[pf] Fwd: Climate to be privatised in November

· For Positive Futures list.  David Mac.

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Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 10:32:27 -0700
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Subject: [Fwd: Fwd: Climate to be privatised in November]

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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fwd: Climate to be privatised in November
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 15:22:37 +0200
From: "Christoph Reuss" <creuss@bluewin.ch>
To: bioregional@csf.colorado.edu

http://www.financialcrimes.com/pages/story9.htm

Climate to be privatised in November

Hurricanes in Hull in August, devastating storms in France last year,
tragic floods in Mozambique. Our weather is getting more extreme. This is
because humans are increasing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
- mainly through fossil fuel use - which is trapping the sun's heat in the
same way as a greenhouse. As a panel of several thousand scientists
conclude, "there has been a discernible human influence on climate". 

The human cost of this is enormous. The Financial Times reported that
natural and man-made disasters claimed more than 105,000 lives in 1999. The
British Red Cross states that in 1998, environmental catastrophes created
25 million refugees, more than the number created by war. This is expected
to increase as more carbon pours into the atmosphere. 

In an apparent attempt to address this crisis, a United Nations conference
will take place this November in The Hague, the Dutch capital. This will be
the 6th in a series of climate change summits, attended by the usual
flotsam of diplomats, bureaucrats, green non-governmental organisations,
journalists, corporate lobbyists, solar capitalists and, it is hoped,
widespread protests. Here scientists will repeat that to stabilise global
temperatures, carbon emissions must be immediately reduced by 60-90%. In
1997 in Kyoto, Japan, industrialised countries agreed to a 5.2% cut by 2012
from a 1990 'baseline'. 

With few countries likely to meet their targets, a huge mobilisation is
underway by a combination of the world's richest governments, fossil fuel
corporations and even some 'green' NGO's, to turn The Hague conference into
one big trade fair to buy and sell stakes in the planet's newest market:
the carbon market. 

If unopposed, this would be the privatisation - the exclusive ownership to
generate private profit - of our climate. A massive ecological problem is
being transformed into a new source of capital under cover of concern for
the planet. It is crucial that we scrape away this thick layer of public
relations. These mechanisms will deny climate justice to the world's
population and pay mere lip service to meaningful carbon reductions.
Crystallising the outrage many feel at putting a price on - and presuming
ownership of - the collective commons that is our climate could well be the
last chance we get to achieve fairness and sustainability. 

The proposed carbon market consists of three components. Firstly, carbon
trading between nations. Those countries that emit less than their quota of
carbon can sell the notionally 'saved' carbon to another country. The
rational, yet insane, response is for all countries to negotiate small
reductions in emissions. Then low-emitting countries can sell lots of
'saved' carbon, and high-emitting countries overshoot their targets by only
small amounts and have to purchase less 'saved' carbon from the market. 

So-called clean development mechanisms are the second part of the plan. The
idea is that rich countries pay to reduce carbon emissions in poorer
countries by developing solar power or highly contentious dam projects.
Again the powerful countries will carry on as before. 

The final component of carbon trading is the concept of 'carbon sinks'.
This is a clever conceit exploiting the fact that growing plants and soils
absorb carbon dioxide. At its simplest it is 'conserve forests' and 'plant
trees'. The problem is that exhuming carbon stored over millions of years
by burning fossil fuels and attempting to store millions of years worth of
carbon in overripe woodlands cannot work for long. 

The clever spin-off for those that dreamt this up is that the well-off can
pollute on the condition that they seize and control forever vast tracts of
land needed for all these trees. Ironically, the community evicted today by
a company drilling oil to feed cars and planes may find itself displaced
again tomorrow — by tree plantations intended by the drivers of those cars
to compensate for the burning of that oil. 

Very much like our DNA and the genetic make-up of plants and animals all
around us, the weather itself is in danger of being commodified and passed
into private ownership. So colonialism is alive and well, as integral a
part of modern commerce as it ever was. The UN plays a key role here, using
peoples' perception of its fairness and concern for humanity as a cloak to
smuggle in the changes. 

For a century and a half, industrial societies have been moving carbon from
underground reserves of coal and oil into the air. At least six billion
tonnes are being added every year, a transfer that can't go on
indefinitely. Some 4,000 billion tonnes of carbon in fossil fuels await
recovery in the ground. To carry on is suicidal. 

A livable planet with less dangerous weather where people have common
ownership over common heritage such as our climate, is incompatible with
endless growth. However, climate change is merely a specific case of a more
general problem: as the size of the economy becomes increasingly large
compared to the size of the planet's recycling systems, fundamental
environmental problems will emerge. Growth in that direction cannot
continue without increasing the probability of catastrophe. 

To reduce carbon emissions by 90% requires some sort of fast far-reaching
transformation of society - a revolution no less - or environmental
collapse may well deliver a transformation so extreme that humankind simply
wouldn't make it. Yet a future of climate justice could be in our hands,
and it's going to take more than boiling less water in your kettle to get
there! 

On November 11th there will be a preparation day for those going to The
Hague summit (Nov. 13-24). Contact info@risingtide.org for details, or
write to 16b Cherwell St, Oxford OX4 1BG. 

Grassroots protests and a counter-summit taking place in The Hague are
being co-ordinated by Risingtide: 
CIA Office
Overtoom 301, 
1054 HW Amsterdam
The Netherlands 
www.antenna.nl/aseed/climate 

Email: climate@europe.com

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sent to Positive Futures list by David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.emucities.com.au/member/davd/index.html
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