Shambles in Copenhagen

Greg Albo

The United Nations conference to address climate change in Copenhagen over the last week has illustrated several crucial features about the contemporary political setting, as Obama completes a year in power in the United States, NATO plots a military surge into the war setting spanning Palestine to Afghanistan and an economic recovery staggers along.

First, in the current balance of social forces in North America and globally, it is impossible to get committed political action to change the existing economic model of development. This is in the specific sense of a reform of the fossil fuel-dependent, outward-oriented, finance-led, labour-repressing economic model of neoliberal globalization; and in the larger sense of a rupture with the ecologically-destructive profit-driven system of capitalism.

Second, it is clear that despite the financial crisis of 2007-09, there has been no break with the power structures of neoliberalism: any interference in market relations to shift distributional relations (including the relations with how much humans withdraw from nature) is blocked (as opposed to government interventions to preserve the power of banks and financial capital); finance capital remains a central force backing the financialization and commodification of the environment; and that the U.S. state and imperialism remains at the core of global decision-making and the ordering of the relations between states. While there are cracks and some modulations in these power structures (notably, the rise of China, Brazil and India), there is no dramatic shifting in power alliances so as to open new vistas for alternate developments (although the interventions at Copenhagen of Bolivia, Venezuela – leaving aside some aspects of their own oil and gas policies for the moment – and others in the ALBA pact were notable for their insistence that an alternate path is more necessary than ever).

Third, the turn to market environmentalism of so much of the environmental movement in North America has been in equal parts political and ecological disasters. This effort to form alliances with the capitalist classes and the state within the confines of neoliberalism has done nothing to advance solutions to the most crucial ecological issue of the day – carbon emissions reduction. At the same time, it has shifted the ecology movement to the political right where it spends most of its time in concertation with governments and business and the rest spinning out green entrepreneurship and localism as solutions to global economic and environmental crises.

There is a particular tragedy here of the ecology movement embrace of the market over the last decade as a solution to ecological problems and especially greenhouse gas reductions (GHG). This is the best GHG reduction strategy that can immediately be implemented – but also better for the long-run in its focus on quality of growth and human development and not quantity of sustainable capitalist growth – lies with many of the traditional demands of the Left.

Some of these are: worktime reduction and increased leisure-time; massive expansion of collective services such as daycare, education, parks, recreation facilities, museums, and so on; increased funding of the ‘grant economy’ for cultural workers, community festivals and the like; a mass shift to public transportation funded by long-term (50 year) bond floats; major income redistribution to account for the huge class differences in causing environmental degradation; increased worker input into the ecological and health conditions of labour processes; expansion of the cooperative and worker-controlled enterprise sectors as a basis for building alternate local communities; debt relief for the global south; mass transfer of sustainable technologies; sharply constrained growth in the north to provide room for higher equalizing growth in less developed zones; and so forth.

From this foundation, it is the possible to integrate energy-switching strategies, retro-fitting, carbon taxes and so forth in a way that builds actual alternate social and ecological relations in a system of responsible production. Instead, the mainstream of the North American environmental movement has been absorbed in the politically fruitless and intellectually dishonest pursuit of a cap-and-trade financial-market led strategy for carbon emissions reduction – like bloodletting, a cure that can only worsen the disease. [See “The Story of Cap and Trade”]

There is only one good thing to have come out of the Copenhagen debacle. The sordidness of the final agreement may well stall extensive implementation of the cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, and the ‘clean development mechanisms’ foisted on the global south– the latest mechanism of imperialism – in the name of GHG reduction. Well, maybe another positive note: it showed clearly the Conservative government of Stephen Harper in Canada toadying behind the U.S., bought and paid for shills of the Alberta oil and gas industry and as strong of defenders of neoliberalism as exist anywhere on the planet. Now the whole world can see what Canadians should know well: the ‘ugly Canadian’ can no longer be shielded by nationalist cultural mythologies.

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The Bullet prints here two important interpretations of the Copenhagen events and the political openings they might signal.

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 Why We Took to the Streets

Maude Barlow and Andrea Harden-Donahue

Inaction from business interests and political leaders in Copenhagen has forced the rebirth of the movement founded in Seattle

When stuck between a rock and a hard place, there comes a time when a decision must be made. Will you lie down and suffer or choose to push with all of your will to move the rock out of your way?

Caught between increasing marginalization at, and exclusion from the Bella Center (the site of the climate negotiations) and the failure of the summit to address the climate crisis, the Dec. 16 Reclaim the Power march in Copenhagen chose to move the rock. The march, thousands strong, literally pushed for climate justice.

Joining this multi-faceted mass action of non-violent civil disobedience were people from all around the world organized in diverse networks.
Copenhagen Protests and Arrests

The objective was not to close down the summit but rather, for one day, to open a space in the UN area for a people’s assembly. Hundreds of delegates, led by members of the Bolivian delegation and the Indigenous Peoples Caucus, walked out of the Bella Center to join with the thousands of people on the other side of the fence. People were attempting to overcome physical barriers that stood in the way of holding the people’s assembly and uniting the two groups.

It is of fundamental importance to emphasize that there was no violence on the part of demonstrators.

While the action was one of civil disobedience, it was non-violent; the demonstrators did not respond to police with violence. Video footage clearly attests that participants remained peaceful, which is no easy task when your eyes are burning from pepper spray and tear gas and your body is bruised from batons. We personally witnessed police officers clubbing protesters, large police trucks being used to herd protesters to the point of falling over and police dogs being used for intimidation.

Some will question whether this was necessary. But this action physically and visually demonstrated against the direction climate talks had taken.

Despite the responsibility for emitting more than two-thirds of historical greenhouse gas emissions into an atmosphere all life shares, most developed countries continue to resist deep emission cuts. While it appears there may be short and long-term commitments to climate financing emerging from Copenhagen at the time of writing, the numbers are still below predicted need, particularly if states fail to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees.

There are also legitimate concerns being raised about the sources for funding and potential conditions.

On the streets, false solutions discussed in the Bella Center were denounced. This included examples such as carbon offsets, which allow corporations to avoid reducing emissions in the global North by purchasing credits generated by projects in the global South – projects which often do little to reduce emissions and can cause serious social and environmental harm.

There is a lot of concern and, yes, even anger at the fact that so many voices and perspectives have been actively silenced from official talks.

Deep concern has been expressed about the role of corporations and the business lobby. While most accredited non-governmental organizations were shut out in the final days of negotiations, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (known to advocate for industry self regulation as well as promoting carbon capture and storage and global carbon markets) hosted a side event alongside the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on Dec. 16, with privileged access to key decision makers. It is not a stretch to see how profit-driven business interests can and do conflict with the objective of addressing the climate crisis and advancing climate justice – ensuring this process reduces inequity and promotes greater equality.

Further, with insiders reporting that U.S. negotiators were likely to back the World Bank as the trustee of a new climate fund, it appeared that we would see more business as usual. The World Bank has shown disregard for the transition to a low-carbon future, continuing to significantly fund fossil fuel development and promoting problematic carbon markets.

The movement behind the Reclaim the Power action challenges the world to recognize that we cannot address the climate crisis until we recognize root causes of this crisis, including unsustainable production, consumption and trade. Real solutions have been much of the focus at the Klimaforum, the alternative peoples summit in Copenhagen.

Real solutions discussed include keeping fossil fuels in the ground, respect for indigenous land rights, just transition plans for workers and communities, water as a commons, climate reparations for the global South, vastly increased conservation and energy efficiency, locally owned and controlled sustainable energy alternatives and agriculture as well as sustainable transportation. These solutions are intimately tied to building a just economy for people and planet, where the pursuit of economic growth does not trump public interest.

Ten years ago a highly effective civil society movement was born in Seattle to challenge the domination of transnational corporations in determining economic, social and environmental policy through the World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund. The climate justice movement has transformed Copenhagen into the second coming, direct descendant of Seattle.

This is why the Reclaim the Power action was of such importance and this is why the Council of Canadians took to the streets in Copenhagen.

Maude Barlow is national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, and Andrea Harden-Donahue is an energy campaigner with the Council of Canadians.

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 “Imperial” Climate Deal Rejected by Poor-Country Delegates

See an ESSF: Copenhagen: `Imperial’ climate deal rejected by poor-country delegates

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