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Dithering in Durban
Once again, a United Nations-sponsored climate
change conference has completely failed to address the issue of global
warming. Indeed, the latest attempt – in Durban, South Africa, last
December – pushed any hope of a deal back to beyond 2020, already far
too late for meaningful action in the view of most climate change
scientific opinion. PETE DICKENSON reports.
DESPITE ITS UTTER, abject failure, the chair of the
conference, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, proclaimed a resounding success.
Referring to a ‘plan A’ (supposedly legally binding), rather than a
voluntary ‘plan B’, she said: "we have concluded this meeting with plan
A to save our planet for the future of our children and our
grandchildren to come. We have made history". (The Times, 12 December)
Chris Huhne, Britain’s energy and climate change minister, added: "This
is the first time we have seen major economies commit to take action
demanded by the science". (New Scientist, 17 December)
Anyone familiar with the seriousness of the
environmental situation would have to assume that these statements
reflected either the deepest political cynicism, or self-delusion almost
on a level requiring medical intervention. Nothing substantive was
agreed on either count, legal or scientific. All the conference ended
with was a hope that a new and as yet unspecified agreement to replace
the Kyoto climate reduction treaty, that ends this year, would come into
operation by the earliest in 2020. That is, no new deal will be in place
between now and then, when the consensus of climate science says that
the greenhouse gases causing global warming must be cut by 40% in less
than ten years to avert a potential catastrophe. Moreover, the wording
agreed to form a legally binding basis for a future treaty was so vague
as to be worthless.
The evidence available to the delegates was ominous
(see boxes). The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned just before
the meeting that the planet was heading for "irreversible and
potentially catastrophic climate change", and that carbon dioxide
emissions, which account for most global warming, rose by 5% in 2010 to
record levels. This was despite the onset of the economic crisis of
2008, that many expected would temporarily mitigate the problem.
Vague and meaningless
JUST AS AT the UN-sponsored summit in Copenhagen in
2009, the talks were marked by confrontation and acrimony. The key
issues were whether any future protocol would be legally binding and, if
this was agreed, what the targets would be and when would they have to
be met. In the end, what the new targets would be was not even
addressed. The conference overran by two days just arguing over the
legal standing of any agreement.
The final form of words – that by 2015 governments
would finalise a "protocol, legal instrument or an agreed outcome with
legal force" to impose pollution targets – was so vague as to render it
meaningless. Inevitably, it will become the subject of interminable
wrangling in the coming years. When a successor treaty to Kyoto would
begin operation was not included in the agreement. All we were left with
was a pious hope from the organisers that enough countries would ratify
any treaty by 2020 for it to come into force. The looseness of the legal
formulation was the only reason the US and Chinese administrations were
not opposed to the final agreement, in public at least.
Along with agreeing future emissions targets, the
issue of when a new treaty would begin is a crucial one. The
overwhelming opinion of climate science is that carbon emissions should
be cut by 40% by 2020 to have a 50% chance of avoiding a rise in global
temperature of 2°C that could cause potential devastation. Many
scientists believe that even this target is insufficient, and we should
aim for a rise of just 1.5°C.
The outcome of the Durban summit is that not one
gram of carbon will be cut before 2020. In fact, carbon emissions will
continue to rise at an accelerating rate until then if present trends
continue. Also, given the long track record of failed UN talks, and the
highly antagonistic and confrontational atmosphere at Durban, it is
almost inconceivable that anything meaningful will be achieved by 2020,
still less by 2015, the target date for the conclusion of the talks.
Another crucial question, what any new targets would
be, was not even discussed. Fixing new targets was particularly
important because Kyoto was rigged so that no meaningful reductions at
all were demanded. This was to try to encourage the USA to take part –
without success. This time, the targets were meant to reflect the dire
real situation, not political expediency, so the failure even to begin
to address this issue was a hammer blow to the credibility of the
process, although not surprising in the acrimonious circumstances of the
talks.
Global fund deadlock
THE PROJECTED INCREASE in greenhouse gas output
between now and 2020 by China alone will destroy any chance of meeting
the 2°C target for global warming. What position it takes in the coming
decade will be vital therefore. Although no official discussions took
place in Durban on targets, the Chinese regime made it clear, as it has
for years, that no target for greenhouse gas reductions would be
acceptable. All that will be on offer, and this conditionally, is for a
commitment to reduce the intensity of carbon use. (Intensity means the
amount of carbon outputted per unit of GDP, a measure of the efficiency
of carbon use.) However, even if China increases energy efficiency, if
its economy continues to grow more quickly than intensity falls, as has
been the case, then total emissions will rise.
China, India and other countries trying to
industrialise say, reasonably, that the ex-colonial countries should not
be expected to pick up the bill since global warming has been caused
mainly by the big imperialist powers. Also, the USA, Japan and the EU
should not be able to wash their hands of the problem as they ‘export’
their emissions to China through off-shoring production. Recognising
this position, the conference was supposed to come up with an agreement
on a special green climate fund that would give financial assistance to
help poorer nations to address climate change.
One of the few, tiny advances at Copenhagen was to
set up this fund, which was to be worth $100 billion a year. No money
was forthcoming, though. So, one of the tasks for Durban was to set up a
funding mechanism for this programme. Before the summit, this was spun
as one of the areas where real agreement would be reached, even if there
were problems elsewhere. In the event, there was total deadlock on this
issue, too. With no agreement, any possibility that China and India
would contemplate future actual cuts in emissions, rather than just in
energy intensity, was eliminated.
Voluntary agreements
SURVEYING THE WRECKAGE of yet another failed summit,
the world is left with a reliance on the voluntary agreements that were
promised after the collapse of the Copenhagen talks. As subsequent
experience has shown, these were hardly worth the paper they were
written on, as governments were responsible for setting their own rules
and policing them. For instance, the US administration had promised to
cut greenhouse gases by 17% from 2005 levels, but will not say what
emissions were in that year. "They keep changing the data", said Marion
Vieweg of Climate Analytics, a climate modelling group in Germany (New
Scientist, 17 December).
The Brazilian government said it would cut output by
36% from ‘business as usual’ projected growth, but decided this year to
change its (self-determined) definition of business as usual to permit
an extra 18% of emissions. China’s regime agreed to cut carbon
intensity, but refused to give a projection of economic growth, making
it impossible to calculate the potential impact on the environment.
The EU, as at Copenhagen, played a cynical,
hypocritical role, posing as a champion of the environment, in
particular pressing for more stringent targets and a tougher legal
framework than most others wanted. Its positions, however, were always
conditional on agreement being reached with all parties at Durban, and
would be withdrawn otherwise. Since it was perfectly clear in advance
that there was no chance that the US and China, in particular, would go
along with the EU’s demands, it was safe to pose as much as it liked. In
the end, of course, the chief EU negotiator, Connie Hildegaarde, signed
up to an agreement with a nebulous legal framework with no emissions
targets at all.
The EU did agree to continue implementing Kyoto
after this year, but this gesture failed to refute suggestions that it
was grandstanding, as it refused to say for how long this commitment
would last, or what the new targets would be for emissions reductions.
In the very unlikely event that meaningful EU targets and timescales
emerge, the gesture would still have little impact on global warming
because the Kyoto nations now account for only 15% of total emissions as
a result of Japan, Russia and Canada pulling out.

What needs to be done?
THE FAILURE OF the Durban summit – and, previously,
the one in Copenhagen – which were meant to correct the failings of the
Kyoto system, demonstrates graphically the inability of the capitalist
class to tackle global warming. In particular, Copenhagen – a meeting
that the UN in advance had called the last chance to avoid catastrophic
global warming – revealed the antagonistic relations lying at the heart
of imperialism, preventing agreement on climate change.
Rather than the Kyoto-type cap-and-trade system
discussed at Durban, many activists are now calling for direct measures
to be implemented to reduce greenhouse gases. They say that laws should
be introduced to establish a ceiling on emissions by a certain date, any
transgressions being dealt with using criminal sanctions. However, if
the bourgeoisie opposed the largely cosmetic measures proposed at Durban
and Copenhagen, any new approach with real teeth would meet with even
more determined resistance. The evidence is now overwhelming that,
despite their fine words, the ruling capitalist class in Britain and
internationally does not intend to take any meaningful action to tackle
global warming in the foreseeable future.
Indeed, the financial and economic crisis that began
in 2007 has made it likely that even token, half-hearted measures, like
the Kyoto treaty, will be opposed by most states. For instance, the US
administration resolutely refused to participate in an international
treaty to reduce greenhouse gases, even when it was offered a system at
Copenhagen that was full of loopholes. Environmental activists should
join with the labour movement to fight the do-nothing policies of the
capitalists. However, as well as campaigning for decisive action,
political lessons must also be drawn from the 20 years that have already
been lost in the battle against global warming, since the Rio earth
summit in 1992.
The failure of market approaches to tackle this
issue points to the need for a radical policy that addresses the root of
the problem: the capitalist market system and the imperialist rivalry
between nation states that it has spawned in the last 100 years. A
change in the social system is the only way that will allow us to live
in harmony with the natural environment into the foreseeable future. The
premise for this must be the common ownership of the means of life,
applied on an international scale, which would remove the antagonism
between nation states that is threatening to destroy the planet.
By taking no meaningful action for the past 20
years, the representatives of the capitalist market system have created
a situation where some of the effects of global warming are probably
irreversible, or at least cannot be reversed for hundreds of years.
Whatever happens now, this is an historical indictment of capitalism,
which could eventually rank in its consequences alongside the greatest
crimes for which capitalism has been responsible, such as the
imperialist wars of the 20th century.
To avoid the worst effects of climate change,
decisive action needs to be taken now. Yet there is no sign at all of
this happening, due to the rivalries of the main industrial powers. This
presents a grave warning to the labour movement internationally that the
task is urgent and it falls on our shoulders to implement a programme
that can tackle global warming. The essential step in making this a
reality is to replace capitalism with a democratic socialist system. The
longer this is delayed, the worse will be the situation we inherit.

The scale of the problem
SINCE THE early 20th century, global
temperatures have risen rapidly, so far by 0.7°C. A rise of 0.7°C
may not seem big, but this needs to be compared to the figure of
2°C, beyond which it is widely accepted that global warming effects
could become irreversible. Predictions of future warming cover a big
range, depending on the assumed sensitivity of the earth to the
concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. The present
concentration is about 430 parts per million carbon dioxide
equivalent in the air (430ppm CO2e). The equivalent
figure is often used so that the whole range of greenhouse gasses,
most significantly methane, is taken into account.
It has been estimated that a figure of 400ppm
could result in temperature rises of between 0.6°C and 4.9°C
depending on assumed sensitivity. A concentration of 1,000ppm could
produce rises in the range of 2.2°C to 17.1°C. The International
Energy Agency (IEA) estimated in 2006 that emissions will more than
double by 2050 on current trends, which could result in a
temperature rise of 1.7°C-13.3°C. Also, the predictions here could
be conservative because of so-called tipping point effects.
Tipping points, sometimes called positive
feedback effects, reinforce global warming in various ways. For
instance, the role the oceans currently play in absorbing carbon
dioxide could be switched to one of emitting the gas. This could
happen because, as sea temperatures rise due to global warming, the
oceans’ ability to absorb further carbon dioxide is reduced.
Another serious tipping point threat is the
possible collapse of the global ocean circulation system. This could
shut down the Gulf Stream and affect the Asian monsoon, leading to a
warming of the southern oceans and the destabilisation of the west
Antarctic ice sheet. At the same time, the El Niño current in the
Pacific could become a permanent feature, hastening the
disappearance of the Amazon rainforest, an important absorber, or
sink, of carbon dioxide. Already, the Amazon turned into a net
emitter of carbon dioxide during two monster droughts in the last
ten years.
Connected to the disruption of the ocean
currents is another tipping point, linked to the melting of polar
ice. The absence of polar ice to reflect the sun’s rays back beyond
the atmosphere will further reinforce global warming.
Perhaps the most serious (although the most
unpredictable) positive feedback phenomenon, however, is the release
of methane into the atmosphere. Methane has a far more toxic effect
than carbon dioxide in relation to global warming and, potentially,
vast quantities could be released as the earth warms. Methane
presently trapped in the permafrost is equivalent to double all the
greenhouse gas emissions yet made and it is not clear to what extent
it will be released as temperatures rise in permafrost regions. Even
more methane is under the oceans, kept in place by sufficiently low
temperatures and high pressures. If ocean warming penetrated deeply
enough it is theoretically possible that some of this gas could be
released, with catastrophic effects.
Effects of global warming
THE SENSITIVITY of the earth to greenhouse gases
is an area that is not yet fully understood but, if the upper end of
the International Energy Agency estimates, 13.3°C, proves to be
true, it will be difficult for life to be sustained on the planet.
Although this extreme outcome is statistically unlikely, it is
nevertheless a warning of the profound dangers we face. A recent,
lower, and much more likely prediction, which would nevertheless
still be devastating, is for a rise of 4°C by 2055 – made by the UK
Met Office, a leading authority in climate science.
According to Wolfgang Cramer at the Postsdam
Institute for Climate Research in Germany, a 4°C rise would see 83%
of the Amazon rainforest destroyed by 2100. His colleague, Anders
Levermann, has developed a model predicting alternating extreme
monsoons and droughts in China and India that will threaten
irrigation systems and access to drinking water. Overall, lack of
water, crop failure and rising sea levels could force up to 200
million people from their homes by 2050.
The 2006 Stern report into climate
change, commissioned by the former New Labour government in Britain
and then ignored, assumed a 2-3°C rise. It also predicted more
frequent droughts and floods, as well as declining crop yields and
fish stocks, with tens or hundreds of millions of people flooded out
of their homes. Climate change will also increase deaths from
malnutrition, heat stress and diseases such as malaria and dengue
fever.
An important new development facing the Durban
conference was the evidence of massive greenhouse gas production in
China, to the extent that it is now the world’s biggest emitter.
This is due significantly to the transfer of pollution from the main
industrial countries as they offshore their manufacturing. This
process of western powers’ ‘exporting’ their emissions to China has
accelerated dramatically, according to a report by the National
Academy of Sciences in the USA.
China’s carbon dioxide output increased from
four to seven gigatonnes in the six years from 2002, overtaking the
USA. China alone will produce as much carbon dioxide between 2010
and 2035 as the US, EU and Japan combined, quoting figures from the
IEA. Incidentally, if the effect of this outsourcing of pollution is
taken into account, Britain’s emissions would rise by 100 million
tonnes and China’s would fall by a fifth. Given this projection, no
agreement in Durban would have had any significance if it did not
address what is happening in China.
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