Socialist Standard December 2009 Vol.105
Issue
No.1264.
(Published
since 1904)
Journal of the Socialist
Party of
Great Britain - Companion party of the World Socialist Movement
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Editorial
Copenhagen: another predictable failure
The most recent IPCC’s (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change) findings say that rich, industrial countries must cut emissions
from 1990 levels by 25-40 percent by 2020 if the world is to have a
fair chance of
avoiding dangerous climate change.
In July the G-8 leaders agreed to limit the global temperature
rise to 2 degrees C above the pre-industrial level at which human
civilisation developed.Pre-Copenhagen the EU has pledged 20 percent
cuts by 2020, but will increase this to 30 percent if others – like the
US – do likewise.
Japan has pledged 25 percent reductions by 2020 if others will do the
same.
Chinese president Hu pledged to cut emissions ‘by a notable margin’ by
2020. The US has given no assurances but a bill Obama has said he
supports (the Waxman-Markey bill) would give less than 5 percent
reductions by
2020.
Also in July, the findings of a newly completed study by WBGU (a
German acronym) – the chairman of which, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, is
chief
climate adviser to the German government – were given for the first
time to an invitation-only conference in the Santa Fe Institute, New
Mexico. The study has since been published. This WBGU study says the US
must stop all CO2 emissions by 2020; Germany,Italy and other industrial
nations by 2025-30 and China by 2035, with the whole world needing to
be carbonemissions- free by 2050. The study would allow the big
polluters to delay their slowdown by buying emissions rights from
developing countries, enabling possible extension times of around a
decade for some. A fundamental principle of the study is the ‘per
capita principle’, meaning that the right to emit greenhouse gases is
shared equally by all people on Earth. Applied to a world population of
seven billion, each person on earth would have a quota of 2.7 tons of
CO2, whereas currently US citizens emit 20 tons per capita.
Schellnhuber claims that meeting these criteria will give
humanity a two in-three chance of staying within that 2 degrees C limit
– although there
is no guarantee. To increase the odds in favour carbon emissions would
have to end sooner; delaying another decade or so before halting all
emissions would reduce the odds to fifty-fifty. Odds are that whatever
is promoted at Copenhagen there will be much jockeying and positioning,
many fine words and ifs and buts by selfimportant world leaders and
another decade down the ever-more polluted and climate change-affected
road we’ll look back and see another abject failure – just like Rio,
Kyoto, Johannesburg, etc. ad infinitum. What more can we expect from a
system which makes a habit of fouling its own and everybody else’s
backyard as long as it’s making money by blind pursuit of growth? Come
2020 the King Canutes of capitalism will still be trying to hold back
the waves with empty gestures.
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