World leaders have converged on Copenhagen, Denmark, for the UN Climate Change Conference; the notional aim is to put together a new global treaty on the climate, possibly to be signed next year and to come into effect when the Kyoto Treaty runs out in 2012.
The talks focused on the possibility of setting targets for reducing carbon emissions (by 2050 for global targets and by 2020 for more advanced countries), as well as other issues such as deforestation. Unsurprisingly, the “solutions” on the table are all market-based; carbon trading and offsetting schemes, whereby governments set emissions caps and polluting businesses must pay to buy “credits” allowing them to exceed it, will be a key focus of discussion.
Rivalries between governments present a significant obstacle any agreement; many of the most powerful nations (the US, the EU countries and Japan) have developed a limited consensus at least around the need to reduce emissions (if not around the amount of reduction necessary). But the rising powers of India and China are reluctant to sign up to emissions-reductions commitments that could limit their continuing development – which, of course, takes place on the back of the brutal exploitation of millions of workers!
Latest indications suggested that a US-proposed deal may be agreed, although it is not yet clear what the precise details are, whether it will be unanimously agreed and even whether it will actually be binding.
The Copenhagen Climate Conference represents a gathering of ruling-class politicians horse-trading over how to limit damage to the environment while still maintaining their commitment to the market. The fundamental conclusion for us to draw is that we cannot trust capitalist governments to save the planet. Even if they sign an agreement next year, they will do so on the basis of top-level talks, horse-trading and by making the interests of big business and its profit their starting point. Our starting point has to be different; the actual needs of the working-class majority of society and the planet we live on.
We need a different vision for fighting climate change – a vision that start with workers, and our ability to take control of the industries we work in and convert them away from environmentally-damaging production and towards production that's socially useful. For that to happen, working-class environmental campaigners and trade unionists will have to work together to build a movement capable of making that vision a reality. Tubeworker has already started doing some of that work by collaborating with Workers' Climate Action. To get involved, email transport.wca@gmail.com.
