Ecosocialist
Alliance has released a statement ahead of the COP27 meeting at the heavily
fortified Sharm El-Sheikh resort, in Egypt.
In England on 5 November, people celebrate the averting of an attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament, known as the ‘Gunpowder
Plot’ of 1605. It is sometimes named after one of the plotters as ‘Guy Fawkes
Night,’ but also as ‘Bonfire Night.’ From 1606 when the authorities encouraged people
to light bonfires on the anniversary, the night has seen fireworks and bonfires across the country. An effigy of Guy Fawkes is often burnt, but
these days, in some places, current political leaders and others are used as the effigies.
So, it is appropriate
that this date is chosen on the eve of COP27, for Ecosocialist Alliance to release
this statement. The whole planet is in danger of becoming a bonfire, with the
United Nations warning we are on track for at least 2.5C to 2.8C increases in
temperature, which will be devastating.
These COP
meetings are largely a photo opportunity for world leaders, but nothing solid
ever comes out of them. We need to adopt a programme something like this statement,
before it is too late, and the planet burns.
COP27-
Still Fiddling While the World Burns
COP 27,
which will meet from the 6th - 18th November 2022, unfolds against a backdrop of growing
climate chaos and ecological degradation. As this latest COP approaches,
economic recession, increased poverty and war run alongside the multiple
interlinked and inseparable crises of climate, environment, extinction and
zoonotic diseases. We now face a global economic recession likely to be deeper
even than that of 2008.
The economic
spiral into recession will make addressing environmental crisis even more
difficult, as states
and corporations rush to increase fossil fuel production to offset the
deepening energy crisis. They will try to make working people pay with their
living standards and their lives, for the crisis of their rotten system.
Resources which should be directed at adaptation and amelioration of the
climate crisis will be diverted to war and fossil fuel production including
dangerous Fracking and Underground Coal Gasification (UCG).
We face
increasingly destructive wars,
most notably in Ukraine which is destabilising world food supplies, and which
has the potential for the use of nuclear weapons. War causes huge physical and
social damage to people and societies
and the military industrial processes produce 6% of all greenhouse gasses. The
impact of wars in Ukraine, Yemen, Palestine and other places in terms of human
and environmental cost, and on food production and energy costs, will continue
to exacerbate the crises facing the environment and the global economy.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must not be the pretext for a rush to fossil
fuels, new coal and gas and the resumption of fracking. Quite the opposite- it
should be a spur to shift more rapidly towards renewables.
As
Ecosocialists, we say another world is possible. A massive social and political
transformation is needed, requiring the mobilisation of the mass of working
people, women and men, across the globe. Only the end of capitalism’s
relentless pursuit of private profit, endless waste, and rapacious drive for
growth, can provide the basis for a solution not only to climate change,
environmental degradation, and mass extinction, but to global poverty, hunger,
and hyper exploitation.
The COP 27
conference will take place in an isolated, heavily policed tourist resort, with only one major road in and out,
and hotels charging rates that will likely push the entire COP beyond the means
of many grassroots organisations, especially those from poorer countries in the
Global South. The Egyptian government say there will be room for opposition,
but what they mean, is that activists will be offered fake protests
opportunities where state-affiliated NGOs demonstrate around the convention
giving the impression of an independent local civil society. No real Egyptian
or other opposition will be allowed near Sharm
El-Sheikh. We send solidarity to Egypt’s climate campaigners, women’s
organisations, Trade Unionists and workers fighting for democracy.
2022 has
seen floods in Pakistan,
directly affecting thirty-three million people, Australia and elsewhere. We
have seen wildfires, extreme heat, ice melt, drought, and extreme weather
events on many continents, yet governments pursue still more fossil fuel
production. 2022’s summer of disasters broke records worldwide. In 2021, global
sea level set a new record high and is projected to continue to rise. The
United Nations reports that research shows that women and children are up to
fourteen times more likely than men to die during climate disasters.
The big
issues of climate change will be debated in Egypt but whatever is agreed, capitalism left
to itself can at best mitigate, not end them. Environmental destruction is
woven into the very fabric of the system itself. However, much big business
resists, we will have to force it to act on a global scale. Ultimately, only
the ending of capitalism itself and its replacement by democratic Ecosocialist
planned production for need and not private profit can guarantee the necessary
action.
Genuine climate
solutions cannot be based on the very market system that created the problem.
Only the organised working class, and the rural oppressed of the global south
-women and men have the power to end capitalism, because their labour produces
all wealth and they have no great fortune to lose if the system changes, no
vested interests in inequality, exploitation, and private profit.
Sustainability
and global justice
The long-term
global crisis and the immediate effects of catastrophic events impact more
severely on women, children, elders, LGBTQIA+, disabled people and the people
of First Nations. An eco-socialist strategy puts social justice and liberation
struggles of the oppressed at its core.
Migration is,
and will increasingly be, driven by climate change and conflicts and resource
wars resulting from it. Accommodating and supporting free movement of people
must be a core policy and necessary part of planning for the future.
Action now
to halt climate change!
We demand:
• All new fossil
fuels must stay in the ground – no new gas, coal, or oil! No to Fracking and
UCG!
• A rapid move to renewable energy for
transport, infrastructure, industry, agriculture, and homes.
• A massive global programme of public
works investing in green jobs, and replacing employment in unsustainable
industries.
• The retrofitting of homes and public
buildings with insulation and other energy saving measures to reduce fuel use
and to address fuel poverty.
• A globally funded just transition for
the global south to develop the necessary sustainable technologies and
infrastructure.
• A major cut in greenhouse gas
emissions of at least 70% by 2030, from a 1990 baseline. This must be
comprehensive - including all military, aviation, and shipping emissions – and
include mechanisms for transparent accounting, measurement, and popular
oversight.
• The end of emissions trading schemes.
• No to ‘offsetting’ of carbon
emissions- we need a real zero not net-zero.
We call for:
• Immediate cancellation of the
international debt of the global south.
• A rapid shift from massive factory
farms and large-scale monoculture agribusiness towards eco-friendly farming
methods and investment in green agricultural technology to reduce synthetic
fertiliser and pesticide use in agriculture and replace these with organic
methods and support for small farmers.
• A massive reduction in meat and dairy
production and consumption, with a view to its phasing out, through education
and provision and promotion of high- quality, affordable plant-based
alternatives.
• The promotion of agricultural systems
based on the right to food and food sovereignty, human rights, and with local
control over natural resources, seeds, land, water, forests, knowledge, and
technology to end food and nutrition insecurity in the global south.
• The end of deforestation in the
tropical and boreal forests by reduction of demand for imported food, timber,
and biofuels.
• A massive increase in protected areas
for biodiversity conservation.
• End fuel poverty through retrofitting
energy existing homes and buildings with energy efficient sustainable
technologies.
We demand a
just transition:
• Re-skilling of workers in
environmentally damaging industries with well-paid alternative jobs in the new
economy.
• Full and democratic involvement of
workers to harness the energy and creativity of the working people to design
and implement new sustainable technologies and decommission old unsustainable
ones.
• Resources for popular education and
involvement in implementing and enhancing a just transition, with environmental
education embedded at all levels within the curriculum.
• Urgent development of sustainable,
affordable, and high-quality public transport with a comprehensive integrated
plan which meets peoples’ needs and reduces the requirement for private car
use.
• A planned eco-socialist economy which
eliminates waste, duplication and environmentally harmful practices, reduction
in the working week and a corresponding increase in leisure time.
• Work practices reorganised with the
emphasis on fair flexibility and working closer to home, using a free and fast
broadband infrastructure.
• An end to ecologically and socially
destructive extractivism, especially in the territories of Indigenous peoples
and First Nations .
• Respect for the economic, cultural,
political and land rights of Indigenous peoples and First Nations.
As
eco-socialists we put forward a vision of a just and sustainable world and
fight with every ounce of our energy for every change, however small, which
makes such a world possible. We will organise and assist wherever worker’s and
community organisations internationally, raising demands on governments and
challenging corporations.
If you would
like to support the statement or contact Ecosocialist Alliance please email eco-socialist-action@protonmail.com
Ecosocialist
Alliance, October 2022
Groups
Left Unity, UK
Anti-Capitalist Resistance, UK
Green Left, UK
Global Ecosocialist Network, International
RISE, Ireland
Parti
de Gauche Marseille Nord, France
Socialist Project, Canada
People Before Profit, Ireland
Climate and Capitalism, International
XR Camden, UK
West Cumbria Friends
of the Earth, UK
Save Euston
Trees, UK
Ecosocialist Alliance UK Facebook
Group, UK
Individuals
Beatrix
Campbell, OBE, Writer, UK
George Monbiot,
Environmental Writer & Activist, UK
Ken Loach, Film
maker, UK
Julia
Steinberger, Professor of Ecological Economics, Lausanne University, Switzerland
Victor Wallis, author
of Red Green Revolution, USA
Professor
Krista Cowman ,Historian, UK
Marina
Prentoulis, Associate Professor in Politics & Media, UEA; author of Left
Populism in Europe, UK
Romayne Phoenix,
Ecosocialist Campaigner, UK
Dr Jay Ginn, (retired
academic researcher, UK
Alistair
Sinclair Green Eco-Socialist Councillor, Lancaster City Council, UK
Clara Paillard,
Unite the Union & Tipping Point UK, UK
Felicity
Dowling, Left Unity Principal Speaker, UK
Derek Wall,
Former GPEW Principal Speaker; Political Economy Lecturer, Goldsmiths; Author
of Climate Strike,UK
Rob Marsden,
Red Green Labour editorial board- personal capacity, UK
Jo Alberti,
veteran left activist, UK
Doug Thorpe,
Left Unity National Secretary, UK
Kevin Frea, Deputy
Leader, Lancaster City Council, UK
Dee Searle, One
Vote for the Planet activist, UK
Jim Hollinshead,
Left Unity, UCU, UK
Ed Bober, UK
Patrick
Fitzgerald, Artist, Vizcaya, Spain
Allan Todd,
Climate & Anti-Fascist Activist; member of Left Unity’s NC, UK
Gordon Peters,
Ecosocialist activist, UK
Tim Dawes, Former
Chair Green Party of England and Wales; Rtrd. Senior Local Govt.
Officer/Consultant, UK
Joe Human. climate
activist, UK
Fiona Prior, Climate
activist, grandmother, UK
Peter Murry, Ecosocialist
activist, UK
Lucy Moy-Thomas,
Climate Emergency Camden, UK
Tina Rothery, Climate
Campaigner, UK
Dr. Richard
Nicholson, Haywards Heath Town Councillor, UK
Sally Lansbury,
Labour Party Cllr., Allerdale Borough Council, UK
Deanna
Austin-Crowe, Health Worker, UK
Chris Bluemel,
Musician & Activist, UK
Lucy Early,
Ecosocialist Alliance member, UK
Joseph Healy,
International Officer of Left Unity & UNITE Regional Officer, UK
Al Barnes, Paramedic
& XR Activist, UK
Steve Masters,
Climate activist and Green party councillor, UK
Alice Brown, One
Vote for the Planet, UK
Jane Walby,
Global Justice Now, Camden Fairtrade Network, Debt Justice, UK
Dorothea
Hackman, Save Euston Trees, UK
Penelope Read, Eco-Warrior,
Actor & Musician, UK
Samantha Barnes,
Solicitor, UK
Howard Coakley, University Mental Health Mentor, and Activist, UK
Bob Whitehead,
Secretary of the West Midlands Climate Coalition, UK
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