World climate conference: Conflict outside and inside Copenhagen meeting

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World climate conference: Conflict outside and inside Copenhagen meeting
By Patrick Martin
17 December 2009

Danish police battled several thousand demonstrators in the streets
outside the world climate conference in Copenhagen, while inside the
delegates of the major imperialist powers, China, India and dozens of
less developed countries clashed over conflicting proposals to deal
with the worldwide impact of pollution caused by industrialization,
deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels.

More than 260 protesters were arrested and many were teargassed, hit
by pepper spray or beaten with batons as police repeatedly charged
into the ranks of the demonstrators. Most of those demonstrating were
in Copenhagen to demand emergency action against global warming and
the climate-related deterioration in living conditions, particularly
for people living in vulnerable coastal areas and island states.

Wednesday’s protests were on a smaller scale than the huge march on
the weekend, where nearly one thousand were arrested. The organizers
of the march, Climate Justice Action and Climate Justice Now!, are
environmental coalitions linked to NGOs, liberal reformist groups like
Attac, and nominally “left” and social democratic parties in Europe.

The perspective of the demonstration, reflected in the slogan “Reclaim
Power,” was that protest in the streets and forcing entry into the
conference venue could pressure the meeting of capitalist governments
to adopt a more responsible and farsighted environmental policy.
Dozens of activists actually did enter the conference center despite
the police cordon, where they staged a protest against the exclusion
of nongovernmental groups and representatives of indigenous peoples.
Two demonstrators reached the main stage and began shouting “Climate
justice now!” before being removed by security guards.

The police were able to prevent any sizeable incursion into the
conference, using dogs, shields, water cannon and armored vans to
block access routes and push back most of the demonstrators. They also
beat back a group of delegates who tried to leave the conference
center and make a show of sympathy for the protests.

Inside the conference, a crisis atmosphere prevailed, with bitter
exchanges between the representatives of the US, Britain and other
industrialized nations, and those from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
At one point Monday, delegates representing all 77 of the poorest
nations staged a walkout to protest the intransigence of the rich
countries, which are demanding that any climate agreement lock in
their economic advantages, permitting double the per capita carbon
consumption of the Third World.

On Wednesday, the chairwoman of the conference, former Danish
environmental minister Connie Hedegaard, resigned, handing over the
gavel to the host country’s prime minister, Lars Loekke Rasmussen.
Hedegaard claimed this was to give the chairmanship to a head of
government for the final two days of the conference, when more than
100 heads of government are due to attend, including US President
Barack Obama and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

But delegates from many of the poor countries had demanded her
resignation after it became known that Denmark was privately
circulating a document, drafted by the US and Britain, which would
consign the poor countries to permanently lower levels of economic
development than the wealthier countries. Under this plan, the rich
countries would be assigned a quota of 2.67 tons of carbon emissions
per capita by 2050, compared to 1.44 tons for the poor countries.

Even the usual face-saving resolution may prove beyond the abilities
of the conference delegates, in view of the intransigence of the US
and its allies, who demanded that India and especially China accept
binding emissions standards, while the US delegation rejects any
similar commitment for its own industries, citing the necessity for
congressional approval of any agreement.

Voicing a sentiment widespread among the delegates from the poor
countries, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela denounced the position
of the US-led bloc. He pointed to the trillions of dollars used to
bail out the banks in the United States and Western Europe, telling
the assembly, “If the climate was a capitalist bank, they would have
already saved it.”

The European Union took a position opposed to both the US and China,
urging both countries to raise their targets for reducing emissions.
Europe has established an emissions trading system that allows the
wealthier states to purchase carbon credits, essentially permits to
pollute; insures the profits of the oil and power generation companies
and other big polluters; and has actually allowed overall emissions to
increase.

There have been clashes between multiple factions among the 193
countries represented in Copenhagen, over emission standards, the
financing of the transition to energy-efficient technologies in poor
countries, and the enforcement mechanism.

In the face of appeals by environmental scientists to reduce
rich-country emissions of greenhouse gases by 40 percent by 2020
compared to 1990 levels, the EU has offered only a 20 percent cut, the
US a mere 3-4 percent cut. Neither figure would be a significant
contribution to averting a potential climate catastrophe.

The enforcement mechanism is a particularly touchy subject, since all
delegates at the conference are aware that under the Clinton
administration, the US participated in the drafting of the Kyoto
Protocol in 1997, and then-Vice President Al Gore hailed it as a
pathbreaking agreement. But the White House never submitted the
protocol to Congress for ratification because of bipartisan
opposition. A similar fate is likely for whatever agreement may emerge
in Copenhagen.

The EU, Japan and other industrialized countries that ratified Kyoto
want to extend the quotas established there, to the benefit of their
own economies, while the Obama administration has demanded a separate
agreement that would apply to China and India as well as the US. China
and India reject any binding international treaty in favor of
voluntary pledges, and China, in particular, has rejected any form of
international monitoring of its industrial policies.

The clash between China and the US is particularly explosive, given
that Washington is attempting to strongarm the regime that is its
principal creditor, with a hoard of dollar-denominated reserves
exceeding $1 trillion.

While China has refused any international supervision of its
compliance with emissions standards, the Democratic-controlled US
Congress has threatened to impose trade sanctions in retaliation.
According to the New York Times, “A group of 10 Democratic senators
wrote to Mr. Obama two weeks ago warning that the Senate would not
ratify any treaty that did not protect American industry from foreign
competitors who do not have to meet global warming emissions limits.”

US officials said that the climate talks had entered “crunch time” and
there was still the possibility of a broadly based agreement once
Obama and other top decision-makers arrive in Copenhagen. However, the
two-week conference has already demonstrated that there is no remedy
for the damage inflicted on the world’s environment within the
framework of capitalism and the nation-state system.

No action will be taken that impinges on the profits of the giant
capitalist firms that produce and use fossil fuels, and no coordinated
worldwide effort is possible given the conflicts between rival
national interests.

Despite the mythmaking of the ultra-right press in the United States,
there is no serious disagreement among scientists in any region of the
world—North America, South America, Europe, Africa or Asia—over the
objective impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet’s
ecosystem, and the long-term danger of global warming. But a rational,
science-driven response to the climate crisis comes into conflict with
entrenched profit interests and the nationally-based capitalist ruling
classes of the major powers.

No amount of pressure or protest around the theme of “climate justice”
can persuade the capitalist billionaires and their political
representatives in Copenhagen to act against their own class
interests. The defense of the environment can be undertaken only by a
turn to the international working class, the only social force whose
interests are not tied to either capitalist profit or the nation-state
system, and the building of a mass movement of working people based on
socialist principles.

http://wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/cope-d17.shtml

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