COP21

By Nicholas Beuret - Novara Media, December 4, 2015

The activist part of me is pissed off at the French government for banning the protest marches that planned to target the UN Climate Change conference (known as the COP21) in Paris this December. It would have been amazing to see thousands of people taking to the streets demanding climate justice and breaking the stale grey commentary surrounding international climate change politics. That bit of me hopes the protests still go ahead.

But another part of me hopes no one turns up at all, and is actually glad the marches won’t happen. Not out of despair, or in some sneering ultra-left sense, but because the environmental movement is stuck and protests like the ones planned for the COP are part of the reason for the current impasse. I hope people don’t turn up because, in the end, spectacular protests such as these are making things worse.

Despite 20 years of activism…

We are heading towards a 3-4C global temperature rise. Despite creative actions, grassroots climate movements and committed NGO campaigns (and even some government action) climate change hasn’t been stopped. Sure enough, we shouldn’t dismiss what has been achieved. That climate change might be limited to 3-4C is actually an achievement, which has happened largely due to the campaigns of environmentalists and the emergence of a strong public belief that climate change has to be tackled by governments. But it’s not enough, not by a long shot. It is not enough according to the standards governments, scientists and activists hold themselves to. A 3-4C rise in global temperatures is actually disastrously bad.

The red line many in the climate movement have been pushing is a maximum increase of no more than 2C – a rise which is possibly too dangerous already. The maths of staying below 2C relies on global emissions peaking this year. What is becoming increasingly clear is that it is probably too late to stay below a 2C rise in global temperatures.

Despite 20 years of activism climate politics is stuck. Climate change is a problem so big, so complicated (everything has to change) and so urgent (it has to happen now, now, now) that for the most part the environmental movement finds itself with few options for action. Because climate change means changing everything, any progress on a small, local or even regional scale feels inadequate. Because it’s so complicated it seems resistant to democratic politics – just imagine what it is going to take to get everyone to agree on how we are going to solve the problem, even on a local scale. Because it’s so urgent there is no time for negotiating with people, a third of whom don’t think climate change is all that serious anyway. It is for all these messy, difficult reasons that climate change protests take the form of mass spectacular actions like the ones planned for the Paris COP21.

The COP21 protest isn’t so different to the actions that happened at COP15 in 2009, or any of the ones before that. It’s also not so different from Climate Camp or, going further back, most of the summit protests of the anti-globalisation movement. In each case you had a symbol of a global problem around which people could mobilise, and in each case you had no real opportunity to affect the thing being protested against. What happened in each case – and what will continue to happen – is what we could call ‘militant lobbying’. These actions were/are stunts intending to put pressure on governments to act, even when carried out in the name of anti-state politics or anti-authoritarian practice. They can’t be anything else.

While they are almost always billed as direct actions, what makes an action ‘direct’ is its capacity to disrupt or stop something without recourse to some other power. A useful example would be the anti-roads movement in the UK. The government of the day had scheduled a massive programme of road construction, often through existing neighbourhoods or woods. People banded together to form local campaigns against the specific roads, and created a number of action camps which physically blocked road construction. One by one the camps fell, but not before costing the government large sums of money and slowing the project down immensely. In the end the disruption became too much and the government cancelled most of the programme.

We can contrast the anti-roads movement with the planned actions at COP21. In Paris, at best they will block some delegates from leaving a meeting that will have concluded, the content of which will have largely been decided over the prior months of negotiations. Which means the planned protests won’t affect the outcome, and won’t affect climate change in any way directly either. The action is and can only be intended to put pressure on governments to make a stronger agreement. But then, given the scale, complexity and urgency of climate change, who else could possibly deal with it as an issue?

By Blake Deppe - People's World, December 4, 2015

PARIS -- In the Climate Generations event area here at COP 21, the Trade Union Forum on Climate and Jobs presented on Dec. 3 an event called Resisting Extreme Extraction. Labor organizations including the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), the Argentine Workers' Central Union (CTA), and the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) addressed the audience with a clear declaration: that fracking, in every country and every part of the world, has got to go.

These organizations are part of the Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, an initiative coordinated by the International Program for Labor, Climate and Environment (IPLCE). Their call for a global moratorium on the harmful natural gas extraction process is bolstered by the findings of Robert Howarth, the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology at Cornell University. He published his findings about the disastrous effects of fracking in an article titled A bridge to nowhere: methane emissions and the greenhouse gas footprint of natural gas, and shared them at COP 21.

"Natural gas is widely promoted as a 'bridge fuel,' " Howarth said, referencing the publication. "It is said that it allows continued use of fossil fuels while reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to oil or coal. And since 2009, over 40 percent of natural gas has come from shale gas, which is such a driver for climate change, because of methane. Most climate scientists, in their studies, are focusing on carbon, but methane is 120 times more powerful while both gases are in the atmosphere."

He explained that carbon, of course, is the larger instigator behind climate change, as there is more of it in the atmosphere, but in terms of actually slowing global warming, there is a key difference between the two. "Because of its long residence time," he said, "reductions in carbon emissions can only slowly change the atmospheric concentration." On the other hand, "methane emissions reductions lead to almost immediate reductions in atmospheric concentration. If we cut methane emissions today, we could really slow warming and prevent the [planet] from exceeding that two degree mark."

What Howarth is referring to is the very goal of COP 21: to avert a planetary warming of two degrees Celsius. This is a slightly more realistic ambition - in comparison with last year's climate conference in Copenhagen, which sought to avoid 1.5 degrees of warming - and one based on assessments made on global warming by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But curbing that methane output can best be done by putting an end to fracking, and increased transparency, based on recent studies not funded by the fossil fuel industry, is shifting public opinion on this false 'energy alternative.' "There have been about 32 new research papers published on fracking recently," said Hogarth. This, he conveyed, provides an excellent counterbalance to the problematic studies carried out by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Environmental Defense Fund, with the latter in particular notorious for its biased and industry-collaborative approach. He said that both the agency and the EDF "misuse their instruments during their studies, and thus draw unrealistic conclusions about fracking. The truth is, it is globally warming the planet today."

By Kate Aronoff - Yes! Magazine, December 4, 2015

In just a few months at the beginning of WWII, the U.S. auto industry converted to a war machine. We need that kind of rapid, driven transition to get away from fossil fuels. Here's the just way to do it.

Throw a stick at COP 21 and you’re likely to hit something bearing the word “renewable,” written in one language or another. The expansive Climate Generations Area, an official portion of the La Bourget compound open to the general public, is somewhere between an Ikea and a high-production-value science fair. Flanked by booths hosted by a spread of global organizations—from the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance to the Surfrider Foundation—the conference center is full of corporate-sponsored solutions and borderline gimmicky items like bike-powered “power stations” for charging cell phones.

But how can those following the talks start to parse out genuine from greenwashed solutions at COP21? At the Trade Union Forum on Climate and Jobs on Dec. 3, an unlikely international group of greens—trade unionists—came together to make their pitch for one option: energy democracy.

The concept of energy democracy is rooted in calls for democratic rights, a well-funded public sphere, and renewable energy. According to the International Labor Organization, a just transition away from fossil fuels and toward a greener economy means the process must include all stakeholders: The inevitable impacts on society and jobs must be shared by all of us. 

Peter Knowlton, general president of the United Electrical Workers (UE) and a veteran of the anti-nuclear movement, likened the coming transition away from fossil fuels to the periods before and after the Second World War.

“When the U.S. entered into the war, within a period of three months they had completely transformed the auto industry into a war machine,” he said, noting that just 150 cars were produced in the United States from 1942 through 1945. “An entire industry was transformed overnight, from one of producing peacetime vehicles into a war machine. From our perspective, this is the kind of effort that is going to be required in the United States and elsewhere in order to save ourselves from ourselves.”

By Blake Deppe - People's World, December 3, 2015

Photo: Left to right - Clara Paillard, Tony Clark, Andreas Ytterstad. | Blake Deppe/PW

PARIS: As the UN Climate Conference (COP 21) continues, the Trade Union Forum on Climate and Jobs debuted today at Climate Generations. Trade unions gathered with their allies and with one another to discuss the ever-looming dark cloud that is climate change, and how to find a silver lining within it, by creating clean jobs that sustain the labor movement and reduce or eliminate harm to the environment. While that's no easy task and there's a long road ahead for workers and activists, labor leaders presented real plans and logical solutions.

The key word today was "transition," and the ensuing question was, how do workers prepare for the adjustments that will have to be made as the world moves away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy? It was a question that had to be asked, and the Trade Union Forum, an event that began today and which will last through Dec. 7, did just that. First posing that query were members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who shared an assessment report based on their research to reaffirm, once again, that climate change is a real and portentous threat.

Sustainable future a prerequisite for progress

"Climate change is real. The consensus on this is stronger than the consensus that smoking causes cancer," said Jonathan Lynn, head of communications and media relations for the IPCC. "World public opinion has shifted and there is now a greater understanding of this. So a pathway for a sustainable future is a prerequisite for progress. We have to have greener jobs, but at the same time, they have to be unionized and made available to those who become displaced from other work. But we've pissed away a lot of the time we had, and now our window to do this is closing. Unfortunately, there's a lot of money to be made in destroying the planet. Companies like Exxon or people like the Koch Brothers will not deliver a sustainable future."

On the other hand, those who possibly can bring about such a future took center stage as the next phase of the forum, Climate Jobs Now, began. Here, union leaders spoke about the One Million Climate Jobs Campaign, organized by the Campaign Against Climate Change trade union group and supported by eight national unions. Its goal is to create one million green jobs, which would help shift the energy industry to one based on renewables and clean alternatives and which could kick-start the economy.

By various - Carbon Trade Watch, December 2015

Over twenty years have passed since governments within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) began to discuss the impending climate crisis. Year after year, we witness the talks moving further away from identifying the root causes of climate change while the increasing impacts affect even more peoples and regions. Every meeting has given more space for corporate involvement and less to the voices of those directly affected by these climate policies. Despite the promoters’ fancy “green” campaigns and videos, the main focus at the climate negotiations continues to be about saving the free-market economy for those who are holding the cards – the biggest transnational corporations and financial institutions. The same corporations that are largely behind the destruction of forests, rivers, diversity, territories – as well as the violation of human and collective rights and so on – are also the main polluters and plunderers of the Earth.

The climate crisis poses a real threat to the current economic model which is based on the continuous extraction and production of fossil fuels, hydrocarbons and “natural resources” such as land, minerals, wood and agriculture. If talks were to seriously address climate change, there would need to be a discussion on the many ways to support the hundreds of thousand of small-scale farmers, fishers, Indigenous Peoples, forest-dwelling communities and others whose territories and livelihoods are at risk from capital expansion, and how to transition to different economic systems where fossil fuels could be kept underground; where the consumption “mantra” would shift towards more local, diverse and collective discourses and practices. However, the hegemonic and colonial powers are once more violently closing doors, creating more “structural adjustments” and, ultimately, harming the people who are the least responsible for current and historical pollution levels suffering the most from the impacts.

The fallacy that we can continue with the same economic model is irremediably flawed, bankrolled by big polluters, and intrinsically linked to land and livelihoods grabbing, especially in the Global South. Nonetheless, mechanisms like carbon markets, which expand the extractivist and free-market logic, continue to be promoted as unilateral, program- matic “solutions” to mitigate climate change and address deforestation and biodiversity loss. From carbon trading to forests and biodiversity offsets, the climate crisis has been turned into a business opportunity, worsening the already felt impacts, especially for those who are the least responsible. Debates over molecules of carbon being accounted for and “moved” or “stored” from one location to the other detracts from the necessary debates on shifting away from extraction, unjust power structures and oppression. While being fully informed of the causes of climate change, international climate negotiations strive to ensure that the hegemonic economic model expands and rewards polluters.

The consequence is that “climate policies” (aka economic policies) finance the most destructive industries and polluters, often destroying genuinely effective actions that support community livelihoods and keep fossil fuels in the ground. Moreover, these policies further the “financialization of nature” process, which presupposes the separation and quantification of the Earth’s cycles and functions – such as carbon, water and biodiversity – in or-der to turn them into “units” or “titles” that can be sold in financial and speculative markets. With governments establishing legal frameworks to set these markets in place, they also have provided the financial “infrastructure” for negotiating financial “instruments”, by using derivatives, hedge funds and others. While financial markets have a growing influence over economic policies, the “financialization of nature” hands over the management to the financial markets, whose sole concern is to further accumulate capital.

Read the report (PDF).

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, December 1, 2015

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• Protest Ban? What Protest Ban? - By Danny Chivers, New Internationalist, November 29, 2015
• Can a WA State climate policy train wreck be averted? - By Patrick Mazza, Cascadia Planet, November 27, 2015
• “We Need Not Be Polite” Hears First National Conference On Oil Train Threats - By Justin Mikulka, DeSmog Blog, November 25, 2015
• Dhaka: Climate refugees and a collapsing city - By Sohara Mehroze Shachi, UNDP, November 23, 2015

Ongoing Mobilizations:

• Flood the System - Fall 2015: Flood, blockade, occupy and shut down the systems that jeopardize our future! | #FloodTheSystem
• Jobs, Justice, Climate: Rally to Defend New England's Future! - December 12, 2015
• People’s Climate Strike - November 26 - December 12, 2015
• Railcon15 - Next Conference TBA | #Railcon15

The Road to Paris:

• Why the Paris climate talks are doomed to failure, like all the others - By Steffen Böhm, The Conversation, November 30, 2015
• COP21 actions go ahead: 'We are not defending nature - we are nature defending itself' - By Nadine Bloch, The Ecologist, November 28, 2015
• Environment activists plan to defy Paris ban on protests at UN Climate Conference - By Larissa Dubecki, The Age, November 28, 2015
• Climate change rally: Tens of thousands gather in Melbourne ahead of UN talks - By Sara Phillips, Australian Broadcasting Company, November 27, 2015
• Paris climate activists put under house arrest using emergency laws - By Arthur Neslen, The Guardian, November 27, 2015
• If 'Life Must Go On,' say Groups, France Must Lift Ban on Climate Protests - By Jon Queally, Common Dreams, November 26, 2015
• Climate Jobs Activities in Paris - By Jonathan Nancy, Global Climate Jobs, November 25, 2015
• Our call for climate justice will be heard - By Ragina Johnson, Socialist Worker, November 25, 2015
• “Filthy Foxes” Guard the Paris COP Hen House - By Andy Rowell, Oil Change International, November 24, 2015
• It’s Too Late to “Save” the Climate, But Not Too Late to Save Ourselves - By Aaron Lehmar Craig, World Shift Vision, November 23, 2015
• Mainers will head to Paris as they push for Obama to make climate deal - By Randy Billings, Portland Press Herald, November 23, 2015
• 'Now More Than Ever': In Paris and Beyond, Climate Movement Will Be Heard - By Deirdre Fulton, Common Dreams, November 23, 2015
• Thousands of protesters demand action on climate change - By Oakland North, San Francisco Chronicle, November 23, 2015
• What’s really at stake at the Paris climate conference now marches are banned - By Naomi Klein, The Guardian, November 20, 2015
• Why climate activists should support nationalisation and direct public investment - By Zane Alcorn, Green Left Weekly, November 20, 2015
• Is the Paris Climate March Cancellation a 'Gift to the Movement'? - By Tessa Stuart, Rolling Stone, November 19, 2015

Bread and Roses:

• A farmers´ climate appeal to policy - By Georg Janßen, et. al., La Via Campesina, November 30, 2015
• Water can't be for sale - By Mike Gonzalez and Nick Evans, Socialist Worker, November 30, 2015
• ‘Fruits of Justice’ – Activists & Lawyers in Support of Familias Unidas por la Justicia - By Staff, Boycott Sakuma Berries, November 26, 2015
• Food for Thought on Thanksgiving Eve… - By Staff, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, November 25, 2015
• Thousands protest in Seoul against the government policies - By Staff, La Via Campesina, November 25, 2015
• What's Missing From Our Thanksgiving Menus? Justice for Farm Workers - By Jennifer S. Hirsch, Huffington Post, November 25, 2015
• Behind Your Holiday Sweet Potato Dish, Hard Work In The Fields - By Dan Charles, NPR, November 24, 2015
• Salmon Fishermen and Consumer Groups Criticize FDA Approval of Frankenfish - By Dan Bacher, East Bay Express, November 23, 2015