PHA-Exch> Walden Bello on capitalism and climate change

[Laura Turiano]

http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=384#more-384

Will Capitalism Survive Climate Change?

.Climate change is both a threat and an opportunity to bring about the
long postponed social and economic reforms that had been derailed or
sabotaged in previous era.

By Walden Bello

There is now a solid consensus in the scientific community that if the
change in global mean temperature in the 21st century exceeds 2.4 degrees
Celsius, changes in the planet.s climate will be large-scale, irreversible
and disastrous. Moreover, the window of opportunity for action that will
make a difference is narrow . that is, the next 10 to 15 years.

Throughout the North, however, there is strong resistance to changing the
systems of consumption and production that have created the problem in the
first place and a preference for .techno-fixes,. such as .clean. coal,
carbon sequestration and storage, industrial-scale biofuels, and nuclear
energy.

Globally, transnational corporations and other private actors resist
government-imposed measures such as mandatory caps, preferring to use
market mechanisms like the buying and selling of .carbon credits,. which
critics say simply amounts to a licence for corporate polluters to keep on
polluting.

In the South, there is little willingness on the part of the southern
elite to depart from the high-growth, high-consumption model inherited
from the North, and a self-interested conviction that the North must first
adjust and bear the brunt of adjustment before the South takes any serious
step towards limiting its greenhouse gas emissions.

Contours of the Challenge

In the climate change discussions, the principle of .common but
differentiated responsibility. is recognized by all parties, meaning that
the global North must shoulder the brunt of the adjustment to the climate
crisis since it is the one whose economic trajectory has brought it about.

It is also recognized that the global response should not compromise the
right to develop of the countries of the global South.

The devil, however, is in the details. As Martin Khor of Third World
Network has pointed out, the global reduction of 80% in greenhouse gas
emissions from 1990 levels by 2050 that many now recognize as necessary,
will have to translate into reductions of at least 150-200% on the part of
the global North if the two principles . .common but differentiated
responsibility. and recognition of the right to development of the
countries of the South . are to be followed.

But are the governments and people of the North prepared to make such
commitments?

Psychologically and politically, it is doubtful that the North at this
point has what it takes to meet the problem head-on.

The prevailing assumption is that the affluent societies can take on
commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions but still grow and
enjoy their high standards of living if they shift to non-fossil fuel
energy sources.

Moreover, how the mandatory cuts agreed multilaterally by governments get
implemented within the country must be market-based, that is, on the
trading of emission permits.

The subtext is: techno-fixes and the carbon market will make the
transition relatively painless and (why not?) profitable, too.

There is, however, a growing realization that many of these technologies
are decades away from viable use and that, in the short and medium term,
relying on a shift in energy dependence to non-fossil fuel alternatives
will not be able to support current rates of economic growth.

Also, it is increasingly evident that the trade-off for more crop land
being devoted to biofuel production is less land to grow food and greater
food insecurity globally.

It is rapidly becoming clear that the dominant paradigm of economic growth
is one of the most significant obstacles to a serious global effort to
deal with climate change.

But this destabilizing, fundamentalist growth-consumption paradigm is
itself more effect rather than cause.

The central problem, it is becoming increasingly clear, is a mode of
production whose main dynamic is the transformation of living nature into
dead commodities, creating tremendous waste in the process.

The driver of this process is consumption . or more appropriately
overconsumption . and the motivation is profit or capital accumulation:
capitalism, in short.

It has been the generalization of this mode of production in the North and
its spread from the North to the South over the last 300 years that has
caused the accelerated burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil and rapid
deforestation, two of the key man-made processes behind global warming.

The South.s Dilemma

One way of viewing global warning is to see it as a key manifestation of
the latest stage of a wrenching historical process: the privatization of
the global commons by capital. The climate crisis must thus be seen as the
expropriation by the advanced capitalist societies of the ecological space
of less developed or marginalized societies.

This leads us to the dilemma of the South: before the full extent of the
ecological destabilization brought about by capitalism, it was expected
that the South would simply follow the ..stages of growth. of the North.

Now it is impossible to do so without bringing about ecological
Armageddon. Already, China is on track to overtake the US as the biggest
emitter of greenhouse gases, and yet the elite of China as well as those
of India and other rapidly developing countries are intent on reproducing
the American-type overconsumption-driven capitalism.

Thus, for the South, the implications of an effective global response to
global warming include not just the inclusion of some countries in a
regime of mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, although this
is critical: in the current round of climate negotiations, for instance,
China, can no longer opt out of a mandatory regime on the grounds that it
is a developing country.

Nor can the challenge to most of the other developing countries be limited
to that of getting the North to transfer technology to mitigate global
warming and provide funds to assist them in adapting to it, as many of
them appeared to think during the Bali negotiations.

These steps are important, but they should be seen as but the initial
steps in a broader, global reorientation of the paradigm for achieving
economic well-being.

While the adjustment will need to be much, much greater and faster in the
North, the adjustment for the South will essentially be the same: a break
with the high-growth, high-consumption model in favour of another model of
achieving the common welfare.

In contrast to the Northern elite.s strategy of trying to decouple growth
from energy use, a progressive comprehensive climate strategy in both the
North and the South must be to reduce growth and energy use while raising
the quality of life of the broad masses of people.

Among other things, this will mean placing economic justice and equality
at the centre of the new paradigm.

The transition must be one not only from a fossil-fuel based economy but
also from an overconsumption-driven economy.

The end-goal must be adoption of a low-consumption, low-growth,
high-equity development model that results in an improvement in people.s
welfare, a better quality of life for all, and greater democratic control
of production.

It is unlikely that the elite of the North and the South will agree to
such a comprehensive response. The farthest they are likely to go is for
techno-fixes and a market-based cap-and-trade system. Growth will be
sacrosanct, as will the system of global capitalism.

Yet, confronted with the Apocalypse, humanity cannot self-destruct.

It may be a difficult road, but we can be sure that the vast majority will
not commit social and ecological suicide to enable the minority to
preserve their privileges.

However it is achieved, a thorough reorganization of production,
consumption and distribution will be the end result of humanity.s response
to the climate emergency and the broader environmental crisis.

Threat and Opportunity

In this regard, climate change is both a threat and an opportunity to
bring about the long postponed social and economic reforms that had been
derailed or sabotaged in previous eras by the elite seeking to preserve or
increase their privileges.

The difference is that today the very existence of humanity and the planet
depend on the institutionalization of economic systems based not on feudal
rent extraction or capital accumulation or class exploitation, but on
justice and equality.

The question is often asked these days if humanity will be able to get its
act together to formulate an effective response to climate change. Though
there is no certainty in a world filled with contingency, I am hopeful
that it will.

In the social and economic system that will be collectively crafted, I
anticipate that there will be room for the market.

However, the more interesting question is: will it have room for
capitalism? Will capitalism as a system of production, consumption and
distribution survive the challenge of coming up with an effective solution
to the climate crisis?

Walden Bello is senior analyst of Focus on the Global South and professor
of sociology at the University of the Philippines. This article was first
published in the Bangkok Post March 29, 2008
April 1, 2008

 
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