Capitalist
states, by their nature, protect their own interests — not collective ones. Is
there still hope?
Salon https://www.salon.com/2019/10/19/dont-count-on-capitalism-to-defeat-climate-change/
October 19, 2019
The bad news just keeps
coming. Again and again, science-based
studies uncover increasing evidence that the planet is headed toward
unfathomable disaster.
In the last year alone, we have seen publication of the US
National Climate Assessment’s Fourth NationalClimate report,
the UN Global Sustainable Development report (“The
Future is Now”), the US NationalOceanic and Atmospheric Administration report, the World Meteorological
Association report onAccelerating Climate Change, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports on Climate Change and
Land and Ocean and Cryosphere, the Science Advisory Group to the UN
Climate Action Summit’s report “United in Science,” to
say nothing of countless articles in science journals warning that catastrophe
lies ahead.
As “United in Science" put
it, current efforts need to be “roughly
tripled to be aligned with the 2o C goal and increased fivefold to align with the 1.5o
C goal” adopted by the 2016 Paris Agreement (emphasis added).”
Hence we are confronted by the
damage already resulting from climate
change: more intense and frequent extreme weather events like hurricanes,
floods, droughts, forest fires, and heat waves; rising sea levels that threaten
the homes, lives and livelihoods of millions of people; and melting ice caps
and permafrost, among others.
The consensus among science-based reports is that the path ahead is far worse: widespread food
and water scarcity, increased exposure to diseases and allergic illnesses,
economic decline, and damage to the “infrastructure, ecosystems, and social
systems that provide essential benefits to communities.”
As Noam Chomsky put
it, “To describe these challenges as ‘extremely severe’ would be an error. The
phrase does not capture the enormity of the kinds of challenges that lie
ahead.”
We can observe three kinds of
responses to the crisis of climate change.
First, activism on a global scale is clearly on the rise, commonly led
by young people who will bear the greatest burden of climate change.
Millions participated the global Climate Strike on
September 20. 530 groups from around the
world signed on to the Lofoten
Declaration calling
for rapid phasing out of fossil fuels.
One of the signers, the
Extinction Rebellion, has mobilized two weeks of dramatic direct action and
civil disobedience in cities from New York and Philadelphia to London, Paris,
Berlin, Madrid, Amsterdam, Toronto and Sydney: from traffic blockades to
rallies, marches, and street theatre to throwing red paint on Wall Street’s bull
statue. Some 200 young mothers marched
from Westminster to 10 Downing Street where they engaged in a Nurse-In, nursing
the babies they seek to protect from climate disaster.
Second, most nations of the
world, many states and localities within the United States, even some
corporations and the US military, now recognize that the world faces a profound
challenge. Several governments have
taken preliminary steps toward altering their emissions, and even more have
pledged to do so.
In contrast to the energy of the
Climate Strike and the warnings of the UN Science Advisory Group warning, the
UN Climate Action Summit produced only modest pledges from a minority of
nations.
These steps remain woefully
inadequate if the world is to avoid a cataclysmic outcome.
Why this relative inaction in the
face of global catastrophe? The vast
majority of greenhouse gas emissions are produced by the world’s developed capitalist economies, with China and the US
leading the way. By contrast, people in
nations that have the least impact on
climate change are most vulnerable to
the worst of its effects.
This climate injustice is only
one manifestation of the inequalities and injustices built into the capitalist
powers’ imperial exploitation of the “under-developed” world. In the late Immanuel Wallerstein’s framework,
the core capitalist powers compete with
each other for dominance in exploiting the resources of the underdeveloped periphery nations.
Consequently, each of the
capitalist powers is loathe to weaken its
competitive position vis à vis the other capitalist economies. In a capitalist world, each economic unit
must act to protect what it deems its own interests. The only counterweight comes from the public
sector.
Yet in a capitalist world, each
public authority — local, state or national government — is constrained by the
fear that pushing public interests too far will cause capital flight, thereby
undermining its viability. And, of
course, corporations and the wealthy dominate the shaping of public policy —
nowhere more than in the US.
This is the way capitalism works,
which suggests how profound and systemic the changes will have to be if the
world is to avoid catastrophe.
