The Global Tapestry of Alternatives: Stories of Resilience, Existence, and Re-Existence

Written by Shrishtee Bajpai and first published at Medium

Our food systems are not just the work of humans. They are the work of the mountains, of Pachamama [Mother Earth], of the sacred, the whole community which is centered on reciprocity, solidarity, and respect for elements of life. This is buen vivir (‘living well’) for us.

That’s according to Quechua residents of Potato Park in the Peruvian Andes, where the community has for the last three decades been involved in an inspiring process of conserving and sustaining their own livelihoods over the vast landscape where the potato originated. They were speaking to us through the dialogue series initiated by the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA) to highlight stories of community resilience and wellbeing in the face of Covid.

The pandemic has shown the deep fractures and baseless promises of wellbeing that the capitalist model made to the whole world. Of course, several other crises pre-exist Covid, from the climate, biodiversity loss, and pollution, to inequality, conflicts, authoritarianism, and right-wing fascism across the globe.

Occurring alongside all this is a long process of colonization or post-colonial hegemony, and the domination of certain cultures and knowledge systems. Combinations of these interconnected challenges have significantly impacted our individual lives, whether it’s alienation from nature and from each other, or a heightened sense of meaninglessness or hopelessness.

It’s in the context of these multiple crises that GTA attempts to foster a dialogical space to show that there are alternative ways of being, knowing, working, dreaming, and of doing things — that the modern capitalist or nation-state dominated system is not the only system around.

Along with processes of resistance, across the world there are tens of thousands of attempts to construct alternative realities, either through sustaining things from the past which are still relevant, equitable, and just, or creating new ones — especially from within industrial systems or the so-called ‘developed’ systems of the world.

The Global Tapestry of Alternatives is a network that was seeded through experiences of networks of alternatives in India, Mexico, and Colombia. After several conversations and endorsements of movements across the world, GTA was officially launched in 2019 as a horizontal process of weaving with non-hierarchical ways of functioning.

With a strong commitment to highlighting the emergence and visibility of an immense variety of radical alternatives to this dominant regime rooted in capitalist, patriarchal, racist, statist, and anthropocentric forces, GTA seeks to create solidarity networks and strategic alliances amongst all networks of alternatives on local, regional, and global levels.

Over the last two years, GTA has organized over 22 sessions ranging from the responses to Covid by indigenous communities in Peru, Mexico, India, and Bolivia, to the responses of women in Rojava to Black Lives Matter and eco-socialist organizing for radical transformations.

Sessions have also included dialogues on techology and alternatives, economies of wellbeing, a commons future, the degrowth movement, alternative models by women farmers, feminist realities and alternatives, artistic resistance in Palestine, the Karen community’s alternatives to state authoritarianism in Myanmar, mining and alternatives by women in Africa, among many others.

Through these dialogues and conversations, the attempt has been to show how communities across the world have responded to contemporary crises with resilience, care, innovation, and adaptability — however desperate the last two years have been. The resurgence of life that we see in innumerable actions of solidarity, cooperation, love, and care in these times are rooted in the aeons-old articulations of indigenous peoples and local communities, both rural and urban.

This spirit circulates among many grassroots expressions of collectives and networks, as dignified rage against systems of oppression as well as the affirmation of their resolve to defend their dignity by articulating a pluriverse of alternatives.

In furtherance to this effort, GTA has also recently launched its first volume of various narratives from around the world weaving solidarity and hope in the times of crises. Together, they provide multifaceted expressions of resistance to dominant forms of oppression — to defend local ways of life, strengthen local autonomy, and reconstruct societies.

The first volume has contributions from Africa, Latin America, South and South-east Asia and Central America. Our two inspiring contributions from Latin America speak to the need of keeping care of Mother Earth at the center of building resilience. The Nasa people of the north of Cauca, Colombia are working towards recovering their territories to grow toxic-free food and in the process heal the earth and themselves.

Another example is from Cauca valley, Colombia, where communities are building water and food sovereignty to supply those in need during the pandemic. From Costa Rica, we learn how the local fishing communities re-launched small-scale fisheries to ensure dignified livelihoods for themselves in times of crises.

From Tharakans in Kenya, we learn how the revival of rituals, ceremonies, and traditional governance helped cope with the crises that the pandemic posed — in turn revealing how traditional knowledge systems act as a counterweight to the hegemonic paradigm of modernity.

From another corner of the world, in Indonesia, the Confederation of Indonesia Peoples Movement (consisting of federations of women, workers, peasants, fisherfolk, indigenous people, and the urban poor) have been building a solidarity economy through various alternative community projects and practises. Their processes helped them respond to the crises by readily organizing community kitchens, engaging with fundraising, and distributing essential amenities within the community.

Not too far from Indonesia, in Bangladesh, the farmers have been leading a New Agriculture Movement that is building innovative farming practises based around ‘seed’, providing an inspiring example of resistance to a globalized food chain by using minimal external inputs, building on local knowledge, facilitating local markets, and practising biodiverse agricultural techniques.

From central India, we learn how communities who were in control of their local means of production could not only counter market forces but also guard themselves against the insecurities of the mainstream economic system. While cities, with their heavily- guarded top-down governance, have been at the epicentre of the pandemic and the economic fallout, empowered grassroots communities fared much better.

These examples show that communities, initiatives, and civil society already have approaches that effectively counter the systemic problems highlighted by the pandemic. They give important insights and pathways for just, equitable, and ecologically resilient futures, and provide hope at a moment when it’s easy to feel hopeless, by showing concrete pathways towards a better future where “many worlds fit,” as the Zapatistas of Mexico put it. It is crucial to tell these stories, to hear them and re-hear them, as they have important lessons for all of us.

The question is: are we truly ready to hear them? Are we ready to constructively challenge each other, offer active solidarity to each other whenever needed, interweave the initiatives in common actions, and support the conditions for the radical systemic changes we need? More than ever, we need to work together and stand in solidarity with each other’s resistances and re-constructions.

As we walk this path, it’s always useful to revisit the famous words of Argentinian film director and theorist, Fernando Birri: “Utopia is on the horizon. I move two steps closer; it moves two steps further away. I walk another ten steps, and utopia runs ten steps further away. As much as I may walk, I never reach it. So what’s the point of utopia? The point is this: it makes us continually advance.”

Three things you can do right now

1. Take a look at GTA’s webinar series, resilience documents, and recent periodical on Climate Change and Alternatives, and share them among your friends, family, and colleagues.
2. Help promote this article by sharing these posts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Sign up here for email alerts when articles like this are shared on social media.
3. Are you involved with a community resilience project or interested in starting or joining one? Get in touch with the GTA to collaborate.

How do we get there? Some thoughts on ecosocialist tactics & strategy

 

Written by Diana O’Dwyer and a version of it was first published at Rupture

Whatever your views on blowing up pipelines, Andreas Malm[1] has sparked a vital debate on the left of the environmental movement about tactics and strategy. The strategic problem he addresses is how should we organise to avert catastrophic climate change and which tactics will be most effective in achieving that? 

According to Malm, overthrowing capitalism in time to halt climate change is impossible[2] and he therefore advocates building an environmental movement capable of putting so much pressure on capitalist states that they are forced to act, even against their own class interests. It’s not spelled out fully in his work but he seems to think socialism can develop later out of this process.[3]

The immediate concern right now, however, is to deal with climate change before it destroys any basis for a decent quality of life, under socialism or any other system. 

This type of argument, that there isn’t enough time to build socialism and so we must focus on more pressing issues first, has dogged left politics for centuries. Ireland’s version - that ‘labour must wait’ - prioritised national independence over socialist change. Given the endless variety of ills thrown up by capitalism, many immediately deserving causes will inevitably challenge for precedence. If national independence isn’t pressing enough then surely the survival of our species is?

The problem with this argument is two-fold. 

On the one hand, it assumes that averting climate collapse and continuing with capitalism is possible. But if capitalism and protecting the environment, including the climate system and biodiversity, are fundamentally incompatible[4], then breaking with capitalism and replacing it with eco-socialism are at the core of the strategic problem of averting climate disaster and dealing equitably with the damage already done. 

On the other, it assumes that immediate goals (averting climate change/national liberation/gender or racial equality) and the ultimate goal of eco-socialism are in conflict - that the tactics necessary to achieve our immediate goals are incompatible with the ultimate goal of eco-socialism. Or, alternatively, that we might get lucky but it’s impossible to work out any of this in advance so we might as well just muddle on through, focus on the immediate and fight fires where they arise. 

It was precisely this focus on immediate goals, with the expectation that socialism would evolve by itself, somewhere along the line, that led Lenin and Trotsky to polemicise on the distinction between tactics and strategy against the reformists in the Second International. 

In The Lessons of October, Trotsky argued that winning particular struggles should be part of a strategy to win the war, rather than amounting to one-off or even Pyrrhic victories:

“By tactics in politics, we understand, using the analogy of military science, the art of conducting isolated operations. By strategy, we understand the art of conquest, i.e. the seizure of power…

...Strategy, of course, does not do away with tactics. The questions of the trade union movement, of parliamentary activity, and so on, do not disappear, but they now become invested with a new meaning as subordinate methods of a combined struggle for power. Tactics are subordinated to strategy.”[5] 

Likewise, Lenin based his modus operandi on what Hungarian Marxist, György Lukács, called the ‘actuality of revolution’, meaning that the ‘study of each individual daily problem...at the same time became a fundamental problem of the revolution’.[6] This is not to suggest that we pretend a socialist revolution is just around the corner but that in developing tactics and strategy, we should continually be asking ourselves, how does this or that action contribute towards a fundamental rupture with capitalism and an ecosocialist transformation of society? 

These are not easy questions to answer! 

One thing we can know for certain is that we shouldn’t use tactics that run directly counter to our strategic goals. Examples include going into coalition with pro-capitalist establishment parties; relying solely on safe conventional tactics that fail to challenge or disrupt the system; poorly conceived actions that alienate working class people whose support we need to win (such as XR-UK’s blocking of a tube train in London in 2019 which only succeeded in enraging commuters taking public transport (!) to work); or pandering to NIMBYist groups opposed to environmentalist measures like bike or bus lanes for the sake of votes. 

Such tactics might achieve immediate gains like governmental power or influence, publicity, or elected positions but are counterproductive in the longer term because they undermine our ability to build independent anti-capitalist organisation, mass support across the global working class in all its multi-racial, multi-gendered, multi-national diversity, and ecosocialist consciousness - three fundamental building blocks of a transformationalist ecosocialist strategy. 

Independent, anti-capitalist organisation 

Independent organisation of workers, environmental activists and those exploited, subordinated and oppressed by capitalism in their daily lives is vital if we are to build autonomous strength and counter-power to the rule of fossil capital. This means building movements that are financially and politically independent of the capitalist class and the political parties and states that represent its interests.

It means rooting those movements in our collective “people power” as workers who keep the economy and society going through our paid and unpaid labour, rather than depending on donations from the wealthy, governments or corporations. It means “outsider” tactics like marches, demonstrations, direct actions and strikes, not “insider” lobbying that depends on elite connections. 

It’s only through maintaining our independence that we can avoid mistakes like Friends of the Earth and Stop Climate Chaos’ support for the Programme for Government despite the terrible track record of the Green Party in coalition with the right. It should be obvious to anyone that the establishment parties who oversaw the destruction of our environment are not the ones to fix it but when NGOs have no real alternative to insider tactics and in some cases are heavily dependent on government funding, they can be among the last to understand that. 

What is needed is a united front of environmental, social justice, women’s, LGBTQ+, anti-racist and labour movements. In Ireland, it means marching and coalescing with FridaysforFuture, Talamh Beo, Save our Sperrins, Dublin Bus and Bord na Móna workers, Right to Nature campaigners, commuter campaigns, left trade unionists, anti-fascist activists and many others. It means championing the needs of the most marginalised and oppressed as our own - from trans to Travellers’ rights. 

Crucially, it also means that left-wing activists must not be smug and complacent and think we have all the answers - that our role is simply to impart pearls of socialist wisdom to environmental or social justice activists whose heart may be in the right place but who lack the correct theoretical framework to understand the world. This type of attitude is all too common on the left and means left activists can come off as simultaneously patronising towards those they are trying to ally with and ignorant of the issues they’re campaigning on.

Many on the left have had a late conversion to environmentalism but that hasn’t stopped them propounding as though they are equally as expert as longstanding activists. With regard to climate action, the left needs to listen to environmental activists, properly study the science and stop presuming socialism will magically solve all environmental problems.

It will likely take decades or even centuries to reverse the damage capitalism has already done to our climate and to biodiversity. Meaningful steps towards zero emissions must be fought for now, as part of the struggle for an ecosocialist transformation, and cannot be left until afterwards. Labour can’t wait but the environment can’t either! 

Mass support & democratic diversity of tactics 

One thing Malm is correct about is that the time for relying solely on routinised tactics like marches and demonstrations, petitions or email campaigns has passed. The situation is simply too dire and too urgent to limit ourselves to safe conventional forms of protest. We must utilise a diversity of outsider tactics and embrace every genuinely useful tactical weapon at our disposal. 

Increasingly, this will include disruptive actions that directly challenge fossil capitalism, attract publicity and mass support and galvanise the movement by puncturing its aura of invincibility. Rather than top-down tactics like filing planning objections or taking court challenges, we should seek to directly block new fossil fuel infrastructure from the bottom-up as a way of actively engaging more and more people in the radical climate justice movement.

Strikes, blockades, occupations, mass boycotts, dramatic disruptive actions like some of those successfully used by Extinction Rebellion (XR), and potentially even carefully chosen sabotage can all be used.

Some actions will be symbolic but others will seek to halt harm to the environment directly. We could organise to block the development of new data centres, LNGs or car parks, and to protect green spaces or walking and cycling infrastructure.

A sleeping giant in our arsenal is workers’ responsibility for the labour process, especially in crucial industries that must be converted to green production like the fossil fuel and motor industries and much of meat and dairy. Strikes for a just transition can be our most powerful and disruptive weapon and can point the way towards an ecosocialist future of workers’ control of the economy. 

Targets for our actions must be chosen carefully. Bearing in mind the need to win mass support, we should avoid tactics that risk alienating working-class people. We should punch up against luxury consumption and Brown Thomas, not down against people who shop in Penneys, as XR unfortunately did in their 2019 Rebellion Week[7], or by outlawing 3-for-1 deals in supermarkets in the name of cutting food waste as the Green Party has suggested.

Thoughtless actions and rhetoric by well-heeled environmentalists have a lot to answer for. By assuming everyone can equally afford to pay for environmental action and casually externalising the costs onto low paid workers for climate change through regressive carbon taxes, they have given “green” issues a bad name for many and negatively associated them with higher taxes and living costs. 

Actions should instead be directed against profit-driven environmental destruction and a clear capitalist enemy. It’s the big polluters who should pay. XR’s ‘blood money tour’ of London’s financial district with the demand that it immediately cease all investment in fossil fuels is a good example. XR Unify spokesperson, Bhavini Patel, explained that 

“Today’s protest is highlighting that racial, social and climate justice are all intertwined...Profit extraction has meant that there has been racial inequality, social inequality and climate collapse. It’s interlinked, and if we want justice we need to be demanding justice for all three things, so that we are equal as people.”[8] 

Similar actions were taken on a smaller scale by XR Ireland with a march through the IFSC in 2019[9] but this was arguably overshadowed by the Penneys protest. This illustrates the importance of carefully selecting targets, especially with the mainstream media waiting to pounce on mistakes. 

A different error, more common on the left, is to automatically support grassroots, local campaigns even when their aims run counter to developing the ecosocialist consciousness needed for a just transition to zero emissions. Examples include failing to oppose, or even giving tacit support, to reactionary local campaigns against new public transport or cycling infrastructure.

The left must be clearer and more principled about which side it’s on - that of working-class public transport users, children who need safe spaces to walk, run and play, cyclists, and the climate. Our answer to such campaigns shouldn’t be to pander to the desire of motorists to drive wherever they want regardless of the social or environmental cost but to campaign for ecosocialist solutions like free, frequent and fast public transport[10], democratic planning of towns and cities to reduce the need to drive and universal access to low-emissions personal mobility devices like bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters. 

Building diverse independent movements of all those exploited and oppressed by capitalism, and in particular winning the support of workers in key industries like transport and agriculture will be key to avoiding tactical errors like these. We need to think about ways to bring the labour and environmental movements together. Industrial action is looming at Dublin Bus - can we get environmental activists and workers generally to support the bus drivers’ fight against privatisation and attacks on their working conditions and can we get the bus drivers to demand free, green and frequent public transport? The experience of FridaysforFuture and ecosocialist activists in Germany in supporting strikes by public transport workers gives us plenty to learn from.[11]

To enable an effective diversity of tactics to be democratically decided, democratic structures need to be developed. Even small actions taken by individual groups can have a big effect, positive or negative, on the movement as a whole and so should be democratically discussed and debated. This has been resisted by some in the environmental movement but is crucial if we are to arrive at the most effective tactics - which don’t just disrupt and attract attention but build mass support and strengthen our movements into the future. 

Envisioning an ecosocialist future 

The environmental movement is strong on apocalyptic predictions of climate collapse but optimistic visions of an alternative future? Less so! One thing we can learn from the history of revolutionary movements is that an inspiring vision of a better life is indispensable to galvanising popular support. The French Revolution promised liberté, égalité, fraternité, the Russian Revolution, Peace, Land and Bread. 

The climate justice movement has made strides in this direction through developing the ideas of a Green New Deal (GND) and Just Transition. Unfortunately, both terms are increasingly being colonised by the pro-capitalist mainstream so we need to be more explicit that any effective GND or Just Transition must be anti-capitalist and ecosocialist. We also need to decide which are the core elements of an ecosocialist GND/Transition that can appeal to activists and a mass audience and make them think that, yes, this is a future worth fighting for! What’s our equivalent of Peace, Land and Bread? 

George Monbiot has proposed the slogan of ‘private sufficiency, public luxury’. The second part sounds good to me, the first part not so much. ‘Sufficient’ is the term used to describe a level of water quality just above ‘poor’ in Dublin Bay! Private “security” or “comfort’ sounds more appealing but maybe we need to get past the public/private distinction entirely. It’s so fundamental to capitalism that it gets in the way when we try to imagine alternatives. 

So what are our main selling points? For me, it’s something like “Equality, Security/Comfort, and Freedom/Free Time” (obviously we need a better slogan!).

Top of my wishlist is the potential for much greater leisure time. Once we are freed from the dual burden of pointless paid labour - whose only real purpose is to generate profits for capitalists regardless of the human or environmental cost - and the grossly inefficient privatisation of domestic labour under capitalism, which forces each individual household to constantly cook and clean when such drudgerous tasks could be organised collectively - with much lower emissions and food waste. 

Jason Hickel, in his book Less is More[12], points out how historically unusual our current level of paid working hours is. Prior to capitalism, Spanish peasants enjoyed five months’ holiday a year! They worked only so much as was necessary to provide them with what they considered a good quality of life. A post-capitalist society without the need for continual exponential growth would do the same but on a much higher level of living standards.

Given the huge technological advances of the intervening centuries, this should be possible with even less work. A four day or 30-hour week with no loss of pay would be only the beginning. Keynes predicted a 15-hour week under capitalism in two generations. Without a parasitic 1% monopolising half the world’s wealth, it could actually be possible. 

Our fundamental demand then must be for equality. To lay the basis for ample free time and a comfortable life for all without destroying the ecosystems on which all human life depends, we have to break with the failed capitalist model of unequal exponential growth and move to a massive redistribution of wealth and a democratically planned transition to zero emissions.

Most importantly, what Marx called the means of production - land, manufacturing and technological capacity, and the investment capital necessary to set it all in motion - must be taken from the private hands of a few into the collective ownership of everyone. This would enable democratic planning of a just transition to zero emissions that would minimise negative impacts on ordinary people and maximise the benefits. 

A small step would be to abolish carbon tax on unavoidable fossil fuel consumption by working families who can’t afford to retrofit their homes or have to drive their kids to school because of a lack of public transport and tax the high-emissions luxury consumption of the wealthy instead, like SUVs, private jets, yachts, business class flights and excessively large houses. Bigger steps would be ecosocialist transition taxes on corporate profits and expropriating the fossil fuel industry. 

All this is necessary to pay for the collective security and comfort of high-quality public childcare, education, housing, healthcare, transport, healthy and delicious, low carbon and zero-waste food freely available to all and the necessary rapid transition to renewable energy. If all those elements of a “good life” are democratically decided on and provided universally, this can help do away with longstanding, social inequalities and provide huge numbers of quality, public sector jobs.

There’s little point in increasing “leisure” time if women end up spending it doing unpaid domestic labour, or in redistributing wealth if Black, brown and LGBTQ+ people continue to be discriminated against in housing, jobs or religious-run education. To be real, equality must be social and political as well as economic.

Consistency is key

At the outset of this article, I argued that the essential thread running through all our tactics must be continual reference to the strategic end-goal of the ecosocialist transformation of society needed to avert the looming collapse of the earth’s climate and biodiversity and deal with the damage already done.

This means we should be consistent in our demands and think about how they all fit together, in particular how to marry the sometimes competing demands of mass support and effective environmental advocacy, and decide which issues and campaigns to support and develop. One of the main merits of Marxism is that it provides a holistic framework for analysing society, the environment and the economy and intervening to change them. Ecosocialist strategy should reflect that. 

Notes

1. Malm, Andreas. How to Blow Up a Pipeline, (Verso, 2021).

2. Malm, Andreas, Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam-Power and the Roots of Global Warming, (Verso, 2015), pp. 469-470. 

3. Interview with Rupture Radio, 15 March 2021. https://anchor.fm/ruptureradio/episodes/ATR---How-to-Blow-Up-a-Pipeline-w-Andreas-Malm-esif3b 

4. O’Dwyer, Diana. ‘Debate: Should We Ally with “green” Capitalists? No.’ Rupture Issue 3, Spring 2021.

5. Trotsky, Leon. ‘Chapter 1: We Must Study the October Revolution’, in The Lessons of October, 1924.

6. Lukács, György. ‘Chapter 1 - The Actuality of the Revolution’, in Lenin: A Study on the Unity of His Thought, 1924. 

7. MacNamee, Alanna. ‘Extinction Rebellion Target Penneys with Protest Fashion Show’, EVOKE.ie, 9 October 2019. 

8. Gayle, Damien. ‘Extinction Rebellion Targets City of London in “Blood Money” Protest’, The Guardian, 27 August 2021.

9. Heffernan, Breda, Doherty, Caroline and Dillon, Fiona, ‘Extinction Rebellion begins week of action with march through Dublin’, Irish Independent, 9 October 2019. 

10. O’Dwyer, Diana. ‘Free, Frequent & Fast: Public Transport & the Right to Mobility’. Rupture Issue 4, Summer 2021.

11. Rother, Nicholas. ‘Strike Together: Strengthening the Climate Movement & Trade Unions’. Rupture Issue 3, Spring 2021.

12. Hickel, Jason. Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (Cornerstone Digital, 2020).

Capitalism, Ecology, and the Green New Deal

Written by Harrison Carpenter-Neuhaus and first published at Voices for New Democracy

Why the Green New Deal is our best shot at tackling the climate crisis while advancing economic and social justice.

The world’s climate is changing, and it’s surprising — and disappointing — how little our responses have changed since we first recognized the problem decades ago. Since the 1970s, the world has been well aware of climate impacts of burning fossil fuels and many have recognized how our political economy lies at the heart of the problem. Marxist thinkers in particular, like Paul Mattick, were quick to describe the irreconcilable contradiction between our extractive and growth-oriented economic systems and the carrying capacity of our natural ecosystems.

But despite these prescient warnings, the world today is still clinging to the same economic systems and largely failing to resolve these tensions. In the face of the accelerating crisis, it’s worth reflecting on the clear trajectory that thinkers like Mattick identified, and what it means for our options in the present moment. 

In 1976, Mattick published his analysis of the problem in “Capitalism and Ecology,” just four years after scientist John Sawyer published the study Man-made Carbon Dioxide and the “Greenhouse” Effect in 1972. Sawyer’s study summarized the scientific consensus at the time around the Earth’s pressing climate concerns: the anthropogenic attribution of the carbon dioxide greenhouse gas, their widespread distribution and their exponential rise throughout the modern era.

By the mid-70s, even the Club of Rome recognized the impending ecological crisis in The Limits to Growth. In short, everyone was beginning to recognize the issue: too many of us are using too many resources, too quickly, in too many places. 

As Mattick writes, Marx recognized that “the exhaustion of the earth’s wealth and relative overpopulation were the direct result of production for profit” (a point that has been explored in great detail by a new generation of eco-Marxists like John Bellamy Foster). And science bears this out.

Our world has only become more productive, populated, and globalized since the Industrial Revolution, and this has correlated closely with rising levels of energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions every year. As our economic activity increases, we cannot avoid using more raw materials to keep the system moving and maintain profit margins.

Ultimately, it is capitalist social relations that drive this ecological crisis. “Social phenomena are ecological phenomena,” Mattick writes. To keep profit rates high (the motor driving the entire system), companies simply have no choice but to keep expanding and growing, and that always requires the use of raw materials — and as global capitalism expands (and demand grows as populations increase and more workers are brought out of the subsistence economy into the wage labor system), that rate of raw material consumption can only increase. 

But this does not mean that the solution is to roll back our productive forces and institute new limits on personal consumption. For millions of exploited workers, a vision of the future defined by less is a very hard sell. In fact, if we take this approach, we risk undermining our own efforts to build economic justice.

The Yellow Vests movement in France was sparked by a new tax on gasoline, as were protests in Ecuador against the elimination of a fossil fuel subsidy. The logic behind the proposals used an ecological rationale: wealthy people use far more oil, so limiting their excesses is sensible and, at first glance, progressive. The problem comes from the ways that such approaches are regressive at the margins.

While lower income people do use far less oil than the wealthy, they rely heavily on subsidies and cheap fuel simply to be able to go about their days. The problem is that these approaches impose ecological austerity whose burden is felt most strongly by the working class, and offer little benefit to them in return. 

Besides, the promise of communism was the progressive advance of productive forces to improve overall human well-being. Rather than advance a dialectic, rolling back production and consumption would only turn back the tide of history to earlier modes of production. Fundamentally, we cannot resolve this crisis simply by turning back the clock. 

We must remember that humanity does not live separately from the natural world (even though we tend to conceive of ourselves this way); we rely on it to reproduce our societies every day. So the way forward must be with a recognition that the two are inextricably linked. It is our social reality that drives our ecological condition, and trying to treat the ecological condition without addressing the roots of our social relations will only lead to these kinds of regressive solutions. 

As Mattick summarizes, “[T]he problem is not so much the miserliness of nature as a social class system of institutions and power relationships that stands in the way of increasing production and productivity.” Rather, “it is landed property, the tenant-farming system, usurious loan capital, the plantation economy, and the parasitical state bureaucracy that hinder any progressive development by maintaining the existing social structure.”

Likewise, “the increasing discrepancy between industrial and agricultural production has less to do with population growth and decreasing fertility of the soil than with the one-sided over-emphasis on industrial expansion, or capital’s expansion, demanded by capitalist competition” at the expense of agricultural output (let alone any embrace of polyculture or regenerative agriculture). 

The task, then, is to overcome the key issue we identified before: the link between economic activity and environmental impact. But to do so, Mattick writes, we must treat social liberation as the prerequisite to ecological transformation:

“What is necessary, today and tomorrow, is to end the human misery due to the capitalist relations of production, as the starting-point for a rationally planned mode of society in accordance with natural conditions—one based not on further privations but on a higher standard of living for everyone, on which the diminution of population growth depends, and which would make possible the further development of society’s productive forces.”

In other words, development itself is not the problem, but rather the way that it has taken place under conditions of competitive struggle, where environmental costs are externalized without frameworks for accountability. And critically, this competitive struggle is not dictated by our actual access to raw materials, but rather by a capitalist mode of production that perpetuates artificial scarcity to maintain competitive growth rates.

With that in mind, the way forward is to continue developing productive forces progressively (and in ways that actually offer quality of life improvements for workers), but to do so under a new framework that is rationally planned, actually serves human need, and meaningfully takes ecological limits into account. 

Fortunately, one policy proposal has begun to synthesize these insights and, despite some gray areas, has managed to get buy-in across the political spectrum: the Green New Deal (GND). The GND represents a revolutionary shift in how we conceive of environmental policy by tying it inextricably to labor and industrial policy. This comes with both the benefits and risks of being a placeholder for a holistic social transition (onto which many different actors can project distinct visions). But it still shifts consciousness of the issue, and must be developed, not abandoned. 

The GND recognizes that, given the existential threat climate change poses to human society, the federal government (in coordination down to the local level) must lead a deliberate and expansive national mobilization to restructure our physical realities, as well as social and economic systems, and build a new, sustainable way of life in the country.

It overcomes the binary between environmentalism and class struggle by placing workers and marginalized communities at the center of this transition, promising that high-paying union jobs will enact the program and build our carbon-neutral systems, with an emphasis on serving frontline communities and undoing the damage that the capitalist mode of production has already inflicted on working people through environmental racism and pollution.

Furthermore, the GND is distinct in its national approach to the issue, which actually recognizes the sheer scale of what will need to be done to meet our climate goals. 

Ultimately, we must also challenge the idea that all forms of growth are equal. Much (if not most) of our productive activity is wasteful, and we should cut back on resource-intensive activities (which largely don’t benefit the public, anyway) and instead organize our economies around lower-impact, more human-centered labor like care work. Mattick writes that much of our wasteful economic activity “could be transformed into productive labor—’productive’ not in the sense of profitable but in the sense of creative of use-value [emphasis mine] —while shortening labor time.”

We would still have to work and promote development in our communities to deliver improved quality of life and overall social prosperity, but we can approach it in a rational way that operates within ecological boundaries. This also implies new social, political, and economic relations that can build a more egalitarian society. 

This represents a more radical vision of what the Green New Deal can offer by reconceptualizing the goals of our economic and social systems. To truly operate within planetary limits, it’s not possible for individual consumption to remain at current levels. But at the same time, we must be able to offer a better future for the masses if we have any political hope of advancing a sustainable system.

The notion of public luxury could be the key to resolving this tension. In some ways, it’s common sense: collective problems require collective solutions, and collective cooperation makes for a smaller impact for each individual (hence the old saying “many hands make for light work”). Our social relations fundamentally define how we use energy and resources, so to be as sustainable as possible it only makes sense that we must embrace collective and cooperative frameworks to maximize efficiencies.

And if we do so appropriately, we can truly speak of luxuries for the public: well-connected rapid transit systems, higher-quality housing, more green spaces and public parks, more resources devoted to healthcare and other care work, more free time, shorter hours, well-funded public amenities, etc.  

Systems driven by social competition produce destructive cycles for the individuals within them, and will reproduce similar forms of destruction on an ecological level. It is only through cooperation, coordination, and a commitment to collective well-being that we can deliver a sustainable and flourishing future.

Whatever it’s called, such a system would represent a historic and revolutionary departure from the capitalist mode of production, and would likely have to approximate a form of communism. If that is the case, then true communism may be our only hope for a sustainable future on Earth. 

Still, we can’t be utopian in our outlook; there are limits to what can be done, both politically and ecologically. Any transition from our system will require massive amounts of lithium and likely more resource-intensive development to build the infrastructure for a sustainable society; this is sure to unleash new struggles over control of resources and raw materials and could meet justifiable resistance from frontline communities.

And there are sure to be significant challenges in shifting our mode of production: as we restructure our way of life, new fractures are certain to emerge and new struggles will have to arise over the form that this takes. It will be a difficult line to walk, but the left must develop a vision that advances economic and political justice as a prerequisite to ecological transformation, and sustainably develops clean productive forces that don’t rely on moonshot technologies like carbon removal.

Now more than ever, we must challenge the underlying logic and the basis on which our system operates, and we must remain committed to this radical vision for a different society. 

COP26 Gives It Up to the Capitalists

Written by Danial Tanuro and first publish at Fourth International

The Glasgow Conference (COP26) should have given priority to 1) making good on the promise of the “developed” countries to contribute to the Green Climate Fund, from 2020 onwards, at least one hundred billion dollars a year to help the global South meet the climate challenge¹; 2) forcing these same countries to intervene financially to cover the enormous “loss and damage” caused by warming, especially in the “least developed countries” and small island states; 3) “raising the climate ambitions” of governments to achieve the adopted COP21 (Paris, 2015) goal of “keeping the temperature increase well below 2°C while continuing efforts not to exceed 1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial period.”

The balance sheet is clear: on paper, Glasgow clarifies the ambiguous Paris goal by making it more radical (1.5°C is now the target) and mentions the responsibility of fossil fuels. However in practice, the conference did not take any steps to stop the catastrophe. A “step in the right direction,” some said.

On the contrary: obsessed with the post-Covid neoliberal recovery and their geostrategic rivalries, the masters of the world decided to: 1) postpone the promise of one hundred billion for the Green Fund; 2) say no to compensation for “loss and damage”; 3) leave the field almost completely free for fossil fuels; 4) consider climate stabilization as a market for “carbon offsets” and technologies; 5) endow this market with a global mechanism for trading “rights to pollute”; 6) last but not least, entrust the management of this market to finance… which means to the rich whose investments and lifestyles are the fundamental cause of global warming.

The 1.5°C Special Report: A Bombshell with Fallout at the IEA

The IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C (2019) had demonstrated the imperative need to stay below 1.5°C. The dangers of warming had been underestimated. Beyond 1.5°C, cascades of positive feedbacks threaten to tip the Earth into a “hothouse planet” regime. This would have dire consequences (including a rise in sea levels of 13 metres or more). The average surface temperature has risen by 1.1 to 1.2°C compared to the pre-industrial era. At the current rate, the 1.5°C mark will be passed by 2030… Conclusion: “net” global CO2 emissions must be reduced by at least 50 per cent before 2030, by 100 per cent before 2050 and become negative in the second half of the century.

The report was a bombshell. The leaders of the capitalist class can no longer bury their heads in the sand. Those with a modicum of brains have to admit that global warming can spiral out of control to the point of endangering their system. In this context a capitalist policy that claims to be “based on the best science,” even when carried by neoliberals like Boris Johnson, could not possibly maintain the ambiguity of the Paris agreement. The British presidency of COP26 proposed that a maximum of 1.5°C should be the sole target, and this clarification was ratified by the Conference.

The IPCC is explicit: the burning of fossil fuels plays a key role in warming. As a result, the shockwaves of the 1.5°C report were felt even by the International Energy Agency. In 2021, it issued a report that clearly states that “carbon neutrality” in 2050 requires drastic measures in the very short term: a ban from 2021 on the development of new oil and gas fields, the opening of new coal mines, the expansion of existing coal mines, or the authorization of the construction of new coal-fired power stations; the abandonment of coal from 2030 in the “advanced” economies; and the closure of all coal- and oil-fired power stations worldwide from 2040.²

This report was also a bombshell. The Agency had always developed a very progressive vision of “transition.” Now it was suddenly advocating a radical shift toward a “green capitalism” organized around renewables. Just as it could not maintain the ambiguity of Paris, the Glasgow summit could not continue to hide the responsibility of fossils.

Under pressure from the energy sector and major users, every COP since 1992 had avoided the subject! This silence was no longer tenable. The British presidency submitted a draft declaration to delegates calling on parties to “accelerate the phasing-out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels.” It will be shown later how this text was neutralized, but the mention of fossils remains in the final version.

Closing the Gap: a more daunting challenge every year

The Paris agreement created a large gap between the goal (“keeping the temperature increase well below etc.”) and the national climate plans, or “Nationally Determined Contributions” (NDCs). On the basis of these NDCs, the IPCC projected a temperature increase of about 3.5°C in 2100. To reduce this “emissions gap,” the COP21 adopted the principle of a review every five years, to “raise ambitions.”

In September 2020, the gap, all gases included, is estimated at between 23 and 27 GtCO2 equivalent.³ This gap must be eliminated before 2030 to stay below 1.5°C. Global emissions must therefore be halved. With the 2020 summit cancelled (pandemic), the governments decided to make another effort to “raise the ambitions” for Glasgow. The result: an additional 3.3 to 4.7 Gt of reductions. On this basis, the scientific network Climate Action Tracker projects a warming of +2.4°C (range: +1.9 to +3°C).⁴

Johann Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute, delivered the ten key messages of the latest science to the COP. The first is that global emissions of CO2 alone need to be reduced each year by 2Gt (5%) by 2030 to have a 50/50 chance of staying below 1.5°C, and by 4Gt (10%) to have a two-thirds chance of staying below 1.5°C. A similar reduction is required for methane and nitrous oxide. There is no hope of achieving this at a five-yearly rate of NDC revision. Glasgow, therefore, decided to move to an annual rate. Seen from afar, this seems to leave a slender chance of success. Seen from up close, it is an illusion.

First: climate justice must be taken into account. Reductions of 5 and 10 per cent are global targets, to be modulated to take account of the “differentiated responsibilities” of countries. Rockström presented the most recent assessment on the subject: the richest one per cent of the world’s population must divide its emissions by thirty, while the poorest 50 per cent can multiply them by three. This clearly shows that the climate is a class issue, a major issue in the conflict between the possessing minority and the dispossessed majority.

Second: a reduction of 2 or 4 Gt/year is linear in mathematical terms, but not in economic, social, and political terms. The more emissions are reduced (or reductions are attempted) and the shorter the timeframe, the more emissions reduction runs up against capitalist demands for growth and profit. This is very concrete: in the energy sector, the bosses are putting the brakes on fossil fuel investments, to limit the “stranded assets.” As fossil fuels cover more than 80 per cent of the needs, a peak in energy supply will probably precede the peak in demand. Hence, high prices.⁵ 

This is good for the fossil fuel companies, but it fuels inflation, frustrates the post-covid recovery, and weighs heavily on the working classes. They can fight back or they can give their votes to national-populists. Both options create instability. Calming prices and avoiding shortages would require boosting fossil fuel production. China has done it for coal, and Biden has asked (unsuccessfully) Saudi Arabia and Russia to do it for oil. But boosting fossil fuels equals boosting emissions. It’s a squaring of the circle.

An Insurmountable Contradiction, a Source of Chaos

China and the United States issued a joint statement at the COP. It will be of no use in breaking the deadlock. It is mainly a statement for the sake of appearances. The two great powers have an interest in posing together as the guarantors of the world’s stability and its climate. Perhaps they will try to collaborate on a partial aspect of climate policy (methane emissions?). But the underlying tensions are very strong and tend to deepen the conflicts. In the US, the Democratic majority is hanging by a thread with senior US Senator Joe Manchin being the loyal friend of coal.

The Republicans have won the governorship of Virginia, hope to win the mid-term elections, and are campaigning against higher fuel prices. Their victory would change a lot! In China, the stability of the bureaucracy depends on the progress of the average standard of living on the one hand, and on nationalist exaltation on the other. The revival of coal does not prevent the rise in oil prices. There are many reasons for Beijing to continue to turn inward, accelerating its plans to reclaim Taiwan. All this is very unstable.

Wherever you look at the problem, you come up against the impossibility of the capitalist energy transition: you cannot at the same time revive a growth economy based on 80 per cent fossil fuels, replace fossil fuels with renewables, and drastically reduce emissions in the very short term. It is physically impossible. Either we reduce production to achieve the transition, or we sacrifice the transition to GDP growth. However, as Joseph Schumpeter said “capitalism without growth is a contradiction in terms.”

Conclusion: the contradiction is insoluble, except through a revolutionary systemic change. As long as this historical possibility does not become a concrete possibility, the contradiction will become more and more serious with every attempt to reduce emissions.

Each capitalist tries to shift the burden to their competitors and to the workers. Each capitalist class uses its state to shift the burden to rival states and to the working classes.

And the most polluting states are imperialist states that dominate the poorest. Consequently, the ecological/climate crisis will be combined with serious economic, social and political (and even military) upheavals along the following lines: 1) deepening social tensions, growing crisis of regime legitimacy, growing political instability, and an increased tendency toward authoritarianism; 2) neo-colonial policies of increasing brutality toward the peoples of the South, especially migrants, and especially women; 3) more acute rivalry between capitalists and between capitalist states, in particular; and 4) growing geostrategic tensions between the US and China.

To believe that such a context would be conducive to the annual increment of climate agreements that are equal to the challenge is to believe in Father Christmas.

State Regulation Could Save Time, but…

Let’s insist on this point: there is no structural solution without a global decrease in production, consumption, and transport, modulated with respect for social justice. It is imperative to “produce less, transport less, consume less and share more,” (especially the wealth and the necessary working time).⁶ A capitalist policy of regulation, with an increased role for the state, is therefore not an alternative to the crisis. At the same time, it could alleviate the difficulty. But here is a second contradiction: capital does not want this policy.

The Montreal Protocol on the protection of the ozone layer provided an example of effective regulation. Signed in 1987 and implemented two years later, it organized the end of the production and use of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), adopted a timetable, and created a global fund (financed by the rich countries) to help the South. Twenty years later, emissions had fallen by about 80 per cent, and the World Meteorological Organization noted that the stratospheric ozone layer was beginning to recover in earnest.

This precedent could inspire action in the climate field. This is especially so since there is, so to speak, a precedent within a precedent: at their meeting in Kigali in 1996, the parties to the Ozone Protocol decided to eliminate HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) as well. After Montreal, these HFCs had replaced CFCs. They do not destroy the ozone layer but, like CFCs, they have a radiative power more than a thousand times greater than CO2.⁷ 

The increased emissions of HFCs risked cancelling out the climate benefit that was an indirect consequence of the Ozone Layer Protocol. By deciding to phase out HFCs, governments made the recovery of the ozone layer consistent with the fight against climate change. The impact on global warming is not huge: by 2050, Kigali will have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 90 GtCO2eq compared to projections, the equivalent of two years’ worth of emissions. But two years is important when every year that passes increases the probability of tipping from catastrophe to cataclysm.⁸

The same method would make it possible to rapidly reduce methane emissions. The greenhouse effect of this gas is much more powerful than that of CO2, and we are emitting more and more of it.⁹ Reducing emissions from ecosystems, agriculture (especially rice fields), and livestock farming cannot be done with a stroke of the pen. But eliminating leakage from the gas network, oil wells, and coal mines is relatively easy, does not require structural changes in the production system, and could reduce warming by 0.5°C compared to projections.

No technological breakthroughs are needed, just forcing companies to make the necessary investments. But this is precisely where the problem lies: capitalists cannot be forced; they can only be encouraged by market mechanisms. This is the neoliberal doxa, enshrined in the Paris Agreement. We will see that Glasgow is more than ever ruling out any deviation from it.

Methane and Deforestation: Looking for Wasted Time?

There has been a lot of press coverage of the “methane deal.” At the COP, more than 100 countries promised to cut their emissions by 30% by 2030. If this were the case, warming in 2050 would be 0.2°C lower than projected (less than half the potential). But this is only a declaration of intent. There are no quotas per country, no funding for the countries of the South, no sanctions for non-compliance… The US, the EU, and Canada seem willing to act, it’s true, and it’s easy to see why: apart from Trump, the capitalist leaders are starting to panic. Limiting methane is a fairly easy course of action.

But there is a long way to go: China and Russia have not signed the Glasgow text. It is also easy to understand why: they are two major emitters. Their absence will obviously serve as a pretext for capitalists in other countries to resist. As a result, it is doubtful that anything will be imposed on them. Instead, incentives and taxes will be used, in the hope that the cost of investment will fall below the price of the gas saved. The working classes will foot the bill.

Deforestation poses a similar dilemma. It would be another way of recovering some of the time wasted since Rio (1992), without affecting the structure of the productive apparatus. In Glasgow, 131 countries promised to invest $12-billion in a Global Forest Finance Pledge (GFFP). The aim is to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030. This pledge is very similar to the one made in New York in 2014: end deforestation by 2030, 50% reduction by 2020. In 2015-2017, deforestation rates rose by 41%!

Some people see the GFFP positively because it is signed by Brazil and Russia, so more than 90 per cent of the Earth’s forests are covered. But this is no guarantee of effectiveness. Nor, above all, does it guarantee justice for indigenous peoples (whose rights and merits the GFFP emphatically recognises – but only in words).

In terms of effectiveness, it is important to note that the term “stopping and reversing forest loss” is not as unambiguous as it sounds. For some, removing a forest is NOT a “forest loss” … if the land is not then used for other economic sectors. Strange dialectic: one can cut down a forest without “forest loss” if it is to produce, in industrial monoculture, “carbon credits,” pellets, charcoal, or palm oil.

This is Indonesia’s interpretation. It is home to one of the three great rainforest massifs. It is gradually being razed to the ground to plant palm trees. There was a moratorium, but two months before the COP, Jakarta refused to extend it. The Indonesian representatives in Glasgow signed the “stop forest loss,” and then said this: “Forcing Indonesia to (reach) zero deforestation in 2030 is clearly inappropriate and unfair,” development “must not stop in the name of carbon emissions or in the name of deforestation.”

Stop forest loss, yes – stop deforestation, no… As far as indigenous peoples are concerned, the case of Brazil speaks for itself: is it really necessary to explain why the signing of the GFFP by the fascist Bolsonaro, who has declared war on the Amazon forest and the peoples who live there, has absolutely no credibility?¹⁰

Behind the Empty Promises, the sovereign power of the Deity “Market”

The COP sky was full of such agreements: on getting out of coal, on electric cars, on stopping cross-border investments in fossil fuels, or on stopping investments in fossil fuels on national territory. Some countries have even proudly announced their intention to green their military in order to “reduce their ecological footprint, particularly in the energy field.” It is a pity that sometimes ridicule does not kill – unlike armies.

All these “agreements” are empty promises. They are not binding, without concrete measures, without commitments by countries, without penalties for non-compliance. What is the point? Part of the answer is that governments are taking advantage of the spotlight on the COP to give themselves a green image and please their public opinion without harming the interests of capitalists…¹¹ But this points to a deeper explanation: empty promises are in tune with neoliberal ideology, which ultimately knows only one decision-maker: the Market, i.e., profit, i.e., a minority of shareholders.

Coal and Other Fossils: a Very Clear Message

The trials and tribulations of the passage of the Glasgow agreement on coal and other fossils are very illuminating. First version (inspired by the IEA report, although softer): the COP “calls on Parties to accelerate the phase-out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels.”

Second version: the COP “calls upon Parties to accelerate the development, deployment and dissemination of technologies and the adoption of policies for the transition toward low-emission energy systems, including by rapidly scaling up clean power generation and accelerating the phase-out of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels.” The air becomes breathable, but there is still talk of “phasing out” coal and “phasing out” fossil fuel subsidies.

Third version: following an intervention by the Indian delegation, in the middle of the ratification meeting, “accelerating the phase-out” is replaced by “accelerating efforts toward the phasing-down.”

The role of the Modi government must be denounced. But it is obvious that India has acted not only for the whole coal planet, but also for the whole fossil planet, and with the support of all the capitalist gunmen.¹² They were out in force at the COP to ensure, as one Finnish boss put it, that the conference “focuses on green growth rather than regulation, limitation and taxation.”¹³

Technically, the scope of the article on fossils is not very precise. “Emissions abatement” is a vague notion. According to the OECD, “[p]ollution abatement refers to technology applied or measure taken to reduce pollution and/or its impacts on the environment.” According to the G7, “unabated coal power generation refers to the use of coal that isn’t mitigated with technologies to reduce the CO2 emissions, such as Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS).”

These definitions could open up broader possibilities for capitalists than the very expensive carbon capture and storage (CCS). On the one hand, capture with use (CCU), where CO2 from fossil fuel plants is used in other industries to make goods… from which the gas will eventually escape… sometimes very quickly (e.g., fizzy drinks). On the other hand, if governments consider CO2 removals by forests as emission reductions (we will see later that the US and the EU make just this amalgam!), then the abatement could simply consist of… planting trees.

Politically, however, the message is clear. In essence, the energy tycoons are telling governments, and the people: 1) Stop dreaming about getting out of fossil fuels, what counts is the development of “green” technologies; 2) Don’t interfere in preventing us from exploiting our coal mines and opening new ones, we are already good at accepting systems to reduce the impact of CO2; 3) Don’t bother imposing a minimum proportion of emissions to be “abated,” or one method of abatement rather than another; 4).

If you really want to cut fossil fuel subsidies, cut the “inefficient” ones, which do not contribute to creating added value.¹⁴ This is the message that “our” governments ratified in Glasgow, without even being consulted on its final content. It is a real fossil-fuelled power grab.

Rush to Carbon Neutrality by 2050

The sovereign power of the market – i.e., profit, i.e., shareholders – is expressed not only in the “agreements,” but also in the rush by governments to achieve “carbon neutrality by 2050” (aka “zero net emissions”). The European Union, the United States, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia…: everyone has come up with a “strategy.”

The closer Glasgow got, the more the promises of “net zero by 2050” multiplied… and the more these promises consisted in replacing short-term emission reductions with hypothetical long-term carbon absorptions. While shouting loudly that they were aiming for “carbon neutrality” in 2050,¹⁵ some governments were handing over an unchanged or even lower NDC than in 2015!¹⁶ It’s all about obfuscating the issue.

Climate Action Tracker (CAT) has set the record straight by distinguishing between climate policies actually implemented, NDCs raised, promises made at the COP, and “net zero” strategies.¹⁷ It is stated at the beginning of this article: on the basis of the policies pursued, the average temperature rise will be 2.7°C by 2100 (range: +2 to +3.6°C). The picture does not improve with the addition of the promises made at the COP and “net zero” agreements and strategies, quite the contrary. Overall, “no country has put in place sufficient short-term policies to put itself on a trajectory toward net zero.”

This general conclusion can be summarized as follows:

• with the 2030 targets, assuming they are met, the projection is +2.4 (range: +1.9 to +3°C);
• with the 2030 targets and the promises made during the COP, assuming delivery, the projection is +2.1 (range: +1.7 to +2.6°C);
• with the added promise of “carbon neutrality” in 2050 (‘“Optimistic scenario,” according to the report…), the projection is +1.8 (range +1.5 to +2.4°C). “This scenario is not compatible with the Paris Agreement” as it “does not rule out +2.4°C warming.”

Climate Action Tracker has further evaluated the “2050 net zero” strategies.¹⁸ The researchers chose ten parameters and adopted a colour code (from good to bad: green, orange, red). Conclusions: the strategies of Chile, Costa Rica, the European Union, and the United Kingdom are “acceptable”; those of Germany, Canada, the USA, and South Korea are “average”; those of Japan, China, Australia, and New Zealand are “poor”; all the others are “incomplete” (notably Brazil, South Africa, Russia, Saudi Arabia…). It is clear that most governments have jumped on the ’carbon neutrality’ bandwagon in order to paint themselves green and go unnoticed in Glasgow.

The assessment of the strategies of the developed countries and China is worth looking at. The EU is in the red on two parameters: unclear commitment to equity, and no distinction between emissions removals and reductions. Germany is twice in the orange and three times in the red: its “net zero” does not cover emissions from international aviation and shipping, and it does not exclude “carbon offsetting” outside national borders. The same red marks for the USA, which also mixes up absorption and reduction, and whose commitment to equity lacks clarity (what did you expect?). As for China, it is in the red on 6 parameters and in the orange on 3 others.

This analysis fully confirms the denunciations of eco-socialists and other activists: when they are not non-existent or completely hollow, “net zero” strategies are incomplete and, in the best case, deeply biased. All this talk of “net zero” has only served to put off indefinitely the bulk of the 19 to 23 GtCO2eq whose elimination over the next eight years will determine whether or not we can avoid exceeding 1.5°C of warming. Clearly, this is a scam, and the cause of this scam is crystal clear: let’s avoid all constraints, all regulation, all planning.

Let’s not Decide Anything, let’s create the Market that will decide

The IPCC 5th Assessment Report explicitly stated the following: “Climate models assume fully functioning markets and competitive market behaviour.”¹⁹ This assumption, in turn, presupposes the creation of a market with market instruments. Paris, in its Article 6, had adopted the principle of a “New Market Mechanism” to take over the mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol. A series of inter-capitalist conflicts prevented the realization of this principle at COP25 (Madrid), which failed on this issue.

But, hallelujah, Glasgow reached an agreement. All parties (states, regions, companies) will be able to trade pollution rights. These can be generated anywhere in the world through clean investments, tree plantations, conservation of existing forests, CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS), and CO2 capture and use (CCU).

Among the conflicts to be resolved: how to avoid double counting of emission rights (by the seller and the buyer); whether the rights generated under Kyoto will be convertible into the new system (the majority of these rights do not correspond to real emission reductions); whether the trade in rights will be taxed to help the countries of the global South to cope with the “loss and damage” they are experiencing as a result of global warming;²⁰ There is not enough space here to examine all this in detail.

Overall, “the Article 6 mechanisms create such such significant loopholes that they could eliminate any remaining opportunity to get the world on a 1.5C pathway.”²¹ The decisions taken by the COP may not be enough to avoid double counting. The compromise reached on the Kyoto rights – those generated in 2013 and after will be convertible – is a victory for the hot air merchants (hot air refers to false reductions). Especially in Bolsonaro’s Brazil, which has a lot of them.

A next step will be to list clean, duty-bearing investments. The European Union’s list (“Taxonomy,” in the jargon) will be fixed by the end of the year. The stakes are high: the “taxonomy” will pave the way for green finance. The question remains: will nuclear energy be included? Defining it as “sustainable energy” would be absolute nonsense. The only thing sustainable about this technology is the waste that no one knows what to do with. It will pollute the environment for tens of thousands of years or more. But… the market is fantastic. China, for example, is planning to build 150 reactors.

From a capitalist point of view, which turns everything upside down (as Marx said), it would be an absolute nonsense to miss out on this prize money… a source of “sustainable” profits. Led by France, ten countries are campaigning for nuclear power to be included in the Taxonomy. Five others are opposed, including Germany. Who will win? Suspense until the decision.

Climate Finance: poor people, try to be attractive to investors!

The height of this criminal logic is reached when it comes to “climate finance.” It has two components: public flows and private flows. The former is, in turn, subdivided into two subcomponents: Green Funds and compensation for losses and damages. At the COP, the whole package was the subject of a plenary day: Welcome to the Finance Day!

On the subject of the Green Fund, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (British Finance Minister) said, in essence, OK, the North hasn’t delivered on its promise. Sorry about that. But we’re at 80 billion, we’ll get to a hundred from 2023, then we’ll exceed the target and that will make up for the shortfall in previous years.

This gentleman did not say that there are only 20 billion in grants in the Green Fund. The rest are loans. The agreement promises double funding for adaptation to global warming from 2025 onwards, but without guarantees. A UN committee will report next year on progress toward the $100bn/year target. The main point is that the South is threatened with a new spiral of indebtedness.

The issue of loss and damage is even more explosive by far. Take the example of Somalia. It has contributed to 0.00026% of historical climate change… but is suffering repeated droughts, clearly attributable to warming. In 2020, 2.9 million people were severely food insecure. International aid is highly insufficient. Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Uganda are experiencing the same drama. Who will pay? And who will pay for future disasters?

The NGO Christian Aid estimates that, with unchanged policies, climate change will cause the GDP of the poorest countries to fall by 19.6 per cent by 2050 and 63.9 per cent as an annual average by 2100. If we limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C, these figures would be -13.1 per cent and -33.1 per cent respectively. The bill for losses and damages will quickly rise to several thousand billion. The principle of financing by rich countries is enshrined in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, but imperialist governments plainly refuse to respect it. Period.

The miracle solution is supposed to come from private finance. Mark Carney, formerly of Goldman Sachs, former head of the Bank of England, Chairman of the G20 Finance Stability Board, has been appointed by the UN as a “special envoy” on climate finance. Just before the COP, he brought together several components of “green finance” in the Glasgow Finance Alliance for Net Zero (GFanz). GFanz is led by 19 CEOs of major financial companies, including Brian Moynihan of Bank of America, Larry Fink of BlackRock, Jane Fraser of Citigroup, Noel Quinn of HSBC, Ana Botín of Santander, and Amanda Blanc of Aviva.

Its aim is to provide “a practitioner-led forum for financial firms to collaborate on substantive, cross-cutting issues that will accelerate the alignment of financing activities with net zero and support efforts by all companies, organizations, and countries to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.”

At the COP, GFanz was the star of Finance Day. The consortium is worth $130,000-billion. The Chancellor of the Exchequer tried to bluff everyone by praising this “historic wall of capital,” ready to come to the rescue of the planet and its climate.

Translation: ready to finance “clean” investments, clean coal, green hydrogen, tree plantations, conservation of existing forests, CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS), and CO2 capture and use (CCU). Whatever greenwashing you want, as long as it pays off. Because the conditions are pretty clear: “To do that, investors need to have as much clarity as they do in the traditional financial metrics of profit and loss.” Poor people, try to be attractive to investors…

The NGO Reclaim Finance has ripped the green mask off these financiers. In bulk: GFanz’s benchmark (the UN’s Race to Zero criteria) does not mention fossils; Alliance members are not required to reduce their indirect emissions (so-called “Scope 3” emissions, which account for about 88 per cent of fossil-sector emissions); no absolute reduction of emissions is needed, a relative one is enough; none of the GFanz partners ban or limit the use of offsetting; as of mid-October 2021, 34 of the 58 members of the Asset Owner Alliance (one of the GFanz components) had no restrictions on investing in fossils.

A few months before COP21 (May 2015), François Hollande opened the business climate summit in Paris by saying, “Businesses are essential because they are the ones who will translate, through the commitments that will be made, the changes that will be necessary: energy efficiency, the rise of renewable energies, the ability to transport oneself with a mobility that does not consume energy [sic!], energy storage, the mode of construction of habitats, the organization of cities, and also the participation in the transition, in the adaptation of countries that are developing.”

We can only copy here the interpretation of this statement in “Too late to be pessimistic”: “Beloved capitalists, we, the politicians, offer you the planet, the cities and the forests, the soils and the oceans, we even offer you the market of the adaptation of the countries of the South to the catastrophe that you are imposing on them; everything is yours, take it: this is the message.”²²

From the point of view of capital, it is wrong to say that COP26 is blah blah blah. It is rather a monstrous apotheosis of neoliberalism. This summit took a significant step forward on the road to the total commodification of the Earth, its ecosystems, and its inhabitants, for the benefit of finance and at the expense of Nature and the people.

In the Form of Conclusion

The political leaders all (or almost all) recognise this: the urgency is maximum, the risk is immeasurable, there is not a moment to lose. And yet, from one COP to the next, despite the light shed by “The best Science available.” The time to fight back is being wasted, and the march to the abyss is accelerating.

This aberrant, hallucinatory, and frightening reality does not result from the imbecility of this or that official, nor from the plot of occult forces: it results from the fundamental laws of Capitalism, and these laws also corrupt the “best Science.” Based on competition for profit, this mode of production forces millions of capitalists, on pain of economic death, to make millions of investment decisions at every moment which aim to increase the productivity of labour through machines.

The resulting tendential fall in the rate of profit is compensated by an increase in the mass of goods produced, an increase in the exploitation of labour power, and an increase in the exploitation of other natural resources. This system functions like an automaton out of all control. It carries with it, like a cloud, not only war – as Jaurès said – but also the potential for unlimited development, unlimited growth in inequality, and unlimited further ecological destruction.

It must be forcefully repeated: there is an insurmountable antagonism between prolonging this system and safeguarding the planet as an environment conducive to life and humanity. Therefore, as Lenin did when war broke out in 1914, we must, to begin with, and independently of the balance of power, dare to make a clear diagnosis: the situation is “objectively revolutionary.”

With the Glasgow COP, a brief cycle of increasingly urgent warnings begins: either the convergence of social mobilizations will make it possible to begin to bridge the enormous gap between this objective situation and the level of consciousness and organization of the exploited and oppressed (the “subjective factor”), or the automaton will drive us ever deeper into a barbarism of unprecedented proportions. 

Endnotes

1.              Promise made during the Cancun COP in 2010.

2.              IEA, “Net Zero in 2050. A Roadmap for the Energy Sector”.

3.              Giga tonnes of greenhouse gases calculated as if they were all CO2.

4.              “Glasgow’s 2030 credibility gap.”

5.              Financial Times, 4 November 2021 “COP26: oil price soars even as the world turns against fossil fuel.”

6.              Daniel Tanuro, Trop tard pour être pessimistes. Ecosocialisme ou effondrement, Textuel, Paris, 2020.

7.              The radiative power of a gas is its ability to absorb and radiate the infrared radiation emitted by the Earth and thus contribute to the greenhouse effect that makes the planet suitable for life.

8.              Daniel Tanuro, « L’accord de Kigali sur le climat: de l’arbre des HFC à la forêt du CO2», Politique la revue.

9.              In the short term, the radiative power of methane is 80 times greater than that of CO2. But methane is quickly eliminated from the atmosphere (by chemical reaction with oxygen). Over a hundred years, its radiative power is estimated to be 30 times that of CO2.

10.           “Will the COP26 global deforestation pledge really save forests?” Kieran Mulvaney, National Geographic, 5 November 2021.

11.           For example, France is proud to have joined the Beyond Oil and Gas (BOGA) coalition. Together with eleven other countries (very small producers), it promises to stop extracting oil or gas… on its territory. It abstains from the coalition between Great Britain and others, who promise not to put any more public money outside their borders into fossil fuel installations without abatement. France’s absence from the latter coalition, and Britain’s from the former, is illuminated by the links between Paris and Total on the one hand, and London’s fossil interests in the North Sea on the other.

12.           See Global Witness’s investigation of the hundreds of fossil fuel gunmen at COP. Read also “In Glasgow, COP26 Negotiators Do Little to Cut Emissions, but Allow Oil and Gas Executives to Rest Easy”, Climate News, 12 November 2021: “Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron (…) participated under the banners of national delegations or industry groups. Saudi Arabia and other petrostates brought delegates from their oil companies, but so did Canada, which included a representative of Suncor, a top producer in the country’s tar sands.”

13.           Financial Times, 11 November 2021.

14.           The public subsidy for heating oil that exists in Belgium, for example, is completely “inefficient”…

15.           2060 for China, 2070 for India.

16.           Carbon Action Tracker, op. cit.

17.           Climate Action Tracker, “Glasgow’s 2030 credibility gap: net zero’s lip service to climate action. Wave of net zero emission goals not matched by action on the ground."

18.           Climate Action Tracker, “Net zero target evaluations.”

19.           AR5, GT3, Chap 6, p. 422.

20.           Financial Times, 11 November 2021.

21.           Press release of CLARA (Climate Land Ambition and Rights Alliance).

22.           op. cit.

Daniel Tanuro is a certified agriculturalist and ecosocialist environmentalist, writes for La gauche, (the monthly of the LCR-SAP, Belgian section of the Fourth International). He is the author of Le moment Trump (Demopolis, 2018).