In this extract from his book, To Cook A Continent, Nnimmo Bassey argues that climate negotiations, from Durban in late 2011 onwards, will increasingly confront the issue of climate justice.
The atmosphere is a common space, a global commons. Industrialised nations pumped a disproportionate amount of emissions into the atmosphere and they have cornered a disproportionate amount of global resources, largely by exploiting nations that are on the other side of the coin. Climate impacts are already being felt in a severe way in Africa as well as in other regions of the global South. Centuries of exploitation have weakened the resilience of these regions and in tackling climate change these historical facts must be addressed. One way of addressing this is by the payment of climate debt to make the needed financial and technological resources available to these vulnerable regions.
The Conference of Parties at Copenhagen and the following one at Cancun did not generate outcomes consistent with scientific warnings that the world faces a severe climate crisis. Copenhagen ended with an accord spearheaded by President Barack Obama of the United States with the backing of the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) concocted in a 'Green Room' dreamed up by Denmark's conservative ruling party. In that room, Patrick Bond recalled, were 26 countries 'cherry-picked to represent the world. When even that small group deadlocked, allegedly due to Chinese intransigence and the overall weak parameters set by the US, the five leaders (Obama, Lula da Silva, Jacob Zuma, Manmohan Singh, and Wen Jiabao) attempted a face-saving last gasp at planetary hygiene.'12
The demand of climate justice is that those who created the climate problem must be the ones to mitigate it, and in the process must transform their economies and societies.13 There are two ways to go about making this happen. First, rich nations must reduce rapacious consumption patterns and address the climate crisis with real solutions and not ones that have been seen to be false. Second, the rich nations have to support the poor nations who are being forced to adapt to a situation they did not create. One practical way of making that happen is through support for sustainable, green development paths.
Among governments, the Bolivians have made the clearest call for climate justice while India and China have used related arguments to defend their growth paths. At a time when the world has been calling for a curtailment of polluting industrial establishments, China has been building new coal-fired power plants at a prodigious rate.14 It is interesting to note that while China is massively expanding its coal-powered plants, it is also quickly assuming leadership in the utilisation of wind power. The discourse on how much both China and India must do in tackling global warming must not overlook the fact that vast numbers of people in both India and China still require electricity supply and that meeting that gap requires huge financial outlays.
Following the catastrophic outcome of the United Nations climate negotiations held in Copenhagen in December 2009, President Evo Morales of Bolivia announced that the world would meet in Bolivia for a thorough and inclusive discussion on this vital issue.
the model of civilisation that is hinged on uncontrolled development can only compound the crisis
The summit, held in Cochabamba in April 2010, attracted 35,000 participants from 140 countries. The summit stood in sharp contrast to the Copenhagen event in many ways. First, this was an assembly of governments and peoples. In Copenhagen no effort was spared in keeping civil society out of the conference: the conference was marked by lockouts of civil society, detentions of climate activists and outright brutality towards non-violent protesters on the streets. In Cochabamba the police were offering assistance and were also participants. Whereas Copenhagen showed a disdain for the voices of the people, Cochabamba was about raising the voices of the people. The only similarity between the events is that they were both held in cities whose names start with letter 'C' followed by nine letters.
The key outcome of the Cochabamba conference was the People's Agreement. This agreement demanded that countries cut their emissions by at least 50 per cent at source in the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2013–17), without recourse to offsets and other carbon trading schemes. In terms of finance, the People's Agreement demands that developed countries commit 6 per cent of their GDP to finance adaptation and mitigation needs. The financial suggestions of the Copenhagen Accord are a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed to secure vulnerable peoples and nations. The peoples of the world also affirmed that there is a climate debt that must be recognised and paid. The payment is not all about finance but principally about decolonising the atmospheric space and redistributing the meagre space left. Developed countries already occupy 80 per cent of the space.
The climate debt is also about taking actions needed to restore the natural cycles of Mother Earth and one clear way of achieving this will be through the proclamation of a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth, with clear obligations for humans. Bolivia is in the forefront of promoting the adoption of this declaration at the United Nations. The People's Agreement recognises that the causes of climate change are systemic and that systemic changes are needed to tackle them. On this note, the model of civilisation that is hinged on uncontrolled development can only compound the crisis. The world needs to move towards living well and not continue on the path of domination of others and of conspicuous and wasteful consumption.
An area glossed over in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations is the role of industrial agriculture in climate change. The People's Conference debated this key sector and reached the agreement that the way to a sustainable future is through the enthronement of food sovereignty based on agro-ecological agricultural systems. The issue of access to water being a human right was also affirmed by the people and later on in the year by the United Nations.
In all, the People's Agreement recognises that real strategies to tackle climate change must be based on the principles of equity and justice in dealing with the structural causes. Without climate justice it will also clearly be impossible to achieve the much talked about Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Cochabamba resonated with calls for urgently securing the rights of Mother Earth as a means of reconfiguring our relationship with the earth and with each other – in a way that respects the past, today and the future. All these will be a pipe dream unless peoples' sovereignty is supported, restored or built across the world. Cochabamba was a turning point in the march to transform our world from the path of conflict, competition, exploitation and domination to a path of solidarity and dignity. It held a ray of hope for Africa.
the earth has warmed by almost 0.8°C since the Industrial Revolution
With approximately 10 per cent of the world's population, the United States and the countries of the European Union contribute more than 50 per cent of the carbon emissions in the atmosphere. It is useful at this point to compare the per capita emissions of selected countries in the world.
With regard to consumption levels, the argument has been raised that the enormous growth of the middle class in both China and India has led to a rise in the demand for beef, which in turn means dependence on intensive cattle production systems that results in more deforestation as well as the use of more polluting agro-chemicals. This argument may be material for stand-up comics, but the reality is that the meat industrial complex has enormously contributed to the release of greenhouse gases through deforestation and land conversion to ranches as well to soy plantations in South America, for example.
In fact, while the US has a mere 5 per cent of the world's population, these over-consumers emit nearly 25 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases from the burning of oil, gas, and coal – for driving cars, producing electricity, and running industries. This huge carbon burden may have been a major reason why the country would not readily want to accede to emission caps that would help keep the earth's temperature from rising to or above 1.5°C over pre-industrial levels. Already the earth has warmed by almost 0.8°C since the Industrial Revolution. The IPCC in its fourth report estimated that at this rate, temperatures will rise by 2–2.4°C by 2050. To avoid this, greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by 50–85 per cent relative to 2000 levels by 2050, and if nothing is done to check the rise in temperature, up to 30 per cent of plant and animal species will be under threat of extinction.
This point bears repetition. The market ideology bent of the Kyoto Protocol permits countries unwilling to achieve the target set by the protocol to continue with their emissions binge and notionally offset these sins by some other mechanisms:
Buy emissions rights from countries who do not exhaust their emissions quota.
Invest in forestry and soil conservation projects elsewhere, with the understanding that such projects would lead to absorption of carbon to equally compensate for their continued emissions.
Invest abroad in projects that would save on greenhouse gases. Such projects are known as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects and are often carried out in countries that do not have obligatory limits. They can also invest in Joint Implementation (JI) projects in other industrialised countries.
The major thrust of carbon trading and carbon offset strategies is to transfer the responsibilities for the impacts of climate change to the South while the polluters reap profits from the new business built upon disasters. Advocates of carbon trading make the argument that this will allow economies to adjust more rapidly and efficiently, with fewer disruptions. In other words, actions that ought to call for penalties are now overlooked because of some queer financial mechanisms that leave the environment at the mercy of powerful polluters. Carbon trade and other false solutions such as genetically modified (GM) organisms, carbon sinks, ocean fertilisation, carbon storage and agrofuels, are all formulas that leave aside the oil industry, the number one sector responsible for global warming.15
As already noted, the climate crisis is being seen as an opportunity to force unpalatable solutions on unsuspecting populations. The orchestration of the 2007–08 phase of the food crisis offered proponents of genetically modified crops a golden opportunity to say this was the time when hungry Africans could not say no and, indeed, should not say no to any kind of food generously placed on their shaky dining tables. The unfortunate thing about these things called GM crops, as with other proposals for the continent, is that many African governments tend to see them, first of all, as opportunities to receive grants. The issue of whether the technology is suitable to the African context, including our health and eating habits, is secondary.
the genetic engineering train is presented as a silver bullet
'Africa needs technology transfer.' 'Africa can domesticate the technology.' 'We will not be tied to the apron strings of Monsanto.' 'A billionaire like Bill Gates, who is sponsoring the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), cannot be wrong.' 'GM crops will help African farmers increase yields, grasp the value added chain and penetrate global markets.' The genetic engineering train is presented as a silver bullet that solves all the imaginable agricultural and food problems of the continent. And African leaders ululate in wonder.
Africa has become a major battleground for GM crops, and efforts to ensure the penetration of the continent by hook or by crook have been thick and persistent. With a picture of unyielding hunger, malnourished people and an inability to plough with anything other than a hoe, Africa is presented as a lost cause that must be helped by a loving, caring world. Climate change provides a wonderful cover to push this agenda. The GM industry claims they can produce varieties that do not need water to grow and indeed will produce others than do not require agro-chemicals. The promises keep rolling off the tongues of their salesmen. The message is that without GM crops and with climate change, Africans will not only be left with empty bowls, but the continent will become a dust bowl.
True, the effects of climate change are clearly manifest in the agricultural sector. But, trust the purveyors of genetically engineered crops. They want to gain from all ends of the pipe. As we often hear, agriculture contributes a large chunk of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and thus impacts on the climate. What is often not heard is that the culprit is industrial, chemical-dependent agriculture and not the environmentally sound agro-ecological practices. Nevertheless, even though smallholder farmers are not climate criminals, they are severely impacted by it. For the Niger Delta, continued degradation in the form of spills and gas flares render the area extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change with a projected loss of 50 per cent of the ability to produce cereals by the year 2020 and an 80 per cent loss by 2050.16 This is worse than any armed conflict.
In grasping at carbon credits and offsets, some entrepreneurs suggest that, for the agricultural sector to benefit from the carbon market, systems that reduce the need for tillage should qualify. If this is taken on board, genetically modified crops such as Monsanto's Roundup-ready varieties could be used to claim carbon credits by arguing that they reduce the need for tillage and thus reduce emissions. This would be a perverse incentive for growing GM crops.17
Book: To Cook A Continent
Author: Nnimmo Bassey
12 Bond, Patrick (2010) 'Maintaining momentum after Copenhagen's Collapse: seal the deal or ''Seattle'' the deal?', Capitalism Nature Socialism, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 14–27
13 This is the position of Friends of the Earth International and other climate-justice campaigning civil society groups.
14 According to Wikipedia, the People's Republic of China is the largest consumer of coal in the world, and is about to become the largest user of coal-derived electricity, getting 1.95 trillion kilowatt-hours per year, or 68.7 per cent of its electricity from coal as of 2006 (compared to 1.99 trillion kilowatt-hours per year, or 49 per cent for the US). Hydroelectric power supplied another 20.7 per cent of China's electricity needs in 2006. With approximately 13 per cent of the world's proven reserves, China has enough coal to sustain its economic growth for a century or more even though demand is currently outpacing production. China's coal mining industry is the deadliest in the world and has the world's worst safety record where an average of 13 people die every day in the coal pits, compared to 30 per year for coal power in the United States. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_China
15 Bassey, Nnimmo (2008) 'Interrogating official mechanisms for tackling climate change', June at www.eraction.org
16 International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (2008) 'Food security and sustainable agriculture – the challenges of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa', 8 May at a side event of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development-16 at the UN, New York
17 Anderson, Teresa (2009) 'Email on the ABN lists', 11 November
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