them" WDM said.
The lack of public funds has become something of a standard excuse rolled out by industrialised countries to justify either not meeting climate finance targets. Cash strapped governments, are being told to use private money to make up the gap and that that the only way to get the billons of dollars needed for the preservation of water, forests, biodiversity, agriculture and others is through private investment. But the private sector will not invest profits - accumulated through the exploitation of labor and material goods of nature - without an incentive. And so, governments need to offer them this new business of making profit from the processes and functions of nature. If there is no pricing of some functions of nature, new market mechanisms and guarantees for their profit… the private sector will not invest in ecosystem services and biodiversity. It is premised on the principle that the rules of the market will save nature. Nature cannot be submitted to the wills of markets.
'Green grabbing' - the rapidly-growing appropriation of land and resources in the name of 'green ' biofuels, carbon offsetting schemes, conservation efforts and eco-tourism initiatives – is forcing people from their homelands and increasing poverty, new research has found. Ecosystems being 'asset-stripped' for profit is likely to cause dispossession and further poverty amongst already-poor land and resource users, according to a set of 17 new research case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America, published in a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies. Examples of green grabs include: in Guatemala, conservation agencies, ecotourism companies and the military are 'protecting' the Guatemalan Maya Biosphere Reserve as a 'Maya-themed vacationland', violently excluding local people. In Eastern and Southern Africa, businesses are revaluing soil systems and farming practices for 'biochar', dispossessing farmers and pastoralists from land and resources important for their livelihoods. Evidence is mounting that some REDD schemes are dispossessing local forest users of vital resource access. For example, in Uganda more than 22,000 people were evicted from their land, allegedly at gunpoint, to allow the New Forests Company, a UK firm, to plant trees to earn carbon credits. The ‘green economy’ is a new disguise for old tricks. The ‘green economy’ means that global corporate capitalism makes profits with a new, more respectable face. We can't save the Planet Earth by putting a price on Mother Nature
Instead of putting a price on Nature, we need to recognize that humans are part of Nature and that Nature is not a thing to possess or a mere supplier of resources. The Earth is a living system, it is our home and it is a community of interdependent beings and parts of one whole system. We humans are just one element of the biosphere. The capitalist system has gotten out of control and like a virus it's going to kill the body that feeds it. Only through replacing growth with a steady-state economy can we be sustainable. This, however, does not mean advocating zero-growth worldwide, because that would deny development to a majority of the world’s population in urgent need of material advancement. Capitalism is going to make life near-impossible for humans as we know it. we need to recapture nature from the market's grasp, nurturing and legitimising more interconnected human-ecological relationships and understandings, along with tried-and-tested forms of local ecosystem stewardship based on them. We need to overthrow capitalism and develop a system that is based on the world community - a real commonwealth of peoples. It’s time to build a new decentralised, democratic, horizontal model, where all ecosystems are respected. A true green economy would put an end to harmful policies which put profit before people and also end our obsession with economic growth and unsustainable consumption and embrace a focus on how everyone’s needs can be truly met in an sustainable manner.It means dismantling the corrupt, top-down power structures that maintain wealth for the few and reinstating decentralised, community-controlled economies. Only through replacing growth with a steady-state economy can we be sustainable. This, however, does not mean advocating zero-growth worldwide, because that would deny development to a majority of the world’s population in urgent need of material advancement. Instead of applying market rules to nature what we need is to forge a new system based on the principles of: harmony and balance among all and with all things; common ownership and collective well-being; the satisfaction of the basic necessities of all. The global response needed to confront the crisis we face requires structural changes.
We must change the capitalist system, not the Earth's system. The time has come to unite the thousands of struggles, the hundreds of campaigns, all the movements and organisations combating the many different ways capitalism has appropriated our destinies in every part of the planet. Peoples' liberties have been violated, the Earth and its resources destroyed and pillaged while companies continue to commit economic and ecological crimes without constraint. These corporations, driven by their imperative of maximising profit, pit workers from different regions against each other in a race to the bottom.The multi-nationals operate globally, moving from one country to another, applying the same recipe to generate profit at any cost. It is we, the working class, who bear the costs. Yet resistance is growing throughout the world. Every day, more communities and peoples struggle against these companies. Even so, we have not managed to halt the advance of corporations. When defeated in one place, they adjust their strategies and move to another location.
There is the urgent need for a concerted response. We must unite our experiences and struggles, learn collectively from success and failure, and share our analysis and strategies for putting an end to capitalism. Voting is only one step in taking control of your future. Being politically and socially active is more than voting, however. We invite you to join us in collectively building this process of mobilisation towards a global campaign against the power of the capitalist and coordinate global struggles, combining street protests with education and political action to create a potent movement of solidarity and practical opposition against big business, its apologists and its promoters. The truth and knowing the facts will prevent us from being fooled into believing what’s bad is good.
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