By Vandana Shiva
Twenty Years ago, at the
Earth Summit, the world’s Governments signed the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change to create a legally binding framework to
address the challenge of climate change.
Today, the Green House Gas emissions that contribute to climate change have increased not reduced.
The Climate Treaty is weaker not stronger.
The failure to reduce green house gases is linked to
following the flawed route of carbon trading and emissions trading as
the main objective of the Kyoto Protocol to the Climate Convention.
The Kyoto Protocol allows industrialized countries
to trade their allocation of carbon emissions among themselves (Article
17). It also allows an “investor” in an industrialized country (industry
or government) to invest in an eligible carbon mitigation project in a
developing country in exchange for Certified Emission Reduction Units
that can be used to meet obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
This is referred to as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under
Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol gave 38
industrialized countries that are the worst historical polluter’s
emissions rights. The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)
rewarded 11,428 industrial installations with carbon dioxide emissions
rights. Through emissions trading Larry Lohmann observes, “rights to the
earth’s carbon cycling capacity are gravitating into the hands of those
who have the most power to appropriate them and the most financial
interest to do so”. That such schemes are more about privatizing the
atmosphere than preventing climate change is made clear by the fact that
the rights given away in the Kyoto Protocol were several times higher
than the levels needed to prevent a 2°C rise in global temperatures.
Climate activists focused exclusively on getting the
Kyoto Protocol implemented in the first phase. They thus, innocently,
played along with the polluters.
By the time the Copenhagen Summit took place, the
polluters were even better organised and subverted a legally building
outcome by having President Obama push the Copenhagen Accord.
Copenhagen and Beyond : The agenda for Earth Democracy
The UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen was probably the
largest gathering of citizens and governments [ever? To do with what?].
The numbers were huge because the issue is urgent. Climate chaos is
already costing millions of lives and billions of dollars. The world had
gathered to get legally binding cuts in emissions by the rich North in
the post Kyoto phase i.e. after 2010. Science tells us that to keep
temperature rise within 2°C, an 80% cut is needed by 2020. 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, reflecting multiple dimensions of climate wars. These contests included those:
>> Between the earth’s ecological limits and
limitless growth (with its associated limitless pollution and limitless
resource exploitation).
>> Between the need for legally binding
commitments and the U.S 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 who 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 U.S.
>> 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 and Africans, Americans and Latin Americans, Canadians and Indian
were one in their care for the earth, for climate justice, for the
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 UN Conference. Never before have climate negotiations
seen such a large people’s participation. People came to Copenhagen
because they are fully aware of the seriousness of the climate crisis,
and deeply committed to taking action to change production and
consumption patterns.
Ever since the Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio de
Janeiro the U.S has been unwilling to be part of the UN framework of
international law. It never signed the Kyoto Protocol. During his trip
to China, President Obama with Prime Minster Rasmussen of Denmark had
already 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. Most countries came
to know that an “accord” had been reached when President Obama
announced the accord to the U.S Press Corp. Most excluded countries
refused to sign the accord. It remained an agreement between those
countries that chose to declare their adherence. But it nevertheless
showed the willingness of the US and others to disregard the needs of
those in the global South. Arguing against the accord, Sudan’s
Ambassador Lumumba Di Aping said the 2°C increase accepted in the
document would result in a 3 to 5 degree rise in temperature in Africa.
He saw the pact as a suicide pact to maintain the economic dominance of a
few countries.
As Jeffrey Sachs noted in his article “Obama undermines UN Climate Process”:
“Obama’s decision to declare a phoney negotiating
victory undermines the UN process by signaling that rich countries will
do what they want and must no longer listen to the “pesky” concerns of
many smaller and poorer countries – International Law, as complicated as
it is, has been replaced by the insincere, inconsistent, and
unconvincing word of a few powers, notably the U.S. America has insisted
that others sign on to its terms – leaving the UN process hanging by a
thread.”[1]
Even though the intention of the award was to
dismantle the UN process, the reports of the two ad-hoc working groups
on the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the long term cooperative action
(AWG-LCA) which have been negotiating for four years and two years were
adopted in the closing plenary.
The Copenhagen Accord will undoubtedly interfere
with the official UNFCC process in future negotiations as it did in
Copenhagen. Like the earth’s future, the future of the UN now hangs in
balance. There has been repeated reference to the emergence of a new
world order in Copenhagen. But this is the world order shaped by
corporate globalization and the WTO, not by the UN Climate Treaty. It is
a world order based on the outsourcing of pollution from the rich
industrialized North to countries like China and India. It is a world
order based on the rights of polluters.
Climate change today is global in cause and global
in effect. Globalisation of the economy has outsourced energy-intensive
production to countries like China, which is flooding the shelves of
supermarkets with cheap products. The corporations of the North 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
industrialization. To count them as polluters would be doubly criminal;
corporations, not nations, are the appropriate basis for regulations
atmospheric pollution in a globalised economy.
Twelve years after citizens movements and African
governments shut down the WTO Ministerial in Seattle, the same contest
between corporate power and citizens power, between limitless profits
and growth and the limits of a fragile earth was played out in
Copenhagen. The only difference was that in trade negotiations the
commercial interests of corporation’s stands naked, whereas in climate
negotiations corporate power hides behind corporate states. The
Copenhagen Accord is in reality the accord of global corporations to
continue to pollute globally by attempting to dismantling the UN Climate
Treaty. It should be called the “Right to Pollute Accord”. It has no
legally binding emission targets.
The COP 15 talks in Copenhagen and COP 16 in Cancun
did not show much promise of an outcome that would reduce Green House
Gas Emissions and avoid catastrophic climate change. And the deadlock is
caused by an outmoded growth paradigm. There are series of false
assumptions driving the negotiations, or rather, blocking them.
>> False assumption No. 1: GNP measures Quality of Life
>> False assumption No. 2: Growth in GNP and improvement in Quality of Life is based on increased use of Fossil Fuel
>> False assumption No. 3: Growth and Fossil Fuel use have no limits
>> False assumption No. 4: Polluters have no responsibility, only rights.
These false assumptions are stated ad nauseum by
corporations, governments and the media. As stated in an article in the
Times of India, “Emissions are directly related to the quality of life
and industrial production, and hence economic growth also has a direct
link with it”.
Assumption No. 1 is false because even as India’s
GNP has risen, the number of hungry people in India have grown. In fact,
India is now the capital of hunger. The growth in GNP has in fact
undermined the quality of life of the poor in India. And it has
concentrated wealth in the hands of a few 100 billionaires now control
25% of India’s economy.
Assumption No. 2 is false because there are
alternatives to fossil fuels such as renewable energy. Further,
reduction in fossil fuel use can actually improve the quality of food
and quality of life. Industrial agriculture based on fossil fuels uses
ten units of energy to produce one unit of food. Ecological systems
based on internal inputs produce 2 to 3 units out of every unit of
energy used. We can therefore produce more and better quality of food by
reducing fossil fuel use.
Assumption No. 3 is false because the financial
collapse of 2008 showed that growth is not limitless, and Peak Oil shows
that fossil fuels will increasingly become more difficult to access and
will become costlier.
Assumption No. 4 formed the basis of carbon trading
and emissions trading under the Kyoto Protocol. This allowed polluters
to get paid billions of dollars instead of making the polluter pay. Thus
ArcelorMittal has walked away with £1 billion in the form of carbon
credits. ArcelorMittal was given the right to emit 90m tonnes of CO2
each year from its plants in EU from 2008 to 2012, while the company
only emitted 68m tonnes in 2008.
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 struggle for climate justice and
trade justice are one struggle, not two. 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. Earth
Democracy can help us build another future for the human species – a
future in which we recognize we are members of the earth family that
protecting the earth and her living processes is part of our species
identity and meaning. The polluters of the world united in Copenhagen to
prevent a legally binding accord to cut emissions and prevent
disastrous climate change. They extended the climate war. Now citizens
of the earth must unite to pressurize governments and corporations to
obey the laws of the Earth, the laws of Gaia and make climate peace. And
for this we will have to be the change we want to see.
As I have written in
Soil Not Oil,
food is where we can begin. 40% emissions are produced by fossil fuel
based chemical, globalised food and agriculture systems which are also
pushing our farmers to suicide and destroying our health. 40% reduction
in emissions can take place through biodiverse organic farming, which
sequesters carbon while enriching our soils and our diets. The polluters
ganged up in Copenhagen for a non-solution. We as Earth Citizens can
organize where we are for real solutions.
References
[1] Economic Times, 25th December, 2009
Vandana Shiva is a philosopher,
environmental activist, and eco feminist. Shiva, currently based in
Delhi, has authored more than 20 books and over 500 papers in leading
scientific and technical journals. She was trained as a physicist and
received her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Western Ontario,
Canada. She was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1993. She is the
founder of
Navdanya
