The "red lines" demonstration in Paris was the best thing that happened at
the Paris climate change summit, COP21. It showed that activists aren't going
to leave things to the governments, and they demonstrated in the face of the
"state of emergency" of the government of "socialist" president Francois
Hollande. "We are the red lines" demonstrations also took place elsewhere,
such as in Seattle and New York City. The demonstrators were concerned that
the negotiators in Paris would cross various "red lines".
The media is making a big fuss over the outcome of the Paris summit on global
warming. The Paris agreement has been hailed as encouraging progress, more
than what various environmentalists expected, or even a landmark agreement.
Even many demonstrators and critics of COP21 generally regarded that it was
positive in many ways. Yet the reality is that the Paris summit was an
environmental flop. Compared to the infamous Copenhagen summit of 209, Paris
was a smashing success in giving positive spin to the actions of the
bourgeoisie and the governments, but it remained an abject failure in
dealing with the danger of global warming.
It declared grand goals while ignoring the question of how to achieve them.
Its standpoint: let everyone do what they want - "clean coal", nuclear,
so-called transitional fuels, biofuels, or just hocus-pocus - so long as they
declare it part of a plan. It closed its eyes to the failure of the market
measures of the past, such as cap and trade, and these measures will
continue. It talks about "transparency", and there will be no real
transparency.
The environmental writer George Monbiot wrote about the Paris summit as
follows: "A combination of acidifying seas, coral death and Arctic melting
means that entire marine food chains could collapse. On land, rainforests may
retreat, rivers fail and deserts spread. Mass extinction is likely to be the
hallmark of our era. This is what success, as defined by the cheering
delegates, will look like." ("Grand promises of Paris climate deal undermined
by squalid retrenchments", Dec. 12, "Guardian")
His article added:"In Paris the delegates have solemnly agreed to cut demand,
but at home they seek to maximise supply. The UK government has even imposed
a legal obligation upon itself, under the Infrastructure Act 2015, to
'maximise economic recovery' of the UK´s oil and gas. Extracting fossil fuels
is a hard fact. But the Paris agreement is full of soft facts: promises that
can slip or unravel. Until governments undertake to keep fossil fuels in the
ground, they will continue to undermine the agreement they have just made."
Yet, surprisingly, while saying that the Paris agreement is a disaster
compared to what's needed, Monbiot also writes in his article that "By
comparison to what it could have been, it's a miracle." No, not at all.
There's nothing positive in the destroyers of the environment pretending that
they are protecting it. In that respect, the environmental scientist and
climate change activist James Hansen hit the nail on the head when he said of
the Paris summit that "It's a fraud really, a fake. It's just bullshit for
them to say: 'We'll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little
better every five years.' It's just worthless words. There is no action."
("James Hansen, father of climate change awareness, calls Paris talks 'a
fraud'," Dec. 12, "Guardian")
Unfortunately, Hansen advocates that the carbon tax is the solution (as well
as mistakenly backing an increase in the use of nuclear power). He doesn't
understand that the carbon tax is simply a variant of the market methods that
have gotten us into this mess in the first place. We need direct planning and
regulation of energy production, not reliance on market incentives. We also
need economic planning to back up the planning and regulation of energy, to
deal with other environmental problems, and to protect people's livelihood in
the massive economic dislocations that are coming. None of this will happen
unless there is a militant movement insisting that the planning be done in
public with the broadest mass participation, and unless there is a strong
working class trend within the environmental movement. Neo-liberal fake
planning and regulation, which means companies "self-regulate" and
governments subcontract out their functions to company stooges, is worse than
useless.
-----------------------------------
Joseph Green
[email protected]
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