 |
| A WORLD TO WIN A PLANET TO SAVE |
Pacific island nations under threat from rising seas havewarned that climate talks in Paris represent the “last chance” to save them
from obliteration. The warning came as a
report castigated Australia and New Zealand for ignoring their small,
impoverished neighbours’ calls for more robust action to cut carbon emissions.
“What we are talking
about is survival,” said Anote Tong, the President of Kiribati, a string of
atolls barely 3ft (0.9m) above sea level. “It’s not about economic
development... it’s not politics. It’s survival,” he told a meeting of Pacific
island leaders in Papua New Guinea. The small island nations want Australia and
New Zealand to use their regional muscle to advocate for them on the world
stage. Mr Tong said. “If they really are our friends, then they should be
looking after our future as well.”
Preparing for their annual Pacific Islands Forum summit this
week, Pacific leaders implored the rest of the world to commit itself to
limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7
Fahrenheit) above pre-Industrial Revolution levels. Leaders of six island
nations said the Paris talks were “our last chance to reach an outcome that
must reverse the global warming pathway to ensure the future survival and
existence of our nations, people and culture”.
“Anything over two degrees... and we go under water,” Tony
de Brum, the Foreign Minister of the
Marshall Islands, told Australia’s ABC radio recently. Australia’s PM Abbott
has been widely criticised for dragging his feet on tackling climate change.
Referring to the emissions reduction target, Mr de Brum said: “If the rest of
the world followed Australia’s lead, the Great Barrier Reef would disappear. So
would my country, and other vulnerable atoll nations on Australia’s doorstep.” Australia
is one of the world’s biggest coal producers, and Mr Abbott last year lauded
coal as “good for humanity”.
Last week, Fiji’s Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama,
castigated Australia for siding with “the coalition of the selfish – these
industrialised nations which are putting the welfare of their carbon-polluting
industries and their workers before our welfare and survival as Pacific
islanders”.
Oxfam Australia berated both countries for setting the bar
low in relation to reducing carbon emissions. Australia is aiming to cut
emissions by 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, while New Zealand is
seeking a 30 per cent cut. The two governments – led by conservatives Tony
Abbott and John Key, who are expected to meet a chilly reception when they
arrive in Papua New Guinea later this week – are “threatening the very survival
of some Pacific nations”, Oxfam said.
The nations point to these more frequent and destructive
storms – along with eroding coastlines and crops poisoned by seawater – as
evidence that they are already suffering the impact of climate change. An Oxfam
report also lambasted the two countries for failing to heed the “wake-up call”
of Cyclone Pam, which devastated Vanuatu six months ago, and of catastrophic
flooding in Kiribati and Tuvalu earlier this year. The chief executive of Oxfam
Australia, Dr Helen Szoke, said the “two big brothers of the Pacific [Australia
and NZ] have largely ignored their neighbours’ calls for stronger emissions
reduction targets and greater support to meet the challenges of climate
change”.
The Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, told AFP last
month that climate change was the “enemy No 1” for his country
“We in the Pacific did not cause climate change, but we
suffer because of it,” Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, said.
After two decades of meetings, conferences and summits this
year’s Paris 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) is being cited as the make or
break one when nations must come up with a legally binding and universal
agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C. The
world is already experiencing extreme weather events, things we have not
experienced before and they are happening more often and all across the globe –
and this because the world has warmed up just by a 0.8°C. It will take a
tremendous effort by governments to make the Paris talks successful. This will
entail unprecedented international cooperation to accomplish the goal of making
the planet safe and sustainable world. Is humanity capable of achieving such
consensus? With time running out can countries commit towards to a fossil
fuel-free economy by 2050? The World Socialist Movement basing its view on
history can only be skeptical. Change will never come from the corporations.
Big Business is committed to one principle, that the purpose of the natural
world is to serve as raw material for capital
accumulation. The profit-and-loss calculations made on something as
basic to existence the air and the water speaks volumes as to the logic of
capitalism. Real change, which is what we need, has to emerge from the
communities. Livelihoods and the quality of all our lives are directly
dependent upon our relationship with Nature. It is vital that we the people are
‘at the table’ that shapes policies of the ruling class concerning the
environment. After all, we have the most at stake and the most to lose.
We have a responsibility as world citizens to figure out
what needs to be done and help do it. If COP21 fails to deliver and considering
the complicated challenge in organizing 190 sovereign nations around one single
goal where competing interests exist, that is very likely, the consequences are
unimaginable. The threat of climate change cannot be dealt with by just
piecemeal reforms. It requires a radical transformation of society. The
struggle to protect our planet is the struggle against capitalism, itself.
We're at an important crossroads and here’s how we can save
the planet. We can change the economic
system that causes global warming and environmental destruction. Time really is
running out to save the world we live in and there's really only one thing we
can do to prevent a total climate catastrophe: we must end capitalism and
establish socialism. The worldwide social movement fighting for a more
ecologically sustainable world has travelled a long way in the past few
decades. That is no small achievement and we should congratulate them but there
is still a distance to go. Capitalists never willingly gives up anything, never
voluntarily relinquish their privileges and power without a struggle. The
environment will not be protected merely because it would be rational to do but
only because we the people demand and fight for it. In Paris we could be out in
force, filling the streets but it will take more than just protest to stop
humanity’s future being stolen. As we
protest, we must also propose. The world as a whole has never been so endowed
with resources and productive technology. There is actually no reason for
pessimism – but only if we the people take control and begin to determine the
way we want the world to be run.
People around the world have more in common with each other
than with their rulers. We ally with no nation, but only with working people
throughout the world. Socialism and democracy are one and indivisible.
Socialists participate in the electoral process to present socialist
alternatives. People’s power cannot be created by legislation but nor can they
spring into being only on the eve of a revolution. They can grow only in the
course of struggle. The end profoundly shapes the means and process of change.
In a socialist system the people commonly own and collectively control
production and distribution through democratic and accountable administrative
agencies. The primary goal of economic activity is to provide the necessities
of life - food, clothing, shelter, health-care and education. Democracy in
daily life is the core of our socialism. Work-place and community control make
it possible to combine life at work, home and in the community into a
meaningful whole. A socialist society
will be a harmonious part of our natural environment. This planning takes place
on local, regional and global levels and covers the production of energy, the
use of scarce resources, land-use planning, the prevention of pollution and the
conservation of flora and fauna. The clean-up of the contaminated environment
will be among the first tasks of a socialist society.
Millions of the population have nothing to do with creating
anything useful at all. Instead, they devote their skill and effort to other
purposes, for example, persuading people to buy things they would otherwise not
have thought they needed. In a world where brand names and packaging count for
much more than the actual utility of goods. If we are socialists, what are we
actually striving for?
The World Socialist Party (New Zealand) does
not feel it necessary to give up a single one of our ideas about
socialism. It is the opponents of
ourselves who find themselves wandering about helter-skelter, without purpose
or goal. Supposing the environmentalist lobby do not succeed in changing the
capitalist social order what then? What kind of a future? We can be assured it
will not be a pleasant sight. It is the utopian dreamers who promote imaginary
futures in which capitalists cooperate with their workers in the new society
and the world’s problems are solved.
Socialism and a steady-state economy can be built only when there has
been a social revolution.
World Socialist Party
(New Zealand):
E-mail:
wsp.nz@worldsocialism.org
 |
| FOR A NEW SOCIALIST SUSTAINABLE WORLD |
No comments:
Post a Comment