The politics of climate

The Copenhagen climate change summit was probably the largest gathering where world’s political leaders and negotiators came to work on innovative yet achievable solutions to climate change. Climate chaos is already costing millions of lives and billions of dollars. Science tells us that to keep temperature rise within 2o Celsius, an 80 per cent cut is needed by 2050. But without a legally-binding treaty, emissions of greenhouse gases will not be cut, the polluters will continue to pollute and life on earth will be increasingly threatened.

There were multiple contests at Copenhagen:

* Between the earth’s ecological limits and limitless growth;
* Between the need for legally-binding commitments and the US-led initiative to dismantle the international framework of legally-binding obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
* Between the economically-powerful historical polluters of the North and economically-weak southern countries that are the victims of climate change, with the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) negotiating with the South but finally signing the Copenhagen accord with the US; and
* Between corporate rule based on greed and profits and military power, and earth democracy based on sustainability, justice and peace.

The hundreds of thousands of people who gathered at Klimaforum and on the streets of Copenhagen came as earth citizens. Danes, Africans, Americans, Latin Americans, Canadians and Indians stood united in their concern for earth, climate justice, rights of the poor and the vulnerable and for the rights of future generations. Never before has there been such a large presence of citizens at a United Nations (UN) conference.

Ever since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Earth Summit, took place in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, the US has been unwilling to be part of the UN framework of international law. It never signed the Kyoto Protocol. During his trip to China, US President Barack Obama with Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen of Denmark had announced that there would only be a political declaration in Copenhagen, not a legally binding outcome. And this is exactly what the world got — a non-binding Copenhagen accord, initially signed by five countries, the US and the BASIC Four, and then supported by 26 others — with the rest of the 192 UN member states left out of the process. The excluded countries came to know that an “accord” had been reached when Mr Obama announced the accord to the US press corp. They refused to sign the accord and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) only “noted” the accord, it did not adopt it. This means that there is no obligation for a member of the convention to implement the accord. When the full membership of the Conference of the Parties (COP) was summoned to the closing plenary the consequences had to be explosive.

The Venezuelan delegate, Claudia Caldera, said, “Until you tell us where the text has come from, and we hold consultations on it, we should not suspend the session. Even if we have to cut our hand and draw blood to make you allow us to speak, we will do so.”

Ian Fry of the small island of Tavalu, said, on the money that had been offered in the “accord”, said, “We are offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our people and our future. Our future is not for sale. Tavalu cannot accept this document.”

The 30 pieces of silver is $30 billion that is supposed to address the mitigation and adaptation needs of the entire Third World countries. India alone lost $30 billion in 2009 as a result of the failure of the monsoon and the post-monsoon floods that wreaked havoc in south India. The money being talked about is inadequate for the challenge being faced by the climate change, and it is not clear how this money would be mobilised. It could be through emission trading that has promoted polluting sponge iron plants and Hydrochlorofluorocarbons plants in India as part of the “clean development mechanism”.

Sudan ambassador Lumumba Di Aping said he saw the pact as a “suicide pact” that aimed to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries.

As American economist Jeffrey Sachs notes in a recent article, “Oba7pagema’s decision to declare a phoney negotiating victory undermines the UN process by signalling that rich countries will do what they want and must no longer listen to the ‘pesky’ concerns of many smaller and poorer countries”.

The Copenhagen accord will undoubtedly interfere with the official UNFCCC process in future negotiations as it did in Copenhagen. Like the earth’s future, the future of the UN now hangs in “imbalance”. There has been repeated reference to the emergence of a new world order in Copenhagen. But this is the world order shaped by corporate globalisation and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), not by the UN Climate Treaty. It is a world order based on outsourcing of pollution from the rich industrialised North to countries like China and India.

Climate change today is global in cause and effect. Globalisation of the economy has outsourced energy-intensive production to countries like China. The corporations and the consumers of the North thus bear responsibility for the increased emissions in the countries of the South.

In fact, the rural poor in China and India are losing their land and livelihood to make way for an energy-intensive industrialisation. To count them as polluters would be a major crime. Corporations, not nations, are the appropriate basis for regulating atmospheric pollution in a globalised economy.

The Copenhagen accord is in reality the accord of global corporations to continue to pollute by attempting to dismantle the UN Climate Treaty. It should be called the “right to pollute accord” as it has no legally-binding emission targets.

To protect the planet, to prevent climate catastrophe through continued pollution, we will have to continue to work beyond Copenhagen by building “earth democracy” based on principles of justice and sustainability. The climate crisis is a result of an economic model based on fossil fuel energy and resource intensive production and consumption systems. The Copenhagen accord was designed to extend the life of this obsolete model for living on earth. Now citizens of the earth must unite to pressurise governments and corporations to obey the laws of the earth, the laws of Gaia (Greek for Mother Earth). And for this we will have to be the change we want to see.

Forty per cent emissions are produced by a fossil fuel-based chemical, globalised food and agricultural systems that are not only destroying our health but also forcing our farmers to commit suicide. Forty per cent reduction in emissions can take place through biodiverse organic farming, which sequesters carbon while enriching our soil and diet. The polluters ganged up in Copenhagen for a non-solution. We as earth citizens can prove that we are for real solutions.

Dr Vandana Shiva is the executive director of the Navdanya Trust