Kyoto's Bali Successor May Be Little More Than a Carbon and
Rainforest Market
Paying nations to be green diverts attention from necessary
resolute actions based upon what is right and sufficient to
minimize climate change
Earth Meanders, http://earthmeanders.blogspot.com/
By Dr. Glen Barry
November 12th, 2007
I have been an obstinate supporter of the Kyoto process; whose
weaknesses, including non-universal participation and
inadequate emission targets, are well known. Short of
revolution, I do not believe alternative international
political processes exist at this late date to enable nations
to cooperatively and successfully reduce emissions. Kyoto and
a possible successor beginning to be negotiated now in Bali
provide the basis and mechanisms for binding emission cuts
that can be tightened.
I do not see how emissions can be cut by the necessary amount
(> 80%) in the requisite period of time (ASAP, for sure by
2050) other than through difficult international negotiations.
If Kyoto were abandoned, any successor international
negotiating process would be equally hobbled by competing
political and economic interests, and decades more wasted.
This assumes a certain level of goodwill and commitment to
address the climate crisis through adequate solutions exists
on the part of all parties. Sadly, this may be lacking, as
there are serious deficiencies in policies being promoted at
Bali.
This essay discusses how increasingly the international
climate focus has become financial trickery rather than
achieving shared, binding and adequate commitments to reduce
emissions. The climate conference in Bali appears to be mostly
about money and growth and development and not about meeting
the needs of the Earth, ecosystems and most vulnerable
citizens.
The Bali meetings seem far more interested in establishing
markets for carbon and rainforests than committing to climate
policy that is truthful and scientifically merited. Yes, there
is some fine rhetoric from the United Nations, Europe and
(gulp) Australia regarding the extent of the crisis and need
for urgent actions as a solution. Yet a sad denial permeates
the negotiations, as an emphasis upon growth -- including
building new carbon reduction and rainforest protection
markets -- shrouds the need to respect the biosphere's limits.
Huge and misguided efforts are going into creating the
illusion that climate and rainforests can be saved even as we
continue their destruction to grow our economies, population
and consumption. There are many things that must be done to
protect the environment that do not contribute to national
development and do not make money for the elites.
Rainforests and their species, and of course an operable
atmosphere, have value and a right to exist other than for
carbon profits. Their protection is about way more than money.
The focus of the Kyoto process has gone from establishing
binding commitments to reduce emissions to making money from
looking like you are doing so. Very few leaders appear willing
to push for binding emission targets as their priority because
it is the just and necessary thing to do. Policies receive
national support only if it benefits narrow definitions of
their economic interests. This by definition is lack of
leadership, as failure means global ecological collapse and an
end to economies and society.
Doesn’t anybody do anything anymore because it is the right
thing? Both rich and poor nations want to eat their cake and
have it too – to continue polluting and cutting while being
paid for not doing so, or doing it more carefully. What is
next? Paying nations to not go to war? Not wage genocide?
Educate and provide health care to their citizens?
Cutting carbon is a requirement for survival of the Earth,
humanity and all creatures -- this should be payment enough.
The whole effort to craft international climate change policy,
and recent efforts to attach rainforest protection to the
issue, is beginning to look more like a business opportunity
and less like setting limits upon the human endeavor in order
to maintain natural global ecosystem processes; thus ensuring
a just, equitable human future.
There are moral and ecological obligations to protect all
rainforests and end all fossil fuel emissions that go well
beyond getting paid to do so. Rainforest and climate policy
making should not primarily and foremost be about making
money. Harnessing markets and providing business incentives
may be part of the strategy for addressing these climate and
other global eco-crises, but it cannot be the main focus if it
is to be successful.
As long as economic growth is the measure of humanity meeting
its aspirations, as long as fossil fuels are burned rather
than left in the ground, as long as cutting ancient
rainforests for any reason is seen as desirable, there is no
hope for the Earth. Some element of policy to maintain a
livable biosphere is going to have to be for non-monetary
reasons, because it is right and necessary to do so. This
implies shared sacrifice at the national and personal levels.
