The Accord of Failure

Following the failure of the U.S. to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol, which was initiated in 1997 – and  has so far been ratified by 187 nations to date – the Copenhagen Climate Summit (COP-15) this past year marked yet another low point in the struggle to arrest and reverse environmental crisis.  Many officials and media pundits, in fact, have commented that the U.N. summit in Copenhagen represented, in all likelihood, the last opportunity on the part of the industrialized and developing world to reach and enact a binding, global agreement pertaining to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the hope of adverting a future environmental catastrophe.

Representatives of upwards of two-hundred nations and countries converged on the summit in Copenhagen to reach, ostensibly, after 14 previous meetings, a global agreement that called for drastic reductions in carbon-dioxide emissions produced by the primary global polluters: the U.S., the E.U., China, India, and Brazil.  Weeks before the summit, politicians representing the industrialized world touted the precepts of emission cuts approximating to 40% by the year 2020; however, as the summit approached, and even after a few days into it, it became clear to all the initial exaggeration of those projected ambitious targets for emissions.

After the subbmital of eight draft proposals, which, incidentally, all went down to defeat, the representatives of the U.S., China, India, Brazil, and South Africa issued instead a so-called “Copenhagen Accord.”  This Accord, which Obama referred to as an “important breakthrough,” is nothing short of a complete political failure on the part of the economically dominant nations to address the exigent issue of global warming and the subsequent destruction of the environment.  The Copenhagen Accord stated simply the need to combat the rise in global temperatures to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels; however, the statement does not say concerning how and by whom this can be met with accomplishment.

The Accord, furthermore, aims to provide upwards of $30bn a year from 2011 to 2012, and up to $100bn by 2020 to developing countries in order to help them “cope” with the long-term effects of global warming and environmental destruction.  Again, the non-binding brochure does not address who allocates funds to whom.  The document, which is in and of itself, toothless, was merely “recognized”– nothing made binding, no commitments, and no serious approach to address the issue of global warming.  It is also not apparent, moreover, whether the Accord would even come up for ratification at some future date in time.

Saving the Environment

The first step to averting climate catastrophe is to exact the most potent of pressure on our respective governments to force through a binding, global agreement, which must contain language calling for strict penalty payments on all productive facilities and their respective governments that do not follow in accord with the above agreement to follow through with commitments to reduce emissions.

In addition, since the rich, developed countries are the main polluters, it is their responsibility to lower emissions drastically as well as to help developing countries sincerely cope with the impacts of global warming, i.e., storms, floods, and droughts by providing billions of dollars in aid with no strings attached.

Following this, we need an immediate turn away from the burning of fossil fuels as a method and source of energy production and consumption towards the propagation of renewable and sustainable alternatives, i.e., wind, wave, and solar power. We also need to halt the development and construction of new nuclear power plants along with the gradual phasing out of reactors currently in operation in favor of the above-mentioned alternatives. 

Through aid provided from the economically advanced countries through the global plan, clean, sustainable development in Africa, Asia, and Latin America can become, at last, a reality by providing these nations with highly-advanced technologies, providing the opportunity to consign the burning of fossil fuels across the world for energy consumption to the dustbin of history.

Energy production done blindly for profit has reduced the world’s mighty rainforests (the lungs of the Earth) to mere stumps, rendering their natural landscape a barren plane.  A global program of reforestation is necessary to counter and ultimately reverse the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere originating with the onset of the Industrial Revolution.  Starting from these above measures, we can begin the struggle of reclaiming our environment from those responsible for the condition of the planet today: the multi-national corporations, the capitalists, and their system.

The Copenhagen Climate Summit of 2009 revealed once more how the existence and further intensification of the laws that dictate the course of capitalist development reveal themselves as the prime culprits propagating climate disaster; and, as a result, how it is fundamentally and structurally unable to break with its profit-oriented agenda and take the needs of the world’s population into account.  Simply put, it is an exemplar of the unwillingness and the inability of the capitalist system to solve the environmental crisis.

The capitalist system is undeniably unable to provide and utilize resources to ensure an equal quality of life to all people on this planet along with those of further generations.  We must break with the logic of the market; we must organize ourselves in the unions, in the workplace, in schools, in universities, in communities, at demonstrations and strikes, etc, in order to fight the dictate of profit maximization at the great expense of humanity.  Only with this vehement struggle can we ensure that present and future generations will encounter an environment that enables an enjoyable, sustainable existence.