Capitalism at stake in climate
crisis By Walden Bello
There is now a solid consensus in the
scientific community that if the change in global
mean temperature in the 21st century exceeds 2.4
degrees Celsius, changes in the planet's climate
will be large-scale, irreversible and disastrous.
Moreover, the window of opportunity for action
that will make a difference is narrow - that is,
the next 10 to 15 years.
Throughout the
North, however, there is strong resistance to
changing the systems of consumption and production
that have created the problem in the first place.
Alongside this resistance is a preference for
"techno-fixes", such as "clean" coal, carbon
sequestration and storage, industrial-scale
biofuels and nuclear energy.
Globally,
transnational corporations and other private
actors resist
government-imposed measures such
as mandatory caps. They have preferred to use
market mechanisms like the buying and selling of
"carbon credits", which largely amount to a
license for corporate polluters to keep on
polluting.
In the global South, elites
have shown little willingness to depart from the
high-growth, high-consumption model inherited from
the North. They maintain a self-interested
conviction that the North must first adjust and
bear the brunt of adjustment before the South
takes any serious step toward limiting its
greenhouse gas emissions.
In the climate
change discussions, all parties recognize the
principle of "common but differentiated
responsibility". In other words, the global North
must shoulder the brunt of the adjustment to the
climate crisis since it is responsible for the
economic trajectory that has brought the world to
the edge of catastrophe. Also, the global response
should not compromise the right to develop of the
countries of the global South.
The devil,
however, is in the details. As analysts like
Martin Khor of the Third World Network have
pointed out, the global reduction of 80% in
greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2050
that many now recognize as necessary, translates
into reductions of at least 150-200% on the part
of the global North in order to adhere to these
two principles - "common but differentiated
responsibility" and recognition of the right to
development of the countries of the South.
Psychologically and politically, however,
the North at this point does not likely have what
it takes to meet the problem head-on.
The
prevailing assumption is that the affluent
societies can take on commitments to reduce their
greenhouse gas emissions but still grow and enjoy
their high standards of living if they shift to
non-fossil fuel energy sources. This assumption
extends to the method of reduction, namely that
the mandatory cuts agreed to multilaterally by
governments will be implemented within the country
according to a market-based system, that is, the
trading of emission permits. The subtext is:
techno-fixes and the carbon market will make the
transition relatively painless and - why not? -
profitable, too.
But many of these
technologies are decades away from viable use. In
the short and medium term, relying on a shift in
energy dependence to non-fossil fuel alternatives
will not be able to support current rates of
economic growth. Also, the trade-off for more crop
land devoted to biofuel production means less land
on which to grow food and therefore greater food
insecurity globally.
Clearly, the dominant
paradigm of economic growth is one of the most
significant obstacles to a serious global effort
to deal with climate change. But this
destabilizing, fundamentalist growth-consumption
paradigm is itself more effect rather than cause.
The central problem is a mode of
production whose main dynamic is the
transformation of living nature into dead
commodities, creating tremendous waste in the
process. The driver of this process is consumption
- or more appropriately overconsumption - and the
motivation is profit or capital accumulation:
capitalism, in short.
It has been the
generalization of this mode of production in the
North and its spread from the North to the South
over the past 300 years that has caused the
accelerated burning of fossil fuels and rapid
deforestation, two of the key man-made processes
behind global warming.
The South's
dilemma One way of viewing global
warning is as a key manifestation of the latest
stage of a wrenching historical process: the
privatization of the global commons by capital.
The climate crisis must thus be seen as the
expropriation by the advanced capitalist societies
of the ecological space of less developed or
marginalized societies.
This leads us to
the dilemma of the South. Before the full extent
of the ecological destabilization brought about by
capitalism, the South was expected to simply
follow the "stages of growth" of the North. But
now, the South can't do so without bringing about
ecological Armageddon. Already, China is on track
to overtake the United States as the biggest
emitter of greenhouse gases, and yet the elite of
China as well as those of India and other rapidly
developing countries are intent on reproducing the
American-type overconsumption-driven capitalism.
Thus, for the South, the implications of
an effective global response to global warming
include several necessary but insufficient
conditions. First, countries like China can no
longer opt out of a mandatory regime on the
grounds that it is a developing country. Second,
developing countries must push the North to
transfer technology to mitigate global warming and
provide funds to assist in adapting the new
technology.
These steps are important, but
they are only the initial steps in a broader,
global reorientation of the paradigm for achieving
economic well-being.
While this adjustment
will need to be much, much greater and faster in
the North, the adjustment for the South will
essentially be the same: a break with the
high-growth, high-consumption model in favor of
another model of achieving the common welfare.
The strategy of Northern elites has been
to try to decouple growth from energy use. In
contrast, a progressive comprehensive climate
strategy in both the North and the South must
reduce growth and energy use while raising the
quality of life of the broad masses of people.
This will mean placing economic justice and
equality at the center of the new paradigm.
The transition must be one not only from a
fossil-fuel based economy but also from an
overconsumption-driven economy.
The goal
must be the adoption of a low-consumption,
low-growth, high-equity development model that
results in an improvement in people's welfare, a
better quality of life for all, and greater
democratic control of production.
The
elites of the North and the South will not likely
agree to such a comprehensive response. The
farthest they are likely to go is for techno-fixes
and a market-based cap-and-trade system. Growth
will be sacrosanct, as will the system of global
capitalism.
Yet, confronted with
apocalypse, humanity cannot self-destruct. It may
be a difficult road, but the vast majority will
not commit social and ecological suicide to enable
the minority to preserve its privileges.
Threat
and opportunity Climate change is both
a threat and an opportunity to bring about the
long postponed social and economic reforms that
had been derailed or sabotaged in previous eras by
elites seeking to preserve or increase their
privileges.
The difference is that today
the very existence of humanity and the planet
depend on the institutionalization of economic
systems based not on feudal rent extraction or
capital accumulation or class exploitation, but on
justice and equality. I am hopeful that a thorough
reorganization of production, consumption, and
distribution will be the end result of humanity's
response to the climate emergency and the broader
environmental crisis.
In the social and
economic system that will be collectively crafted,
there will be room for the market. However, the
more interesting question is: will such a system
have room for capitalism? Will capitalism as a
system of production, consumption, and
distribution survive the challenge of coming up
with an effective solution to the climate crisis?
Walden Bello is
a senior analyst at Focus on the Global South, a
program of Chulalongkorn University's Social
Research Institute, and a columnist for Foreign
Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org).
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