PHM-Exch> PHM and climate change: a contribution for discussion

[Claudio Schuftan]

    [*The following note was written by David Legge as a contribution for
discussion within the People's Health Movement Climate Change Circle. *]

There are a lot of organisations and networks working on global warming.
Many of us are members and activists in such networks. So what are the
special interests of PHM in relation to global warming and what special
leverage might PHM structures give to carbon pollution control?

As I see it, PHM’s core business centres around the links between global
inequities with respect to the determinants of health and access to quality
health care; primary health care (both as a model for health care delivery
and as an approach to social change); community mobilisation; the political
economy of globalisation; and the possibilities for global solidarity
including the building of a global movement for progressive global change.

The People’s Charter for Health (adopted at PHA1 in 2000) provides some
guidance with respect to PHM’s position on global warming. Under the heading
“Environmental Challenges” the Charter commits us to:

   - Hold transnational and national corporations, public institutions and
   the military accountable for their destructive and hazardous activities that
   impact on the environment and people's health.
   - Demand that all development projects be evaluated against health and
   environmental criteria and that caution and restraint be applied whenever
   technologies or policies pose potential threats to health and the
   environment (the precautionary principle).
   - Demand that governments rapidly commit themselves to reductions of
   greenhouse gases from their own territories far stricter than those set out
   in the international climate change agreement, without resorting to
   hazardous or inappropriate technologies and practices.
   - Oppose the shifting of hazardous industries and toxic and radioactive
   waste to poorer countries and marginalised communities and encourage
   solutions that minimise waste production.
   - Reduce over‐consumption and non‐sustainable lifestyles ‐ both in the
   North and the South. Pressure wealthy industrialised countries to reduce
   their consumption and pollution by 90 per cent.
   - Demand measures to ensure occupational health and safety, including
   worker‐centred monitoring of working conditions.
   - Demand measures to prevent accidents and injuries in the workplace, the
   community and in homes.
   - Reject patents on life and oppose bio‐piracy of traditional and
   indigenous knowledge and resources.
   - Develop people‐centred, community‐based indicators of environmental and
   social progress, and to press for the development and adoption of regular
   audits that measure environmental degradation and the health status of the
   population.

 These commitments remain very relevant.

Given the prevailing global inequities and in particular the disease burden
and barriers to health care in the Global South it is important for PHM to
consider carefully the North South dimensions of the Copenhagen fiasco and
to ensure that we approach the politics of global warming with full
understanding of these dimensions.

As I understand it the rich countries approached Copenhagen with low
ambitions and high conditions; including conditions that tied rich country
action to comparable commitments from the big developing countries (ignoring
the role of rich country emissions in the historical accummulation of
greenhouse gases and looking for parity in policy action from hereon). As I
understand it the small island states and the delta countries wanted to see
action from all polluters but faced opposition from both the big rich and
the big developing countries. As I understand it the big developing
countries (also known as 'the emerging economies’), led by China and India,
were unwilling to accept the kind of restrictions on their economic
development which were being canvassed and were unwilling to slow down (what
they describe as) the liberation of millions of desparately poor people from
poverty.

Clearly the question of pathways to economic development links with the
question of access to the necessary technologies which might support
non-greenhouse economic development / poverty escape and clearly the
developing countries were not happy with the offers from the rich countries
on this front.

It is not possible to make sense of this impasse without recognising the
role of the big transnational energy corporations (funding the global
warming deniers and opposing restrictions on CO2 emissions). The big energy
TNCs will oppose action on global warming to the bitter end. They have huge
sunk investments in old technologies with correspondingly large profit
flows. Action on global warming will require writing off these investments
and choking off the profit flows and finding capital for the new energy
infrastructure.

It is also necessary to contextualise both global warming and economic
development within the wider regime of global economic governance. The
inequities, imbalances and instabilities of the global economy, manifest in
the global food crisis and the global financial crisis, are a consequence of
this regime also. Neoliberal globalisation is built upon consumerism (with
concomitant carbon pollution) and requires the marginalisation of a billion
humans who are treated by this regime as ‘surplus to requirements’ (required
neither for their labour power nor their buying power).

It is untenable that these global policy challenges should be allowed to
resolve into a forced choice between economic development for the global
South *or* mitigation of global warming (which seems to have been one of the
deals on the table at Copenhagen). Rather we need to work towards a regime
of global economic governance which reconciles the need for (sustainable)
economic development in the global South and the need to contain global CO2
levels to 350ppm. Clearly such a regime is technically and economically
possible; the main challenge is political.

So what are the core interests of the People's Health Movement in the
politics of global warming? And where does the struggle for action on global
warming intersect with the struggle for health?

First, we need to get our facts straight and build a robust analysis. The
analysis I have set out above includes some speculation and over-simplifies
some of the issues. We need to listen more carefully to the analysis of the
developing country negotiators at Copenhagen, in particular, the negotiators
from China and India to understand their perspectives. We need to
investigate the positions being advanced by the rich countries and explore
the implications of these positions. We need to contextualise these
negotiations within the wider political economy of energy and of global
economic governance.

We need to keep sustainable economic development at the forefront of our
struggle. Not the high consumption low employment globalised model being
promoted by the neo-liberals but sustainable autonomous development based in
large degree on local production and supply.

We need to build pressure on the governments of the North and South to
accelerate the reform of energy production and use domestically while
continuing to work for binding international agreements.

We need to keep energy equity in the foreground as well as energy efficiency
and renewables. This has implications for most people in the rich countries
where the profligate use of carbon based energy is embedded in culture,
economy and infrastructure. It also has implications for the elites and
middle classes of the developing countries. Both energy equity and global
economic reform require a strengthening culture of global solidarity.

So what are the implications of these policy priorities for PHM’s policy
program.

Central to PHM’s policy program is comprehensive primary health care, first,
as a platform for improving access to decent health care and for action on
the social determinants of health; and second, as a strategy of social
change, for creating healthy communities. So we need to ensure that energy
reform is included in our discourse of the social determinants of health and
community mobilisation for health but clearly contextualised in relation to
economic globalisation and the challenge of global economic reform.

Central to PHM’s policy program is the development of global solidarity for
health; building communication channels and opportunities for collaboration
across various axes of difference (nation, race, gender, religion as well as
class) so that the forces for progressive global change can be more coherent
and effective. So we need to ensure that energy reform (including towards
energy equity as well as efficiency and renewables) is part of the discourse
on which such solidarity is built – and clearly contextualised in relation
to economic globalisation.

Central to PHM’s policy program is the idea of intersectoral collaboration
and in terms of PHM as a social movement this means working on our
relationships with other social movements working in other sectors, such as
global warming / environmental justice / energy reform. So we need to work
towards creating and organisational relationships with organisations in
other sectors whose perspective is congruent with ours.

PHM Global’s practical work program includes the Right to Health Campaign,
Global Health Watch, IPHU and the People’s Health Assembly scheduled for
2011 in South Africa. There are clear implications for all of these
departments from the above reflections. Particularly so for GHW, IPHU and
PHA3 but also for PHM's national and local circles and other thematic
circles.

Perhaps one of the first priorities for PHM in this field might be to stoke
a conversation regarding these issues within the wider PHM community.
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