Climate change - no change

“We are on a path to three or four degrees with this outcome,” said Tasneem Essop, international climate strategist for WWF.  “We are really unhappy about the weakening of the text. This gives us no level of comfort that we will be able to close the emissions gap to get emissions to peak before 2020,” she said. 

The final draft text, a five-page document put forward for approval on Saturday, offered little assurance of cutting emissions fast enough and deeply enough to curb warming. The final draft text appeared, it had been stripped of language that would have required the emissions cuts offered by countries to keep warming below the two-degree target. It was even unclear whether those targets would be subjected to a serious review. In an even bigger blow to small island countries, the draft made no mention of industrialised countries’ responsibility towards the small island states which are under threat of being drowned by rising seas.

 Saleemul Huq, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development, put it even more succinctly: “It sucks. It is taking us backwards.”

The Malaysian delegate said the proposed deal would not hold the major polluters to account. The Democratic Republic of the Congo representative said: “This crosses all our red lines.” Sudan flatly said the proposals were unacceptable.

“Let me be frank. There are parts of this text that make me very uncomfortable and parts that are very thin,” said Tony deBrum, foreign minister of the Marshall Islands.

The idea of a global agreement in which the nations of the world bind themselves to specific targets for reducing carbon emissions, with penalties for not doing so, is over. In its place the new plan of action is to construct a patchwork of voluntary national pledges known as "intended nationally determined contributions." Each country will put on the table a package of promises about what they are willing to do and in some undefined way be held to it by collective moral force. These contributions will not go into effect until 2020, which many scientists believe is too late. Negotiators have opted for the stack of flimsy promises. It should come as a surprise to no one that nations are unwilling to surrender part of their sovereignty to a global agreement.

The disappointment with the progress of the Lima negotiations was widespread – and hugely at odds with the mood of optimism that prevailed at the opening of the talks. It was initially hoped the agreement would push the world’s large economies into making ambitious commitments to cut carbon pollution while also contributing funds and technology to protect the world’s poorest countries from climate change. But those hopes were frustrated by the divide over whether rising economies should be under similar obligation to cut emissions as America and Europe. India – though quickly emerging as one of the world’s biggest carbon polluters – says it should not be held to similar standards as the US and EU.

Never mind that the Lima failed, the environmentalists now place their never-ending faith and on-going trust in the coming Paris UN climate talks. Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at University College London, said: “Though the weak text emerging from Lima is extremely disappointing, there are still 12 months for the negotiators to up their game before the critical Paris COP. Essential to this is for the negotiators to understand that the world’s public expect a global legally binding treaty. Not because it is enforceable, as we know they are not, but it shows commitment to a safe, better and hopefully more equitable world.” 

When UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that time is running out to curb global warming to safer levels, adding that the world still has a chance to limit its deleterious effects. “I am deeply concerned that our collective action does not match our common responsibilities…. This is not the time for tinkering, it’s time for transformation. ” We in the World Socialist Movement can only agree with his sentiments but we know he does not share the same understanding with us about what this transformation means. Only a socialist revolution will suffice to generate conditions of equality, sustainability and human freedom and would necessarily draw its major impetus from the struggles of the working populations and communities at the bottom of the global hierarchy. Basic human needs must be ahead of all other needs and wants. As John Bellamy Foster expresses it “There is the need for a revolt from below in support of social and ecological transformation, pointing beyond the existing system….The transition to socialism and the transition to an ecological society are one.”

 If we were living in a rationally organised world, when confronted by the threat of global warming, a co-ordinated global response would be organised as a matter of course. Given the competitive nature of capitalism any agreement on trying to deal with climate change is bound to be feeble and inadequate. The stark reality which many well-intentioned environmentalists try to ignore is as long as they are cheaper, more economical, more profitable, coal and oil will be used. And no nation or capitalist corporation in that line of business is going to commit economic suicide by not seeking to make profits from supplying this paying demand for coal and oil. It is this damned system that allows them to operate as they do, that allows them to put profits before human and environmental interests, and that system needs to be abolished. If those concerned about the threat of climate change would think the matter through they should be campaigning not for capitalist governments and corporations to change their spots but for the end of capitalism. What this means is that popular organising to demand action on climate has never been more urgent. We can work across national boundaries in solidarity, sharing ideas, building strategies, and linking arms, engaging in the political battles country by country and community by community. For the movement, the challenge will be to use that moment to help people see that they are not alone. People, collectively, have the power to bring about change and transformation. Governments and corporations are made up of individuals who are, in the main, diametrically opposed to and totally disinterested in the views and opinions of most of the world’s people. But it will be the people, who, by sheer weight of numbers, will end the tyranny that is being waged now by international capitalism on their habitat. People everywhere are beginning to realise that their loyalty is to one another as well as to the maintenance and protection of the planet, not just for now, but for all future generations.

Capitalism is simply unable to run on green lines, as its motive force is expansion and domination, with no thought for the consequences for the people or the environment. The Socialist Party argues that capitalism is unable to cope with the ecological challenges that lie ahead, from global warming, to depletion of resources. Socialists have for years railed at capitalist market production for being on a relentless collision course with the environment.