COP21

By Erima Dall - Solidarity, November 7, 2015

The COP 21 summit in Paris is approaching, but while the situation is grim the planned social movement mobilizations offer hope and opportunities.

Tackling climate change through a rapid transition to renewable energy is perfectly feasible, but corporate interests are determined to frustrate action, writes Erima Dall.

The world is at a climate crossroads. For over 20 years, international meetings of world leaders have wrangled to avoid any meaningful climate action. The science is as clear as ever; the planet hotter.

In November over 190 world leaders will meet at the COP21 conference in Paris. But countries have already announced their emissions reduction targets, and they will not prevent a rise of 2°C in global temperature – a generous estimate of what is a “safe” temperature increase.

Global investment in renewable energy is growing, but nowhere near fast enough. We are operating in a battlefield. To stop a dangerous shift in our climate system we will have to challenge the economic greed of the capitalist system.

We need to build a mass radical movement capable of challenging the fossil fuel giants, and governments’ absolute commitment to the market; a movement to demand a just transition to 100 per cent renewable energy and an expansion of green jobs.

By Skye Bougsty-Marshall; image by Alberto Ñiquén - RoarMag, November 8, 2015

The COP 21 summit in Paris is approaching, but while the situation is grim the planned social movement mobilizations offer hope and opportunities.

We know how it all started — colonialism was the original metabolic rift in our history, which has been profoundly extended and deepened by industrial capitalism. Yet as we enter the 6th mass extinction, there is an ambient sense that there is no alternative to this way of life.

We collectively hallucinate that the present order of things will persist indefinitely, silently abiding the comfort and enslavement this disposition provides, all the while waiting for the apocalypse we are living through to blossom fully.

Many have been waiting for the totalizing revolution that appears as a vanishing point on a receding horizon, a perpetually deferred future. The intersecting ecological and climate crises stand as a refutation of more than a hundred years of left-wing teleology that ‘in the end we will win.’ Instead they reinforce the need for constant molecular struggles to open and expand cracks for resistance and new forms of life to flourish.

World governments acknowledge that catastrophic climate change is the defining crisis of our times, and simultaneously fossil fuel corporations continue to benefit from subsidies of $5.3 trillion in 2015, according to the IMF. This is more than all governments spend on health care combined and amounts to an astonishing $10 million every minute.

We have reached a point where we need to keep 80% of fossil fuels in the ground, which would require emission reductions of at least 10% per year by 2025, even as Lord Stern counsels us that a mere 1% emissions reductions rate each year would be associated with economic recession and upheaval.

This requires radical global degrowth, which understandably is unacceptable to billions of people trying to lift themselves out of poverty wrought by colonial and neocolonial depredation and the enforced inequality of smoothly operating capitalism. Yet the overdeveloped states deny their historic responsibility, disregarding principles of equity by refusing to recognize their immeasurable ecological and social debts accrued through their ruinous development processes.

The landmark COP21 provides ecological justice struggles with an unparalleled opportunity to come together as a global movement to put into sharp relief the echoless chasm separating the minimal conditions for a just and livable planet and the political order’s capacity to secure these.

The system is exhausted. The UN COP process merely simulates its continued viability, thus performing the regeneration of its legitimacy. Its collapse is inevitable, in its orbit looms only the question whether it will take civilization with it in its violent, implosive heat death. Futurity dangles ridiculous.

By Michael Ware and Ragina Johnson - Socialist Worker, October 27, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

THE LATEST world summit conference on climate change, due to begin in Paris on November 30, will take place against the backdrop of continuing climate disasters--including a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that the planet suffered its hottest summer ever recorded, and possibly the hottest in 4,000 years.

That ought to give some urgency to the two-week-long meeting--officially called the 21st Congress of the Parties for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP 21--that is supposed to finally produce a binding international treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions, with the goal of keeping the global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius.

But there's lots of reasons to doubt the resolve of world leaders--the recent failure of preparatory talks in Bonn, the lack of ambition or action by powerful governments in the past and, of course, the dismal record of previous COPs to accomplish anything meaningful. Whatever agreement is struck in Paris, it won't do nearly enough.

Climate justice activists worldwide will send a different message from the politicians' hot air--and show their determination to be heard with events and actions throughout the fall, culminating in large protests in Paris itself.

By Joseph Scales - New Matilda, September 27, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

"We have a rendezvous with humanity." With that statement, the International Trade Union Confederation Climate Summit, ‘No Jobs on a Dead Planet!’ was opened in Paris, France last week. 

The Summit was the most significant trade union climate change meeting in history, held as a precursor to the COP21 Paris talks scheduled for December.

Climate Change is recognised and established. Even climate deniers like our former Prime Minister Tony Abbott are forced to at least publicly accept the legitimacy of the science.

The interconnected market pressures of a changing economy – particularly in a once manufacturing-intensive nation like Australia – means industrial change is coming, whether we like it or not.

What workers, unions and communities must decide is: are we part of that change or not? Business and capital will certainly be keeping their eye out for the best deal on their bottom line.

By Nicholas Isaac - Socialist Action, September 21, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

As governments and some 40,000 corporate negotiators, scientists of different persuasions, and other mostly corporate-friendly parties prepare to attend the Nov. 30-Dec. 12 United Nations Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris, environmental and climate-crisis organizations are preparing massive and perhaps unprecedented mobilizations around the world.

Fear is widespread that this 21^st UN-sponsored climate meeting will propose nothing to stop the earth’s temperature from rising beyond the point of no return—the point where catastrophic and irreversible changes threaten all life on earth. Few, if any, environmental and related movement organizations believe that the world’s greatest polluters have any intention of subordinating their highly profitable fossil-fuel extraction to the interests of humanity. Indeed, the greatest of the polluters, the U.S. and China, have every intention of increasing their production and use of fossil fuels!

Activists from 350.org and a broad range of other concerned organizations on the East Coast are making preparations for a massive mobilization in Boston on Dec. 12, the last day of COP21. They chose the last day of COP21 to indicate their lack of confidence in any of the “solutions” proposed to date and to state unequivocally that only a massive international movement, a “movements of movements,” is capable of saving the earth and its inhabitants from the destructive forces of today’s profit-driven polluters.

In Northern California, a broad coalition of environmental groups, labor unions, social justice, antiwar, and human rights groups, and a number of socialist parties, has been meeting in Oakland union halls for the past two months to plan a mass march and rally through downtown Oakland on Nov. 21. Leading organizations include 350.org chapters in all Bay Area counties, the Sunflower Alliance—which focuses on defending frontline communities—System Change Not Climate Change, and a host of groups aimed at fighting California fracking, coal transport, explosive bomb trains, and environmental racism. Socialist Action, Solidarity, DSA, ISO, and CoC have also been actively building this effort.

By Nafeez Ahmed - Medium.Com, September 4, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

At the end of this month, the UN will launch its new 2030 Sustainable Development agenda for “people, planet and prosperity” in New York, where it will be formally adopted by over 150 world leaders.

The culmination of years of consultations between governments, communities and businesses all over the world, there is no doubt that the agenda’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer an unprecedented vision of the interdependence of global social, economic and environmental issues.

But records from the SDG process reveal that insiders at the heart of the UN’s intergovernment engagement negotiations have criticised the international body for pandering to the interests of big business and ignoring recommendations from grassroots stakeholders representing the world’s poor.

Formal statements issued earlier this year as part of the UN’s Post-2015 Intergovernmental Negotiations on the SDGs, and published by the UN Sustainable Development Division, show that UN ‘Major Groups’ representing indigenous people, civil society, workers, young people and women remain deeply concerned by the general direction of the SDG process — whereas corporate interests from the rich, industrialised world have viewed the process favourably.

By Ken Montague - Rabble.Ca, September 10, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Ken Montague, Secretary of the Campaign against Climate Change Trade Union Group, explains what's on at a major national conference in Sheffield on 19 September:

What is the conference about?

The immediate aim of the conference is to contribute to the national and international mobilisation ahead of the UN climate talks in Paris in December. It will also be reporting on, and encouraging involvement in, some of the ongoing campaigns formed in response to the threat of catastrophic climate change. For example, the developing movement for withdrawing pension funds and other investments from companies heavily involved in the production and use of fossil fuels, the national and international trade union campaign for government funded climate jobs, and local protests against fracking.

Why now?

Firstly because world leaders will be meeting in Paris early in December to draw up an agreement following the two-week long “COP 21”talks. It is the most important set of talks about dealing with climate change since the disastrous Copenhagen COP in 2009 and could be the last chance we have of reaching the kind of binding agreement needed to keep climate change within relatively safe bounds. Campaign groups and NGO’s around the world are planning demonstrations and protests on a scale comparable to those last September when 400,000 people took to the streets of New York. For us in Britain it means building for the protests in Paris and the national demonstration for “Climate Justice and Jobs” in London on 29th November.

Any other reason?

The conference will be reporting back on the international climate jobs summit in Paris on 14th and 15th September called by the UK’s “One Million Climate Jobs” campaign and the International Trade Union Confederation. This represents a big step forward for the climate jobs movement which in Britain now has the backing of ten national unions and is seeding itself in other countries, for example Norway, South Africa and the US. Over 160 trade union delegates will be attending from Europe, North America and the Global South. The Sheffield conference also includes a workshop on the prospects for the international climate jobs movement with contributions through Skype from some of the delegates to the Paris summit.

Who has organised the conference and who is it aimed at?

It’s been organised by the Trade Union Group of Campaign against Climate Change and the Sheffield Climate Alliance, which is one of the largest and most successful of the local climate networks. That means it’s for trade unionists who want to know how they can build support for the climate jobs campaign in their unions, but also for anyone who would like to get involved in, or help to develop, other aspects of the climate movement. Everyone is welcome!

Who will be speaking and what will the workshops cover?

Speakers include Asad Rehman, International Campaigner for Friends of the Earth, John Hilary, Executive Director of War on Want, Dani Pafford from 350.org, Suzanne Jeffery, Chair of Campaign against Climate Change, and Louise Haigh, Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley and supporter of Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for the Labour leadership.

One of the features of the conference is the large number of interactive workshops. In addition to workshops on climate jobs and divestment, others cover topics like:

• Fracking and how to fight it
• What is TTIP and how can we oppose it?
• Communicating climate change – engaging and motivating people of all backgrounds and persuasions
• The Arms to Renewables campaign
• The Government’s war on renewables
• Climate outreach with primary schools and families
• Building locally for the London and Paris demonstrations
• Where is it being held and how can I book a place?

The conference will be taking place at Sheffield College, a short distance from Sheffield station, so can be easily reached from many parts of the country. Directions can be found on the Sheffield Climate Alliance website. Registration is at 10.30. To book a place click here – admission £10, £5 concessions.

By Mel Barnes - Green Left Weekly, August 29, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

This week Canadian author Naomi Klein is visiting Australia to speak about why capitalism is incompatible with action on climate change.

Her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate encourages everyone already involved in fighting for social justice and equality to see climate change as the “best chance we’ll ever get to build a better world”.

This vision is the antidote to the bleak picture painted by climate scientists and the knowledge that not just Australia, but the US and China have set targets that put the world on track for rises far above what the science says we can all survive.

Last week, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that July was the warmest month ever recorded and with a predicted El Nino, Australia is set to experience another hot summer.

Rising temperatures and chaotic weather are not the only outcomes of climate change. When this intersects with poverty, racism and unemployment, it is clear that the most vulnerable will be the worst off.

The good news is these issues can be tackled through the same measures we take to tackle climate change. It means transforming our economy and society from one where power is concentrated in the hands of the rich, into one where we enjoy a higher quality of life and greater equality thanks to the need to share resources.

It will mean investing in public infrastructure, such as transport, housing and health, and the creation of permanent, green jobs. It will mean greater democracy for communities to make decisions about issues that affect them; this includes Aboriginal communities having control over their land.

But it will not happen if we leave it up to politicians negotiating through international agreements.