Contours of Climate Justice - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

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fundamentally, the ‘fossilistic’ industrial system – the UNFCCC maintains and reinforces the illegitimate compartmentalisation of ecological concerns into a separate and toothless regulatory regime, thus insulating other institutions such as the WTO from scrutiny and critique. In fact, the WTO’s free trade policies, which usually lead to an expansion of ecologically and socially destructive industrial agriculture and increase the volume of international trade, have signifi cantly more negative impacts on the climate than the UNFCCC’s policies have positive ones. To date, the UNFCCC’s political eff ect appears to be one of legitimating a destructive and unjust economic and regulatory system by channelling the attention of potentially critical environmental groups into meaningless negotiations; and projecting the impression that ‘something is being done’ about climate change, thus blunting the potential for more widespread, mass movements for climate justice to emerge. Third, economically, which is where things get interesting. In very short: without the UNFCCC, the idea of emissions trading would almost certainly not have become global ‘best practice’ in offi cial climate politics as quickly, or as universally (recall that the EU was initially opposed to emissions trading, but was convinced to accept it by a man who would later receive a Nobel Prize for a slideshow). But given its relative lack of ecological utility, why has the system become so attractive to so many players? Quite simply because it off ers a brilliant (if partial) short- and medium-term fi x for the problem of over-accumulated fi nancial capital: the ‘ecological’ consulting fi rm Point Carbon calculates that the global market for emissions rights will grow from its current almost measly US$ 100 billion to US$ 2,000 billion by the end of this decade. Notwithstanding the uselessness of economic forecasting, particularly in a recession, that is a lot of potential investment of dubious ecological but of defi nite economic value. There have, however, been two processes in the last 30 years that have generated ecologically signifi cant emissions reductions. Rather than government intervention or green modernisation, these have been economic crises, that is, drastic reductions in economic growth. First, this occurred during the breakdown of the growth-oriented economies of the Eastern bloc, where a 40 per cent reduction in Soviet GDP coincided with a roughly 40 per cent reduction in emissions (Harrison 2001: 3; Smith 2007: 22). Second, during the current global economic crisis: citing a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Financial Times (21 September 2009) writes that ‘CO 2 emissions from burning fossil fuels had undergone “a signifi cant decline” this year – further than in any year in the last 40…Falling industrial output is largely responsible for the plunge in CO 2 ’. Of course, this is not meant to suggest that an uncontrolled breakdown in the global economy, with all the social devastation this would wreak, is currently desirable. But it does point to the need for a collectively managed, just process of degrowth of the global economy; of, particularly in the global North, shrinking our overdeveloped economies. Open ends Where to go from here? The call for ‘degrowth’, for the want of a better word, has some unpleasant undertones. On the one Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 59
hand, there are its political shortcomings: how would a strategy that aims to shrink the economy gain the support of trade unions, which by and large remain wedded to the Fordist growth compromise (since they are unable to fi ght for more, what is there for them to distribute but the benefi ts of growth?)? How do we start leaving fossil fuels in the ground if the miners sitting on top of them are, with good cause, fi ghting for their livelihoods by trying to extend coal mining and supporting the myth of ‘clean coal’ (as happened in the British climate camp in 2008)? On the other hand, there is the fear, especially when articulating a critique of growth from a position in the global North, that this ends up resurrecting Malthusian discourses of ‘overpopulation’, where – generally – ‘post-reproductive wealthy white men’ lecture ‘the poor’ on how they should have fewer children (Guardian, 29 September 2009). Finally, there is the small matter that we are currently living through an enforced period of degrowth (the world economic crisis), and because in a capitalist economy this necessarily takes the form of a crisis (be- 60 Critical Currents no. 6 cause capital that does not grow ceases to be capital), many are likely to ask whether degrowth does not simply mean more crisis, more austerity – and even more upward redistribution of wealth and power. To be sure, there will not be easy answers to these questions. Clearly, the intellectual task is to create convincing concepts for a global economy that does not rely on constant growth – in other words, for a post-capitalist macroeconomics, if the slight misnomer be allowed (compare, Sustainable Development Commission 2009). But, unsurprisingly, writing papers will not be enough. Whether in regard to the question of North and South, or that of ‘environmentalism’ and workers’ rights, the directions in which we will have to look can only emerge from collective struggle, because it is in struggling together that we become capable of recognising each other and internalising each other’s interests. As another movement in another time once put it, caminamos preguntando.
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critical currents Dag Hammarskjöld
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The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation pa
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Photo: Dag Hammarskjöld Preface
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quote above by Albert Schweitzer ha
Page 10 and 11: Radical climate change politics in
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Page 14 and 15: the UNFCCC are today a greater thre
Page 16 and 17: Emancipatory demands and confl icts
Page 19 and 20: A feminist critique of the climate
Page 21 and 22: ment in Johannesburg (WSSD), where
Page 23 and 24: for strategic intervention is, ther
Page 25 and 26: compulsion to reproduce itself. As
Page 27 and 28: Kyoto’s ‘fl exible mechanisms
Page 29 and 30: new criteria of competitiveness, wh
Page 31 and 32: A reduction of absolute emissions i
Page 33 and 34: ests. This would seem to be confi r
Page 35 and 36: Literature Altvater, E. (2008), ‘
Page 37 and 38: Climate change and capitalism’s e
Page 39 and 40: The problem is that this does not c
Page 41 and 42: tional and local environmental gove
Page 43 and 44: The deadly triad: Climate change, f
Page 45 and 46: is, through the creation and tradin
Page 47 and 48: REDD realities Simone Lovera Some s
Page 49 and 50: REDD without emission reductions Th
Page 51 and 52: An analysis by the Global Forest Co
Page 53 and 54: forest in a business-as-usual situa
Page 55 and 56: Green capitalism and the climate: I
Page 57 and 58: the Global War on Terror, but this
Page 59: capitalist renovation, which needs
Page 63 and 64: Fixing the world’s climate ‘foo
Page 65 and 66: tech breeding techniques or the use
Page 67 and 68: culture. The excessive use of agroc
Page 69 and 70: Research needs to focus on how to m
Page 71 and 72: The right to the city - energy and
Page 73 and 74: which cities attempt to ensure thei
Page 75 and 76: ut replicable to other scales - eco
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Page 79 and 80: Literature Biello, D. (2008), ‘Ec
Page 81 and 82: Climate justice in the US Gopal Day
Page 83 and 84: While there is some alignment, and
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Page 105 and 106: The deconstruction of the economy i
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Page 109 and 110: The rights of nature, new forms of
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Post-development? The Montecristi c
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condition of being a ‘foreigner
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