The desire to do something about climate change and global warming should not blind us to whether proposed solutions are actually feasible, or might generate unintended consequences.

 Carbon offsetting has been criticised by Tom Goldtooth, a prominent activist within the Indigenous movement, as “part of a system that privatizes the air that we breathe”.

Carbon offsets are a set of schemes that allows companies, but also individuals, to buy credits from different environmental projects – such as tree-planting, or solar and wind farms – to substitute for their own carbon footprints. These schemes can often involve large carbon sinks, such as tropical rainforests, in developing countries.

Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, explained “It allows polluters to buy and sell permits to pollute instead of cutting emissions at the source. It lets governments and corporations pretend they are doing something about climate change, when they are not.” He went on to say, “In our traditional knowledge we know that we cannot own the sky, we cannot trade Mother Earth in a market system.”

Mr Goldtooth, who is Diné and Dakota, has organized around Indigenous issues for the past 40 years. He won the 2015 Gandhi Award and 2016 John Muir Award for his decades of defending Indigenous rights to a healthy environment and combatting fossil fuel projects. He travelled to Glasgow’s COP26 with a delegation representing 15 different Indigenous Nations from Canada, the US including Alaska and Brazil. Mr Goldtooth has attended Cop summits for two decades and says Indigenous peoples still remain at the fringes.

“We’re here and we still don’t have a seat at the table,” he said. “In some areas [of the venue] we don’t have access, and they’re very critical in terms of negotiations. So we’re forced to try to grab people in the hallways.”

Indigenous protesters gathered outside the main turnstiles into the Cop26 venue. The group held up copies of the Financial Times, where they had secured a full-page ad that read: “Carbon offsetting is tearing us apart.”

“We need real reduction, and to keep fossil fuels in the ground,” Mr Goldtooth said. “Carbon offsetting perpetuates the theft of Indigenous people’s land and our territories. Our brothers and sisters have been protecting their lands and forests for thousands of years. Carbon offsets are a new form of colonialism.”

Mr Goldtooth said that the focus on net-zero emissions was “false and clearly dangerous” compared to absolute zero emissions.

“It’s very vague. it hasn’t been clearly defined. It’s got too much risk to it,” he said. He said national governments and corporations continue to push “false solutions” such as carbon capture and storage and solar engineering. “These technical fixes violate the natural laws of the atmosphere, of the sky, of the Mother Earth, all that delicate, harmonious structure,” he said.

He compared the world, particularly the industrialized countries in the North, to a drug addict, and said they were “addicted to the combustion of fossil fuels”.

“I think the world is addicted to energy. It can’t wean itself from this addiction to consumption and also the creation of waste. My fear is that they will continue to burn to the end of the earth,” he added.

“I was hopeful that maybe with this Democratic president [Biden], we might be able to get some things going for ourselves as Indigenous peoples, economically as well,” Mr Goldtooth said. “Around climate policy, I was hoping for something better. He made so many promises on his road to presidency that he was going to tackle climate change and end fossil fuel investments on public lands. He’s lying. He said that he was going to recognize Indigenous rights [but] he’s continued to perpetuate a legacy of broken treaties. Many members of our network that are here don’t trust this person.”

Cop26: Carbon offsetting ‘a new form of colonialism,’ says Indigenous leader | The Independent

The Socialist Party has secured an official pitch for a street stall at Royal Exchange Square, right in the heart of Glasgow City Centre, during the COP26 climate summit. 

The stall will be up and running from Monday until Wednesday next week, from 10am until 5pm each day. 

 Comrades are travelling from across the UK in order to help spread the party case for socialism to explain the root cause of the environmental mess we find ourselves in.

 ExxonMobil and Chevron as well as American Petroleum Institute are the world’s most obstructive organisations when it comes to governments setting climate policies, according to research by lobbying experts at the thinktank InfluenceMap. 

 It concluded that companies were manipulating governments to take “incredibly dangerous paths” in their approach to climate action, using  the “prolific and highly sophisticated” lobbying ploys.

Oil giants have mounted “intense resistance” to Joe Biden’s green agenda, according to the report, as the US president’s administration attempted to shift the country away from fossil fuels. The report also said corporate lobbying tactics in part explained why regulators in some countries such as Australia have struggled to build support for more ambitious climate policy in the lead-up to Cop26 and were increasingly viewed as “a road block in global negotiations”.

Ed Collins, a director at InfluenceMap, said “The corporate playbook for holding back climate policy has come a long way from science denialism but it is every bit as damaging. What we are seeing is not limited to efforts to undermine regulations directly. It also involves prolific and highly sophisticated narrative capture techniques, leading governments down incredibly dangerous paths.”

US oil giants top list of lobby offenders holding back climate action | ExxonMobil | The Guardian

 The latest audio uploads –

Who will pay for Social Care? – Adam Buick, 8th October 2021

Climate activists say it is all a smoke-screen. 

Several major economies still have yet to set a date for ending their dependence on the fuel, including the United States, China, India and Japan.

 The promises vary and some pledges came with important caveats, 

Some have pledged to quit coal completely at a future date, while others say they’ll stop building new plants, and even more, including China, are talking about just stopping the financing of new coal plants abroad.

United States, Canada, Denmark and several other nations signed a different pledge to “prioritize” funding clean energy over fossil fuel projects abroad, but not completely ruling out financial support for coal-fired power plants,

Indonesia requested additional aid before committing to bringing its deadline forward to the 2040s. South Africa will get billions of dollars to compensate it if the money is forthcoming, that is. 

Poland, the second-biggest user of coal in Europe, appeared to backtrack in an apparent U-turn on any ambitious new commitments within hours of the announcement.

“Energy security and the assurances of jobs is a priority for us,” Anna Moskwa, Poland’s minister for climate and environment, said in a tweet, citing the government’s existing plan which “provides for a departure from hard coal by 2049.” Earlier in the day, it had seemed that Poland might bring that deadline forward by at least a decade. 

“Moskwa has underscored that her government cannot be trusted to sign a postcard, let alone a responsible climate pledge,” said Kathrin Gutmann, campaign director of the group Europe Beyond Coal.

Countries pledge to cut heavily polluting coal, with caveats (apnews.com)

 Another “breakthrough” at Cop26. This time it is about a reduction in the use of coal. Many major coal users including Poland, Vietnam and Chile are committing to shift away from the fossil fuel, in pledges made at the climate summit.

Despite Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo signing the agreement to end deforestation by 2030 deal, its Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said development remained Indonesia’s top priority. She said the authorities could not “promise what we can’t do” and went on to say forcing Indonesia to commit to zero deforestation by 2030 was “clearly inappropriate and unfair”, signalling that the country may not abide by it.

“The massive development of President Jokowi’s era must not stop in the name of carbon emissions or in the name of deforestation,” she said, referring to Mr Widodo by his nickname. “Indonesia’s natural wealth, including forests, must be managed for its use according to sustainable principles, besides being fair,” she said.

The world suffers from populations being displaced because of drought and storms and floods.

Capitalists worship quick and easy profit. There is no amount of wealth, no amount of profit, and no amount of market-share that is either ‘enough’ or ‘too much.

 Because capitalism is the chief contributor to increasing climate change, the answer must be anti-capitalist and on that account, socialist. Humanity’s best chance of survival lies with world socialism. Those concerned about the climate crisis should understand that half measures aren’t sufficient solutions. A fundamental transformation of society as a whole is required. Green goals cannot be reconciled with a capitalist economy. An ecological steady-state between society and nature is incompatible with capitalism’s insatiable compulsion to grow. As long as environmentalists hold true to their aims they will always come up against capitalism’s barriers, thwarting their realisation. Campaigners cannot downplay or oppose anti-capitalism and should welcome and be receptive to socialist ideas. The conservative-minded politicians to stay electable have hi-jacked the environmentalist platform, sweeping this unpalatable truth under the rug, to win credibility with both the voters and their donors. Corporate values permeate all the major institutions of government.

The socialist analysis has been marginalised, discredited and unable to enter into the mainstream environmentalist debate. Our case for a sustainable society has been rejected and excluded from the scientific discourse. The World Socialist Movement not just explains the economic processes leading to environmental destruction, but also offers the strategy to change them. A  critique of capitalism is essential to challenge the current environmental crisis. The market promotes its own logic of production that facing competition from other producers, each business must minimise or externalise its costs while maximising returns and market share so to implement expensive environmental policies, they either sacrifice profit or lose market share to the competitor who can under-cut at a cheaper price in the marketplace. Any environmental protection is a cost in the commercial ledger which must be minimised. This fact operates independently of the personal views or ethics of owners or CEOs. The competitive market inevitably impedes any voluntary “green” initiatives.

Eco-activists can no longer adopt traditional conventional views of the market’s impact upon the climate issue by merely re-stating that the market is the central essence of modern society and thus sacrosanct. The response must now be the demand for a new economic system to supplant capitalism, to place the blame for environmental destruction back on the capitalist culprit, to direct attention to the institutions most responsible for the damage to our world. 

This system cannot be reformed at it is based on the destruction of the earth and the exploitation of the people. There is no such thing as green capitalism, a PR advertising product that will not bring back the ecosystems that capitalism must destroy to make its profits. Ecologists must be revolutionaries.

One of the building blocks of socialism is “production for use, not for profit,” “production for need, not for greed.” Therefore, the imbalance is not built into socialism as it is under capitalism.  Socialism would mean organising human societies much in the manner the way that nature is organised. Capitalism robs us of community with each other and harmony with the Earth. Capitalism could be totally race and gender blind, indifferent to sexual preference, run by a government free of bureaucratic state officials, and there would still be an environmental crisis. Capitalism harms the environment because it is what it is.

While the World Socialist Movement can engage in a healthy discussion of how we should define and re-assess our ideas of the “good life”, accepting some degree of decreased consumerism in Western cultures, we also maintain that a convincing ecological future must put forth a credible vision of abundance. Technology is the beast of the system that controls it and when it is used to oppress, it is by choice of the ruling class. New technology is not the threat, the capitalist class is. Technology is a potential source of prosperity. Most of the people in this world need more – not less — access to the benefits of technology.  Placing the blame for the climate crisis on technology masks the real cause of the emergency. The poisoning of the environment, the destruction of the forests and the extinction of species and the elimination of traditional forms of farming agriculture are propelled by class rule. 

 As humanity has evolved, it has had to alter the natural landscape around it. Even hunter-gatherer societies have had a profound effect on their immediate surroundings. For instance, the stark heather moors of the Scottish Highlands were once the thickly wooded Caledonian Forest.

The central climate question is not about renewable technology. Instead, it’s all about economics and politics. Increasingly numbers of studies and reports reflect the scientific consensus that we have to drastically cut CO2 emissions, and that is not happening sufficiently or soon enough. Demonstrations and protests by activists in the streets to pressure government action are good, but not enough. Greenhouse gas emissions remain a serious threat to mankind and capitalist society declines to slam on the brakes. While ecological necessity seeks a sound sustainable system, the commodified exchange economy needs growth. 

Partial reforms can be fought for and some will be won. Such campaigns pit the people against powerful capitalist interests, and can lead to the understanding that the system itself must be changed, echoing a slogan that has become increasing heard within the environmental movement: ‘System Change, Not Climate Change’.

Many activists accept the idea that much of our environmental problems are due to humanity itself. They have chosen to call today’s times, the Anthropocene epoch, differing from previous eras being referred to by more appropriate names such as Stone,  Bronze, Iron Industrial Ages. Now it is blame-the-people and not use a more relevant term, capitalocene, to describe the state of our world.

Hunger around the world is not attributed to the type of our economic system being based upon production for profit but, rather, because the population is growing too quickly claims Paul Ehrlich or according to Garrett Hardin, our age-old culture and tradition of sharing the land and water in common, does not work:  

1. Modern high-tech intensive agriculture has not eliminated hunger.

 

2. It undermines its own productive base through erosion, disappearing soil fertility and increased salinisation, shortage of water sources and depletion of diversity.

 

3. It changes land-use patterns, encouraging deforestation, draining wetlands and planting crops according to market criteria even in unsuitable climates. It promotes a loss of crop diversity by specialisation and commercial seed production and reduces overall biodiversity through its chemical inputs and extensive monocultures.

 

4. It increases vulnerability to nature, especially to climate and microclimate change, pest outbreaks and atmospheric and water pollutants. This is because of large scale monoculture, the selection of varieties for maximum yield under optimal conditions and the loss of beneficial fauna and flora.

 

5. It makes farming increasingly dependent on inputs from off the farm. This means that cash flow becomes increasingly important as fertilisers replace natural nitrogen fixers, irrigation replaces the broken hydrological flows and storage of water, and also because pesticides replace natural enemies of pests and hybrid seeds must be bought. Dependence on external inputs increases the vulnerability to price instability and politically motivated trade policies.

 

6. It debases food quality as regional specialisation increases storage and transport time and crops and techniques are chosen for quantitative yield. Specialisation makes even farmers dependent on buying food.

 

7. It increases the gap between rich and poor. The rich are able to buy or get credit to buy, the new inputs, establish the marketing connections and average their returns across years. The poor, however, need to be successful every year. Modern agriculture especially undermines the economic independence and empowerment of women. The new technologies are usually given to men, even in places where women traditionally do most of the farming. The new technologies make the domestic chores of women, such as gathering firewood and fetching water, more time-consuming. Women’s diverse activities in the home conflict with the extreme seasonality of commercial monoculture.

 

8. It poisons people, first the farmworkers who handle pesticides, then their family members who handle the pesticide soaked clothing and drink water where pesticides and fertilisers have run into groundwater. Finally, it reaches those who eat the crops produced with pesticides and animals raised with antibiotics and growth hormones.

 

9. It also poisons other species, and the environment as a whole such as our waterways from fertiliser run–off, accumulation of pesticides in the body tissues of fish and birds.

Despite its technical complexity, modern agricultural technology has a narrow intellectual base susceptible to surprise. The final conclusion, therefore, is that commercialised, export–oriented, chemical-heavy agriculture is non-sustainable.

Only with world socialism will the benefits of science be given to all of the people of the world. Human society, when we get it, will be a free association of social individuals.

 The energy charter treaty (ECT) is an international agreement that allows energy corporations to sue governments over policies that could hurt their profits. Signed in 1994, the treaty was intended to protect western companies investing in the oil- and gas-rich countries of the former Soviet Union. Only foreign investors, rather than domestic ones, can use the system, prompting longstanding complaints of privileged access. Campaigners now fear it could stymie the green transition.

Coal and oil investors are already suing governments for several billions in compensation for lost profits over energy policy changes. For example, the German energy company RWE is sueing the Netherlands for €1.4bn (£1.2bn) over its plans to phase out coal. Another German utility, Uniper, is reported to be seeking between €850m and €1bn for the early closure of its Maasvlakte coal-fired power plant near Rotterdam.  While Rockhopper Exploration, based in the UK, is sueing the Italian government after it banned new drilling near the coast.

“It’s a real threat. It’s the biggest threat I am aware of,” said Yamina Saheb, a former employee of the ECT secretariat. She has estimated that foreign investors could sue governments for €1.3tn until 2050 in compensation for early closure of coal, oil and gas plants – a sum that exceeds what the EU hopes to spend on its green deal in the next decade. As compensation to companies is paid by public funds, governments would have less money to pay for new technology to make buildings, transport and industry greener. Saheb argued these payments could endanger the green transition. 

Analysis of the treaty showed a 269% increase in cases in 2011-20 compared with the previous decade. “We are going to see in future many more cases,” said Lucía Bárcena, of the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute, who compiled the data. Since 2013, two-thirds of the cases have been brought against western European governments.

“The energy charter treaty … has no cohesion at all with EU climate policies,” Bárcena said. “Trade and investment agreements are binding on states, which means if they break the contract then they have to pay huge amounts of money, while there is no other mechanism that binds countries to the goals that they are setting at Cop26.”

 Cornelia Maarfield, a senior trade and investment policy coordinator at the Climate Action Network Europe, explained, “Our main concern is that once governments start taking decisions to phase out coal, gas and oil, they will run into difficulties with the investment protection chapter of this agreement.”

Investors are known to have filed 142 cases against governments since the ECT came into force in 1998. But these are only the known cases. Even the ECT’s Brussels-based secretariat acknowledges it does not have a complete picture, because investors are not obliged to reveal legal action under the ECT.

Saheb argues the treaty is beyond reform because central Asian member states will veto any weakening of protection for fossil fuels. “The EU countries should withdraw altogether as one,” she said. “If we withdraw altogether we could agree to cancel this clause and then we could move on with our energy transition.”

Secretive court system poses threat to Paris climate deal, says whistleblower | Energy | The Guardian