20 Theses Against Green Capitalism

Ein paar Menschen aus dem Umfeld des Klimacamps haben sich Gedanken darüber gemacht, was zur Zeit hinsichtlich grünem Kapitalismus läuft und daraus ein paar Thesen gemacht. Bisher gibt es – nach meiner Kenntnis – nur eine englische Version der Thesen.

No to false solutions! Climate Justice Now!

1. The current world economic crisis marks the end of the neoliberal phase of capitalism. ‘Business as usual’ (financialisation, deregulation, privatisation…) is thus no longer an option: new spaces of accumulation and types of political regulation will need to be found by governments and corporations to keep capitalism going

2. Alongside the economic and political as well as energy crises, there is another crisis rocking the world: the biocrisis, the result of a suicidal mismatch between the ecological life support system that guarantees our collective human survival and capital’s need for constant growth

3. This biocrisis is an immense danger to our collective survival, but like all crises it also presents us, social movements, with a historic opportunity: to really go for capitalism’s exposed jugular, its need for unceasing, destructive, insane growth

4. Of the proposals that have emerged from global elites, the only one that promises to address all these crises is the ‘Green New Deal’. This is not the cuddly green capitalism 1.0 of organic agriculture and D.I.Y. windmills, but a proposal for a new ’green’ phase of capitalism that seeks to generate profits from the piecemeal ecological modernisation of certain key areas of production (cars, energy, etc.)

5. Green capitalism 2.0 cannot solve the biocrisis (climate change and other ecological problems such as the dangerous reduction of biodiversity), but rather tries to profit from it. It therefore does not fundamentally alter the collision course on which any market-driven economy sets humanity with the biosphere.

6. This isn’t the 1930s. Then, under the pressure of powerful social movements, the old ‘New Deal’ redistributed power and wealth downwards. The ‘New New’ and ‘Green New Deal’ discussed by Obama, green parties all around the world, and even some multinationals is more about welfare for corporations than for people

7. Green Capitalism won’t challenge the power of those who actually produce most greenhouse gases: the energy companies, airlines and carmakers, industrial agriculture, but will simply shower them with more money to help maintain their profit rates by making small ecological changes that will be too little, too late

8. Because globally, working people have lost their power to bargain and demand rights and decent wages, in a green capitalist setup, wages will probably stagnate or even decline to offset the rising costs of ‘ecological modernisation’

9. The ‘green capitalist state’ will be an authoritarian one. Justified by the threat of ecological crisis it will ‘manage’ the social unrest that will necessarily grow from the impoverishment that lies in the wake of rising cost of living (food, energy, etc.) and falling wages

10. In green capitalism, the poor will have to be excluded from consumption, pushed to the margins, while the wealthy will get to ‘offset’ their continued environmentally destructive behaviour, shopping and saving the planet at the same time

11. An authoritarian state, massive class inequalities, welfare given to corporations: from the point of view of social and ecological emancipation, green capitalism will be a disaster that we can never recover from. Today, we have a chance to get beyond the suicidal madness of constant growth. Tomorrow, by the time we’ve all gotten used to the new green regime, that chance may be gone

12. In green capitalism, there is a danger that established, mainstream environmental groups will come to play the role that trade unions played in the Fordist era: acting as safety valves to make sure that demands for social change, that our collective rage remain within the boundaries set by the needs of capital and governments

13. Albert Einstein defined ‘insanity’ as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” In the past decade, in spite of Kyoto, not only has the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increased – so, too, has the rate of increase. Do we simply want more of the same? Wouldn’t that be insane?

14. International climate agreements promote false solutions that are often more about energy security than climate change. Far from solving the crisis, emissions trading, CMD, joint implementation, offsets and so on, all provide a political shield for the continued production of greenhouse gases with impunity

15. For many communities in the global South, these false solutions (agrofuels, ‘green deserts’, CDM-projects) are by now often a greater threat than climate change itself

16. Real solutions to the climate crisis won’t be dreamt up by governments or corporations. They can only emerge from below, from globally networked social movements for climate justice

17. Such solutions include: no to free trade, no to privatisation, no to flexible mechanisms. Yes to food sovereignty, yes to degrowth, yes to radical democracy and to leaving the resources in the ground

18. As an emerging global climate justice movement, we must fight two enemies: on one hand climate change and the fossilistic capitalism that causes it, and on the other, an emergent green capitalism that won’t stop it, but will limit our ability to do so

19. Of course, climate change and free trade aren’t the same thing, but: the Copenhagen-protocol will be a central regulatory instance of green capitalism just as the WTO was central to neoliberal capitalism. So how to relate to it? The Danish group KlimaX argues: A good deal is better than no deal – but no deal is way better than a bad one

20. The chance that governments will come up with a ‘good deal’ in Copenhagen is slim to none. Our aim must therefore be to demand agreement on real solutions. Failing that: to forget Kyoto, and shut down Copenhagen! (whatever the tactic)

By Tadzio Mueller and Alexis Passadakis (12/2008). Alexis is a member of attac Germany’s coordinating council, Tadzio a part of the Turbulence editorial collective (www.turbulence.org.uk). They are both active in the emerging climate justice movement, and can be reached at againstgreencapitalism (at) googlemail.com

Poznan-Erklärung von Climate Justice Now!

RADICAL NEW AGENDA NEEDED TO ACHIEVE

Poznan statement from the Climate Justice Now! coalition

12 December 2008

Members of Climate Justice Now! – a worldwide alliance of more than 160 organisations — have been in Poznan for the past two weeks closely following developments in the UN climate negotiations. This statement is our assessment of the Conference of Parties (COP) 14, and articulates our principles for achieving imate justice.

THE URGENCY OF CLIMATE JUSTICE
We will not be able to stop climate change if we don’t change the neo-liberal and corporate-based economy which stops us from achieving sustainable societies. Corporate globalisation must be stopped.

The historical responsibility for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions lies with the industrialised countries of the North. Even though the primary responsibility of the North to reduce emissions has been recognised in the Convention, their production and consumption habits continue to threaten the survival of humanity and biodiversity. It is imperative that the North urgently shifts to a low carbon economy. At the same time in order to avoid the damaging carbon intensive model of industrialisation, the South is entitled to resources and technology to make this transition.

We believe that any ´shared vision´ on addressing the climate crisis must start with climate justice and with a radical re-thinking of the dominant development model.

Indigenous Peoples, peasant communities, fisherfolk, and especially women in these communities, have been living harmoniously and sustainably with the Earth for millennia. They are not only the most affected by climate change, but also its false solutions, such as agro-fuels, mega-dams, tree plantations and carbon offset schemes. Instead of market led schemes, their sustainable practices should be seen as offering the real solutions to climate change.

FAILURE OF KYOTO AND THE UNFCCC
Governments and international institutions have to recognise that the Kyoto mechanisms have failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have been abandoned in favour of market mechanisms. The three main pillars of the Kyoto agreement –the clean development mechanism, joint implementation and emissions trading schemes — have been completely ineffective in reducing emissions, yet they continue to be at the center of the negotiations.

Kyoto is based on carbon-trading mechanisms which allow Northern countries to continue business as usual by paying for “clean development” projects in developing and transition countries. This is a scheme designed deliberately to allow polluters to avoid reducing emissions domestically. Clean development mechanism projects, which are supposed to support “sustainable development”, include infrastructure projects such as big dams and coal-fired power plants and monoculture tree plantations. These projects do not reduce carbon emissions but they do accelerate the privatisation and corporate take-over of natural resources, at the expense of local communities and Indigenous Peoples.

Proposals on the table in Poznan are not only heading in the same direction, but worse.

In the current negotiations, industrialised countries continue to act on the basis of self-interest, using all their negotiating tactics to avoid their obligations to reduce carbon-emissions, to finance adaptation and mitigation and transfer technology to the south.

In their pursuit of growth at any cost, many Southern governments at the talks are trading away the rights of their peoples and resources. We remind them that a climate agreement is not a trade agreement.

The main protagonists for climate stability – Indigenous Peoples, women, peasant and family farmers, fisherfolk,
forest people and marginalised and affected communities in the global south and north, are systematically excluded.
Despite repeated demands Indigenous Peoples’ are not recognised as an official party to the negotiations. Neither
are women’s voices and gender considerations recognised and included in the process.

At the same time, private investors are circling the talks like vultures, swooping in on every opportunity for creating
new profits. Business and corporate lobbyists expanded their influence and monopolized conference space at Poznan. At least 1500 industry lobbyists were present either as NGOs or as members of official government delegations.

The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) scheme could create the climate
regime’s largest ever loophole, giving Northern polluters yet another opportunity to buy their way out of emissions
reductions. This scheme might give a huge incentive for countries to sell off their forests, expel indigenous and peasant communities and transform them into tree plantations under corporate-control. Plantations are not forests.
Privatisation and dispossession through REDD or any other mechanisms must be stopped.

The World Bank is attempting to carve a niche in the international climate change regime. This is unacceptable as
the Bank continues to fund polluting industries and drive deforestation by promoting industrial logging and agro-fuels. The Bank’s recently launched Climate Investment Funds goes against government initiatives at the UN and promotes dirty industries such as coal, while forcing developing countries into the fundamentally unequal aid framework of donor and recipient. The World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Initiative aiming to finance REDD through a forest carbon mechanism serves the interest of private companies and opens the path for commodification of forests.

These developments are to be expected. Market ideology has totally infiltrated the climate talks, and the UNFCCC negotiations are now like trade fairs hawking investment opportunities.

THE REAL SOLUTIONS
Solutions to the climate crisis will not come from industrialised countries and big business. Effective and enduring solutions will come from those who have protected the environment – Indigenous Peoples, women, fisherfolk forest and agrarian communities. These include:

• Achieving low carbon economies, without resorting to offsetting, nuclear energy, and carbon capture and storage, while protecting the rights of those affected by the transition, especially workers.
• Keeping fossil fuels in the ground.
• Implementing people’s food and energy sovereignty.
• Guaranteeing community control of natural resources.
• Re-localisation of production and consumption, prioritising local markets
• Full recognition of Indigenous Peoples, peasant and local community rights Democratically controlled clean renewable energy.
• Rights based resource conservation that enforces indigenous land rights and promotes peoples sovereignty and public ownership over energy, forests, seeds, land and water Ending deforestation and its underlying causes.
• Ending excessive consumption by elites in the North and in the South.
• Massive investment in public transport
• Ensuring gender justice by recognising existinggender injustices and involving women in decision making.
• Cancelling illegitimate debts claimed by northern governments and IFIs.
• The illegitimacy of these debts is underscored by the much greater historical, social and ecological debts owed to people of the South.

We stand at the crossroads. We call for an urgent change in direction to put climate justice and people’s rights at the centre of these negotiations.

In the lead-up to the 2009 COP 15 at Copenhagen and beyond, the Climate Justice Now! coalition will continue to monitor governments and to mobilise social forces from the south and the north to achieve climate justice.

Kraftwerke selbst vom Netz nehmen?!

Hier eine lustige Aktion aus England: Einfach einmal 2% der Stromproduktion eines Landes vom Netz zu nehmen ist schon wirklich eine sympathische Dreistigkeit!

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article5295573.ece

internationalistische Perspektiven auf den Klimawandel

BUKO32 & Planungen einer Rundreise von Menschen aus dem Süden

Seit geraumer Zeit richtet ein Arbeitsschwerpunkt der BUKO (Bundeskoordinationation Internationalismus) einen Fokus auf sozial-ökologische Problemlagen. Von besonderem Interesse ist hier der Klimawandel. BUKO-typisch geht es darum eine internationalistische Perspektive einzunehmen. Doch was bedeutet eine solche internationalistische Perspektive auf den Klimawandel?
Dieser Frage möchten wir uns auf dem kommenden Kongress der BUKO im Mai in einem Themenschwerpunkt widmen. Bereits im April werden wir ein Seminar zu diesem Thema ausrichten.

Aus diesem Anlass möchten wir Menschen aus dem globalem Süden zu einem Austausch einladen. Dabei möchten wir u.a. folgende Fragen diskutieren:
-  Wo gleichen sich die Forderungen und Analysen des globalen Nordens und Südens – wo hingegen gehen sie von ganz anderen Grundsätzen aus, widersprechen sich gar?
-  Wie stellt sich die Betroffenheit bzw. Verantwortung des globalen Nordens bzw. Südens
-  Wie kann auf soziale  Kämpfen im globalen Süden konkret Bezug genommen werden? Wie können „wir im Norden“ diese unterstützen?

Der Austausch muss sich dabei nicht zwingend auf Seminar und Kongress beschränken. Es wäre wünschenswert, dass Leute aus dem Süden nicht nur für den Kongress kommen, sondern im Vorfeld  bzw. Anschluss in verschiedenen Städten Vorträge halten (eine Rundreise). Ein solches Vorhaben benötigt jedoch eine Organisation (Auswahl und Einladung von ReferentInnen, Stellen von Finanzanträgen etc… ) – hierzu möchten wir Euch einladen.

Falls wir Interesse geweckt haben dann meldet Euch gerne (Kontakt siehe unter: www.buko.info):
- zur Mitwirkung bei der Organisation oder Unterstützung einer Rundreise
- zur Ausrichtung des Themenschwerpunktes des Kongress (Beiträge, Mitwirkung) – nächstes bundesweites Treffen, 13./14. Dez. Lüneburg

Viele Grüße aus

BUKO Arbeitsschwerpunkt Soziale Ökologie & Kongressvorbereitungsgruppe