IBON PRIMER ON THE

CLIMATE CRISISROOTS AND SOLUTIONS

ISBN 978-971-0483-54-9Copyright© IBON International 2010Some Rights Reserved.

IBON International holds the rights to this publication. The publication may be cited in parts as long as IBON is properly acknowledged as the source and IBON is furnished copies of the fi nal work where the quotation or citation appears.

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WritersPaul QuintosJohn Paul Corpus

EditorAntonio Tujan, Jr.

Cover photosA guy with A camera (http://www.fl ickr.com/photos/schlegl/2300600425/sizes/o/)Ramon Lauron

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION 5

PART 1. CAPITALIST GROWTH AND CLIMATE CHANGE

What is the relationship between economic growth and climate change? 9

Why is the current socio-economic system obsessed with expansion and growth? 10

Why does corporate globalization give rise to imperialist plunder and war? 13

What are the main drivers of climate change under the global capitalist system and what is the role of TNCs in them? 15

Why are advanced industrialized countries principally responsible for causing climate change? 20

PART 2. MARKET-BASED PROFIT-ORIENTED FALSE SOLUTIONS

What is wrong with carbon trading and offsetting? 23

What is wrong with carbon capture and storage (CCS)? 26

What is wrong with nuclear energy, megadams, and agrofuels? 27

What is wrong with geoengineering? 30

PART 3. THE WAY OUT: BUILDING EQUITABLE AND SUSTAINABLE SOCIETIES

What is sustainable human development? 33

Does sustainable human development require de-growth and de-industrialization? 35

What are the fundamental requirements for shifting towards sustainable human development? 37

PART 4. IMMEDIATE TASKS FOR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS FIGHTING FOR A JUST AND SUSTAINABLE FUTURE 43

ENDNOTES 46

6

Introduction

The last two centuries have been heralded for great strides in technology, pro-

duction and human progress. But these advances have precipitated global eco-

logical and development disasters at the same time. On one hand, a privileged

global elite engages in reckless profi t-driven production and grossly excessive

consumption. On the other hand, the mass of humanity is mired in underdevel-

opment and poverty with merely survival and subsistence consumption, or even

less. The world’s largest transnational corporations (TNCs) based mainly in the

Northern countries and with expanding operations in the South, have long been

at the forefront of this injustice. Indeed the powerful industrialized nations of

today were built on the severe exploitation of the human and natural resources

of the global South.

Their relentless pursuit of growth and profi t demand vast energy and natural re-

sources and generate waste beyond what the planet can sustain. The accumu-

lated emissions of greenhouse gases from industrial societies is altering the cli-

mate and disrupting ecological systems which, in turn, are threatening the very

survival of millions of species including our own.

Climate change is already causing severe damage to the lives and livelihoods of

millions of people throughout the world, especially the poor and marginalized

communities that are particularly vulnerable to ecological imbalances. It is re-

sulting in greater and more frequent extremes of heat and rainfall patterns as well

as tropical cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes. Africa, Asia and Latin America

face shorter growing seasons, lower yields, lost or deteriorated agricultural land,

decreased agricultural production and freshwater shortages. Droughts in Afri-

ca will bring widespread hunger and famine. Asia is already confronting fl ood-

ing, avalanches and landslides, which will increase illness and death. In Latin

America, higher temperatures and reduced biodiversity in tropical forests will

devastate indigenous communities. Globally, rising sea levels will fl ood low-lying

areas, increased storm surges will threaten coastal communities, and warmer sea

waters will diminish fi sh stocks.

These adverse impacts of climate change are compounding the long-

7

standing development crises confronting the mass of humanity. Despite

the world economy’s relentless growth, there is unprecedented poverty and hun-

ger in the world today. According to the World Bank’s much cited “dollar-a-day”

international poverty line, revised in 2008 to $1.25 a day in 2005 prices, there

were still 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty in 2005. This was 36 million

more than in 1995. In 2009, it is estimated that an additional 215 million work-

ers and their families fell below this poverty line as a result of the current global

economic and fi nancial crisis.

The poverty situation is more serious when other dimensions of poverty such

as deprivation, social exclusion, and lack of participation are also considered.

Indeed, for the fi rst time in history, the number of people experiencing hunger

has exceeded 1 billion this year, up by 115 million since 2007—more than 60% of

whom are women. Every six seconds a child dies because of hunger and related

causes. One out of four children—roughly 146 million—in developing countries

is underweight; 17 infants under the age of fi ve die every minute mostly due to

preventable causes; half of all girls in the poorest countries have no access to pri-

mary education; half a million mothers will die at childbirth this year due to the

lack of basic health services for the poor; and nearly a billion people live in urban

slums where illness and death are rife.

All these point to a system in grave crisis and the need for profound changes

in how our societies function. But if the need for radical measures is by now

obvious to an increasing number of people, what kind of measures are neces-

sary to truly arrest climate change and why aren’t those measures being adopted

by policy makers? If fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions cause global

warming, can new energy sources and new technologies solve the problem? If

techno-fi xes are false fi xes, what is the role that science and technology can play

in solving the climate crisis? If climate change is one of the egregious byproducts

of industrialization and rapid economic growth, does this mean that underde-

veloped countries must reject industrial progress and growth? If overproduction

and overconsumption is a major cause of climate change, what does this mean

for countries where the vast majority of the population are deprived of the basic

necessities in life?

This primer traces the roots of the climate crisis as well as other social crises to

the dominant economic paradigm and the prevailing socio-economic system in

the world today—a system that has proven capable of generating unprecedented

wealth for some at the same time impoverishing the majority of the people and

devastating the planet. Part 1 discusses the relationship between economic ac-

tivities in modern industrial societies and climate change. Particular attention is

given to the role TNCs as dominant actors in the global economy. Part 2 discusses

8

the false solutions to the climate crisis that are being promoted by corporate and

elite interests who are hell-bent on maintaining the status quo. Part 3 discusses

the requisites for the shift towards sustainable human development. It points to

the need for a radical change in the distribution of wealth and power within so-

cieties and between countries in order to arrest climate change and social crises.

The last Part identifi es the priority tasks for social movements in order to bring

this alternative vision closer to fruition.

9

10

PART 1Capitalist Economic Growth and Climate Change

What is the relationship between industrial economic growth and climate

change?

We know by now that global warming and climate change are caused by the

buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. This build

up has been driven by the massive increase in human-induced GHG emissions

since the industrial age began 250 years ago.

The most dramatic increase has been in carbon dioxide (CO2). It is the most im-

portant GHG today, accounting for around 80% of all GHGs released into the

atmosphere annually.1 Annual CO2 emissions have grown more than 20-fold

between 1800 and 2000, from 1Gt (gigatons or billion tons) to 23Gt. The atmo-

spheric concentration of CO2 has also increased as a consequence. It currently

stands at 388ppm (parts per million), 50% higher than its pre-industrial level

(250ppm), and far above its normal range (100-300ppm) over the last 800,000

years. Methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N

2O) levels have also seen comparable

increases.2

GHG emissions result from almost every aspect of industrial society—from en-

ergy, to transportation, to production. Much of the human-induced release and

build up of GHGs in the atmosphere originate from the burning of fossil fuels.

Fossil fuel combustion produces electricity and heat, and provides energy for

industry, transportation, commerce, and household consumption. Annually,

about 55 – 60% of total GHG emissions and 70% of all CO2 emissions come from

the burning of fossil fuels. Agriculture and land use change (referring to defor-

estation and land conversion), meanwhile, are responsible for around 30% of all

GHG emissions and 25% of CO2 emissions. Agriculture has driven increases in

N2O and CH

4 emissions as well.

The tremendous growth in GHG emissions came in step with the equally tremen-

dous economic growth paved by the industrial revolution. Expansion in econom-

ic activity demands greater energy and materials use, and hence, drives greater

emissions. Gross domestic product (GDP) is the most widely-used measure and

11

index of economic production, size, and expansion today. Figure 1 shows how

fossil fuel CO2 emissions and the world gross domestic product (GDP) have grown

exponentially in lock-step with each other over the past two centuries.

The world economy grew the fastest in the last 50 – 60 years, driving with it an

unprecedented increase in human-induced GHG emissions. Consider the fol-

lowing. Between 1820 and 2006, the global GDP experienced a 70-fold expan-

sion, 90% of it occurring after 1950.3 Similarly, the last half century accounts for

80% of the 580-fold growth in fossil carbon emissions between 1820 and 2006,

and 80% of all fossil carbon released into the atmosphere over the same 126-year

period.4, 5

GDP and emissions increases show no signs of letting up (see Figure 2). Projec-

tions see global GDP doubling in the next two decades, from US$ 60 trillion in

2006 to US$ 137 trillion in 2030 [3.5% average annual growth]. Over the same

period, annual energy-related CO2 emissions are projected to increase by 30%,

from 28Gt to 40Gt in 2030 [1.4% average annual growth]. Overall GHG emissions,

including non-energy related CO2 emissions and all other gases, would also rise

by 30%, from 42Gt CO2-eq (billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent) to 56Gt CO

2

by 2030.3 This unabated rise puts the world on a path towards GHG concentra-

tions in the atmosphere rising to 1000ppm CO2-eq by 2100, and global average

temperatures increasing by as much as 6°C.7

Why is the current socio-economic system obsessed with expansion and

growth?

The socio-economic system is what determines how society harnesses nature to

satisfy human needs. The dominant socio-economic system in the world today

is capitalism.

In this system, the machinery, raw materials, and labor-power necessary to run

all modern industry and commerce is owned by a tiny fraction of the population.

In capitalism’s current stage, entire industries are dominated by a few giant fi rms;

the advanced capitalist countries are effectively ruled by a fi nance oligarchy, and

these powerful states dominate the poor and underdeveloped countries of the

South.

Under this system, the economy is divided into numerous autonomous busi-

ness enterprises or corporations. Within each enterprise, internal production

and labor is organized under the direction of the owners. What, how much, and

in what manner various enterprises produce are therefore the private business

of individuals or small groups of individuals who are motivated by the single-

12

Figure 1.

Trend in CO2 Emissions and World GDP (1820-2004)

Source: Carbon Dioxide Analysis Center (CDIAC); 2009; Angus Mad-dison, 2009. World GDP in 1990 Geary-Khamis dollars. No data for World GDP in the years between 1820 -1870, 1870-1900, 1900-1913, 1913-1940, and 1940-1950.

Figure 2.

Projected Rise in CO2

Emissions and World GDP (2010-2030)

Source: International Energy Outlook 2009, Energy Information Administration

1950

13

minded pursuit of profi t.

However, the decisions made by these corporations are often in confl ict with the

interest of society as a whole. Indeed, under this system, goods and services are

produced not to fulfi ll basic human necessities and improve human welfare but

to generate profi t for businesses. In the words of Bolivian President Evo Morales,

“In the hands of capitalism everything becomes a commodity: the water, the soil,

the human genome, the ancestral cultures, justice, ethics, death … and life itself.

Everything, absolutely everything, can be bought and sold and under capital-

ism. And even ‘climate change’ itself has become a business.” People’s needs

and desires are satisfi ed only to the extent that they can afford to pay for these

commodities.

The pursuit of profi t is not just about greed. Competition among business owners

compel them to accumulate capital for whoever has more capital is able to con-

trol more or better equipment, raw materials, adopt new techniques and thereby

prevail over rivals. A shrewd businessman knows that he can only expect to in-

crease his profi ts if he continuously accumulates capital, control more means of

production, depress workers wages, cut down on production costs and expand

the scale of his production. To do otherwise is to risk failure and bankruptcy in

competition. Hence the pre-occupation of business leaders with growth, expan-

sion, and globalization.

But continuous expansion in production of commodities requires ever more raw

materials, energy, labor, and other material inputs in production. Moreover, for

expanding production to actually realize profi ts, it must be matched by increas-

ing consumption which, in turn, requires more environmental resources for as-

similating waste. Capital accumulation therefore entails continuously increasing

demands on nature for material provisions and ecological services for sustaining

and regenerating the conditions for production and consumption.

The rapid growth in production and consumption in the world since the start

of capitalist industrialization is now breaching ecological limits. For instance

the reported amount of marketable minerals extracted globally was 9.6 billion

tons in 1999, nearly twice as much as in 1970. As a result nearly all commercially

important mineral reserves may be depleted within the fi rst half of this century

assuming a mere 2% growth in the rate of extraction, utilizing the existing state

of technology, and assuming same prices and patterns of use. Based on these

estimates, silver reserves are expected to last less than a decade, copper less than

two decades, nickel just over two decades, iron less than fi ve decades, and alu-

minum under seven decades, unless primary extraction rates of these minerals

14

are reduced signifi cantly.

Why does corporate globalization give rise to imperialist plunder and war?

The industrial revolution greatly intensifi ed the demand for raw materials in

Europe and later in the United States. By the eve of the 19th century, the titans

of the new industries, with their insatiable appetites for profi ts and their com-

pulsion to accumulate capital, needed new sources of raw materials, cheaper

labor, and new market outlets. In other words, under monopoly capitalism, the

concentration of capital had reached the point wherein further wealth accumu-

lation required corporate interests to expand overseas, particularly towards the

unindustrialized countries of the South.

The international scope of their economic operations require big business to

seek decisive political infl uence or control over foreign territories in order to se-

cure and further their investments. They must be assured that their properties

overseas would not be expropriated, for example; or that their exchange trans-

actions and contracts would be honored and their loans would be repaid—in

short, they must be assured of continued profi t extraction. For this they must

employ the extensive coercive powers of the imperialist state. Monopoly capital-

ists thus compete directly via their transnational corporations (TNCs) as well as

their states.

Competition among global corporations and rich nations for resources and

greater market shares have led to the colonial and neocolonial subjugation of

Southern peoples, denying them rightful ownership and control of their re-

sources. Colonialism and neocolonialism has transformed the economies of the

global South away from diversifi ed and self-reliant systems towards economies

dependent on capital from and access to markets in the North. This has resulted

in the ecological devastation and exhaustion of land, forests and other natural

resources which directly affect the livelihood of innumerable communities in

the South.

Monopoly capital has thus created a single world economy divided into numer-

ous nation-states occupying fundamentally different positions in the interna-

tional division of labor. This system is dominated by monopoly capital based

in the imperialist countries where fi nance capital as well as advanced technolo-

gies and associated skills are concentrated. A few middle income countries are

the preferred locations for labor-intensive and highly polluting assembly of less

sophisticated manufactures and, increasingly, for services outsourced from the

major economies such as business processing and information technology. Low-

15

income countries remain largely dependent on agriculture, natural resources,

and extractive industries which are also dominated by foreign capital and de-

pendent on foreign markets.

This status quo—the underdevelopment of the South and the economic and po-

litical dominance of Northern powers—is maintained through unequal exchange

in the form of unjust trade, debt, and investment policies and property rights

in favor of monopoly capital. The neoliberal globalization policies imposed by

multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank,

and World Trade Organization over the last three decades have greatly eased the

penetration of monopoly fi rms into the South and accelerated the exploitation of

the people and the raw natural resources in these areas.

But the economic and ecological exploitation of the South is ultimately enforced

by violence and oppression. Atrocious campaigns of wars of aggression have been

waged by imperialist states to expand their territories, gain direct or tighter con-

trol of land, energy, and other natural resources and widen their spheres of infl u-

ence in behalf of monopoly capital. World War I and II were horrifi c examples of

this, but even today’s wars are still very much fuelled by the same dynamic.

For instance, the US considers the control of global oil resources to be in its na-

tional interest. This is not surprising considering the heavy dependence of all

industries and commerce on oil, with the US being the biggest oil consumer of

all. Thus it has a long history of intervention in the Middle East and continues

to fortify its military presence in the oil-and-gas-rich regions around the Persian

Gulf, the Caspian Sea Basin (Central Asia) and the Gulf of Guinea (West Africa),

going so far as to invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq—killing tens of thou-

sands in the process. The US declared the Philippines, Indonesia and Southeast

Asia—a region known for its oil, natural gas and other natural resources—its

“second front against terrorism”. It has relentlessly undermined the government

of Venezuela, which has the biggest oil resources in Latin America and is continu-

ously expanding its infl uence in other Latin American countries (Colombia) and

several African countries to tap potential oil and other mineral resources.

Imperialist states have thus plundered the natural resources and exploited the

people of the South since colonial times, and have used up a much greater share

of the global commons than poorer countries. The recent wars of aggression

of the US and its allies have not only increased the production, sale, and use

weapons of mass destruction but have also caused the massive destruction and

contamination of human property, health, and environment (i.e. use of depleted

uranium, etc.) in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and other war-ravaged countries.

Forest clearings and land conversions, necessitated by continued military exer-

cises in different parts of the world led by the US, pollute the environment and

16

lead to the destruction of natural habitats. Toxic wastes from current and previ-

ous US military bases continue to wreak ecological havoc in the surrounding

areas. US military joint exercises bring with them not only direct US military ag-

gression but the dangerous weapons and waste from these activities.

As a result of all these, the communities that are also the most vulnerable to en-

vironmental backlashes, which come in the form of fl oods, droughts, and other

occurrences, are also the ones deprived or dispossessed of the resources that

they need for their survival. People are displaced from their homes by drought

and sea level rise, and declining food production. Women and children shoulder

the greater cost of these circumstances because of wider risks to their health,

and added complications to their productive and reproductive functions. While

global warming has already brought extreme impacts on livelihood and surviv-

al of entire populations, poor and marginalized communities in the South are

made more vulnerable by structural inequities in their own societies.

What are the main drivers of climate change under the global capitalist system

and what is the role of TNCs in them?

Energy System

The energy sector is the primary driver of GHG emissions. In 2005, energy-relat-

ed activities were responsible for 63% of total GHG emissions and 77% of all CO2

emissions. 28% of GHG emissions and 36% of CO2 emissions came from electric-

ity and heat generation.8

Energy production and use is an important keystone of the modern industrial

economy. Energy powers economic activity. Its constant and increasing supply

is crucial to drive industrialization and economic growth.

It is no exaggeration to say that large-scale and effi cient mass production has

been made possible by the large-scale exploitation, production, and use of the

carbon energy stored in fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas). Fossil fuels pack

much more energy per unit volume than biomass (e.g. wood and plant mat-

ter) which had been the primary energy source in pre-industrial times. Burning

fossil fuels produces signifi cant amounts of energy, far greater than the energy

expended to produce it. Their large-scale use has enabled industrialization, ur-

banization, and mass consumption. Fossil fuels became the dominant energy

source in the last century, and remain so today, accounting for 81% of world total

energy supply and 67% of fi nal consumption in 2007. Oil is the chief fossil fuel,

accounting for 63% of fossil fuel consumption and 41% of fossil energy supply.9

17

Other sectors of the industrial economy co-evolved with a fossil-dependent energy system. Therefore, technologies, production, investment patterns have become carbon-dependent as well. Transportation infrastructure, the automo-bile industry, power generation and transmission systems, urban and suburban expansion, large-scale food production and distribution, international trade—these are systems organized for large-scale, fossil-fuelled operation. Consump-tion patterns are also shaped according to this structure, reinforcing the carbon-dependence of the whole system.

Integrated oil companies are the largest and most infl uential in the industry. They have control over every level of the global value chain, from extraction,

Table 1. Top Oil and Gas Companies

Top 10 Oil and Gas Companies, by Production (2005)

Company Total production, in BBOE*

Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia) 4.148

Gazprom (Russia) 3.608

National Iranian Oil (Iran) 1.81

ExxonMobil (USA) 1.725

Pemex (Mexico) 1.666

BP (UK) 1.572

Royal Dutch Shell (Netherlands/UK) 1.482

CNPC/Petro China (China) 1.119

Total (France) 0.997

Sonatrach (Algeria) 0.991

Top 10 Oil and Gas Companies, by Revenue (2009)

Company Revenue,

in billion USD

Royal Dutch Shell (Netherlands/UK) 458.36

ExxonMobil (USA) 442.85

BP (UK) 367.05

Chevron (USA) 263.15

Total (France) 234.67

Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia) 233.30**

Conoco Philips (USA) 230.76

Sinopec (China) 207.81

ENI (Italy) 159.34

National Iranian Oil (Iran) 145.50***

Note: Companies in italics are Supermajors.*billion barrels of oil equivalent; ** 2008 revenue, from Yahoo! Finance; ***2005 revenue, from IBON, 2008

Source: www.petrostrategies.org; UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2007; 2009 Fortune Global 500

18

to production, to refi ning, distribution, and the marketing of fuel. Today, state-owned oil and gas corporations from the oil-rich regions of the South make up the world’s top companies in terms of reserves and production volume. The in-dustry’s “Supermajors”,10 the six largest private Euro-American TNCs that tradi-tionally dominated the industry, still lead in terms of revenue, foreign assets, and foreign production11 (see Table1).

Agricultural and Food System

Agriculture contributes signifi cantly to global GHG emissions. In 2005, agricul-ture accounted for 13.8% of GHG emissions. These GHGs are mainly in the form of CH

4 and N

2O. The sector is responsible for 51.4% of global CH

4 emissions, and

84.7% of N2O emissions, making it the largest source of both GHGs.12

What has been driving emissions, however, is not agriculture per se, but a specif-ic type of agricultural production—namely, large-scale industrial agriculture. In-dustrial agriculture is the dominant model of producing food under capitalism, promoted by TNCs and international lending institutions. It is based on large-scale farms that specialize in single animal products or cash crops. Production is resource-intensive, involving the heavy use of machines, chemical inputs, and energy in order to increase yields. Produce are processed and shipped around the world, but end up mainly in the North for their consumption.

Emissions arise from almost every stage of industrial food production. First, it requires tremendous amounts of energy. The manufacture of inorganic fertiliz-ers and other synthetic agrochemicals such as pesticides consumes fossil fuels, and thus results in CO

2 emissions. Fossil fuels also power irrigation and farm

machinery, including those that apply the chemicals on farmland. More fossil fuels are used in processing, packaging, refrigerating, transporting, and storing the food.

The actual use of fertilizers generates N2O emissions. Only about half of the ni-

trogen contained in fertilizers are absorbed by crops, with the rest accumulat-ing in the soil and released into the atmosphere as N

2O. Fertilizer application

degrades the soil, creating the need to apply more fertilizers. Livestock raised in confi ned and overcrowded conditions such as in factory farms produce large emissions of CH

4 during digestion and from animal manure.

This kind of agricultural system is perpetuated by TNCs which control the entire food chain. Seed, fertilizer, and agrochemical companies control the upstream segment of the food chain as producers of inputs to production. The power of TNC suppliers of inputs is signifi cant, especially when they control key tech-nologies. In 2007, the top ten seed companies and top ten pesticide fi rms ac-counted for 67% and 89% of their respective markets.13 The development of

19

seeds and agrochemicals as co-dependent products allows the largest TNCs to have an interlocking presence in both sectors. Four corporations—Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, and Bayer—control about half of both the seed and pesticide markets (see Table 2).

Food and beverage manufacturers, supermarkets, and fast foods dominate the downstream segment of the food chain. The top ten food and beverage processors and grocery retailers, respectively, control a quarter of their respective markets.14 These TNCs infl uence production by imposing standards on contracted farmers, driving them, for instance, to limit their choice of seed suppliers or adapt specif-ic farming patterns such as using fertilizers and pesticides. Their dominance of processing and distribution favor the expansion of large-scale, capital intensive, mono-cropping farming operations.

Transportation system

Transportation accounts for 12.2% of 2005 total GHG emissions, 15.8% of CO2

emissions, and 18% of energy-related CO2 emissions. Emissions from interna-

tional bunkers, or fuel used for international shipping and aviation, contribute another 2.1%% of GHG emissions and 2.8% of CO

2 emissions.15 The sector is oil

dependent. Oil use amounts to 96% of transportation energy supply and pro-duces 97% of transportation emissions in 2000.16

Table 2.

Top Seed Companies (2007) Top Pesticide Firms (2007)

CompanySeed

sales*

Market

share

%

CompanyAgrochemi-

cal sales*

Market

share

%

1 Monsanto (USA) 4,964 23 1 Bayer (Germany) 7,458 19

2 DuPont (USA) 3,300 15 2 Syngenta (Switzerland) 7,285 19

3 Syngenta (Switzerland) 2,018 9 3 BASF (Germany) 4,297 11

4 Groupe Limagrain (France) 1,226 6 4 Dow Agro Sciences (USA) 3,779 10

5 Land O'Lakes (US) 917 4 5 Monsanto (USA) 3,599 9

6 KWS AG (Germany) 702 3 6 Dupont (USA) 2,369 6

7 Bayer CropScience (Germany) 524 2 7 Makhteshim Agan(Israel) 1,895 5

8 Sakata (Japan) 396 <2 8 Nufarm (Australia) 1,470 4

9 DLF-Trifolium (Denmark) 391 <2 9 Sumitomo (Japan) 1,209 3

10 Takii (Japan) 347 <2 10 Arysta (Japan) 1,035 3

* sales in million USD

Source: ETC Group, 2008

20

Table 3.

Top Motor Vehicle TNCs, by Production

CompanyOutput (2008),

in millions% of total

Revenue (2009),

in billion USD

1 Toyota (Japan) 9.23 13.3 204.35

2 General Motors (USA) 8.28 11.9 148.98

3 Volkswagen (Germany) 6.43 9.3 166.58

4 Ford (USA) 5.40 7.8 146.28

5 Honda (Japan) 3.91 5.6 99.65

6 Nissan (Japan) 3.39 4.9 83.98

7 PSA Peugeot (France) 3.32 4.8 79.56

8 Hyundai (South Korea) 2.77 4 72.54

9 Suzuki (Japan) 2.62 3.8 29.91

10 Fiat (Italy) 2.52 3.6 86.91

Sources: International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (www.oica.net); 2009 Forbes Global 500

Road transport is the biggest contributor to transportation emissions. In 2000, emissions from motor vehicles were responsible for 72% of emissions within the sector.17 Since 2007, the world has been producing upwards of 70 million com-mercial motor vehicles per year, up from 58 million in 2000, and 30-40 million in the 1990s. Passenger cars make up 70% of total production. Today, there are over 600 million cars travelling the world’s highways and streets, and 80% of these are in developed countries.18

Apart from the GHGs and pollutants they directly emit from car travel, automo-biles cause other related problems. Cars are resource-intensive and ineffi cient. Plastic, glass, rubber, electronics, and around 20 different metals and alloys are required to construct a 2-ton car that, when sold, will transport a 150-pound person by burning enormous amounts of fossil fuels. Because they make liv-ing farther away from workplaces in cities possible, cars promote the dispersed suburban living patterns, the construction of road networks, and thus, more car use. This in turn drives land conversion and deforestation to make way for more roads and residential spaces as urban frontiers expand further out into surrounding areas.

Northern TNCs dominate the automobile industry. The ten leading auto manu-facturers produce nearly 70% of the global motor vehicle supply, with the top two—Toyota and General Motors—accounting for 25%. Through their market shares, as well as their design and production standards, auto TNCs determine the fuel economy of the world’s motor vehicle fl eet. They have also had a role in reducing possibilities for alternative and more effi cient modes of transportation (see Box 1).

21

In 2005, international marine and air transport was responsible for 900 MtCO2-

eq (million tons) of GHG emissions, or about 2% of the global total. This may seem small, but it exceeds the combined GHG emissions of all 49 Least Devel-oped Countries. International aviation and marine transportation—but espe-cially the latter—have become more important with the internationalization of production and the expansion of global trade. Ocean shipping carries more than 80% of internationally traded goods (see Box 2).

Why are advanced industrialized countries principally responsible for causing climate change?

Examining the source of GHGs by country, science also points out that the ad-vanced industrialized countries are the source of the lion’s share of the GHG emissions stock in the atmosphere that is causing global warming. This is con-fi rmed by Table 4 below which shows that the Group of Eight (G8) leading in-dustrialized countries alone account for over half of cumulative CO

2 emissions

Box 1.

General Motors’ undermining of American mass rail transportation

In the United States, automobile corporations played a major role in the decimation of rail

transport. In the 1920s, when the United States market for cars showed its fi rst signs of satu-

ration, vehicle, oil and tire producers adopted specifi c strategies to create additional demand

for road vehicles by diverting rail passengers and freight to buses, cars and trucks. General

Motors, in particular, set up intercity bus services starting 1926 and, in 1932, began buying

up, operating, and then converting electric railway and streetcar systems to diesel buses…

Success with intercity buses moved General Motors to use similar approaches within cities,

acquiring and replacing local electric transit systems with buses. When it was censured in

1935 for this self-serving action…it then shifted to more indirect methods and combined with

other corporations to achieve the same end. The world’s largest electric streetcar system

in New York City was converted to buses in only 18 months. From 1936 to 1945, a holding

company, organized by General Motors together with Firestone Tire, Standard Oil and Mack

Truck, bought up and destroyed streetcar systems in 45 cities in the United States.

Similarly destructive strategies for freight transport were followed by corporations. From

1939 to 1972, United States railroads lost not only 50 per cent of their passenger traffi c, but

also nearly 75 per cent of all freight revenue. In addition, the General Motors diesel locomo-

tives were less durable, less effi cient and more polluting than the electric locomotives they

replaced.

Relative profi tability of road or rail transport is also substantially affected by government

subsidizing of different elements in the total cost, such as in the construction of highways.

In 1932, the president of General Motors played a leading role in establishing the National

Highway Users’ Conference with a view to channeling state and local gasoline taxes and

highway taxes solely for highway purposes, and developing a continuing program of highway

construction.

Source: UN Center on Transnational Corporations, Climate Change and Transnational Corpora-tions: Analysis and Trends, Environment Series no. 2 (New York: United Nations, 1992), 57-58.

22

in the atmosphere since 1950 even as their combined population is less than 15 % of the world. The wealthy group of countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) contributed 60 % of cumula-tive CO

2 emissions since 1950 and more than three times as much as the world

average on a per capita basis.

This even understates the share of the advanced industrialized countries be-cause the current offi cial CO

2 accounting framework followed by the UNFCCC

ascribes all GHG emissions to the country where these were generated regard-less of whether the associated output produced is for local consumption or for export.25 So the GHG emissions generated by a European TNC that operates a manufacturing plant in China that exports all of its output to the US, Japan and/

Box 2.

Ecologically wasteful trade

The growth of international trade is one of the most marked aspects of capitalism’s global ex-pansion. Over the last six decades, the value of merchandise exports grew more than 200-fold, from $62 billion in 1950, to $16 trillion—about a quarter of world GDP—in 2008.19

The increased fl ow of goods between countries relates especially to the dominance of TNCs and the internationalization of production. TNCs disperse segments of production to countries with the biggest subsidies and lowest costs, and integrate them into a central production chain, creating interdependent economies. This means supplies and inputs may be produced in one country, shipped to another for processing, and transported to another for fi nal assem-bly, before delivery and sale in the market. Intra-fi rm trade, or trade between entities of the same TNC, account for roughly one-third of all trans-boundary trade, and roughly another third is attributable to trade between TNCs and related parties.20

Because the global economy now systematically encourages trade, transport and shipping activity have increased. More energy is expended now than ever before to moving supplies and fi nal products, in faster rates and longer distances. Consider food. In the United States, it is calculated that transporting food accounts for 20% of all domestic transport of com-modities, resulting in 120Mt (million tons) of CO

2 emissions. Another 120Mt of CO

2 come from

the import and export of food. This does not include CO2 produced in transporting inputs to

industrial farms, transporting plastic and paper to packaging sites, and moving consumers to their supermarkets. Food processing, freezing, and packaging account for around 20% of the energy consumed in the US food system.21

More wastage comes into sight when we consider how much of the trade fl ows are redundant. Identical products of almost similar quantities are simultaneously being shipped in and out of countries. For instance, the US imports almonds from such countries as Turkey, Germany, and China, despite being the world’s largest almond grower.22 China is a top citrus and grape producer, but still imports the same commodities from California.23 In 2004, the United King-dom imported 1.5 million kilos of potatoes from Germany, only to send them 1.5 million kilos of the same crop; imported 10.2 million kilos of milk and cream from France, and exported 9.9 million kilos of the same; imported 20 tons of butter from the US, and sent them 34 tons of the same; imported 44,000 tons of frozen boneless chicken cuts, and exported 51,000 tons of fresh boneless chicken cuts.24

23

or back to the EU would be counted entirely as GHG emissions from China. Di-eter Helm, Professor of Energy Policy at Oxford University, estimates that “if this carbon outsourcing is factored back in, the UK’s impressive emissions cuts over the past two decades don’t look so impressive anymore. Rather than falling by over 15 % since 1990, they actually rose by around 19 %.”26

Table 4.

Cumulative CO2 Emissions (energy) from top 20 emitting countries, 1950-2004

Country/

Economy

Million metric

tons (MtCO2)

RankShare of World

Total

Cumulative share

of World Total

Tons CO2 Per

PersonRank

United States of

America236,064.70 1 26.67% 26.67% 803.9 2

China 87,444.30 2 9.88% 36.55% 67.5 91

Russian Federa-

tion83,565.60 3 9.44% 45.99% 580.9 12

Germany 50,802.40 4 5.74% 51.73% 615.7 9

Japan 42,696.20 5 4.82% 56.55% 334.2 32

United Kingdom 31,974.20 6 3.61% 60.16% 534.4 13

India 22,918.40 7 2.59% 62.75% 21.2 123

Ukraine 21,252.30 8 2.40% 65.15% 448 18

France 20,252.30 9 2.29% 67.44% 334.6 31

Canada 19,562.60 10 2.21% 69.65% 611.5 10

Poland 17,072.00 11 1.93% 71.58% 447.1 19

Italy 16,200.30 12 1.83% 73.41% 278.5 39

South Africa 11,770.20 13 1.33% 74.74% 253.9 45

Mexico 10,985.00 14 1.24% 75.98% 107.6 78

Australia 10,568.50 15 1.19% 77.17% 526 14

Kazakhstan 9,271.80 16 1.05% 78.22% 617.6 7

Spain 9,008.40 17 1.02% 79.24% 211 52

Korea (South) 8,888.10 18 1.00% 80.24% 184.9 58

Brazil 8,794.70 19 0.99% 81.23% 47.8 99

Iran 7,460.20 20 0.84% 82.07% 110.8 75

Memo items

Top 25 Emitters 759,473.10 85.55% 193.4

G8 501,118.30 56.45% 583.8

European Union

(25)191,770.00 21.67% 418.3

OECD 526,871.60 59.35% 454.5

World 887,716.00 100.00% 140.2

Source: Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT) Version 5.0. (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 2008).

24

PART 2

Market-based and profi t-oriented false solutions

While many corporations, and most governments, and international fi nancial institutions do acknowledge the gravity and urgency of the climate crisis, the solutions they offer fall far short of delivering the far-reaching changes that are necessary to transition away from fossil-fuel dependence and towards a sustain-able development path. Business leaders and policy-makers prefer to promote technological solutions (such as nuclear energy, biofuels, carbon capture and storage, genetically “climate-readied” crops, geoengineering, etc.) and market mechanisms (such as carbon-trading , and carbon offsets) because these do not seriously threaten their bottomlines, at least within the forecasting horizons of corporate boardrooms. But these maintain the unjust and unsustainable cor-porate-led and profi t-centered economic system that ultimately engenders this crisis. Indeed, these false solutions may even make things worse as they pose threats to the health, security, and livelihood of local and indigenous communi-ties.

What is wrong with carbon trading and offsetting?

Carbon trading, also called “cap-and-trade”, is essentially the trading of rights or permits to dump GHGs into the atmosphere. The system starts with govern-ments setting mandatory caps on the overall quantity of CO

2 that emitters (coun-

tries or companies) are allowed to emit. The capped emissions are then allocated among emitters, each one receiving an emissions allowance. Authorities then is-sue emitters an equivalent number of permits, representing their right to emit within their allowance. Finally, emitters trade the permits among themselves. In theory, the supply of carbon permits will drop progressively, making them scarcer and more expensive, while at the same time forcing a reduction in the overall level of emissions. The “cap” part of the equation sets a legal limit on lev-els of allowable emissions within a given period. The “trade” part of the equation does not actually reduce emissions. Instead of making each polluter implement measures to actually reduce their emissions, trading gives polluters that presum-ably face high mitigation costs the “fl exibility” to simply buy the “spare” permits of those who are able to reduce their emissions more cheaply. Companies that

25

want to keep on polluting save money, while those that reduce emissions beyond their legal requirements to do so profi t by selling excess permits. The principle is that trading allows for overall economy-wide emissions reductions costs to be reduced to a minimum.

Another “fl exibility” that carbon trading schemes afford polluters is carbon off-setting. Under offsetting arrangements, emitters who are subject to emissions caps fund cheaper GHG-saving projects elsewhere. Most offsetting projects take place in the South where mitigation actions are thought to be cheaper than do-mestic actions. Offset project types include forestry projects that trap carbon; GHG capture and destruction; energy effi ciency; and renewable energy. Funding for these projects ostensibly help poor countries develop along low-carbon path-ways. Offset projects earn carbon credits, which are equivalent to the amount of GHG emissions saved, removed, or avoided by the project than would have been emitted in the project’s absence. Emitters can use these credits to offset their emissions in order to stay within their allowances, or trade them with other pol-luters looking to offset their emissions.

The main problem with carbon trading is that it provides a mechanism for the polluting sectors of the economy to delay the immediate, drastic, and necessar-ily costly steps that need to be taken in order to transition into a sustainable, non-fossil fuel future. The existence of the least-cost option that carbon trad-ing and offsetting provides (purchasing cheap emissions permits backed by easy emissions reductions that do little to overcome fossil fuel dependence) eases the pressure on societies especially of the North to make the necessary adjustments on the way their economies operate.

Carbon trading is, by design, not even primarily concerned with reducing emissions, which direct government regulation without any trading could well achieve. It is mainly about giving polluters a legitimate way to comply with their emissions obligations in the cheapest or most profi table manner. Carbon trad-ing does this by treating different kinds of emissions and emissions reductions—done anywhere, in whatever economic sector or country, at whatever cost and whatever manner—as equivalent and therefore tradable.

As Larry Lohmann puts it, “Abstracting from place, technology and history, car-bon trading achieves its ‘economies’ by putting off technological change and in-vestment in a long-term non-fossil future. It confuses ‘investment’ in the sense of ‘short-term money-making venture’ with ‘investment’ in the sense of ‘founda-tion for a secure future’.”27

For governments and large corporations, mainly of the North, the appeal of car-bon trading is that “they give the appearance of addressing climate change but do not mandate an immediate start to structural change in existing energy prac-tice, production or consumption patterns.”28

26

Carbon trading also locks in Southern societies to unsustainable pathways through carbon offsetting projects. Many of the GHG-saving projects in the South that receive funding from offset credit purchases involve large polluting corpora-tions making minor technical adjustments to their operations.

For instance, over 200 million carbon offset credits or Certifi cate of Emissions Reductions (CERs)—54% of all CERs issued so far—are due to projects that de-stroy hydrofl uorocarbon (HFC) emissions.29 Because HFC has a warming po-tential 11,700 times that of CO

2, a single ton of HFC reduction is equivalent to

11,700 offset credits. Just over 40,000 tons of HFC emissions have to be avoided in order to produce 200 million offset credits, which is enough to offset nearly all of the Netherlands’ 2006 CO

2 emissions.30 However, HFCs are easy to burn or

capture through low-cost measures. Destroying the HFCs requires a simple and relatively cheap piece of equipment called a scrubber. Many US and European manufacturers voluntarily eliminated their HFC emissions in the 1990s. The po-tential windfall profi ts from destroying HFC using offset credit revenues may be large enough to dwarf earnings from selling actual products. This gives industrial

Box 3.

CDM in China

Back in November 2008, International Rivers conducted an investigation of the site of the Xi-

aoxi Dam on the Zishui River in China. Their research documented a long series of problems,

including the forced eviction of 7,500 people, the failure to restore pre-eviction incomes,

arbitrary and inadequate compensation for displaced villagers, no legal recourse for those suf-

fering losses, and a biased Environmental Impact Assessment process. As one evicted villager

described it, “Nobody asked if we wanted to move… The government just posted a notice that

said, ’Your home will be demolished.’”

…Adding insult to injury, the dam received carbon offsets that would allow German company

RWE, located 7,500 kilometers away, to build more dirty coal plants in Europe. That’s because

Xiaoxi is part of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a controversial program set up

under the Kyoto Protocol that allows developed countries like Germany to offset their emis-

sions reductions through carbon credits purchased from projects in developing countries.

RWE is one of the biggest CO2 emitters in Europe and intends to buy CDM credits from Xiaoxi

so that it can legally meet its emission reduction commitments while continuing to expand its

coal-fi red electricity generation.

RWE is legally allowed to emit 450,000 tons of greenhouse gases above their emission reduc-

tion targets each year, thanks to the Xiaoxi credits. Altogether, RWE intends to buy 14 million

credits by 2012 from 41 projects. These would allow RWE to emit 14 million metric tonnes of

emissions above its legal target – more than 1% of Germany’s annual emissions.

As of October, China has at least 910 hydro projects in the CDM approval pipeline and is add-

ing an average of 25 a month. By 2012, those projects alone are expected to generate more

than 300 million “certifi ed emission reductions,” each supposedly representing the reduction

of one tonne of carbon dioxide. Those credits would be worth billions of dollars.

From: Katy Yan, “Chinese Dams Under Fire, But Germany in the Hot Seat,” World Rivers Review, December 2009, 11.

27

gas manufacturers in the South a perverse incentive to increase their production of refrigerants in order to generate more HFCs to be destroyed and earn more CERs.

Offsetting also funds similar non-transformative projects such as monoculture tree plantations, hydroelectric dams, and methane-burning from waste dumps or factory farms. Currently, there are proposals to allow emissions reductions achieved from other projects to be eligible for offset funding. These include car-bon capture and storage, biochar, agrofuels, nuclear energy, and ocean fertiliza-tion, which are similarly non-solutions to the root causes of climate change.

In many cases, industrial or energy units that receive offset funding have im-pacted surrounding communities through displacement and repression (see Box 3).

What is wrong with carbon capture and storage (CCS)?

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a mitigation technology based on captur-ing CO

2 emissions from fossil fuel use, transporting them, and injecting them

into geologic formations deep underground for long-term or permanent stor-age. CCS is primarily considered for coal power plants.

While the component technologies are currently deployed on industrial scales, CCS has not yet been deployed at a commercial-scale coal power plant. It is un-clear that it will work or that it will be commercially viable in time to have a sig-nifi cant impact on the mitigation of climate change. Even proponents recognize that CCS is unlikely to be widely operational until at least 2030, too late if we were to avert climate catastrophe.

CCS is quite different from other mitigation strategies in one respect. It is not an attempt to wean society away from fossil fuel use. It assumes that we can keep on burning fossil fuels or even expand their use by being able to bury CO

2 safely.

But safety is a serious issue for CCS. It is reasonable to assume that some CO2 will

leak, either from the storage sites underground or from the pipelines through which the gas is moved. If CCS were to become the main route of CO

2 reduc-

tions, thousands of people may in the future fi nd themselves sitting on a giant bubble of CO

2. This would be a hazard because CO

2 at high concentrations is an

asphyxiant. CO2 can escape through cracks and faults underground and pool in

unforeseen locations. An earthquake strong enough to shake the CO2 loose or

cause pipeline failure could trigger the sudden release of large amounts of CO2.

This could result in the immediate death of both people and animals living close by.

The sustainability of CCS is also suspect. In the US, the storage wells that are

28

needed to be drilled annually in order to bury all the country’s additional CO2

emissions and keep them at 2005 levels exceeds the rate by which new oil and gas wells are currently being drilled by a factor of seven (300,000, compared to 40,000).31 Construction costs alone could well exceed $3 trillion by 2030. This is not to mention the energy costs entailed in mounting such an effort, as well as the monetary and energy costs needed to maintain and constantly monitor CCS installations to avoid leakages.

All told, CCS is too costly for a strategy that is unsafe, and that encourages our dependency on fossil fuels and centralized energy systems.

What is wrong with nuclear energy, megadams, and agrofuels?

Nuclear energy

Currently, there are more than 400 commercial power-generating reactors oper-ating worldwide, with about a quarter in the US. Collectively they produce about 6% the world’s energy supply, and 15% of its electricity. Nuclear energy is pre-sented as a ‘clean’ stand-in for fossil fuel energy since it does not emit CO

2 to

generate electricity. In reality, only reactor-operation is CO2-free. But vast energy

supplies are consumed in every other stage of the process. Nuclear plants have to be constructed; uranium has to be mined, milled, fabricated, enriched, and transported; nuclear waste has to be stored; and eventually the plant has to be decommissioned. All these actions consume fossil fuel energy and produce car-bon emissions.

The mining for uranium, the fuel for the nuclear cycle, occurs largely in vast open-cast pits. Most uranium mining is volume-intensive. About 1,000 tons of typical-grade uranium ore needs to be crushed in order to produce just one ton of useful fuel. The other 999 tons of radioactive rock is left in the environment where its radioactive particles are free to leach out. Mining also entails the pro-duction of large amounts of tailings—100 to 1,000 times the amount of the actual uranium extracted.

Like fossil fuels, uranium is a not a renewable resource. Uranium production is likely to peak in the next 30 to 40 years, which means we can expect nuclear fuel to become more expensive and scarce in the coming decades. Already, the best reserves have been depleted, as evidenced by the signifi cant decline in the aver-age grade of uranium ore mined in recent years. It is possible to recycle the fuel and employ alternatives to uranium, but the technology to do this has not yet been developed.

Constructing and operating nuclear power plants are extremely costly, and take far longer to build than most other energy sources—so much so that only with taxpayer money (through government subsidies) covering initial costs is nuclear

29

power at all an energy option. Lifecycle monetary and energy costs include waste disposal, storage, and plant decommissioning.

Megadams

Hydropower currently supplies of 19-20% electricity worldwide, with 15% com-ing from large hydropower. This represents 6% of the global energy supply.32 It is the most widely used form of renewable energy. Hydropower relies on the po-tential energy stored in water kept behind dams to generate electricity. Because hydroelectric dams produce signifi cant amounts of energy without burning fos-sil fuels, they are seen as viable alternatives to fossil-powered plants.

However, hydroelectric dams, especially the large ones, still have signifi cant neg-ative ecological and social impacts. Dams kill ecosystems by fl ooding hundreds or thousands of hectares of forest. The decomposition of trees and other fl ooded organic material produces GHGs, especially methane (CH

4), a GHG twenty-one

times more potent than CO2. The GHGs are released when water is discharged

through spillways or through bubbles that bubble up from the reservoir bottom. Seasonal changes in water depth mean there is a continuous supply of decaying material. In the dry season, plants grow on the banks of the reservoir as the water retreats, only to be submerged again when the water level rises.

It is reported that dam reservoirs worldwide release up to 70 million tons of CH4

and around 1 billion tons of CO2 annually. This is equivalent to about 20% of total

anthropogenic CH4 emissions and 4% of anthropogenic CO

2 emissions. Further,

it is calculated that on average, hydro emissions from reservoirs located in the tropics produce 200-3,000 gCO

2-eq/kWh (grams of CO

2-equivalent per kilowatt-

hour). By comparison, a coal-fi red power plant releases 1,000 gCO2-eq/kWh.33

The fl ooding of upstream habitat due to dam construction kills not only plants but also communities. Large dam and reservoir construction have physically displaced about 40 to 80 million people worldwide, most of whom have never regained their former livelihoods. In many cases, communities that resist are brutally-evicted by government force. While dams have improved energy access especially in developing countries, their benefi ts have mostly accrued to foreign corporations in need of increased and constant energy supply. The marginal benefi ts they provide the poor—such as power, and water for drinking or irriga-tion—whenever present, hardly justify the social costs they exact on upland and upstream communities.

Agrofuels

Agrofuels are liquid fuels manufactured from plants grown in large-scale mon-oculture crop plantations. Ethanol and biodiesel are two main types of agrofuels.

30

Ethanol can be manufactured mainly from crops with high sugar content such as sugarcane, and crops with rich starch content, such as corn. Biodiesel comes from oil crops, such as rapeseed, palm, soybean, and jatropha.

The surge in demand for these plant-based fuels have been triggered by North-ern governments—such as in the European Union and the US—setting targets for blending agrofuels with conventional gasoline for running their cars. Ethanol production has seen a high annual growth rate of 15% between 2000 and 2006. In 2008, over 17 billion gallons of ethanol were produced globally, of which the US and Brazil accounted for 89%. Biodesel production meanwhile has been growing 40% per year between 2002 and 2007. Total biodiesel production in 2006 was 5-6 million tons.

There are many problems associated with agrofuels. First is the fact that they are produced to power technologies, most notably automobiles, designed to run on fossil fuels. This means they are giving these fossil fuel technologies and the as-sociated infrastructure (e.g. the transportation system, described above) a new lease on life, instead of being replaced altogether. Auto manufacturers now pro-duce cars whose engines can run on a blend of agrofuels and gasoline.

Second is that it requires vast tracts of land to grow the feedstock necessary to produce agrofuels at a scale that could even slightly dent the dominance of con-ventional fossil fuels. One reason is that agrofuels are a poor substitute for liq-uid fossil fuels. They contain only a fraction of the energy stored in gasoline or crude oil, such that agrofuels have to be consumed in larger amounts in order to produce the same amount of energy from fossil sources.34 Consequently, they will have to be grown more extensively. Consider the following. It is estimated that even if the US used all the corn it grows to produce ethanol with nothing left for food or animal feeds, ethanol would only displace 15% of the domestic gasoline demand.35 Similarly, if the UK decided to use all its land to produce rapeseed biodiesel and corn bioethanol equivalent to its current diesel and pet-rol energy use, it would need land the size of around one and a half UKs (36 mil-lion hectares). Finally, if bioethanol were to displace global petrol production by just 10%, Brazil would have to increase its ethanol production by a factor of 40, which would result in the destruction of around 35% of the remaining Amazon rainforest.36

Increased deforestation, and the diversion of grain and arable land from food to agrofuel production, especially in the South, are direct consequences of growing agrofuel production. The spike in grain prices and the resulting food shortages in the 2007-2008 are widely attributed to the expansion of agrofuel production. The expansion of palm oil plantations is a main driver of deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia. In Brazil, the expansion of sugarcane and soy plantations encour-age deforestation, both in the Amazon and its Atlantic coastal forests.

A third problem is that agrofuels are produced through industrial agriculture.

31

As discussed above (see Agricultural and Food System), industrial agriculture produces GHG emissions due to extensive fossil fuel, chemical use, as well as deforestation. GHG emissions produced during the lifecycle of an agrofuel far outweigh its mitigation contributions as a fossil fuel substitute. Deforestation for ethanol production alone causes the release of CO

2 17 to 420 times greater than

the CO2 saved by the displacement of fossil fuels. Further, it is estimated that it

will take 100 years for the climate benefi ts of biodiesel production from each acre of land to make up for the CO

2 emissions from losing the rainforest. Another

study found that making corn ethanol requires 29% more fossil fuel than the net energy produced, and that making biodiesel from soy results in a net energy loss of 27% (more energy expended than created).37

What is wrong with geongineering?

Geoengineering refers to the intentional, large-scale human intervention in the environment to counteract global warming and climate change. It is a techno-fi x

Table 5.

Some SRM Geoengineering Technologies

Geoengineering

TechnologyDescription

Countries of Key

Researcher/

Advocate

Aerosolized sulfates in the stratosphere

Pumping aerosolized sulfates into the stratosphere to block sunlight, thereby lowering the Earth’s temperature. This has no effect on the level of GHGs in atmosphere.

Germany, Russia, USA

Space sunshades

Trillions of small, free-fl ying spacecrafts would be launched a million miles above the Earth to form a cylindrical “cloud” 60,000 miles long, aligned with the orbit of the sun, which should divert about 10% of sunlight away from the planet.

USA

Space mirrorsPutting a superfi ne refl ective mesh of aluminum threads between the Earth and the sun.

USA

Cloud whitening

Spraying seawater into clouds to increase their condensation nuclei; the clouds will be “whiter” and will refl ect more of the sunlight away from Earth.

UK

Desert coveringCovering large expanses of deserts with refl ective sheets to refl ect sunlight away from the Earth.

USA

Arctic ice coveringCovering snowpack or glaciers in the Arc-tic with insulating material or a nano-fi lm to refl ect sunlight and prevent melting.

USA

Source: Diana Bronson, Pat Mooney, and Kathy Jo Wetter, Retooling the Planet? Climate Chaos in the Geoengineering Age (Stockholm: Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, 2009), 19-20.

32

to problems that result from human activities. Geoengineering schemes include shooting sulfates into the stratosphere to refl ect the sun’s energy back into space; pouring iron and other nutrients in the oceans to grow CO

2-absorbing plankton

populations; whitening clouds by spraying seawater on them; and engineering “climate-ready” crops that have refl ective leaves.

There are two main geoengineering approaches. They are solar radiation man-agement (SRM), and carbon dioxide removal (CDR).

SRM techniques focus on countering global warming by reducing the radiation absorbed by the Earth and increasing the radiation of sunlight back into space. SRM technologies do not seek to address, much less stop, the unsustainable in-crease of GHGs in the atmosphere. They are only intended to counter its warm-ing effect. By not even requiring absolute reductions in GHG emissions, SRM in-terventions are non-solutions. Further, because they focus only on reducing or refl ecting the sun’s heat, their sudden removal or malfunctioning would lead to drastic and quick temperature increases. As much as 2-4C in temperature change per decade could occur if SRM interventions terminated abruptly, in the context of CO

2 concentrations that was left to increase.38

Another blind spot in SRM interventions is the problem of ocean acidifi cation. Theoretically, with SRM technologies, atmospheric GHGs can increase without the commensurate temperature rise. But oceans will continue to absorb more CO

2 from the atmosphere as a result of the increased CO

2. When oceans absorb

CO2, they become acidic. Ocean acidifi cation causes coral bleaching and other

negative effects.

CDR interventions are geoengineering schemes that seek to remove or seques-ter CO

2 from the atmosphere through the use of mechanical devices, or the ma-

nipulation of carbon sinks in order to increase their CO2 absorption. Most CDR

schemes involve modifying complex ecosystems which are likely to cause unpre-dictable side effects. Many of these techniques require extensive access to land and oceans, and changes in the way they are used. This can affect poor and mar-ginalized people who depend on them for livelihood.

Both CDR and SRM are relatively under researched technologies. Specifi cally with respect to SRM, there has been limited consideration in these proposals on the impact of continued increases in CO

2.

To date, no large-scale geoengineering projects have been undertaken. Most technologies still do not exist. But conservative scientifi c and political circles from the North are already warming up to the idea. Ocean iron fertilization is at an advanced stage of research, with small-scale research trials and global model-ling having been completed.

Only the world’s richest countries and corporations can mobilize the fi nancial and technological resources to research, develop, and deploy such planet-scale

33

schemes. It is likely that the major geoengineering players of the future will be the same energy, chemical, forestry, and agribusiness corporations that are in the forefront of climate change in the fi rst place.

Research and implementation of some geoengineering interventions require the use of commons, such as the atmosphere and oceans. This means adverse ef-fects will be trans-boundary. This may also mean that decisions over how these commons are used are handed over to geoengineering companies. For instance, a patent granted to the CEO of the company Ocean Nourishment Corporation grants him legal ownership over any fi sh caught from that patch of the ocean where his fi sh-attracting method of dumping urea for fertilization was used.39

Moreover, if geoengineering schemes that require the extensive use of land and seawater were made eligible to receive offset funding, companies will have the incentive to effectively enclose these resources and subordinate their other eco-logical functions—e.g. as sources of food and livelihood for people—to their profi t-making functions as emissions offsetters or sinks.

Table 6.

Some CDR Geoengineering Technologies

Geoengineering technology Description

Countries of Major

Researcher/

Advocate

Ocean fertilization with iron or nitrogen

Adding nutrients to ocean water to stimulate the growth of CO

2 -absorb-

ing phytoplankton to promote carbon ocean sequestration of CO

2.

Australia, India, USA

Ocean upwelling or down-welling enhancement

Using pipes to bring up nitrogen or phosphorous enriched seawater to the surface to cool surface waters and en-hance ocean sequestration of CO

2.

UK

Adding carbonate to the oceanIncreasing alkalinity to promote carbon ocean sequestration of CO

2.

Australia, UK

Biochar

Burning biomass through pyrolisis (in low oxygen environments so carbon is not released) and burying the concen-trated carbon in the soil.

New Zealand, UK, USA

Carbon sucking machines

Extracting CO2 from the air by using liq-

uid sodium hydroxide, which is convert-ed to sodium carbonate, then extracting the CO

2 in solid form to be buried.

Canada, UK, USA

Genetically engineered algae and marine microbes

Engineering communities of synthetic microbes and algae to sequester higher levels of carbon dioxide, either for alter-ing ocean communities or for use in closed ponds

USA

Source: Diana Bronson, Pat Mooney, and Kathy Jo Wetter, Retooling the Planet? Climate Chaos in the Geoengineering Age (Stockholm: Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, 2009), 21-22.

34

PART 3

The Way Out: Building sustainable and equitable societies

What is sustainable human development?

Human development is about enhancing the quality of people’s lives and enlarg-ing people’s choices. This has numerous dimensions including greater access to knowledge, better nutrition and health services, more secure livelihoods, great-er security against crime and physical violence, more satisfying leisure hours, greater political and cultural freedoms, stronger sense of community and more meaningful participation in decision-making. In the words of Mahbub ul Haq, Founder of the UN Human Development Report, ”The objective of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and cre-ative lives.”40 The Declaration on the Right to Development defi nes such right as “an inalien-able human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.”41

The Right to Development includes:full sovereignty over natural resources n

self-determination n

popular participation in development n

equality of opportunity n

the creation of favourable conditions for the enjoyment of other n

civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

The most frequently quoted defi nition of sustainable development is from the Brundtland Report, entitled Our Common Future:42

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts:

35

the concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world’s n

poor, to which overriding priority should be given; andthe idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social or- n

ganization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.

However, the universal measure of progress used by policy makers throughout the world is growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This measures the in-crease in the total market value of goods and services produced in society but is treated by economists and government offi cials as if this necessarily refl ected improvements in people’s well-being. So for example, higher medical costs due to rising incidence of respiratory infections associated with pollution are consid-ered positive contributions to GDP. As with the cost of cleaning up toxic spills, the production of weapons of mass destruction, and so on.

Neither does GDP capture environmental degradation and the depletion of nat-ural resources such land, as mineral and other subsoil assets, timber, and non-timber forest resources, marine resources; and the disruption of vital ecosystem services such as the water cycle, the carbon cycle, and the climate. These are obviously vital for the well-being of people today and well into the future.

GDP also takes no account of intangible assets (e.g. trust among people), institu-tions (e.g. effective government, civil society), relationships (kinship networks, friends), or goods and services that are not bought and sold in the market (such as women’s care work). These are all immeasurably valuable to people and vital to the healthy functioning of society.

GDP (even GDP per capita) also fails to capture the adverse implications of social inequalities on society as a whole, not just on the poor. For instance a recent study by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett43 shows that highly unequal societ-ies have higher incidence of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, obesity, mental problems, teenage pregnancy, violent crime and suicide rates, lower literacy and shorter life expectancy—not just among the lower income groups but across income levels. This is because, according to the authors’ conclusion, inequality erodes social solidarity and breeds stress across the full spectrum of society, not just among those at the lower rungs.

So the obsession with growth in marketable goods and services under the domi-nant economic paradigm not only fails to improve people’s well-being in all its interrelated dimensions, it is actually anathema to sustainable human develop-ment. This is because the unbridled expansion in the production and consump-tion of commodities is now resulting in resource depletion and environmental degradation (as discussed in Part 1).

Moreover, in their insatiable drive for more profi ts and capital accumulation, the corporate giants who control the economic and political levers of society today are unrelenting in their attempts to lower wages, speed up work, extend working

36

hours without raising pay, replace workers with technology, and prevent workers’ attempts at organizing themselves to fi ght for higher wages and better condi-tions. This is why even in the richest countries in the world, workers who depend on wages for their keep have been buried deep in debt in order to maintain their levels of consumption.

Competition among global corporations and rich nations for resources and greater market shares have led to the colonial and neocolonial subjugation of Southern peoples. Imperialist states have plundered the natural resources and exploited the people of the third world since colonial times, and have used up a much greater share of the global commons than poorer countries.

In short, the process of wealth expansion for the global elites in the current eco-nomic system means the deprivation and dispossession of the mass of humanity in the global South as well as the steady erosion of working and living conditions for the majority of the working population in the North.

In contrast, sustainable human development emphasizes interconnectedness —of people in society, both in space and in time, between people and nature, between economic production and social organization. The focus is on raising the quality of life for all, not just the quantity of consumption or material wealth for a few.

Does sustainable human development require de-growth and de-industrializa-tion?

In poor and underdeveloped countries of the South, only a tiny minority of the populations enjoy material standards of living comparable to that of middle or upper classes in the North. But the vast majority—in their billions—suffer the dehumanizing conditions of poverty, hunger, unemployment, homelessness, lack of access to essential services, insecurity, and violence. So while unbridled growth, reckless industrialization, and mindless consumerism drive climate change, underdeveloped countries are still confronted with the challenge of de-veloping their productive forces in order to provide the material conditions for meeting the basic needs of their populations without remaining dependent on foreign capital and imports.

Poor countries need to develop agricultural production to feed the population, produce raw materials and inputs for industry, employ vast swathes of the popu-lation, and generate surplus for reinvestment. They need to develop industries for the processing and manufacture of food, clothing, medicine, books and oth-er consumption goods as well as machinery and equipment for transportation, communications, construction and water, energy, and other utilities. This will also employ vast numbers of people, develop the scientifi c and technical skills of the population, spur more innovation, and help accelerate economic develop-ment overall. Even the provision of essential services such as health, education,

37

housing, and so on are co-dependent on the development of agriculture and in-dustry.

In other words, the economic development of poor countries entails increas-ing levels of production and consumption compared to the present. This would necessarily impact on the natural environment. This does not mean, however, that poor countries should renounce growth and industrialization. Rather, what poor countries need to undertake is a different kind of economic development. Not the kind of development based on corporate free trade, liberalization of in-vestments, privatization of the natural and public commons, deregulation, and export-oriented production—all of which merely serve to increase the size and power of global corporations. Poor countries need to follow an alternative devel-opment path that is not based on the exploitation of people and the exhaustion of the planet (this shall be discussed further below).

On the other hand, in the advanced industrialized countries, economic develop-ment has reached the point where production and consumption levels can more than meet the needs of the entire population. The fact that a large part of the population in the North is unemployed or underemployed and denied access to quality education, health care, housing and other basic needs attests to the irrational distribution of resources in these countries rather than low productive capacity. In fact, overproduction and overconsumption is a real problem in this context.

For instance, in a study of economic and social indicators in 20 wealthy econ-omies, Wilkinson and Pickett found that measures of well-being or happiness no longer rise with economic growth. In fact some indicators such as rates of depression and anxiety have risen over the last fi fty years or so. The authors conclude that as personal levels of consumption and material accumulation in-crease beyond an approximate level of satisfactory comfort and security, a sense of happiness and well being does not steadily advance at the same rate and may in fact diminish because of increased levels of stress.

As another analyst puts it, “For societies that now adhere to the media-hyped im-ages of ‘the good life’ based on hyper consumption of commodities, new strate-gies for the use of less resources, less accumulation, and more modest standards of living also become arguments for greater personal fulfi llment, less stress, more time for family, friendship, nature, creativity, recreation, and leisure which are all now in short supply. Truly, among presently over-consuming societies, less would be more.” 44

In the Wilkinson and Pickett study, they found that among rich countries, great-er equality is the key to improvements in the quality of life rather than more economic growth. One clear implication is that in the advanced industrialized countries, sustainable human development necessitates a major redistribution of resources both within these countries and towards the less developed coun-tries of the South.

38

What are the fundamental requirements for shifting towards sustainable hu-man development?

First, there is a need to democratize ownership and control over productive re-sources. Second, there is a need to democratize decision-making and gover-nance. And third, there is a need to rethink our relationship to nature. These are all interrelated and inseparable requirements for shifting towards the path of sustainable human development.

Democratizing ownership and control over productive resources

At present, the richest 1% in the world own 40% of all land, physical properties and fi nancial assets in the planet. The richest 2% own 51%, while the poorest half of world population own barely 1% of global wealth. By virtue of their control over key productive resources, the global elites are able to determine patterns of production and distribution in the world. But the interests of these captains of industries are not the same as the public interest. Indeed, under this system, the production of goods and services is not intended to fulfi ll basic human necessi-ties and improve human welfare but to generate profi t for their businesses and to further accumulate capital.

To shift to sustainable human development therefore requires the redistribution of productive resources and “environmental space” within and between coun-tries to ensure that the needs of all, especially the poor and marginalized, are met without breaching ecological limits. The range of property rights regimes must move decisively away from an overwhelming emphasis on private prop-erty rights towards more democratic, cooperative, and community-based forms of property ownership and control. This will restore people’s sovereign control over the resources that they need for collective survival and development.

In agriculture this means breaking the monopoly control of agribusiness corpo-rations and landlords over land, water, seed, energy sources, and other inputs and productive assets. These must be redistributed to those whose livelihood depend on these resources. The primary benefi ciaries of such reforms should be small producers particularly women and other marginalized sectors. Egalitar-ian and cooperative land tenure and land use systems should also be promoted to ensure the collective control and ecologically sustainable use of land, water, forest and marine resources by farmers, fi shers and local communities. Given secure land tenure, farmers can better take care of the land, conserving biodi-versity and protecting the long-term health of soils. Irrigation and other support infrastructure must also be assured.

Food production must be primarily geared towards meeting the needs of local communities. Access to food must be premised on the absolute right to food of

39

every person—food that is nutritious, safe, culturally appropriate, and affordable. The realization of this right must not be contingent on the purchasing power of consumers.

Without the monopoly control of agri-TNCs, it would be easier to depart from a profi t-oriented system of global food production and industrial agriculture towards diversifi ed and ecologically-sound agricultural production that priori-tizes achieving food security and self-suffi ciency, creating rural employment and meeting the demands of domestic industries and households.

Likewise, the grip of giant corporations on the social infrastructure of industry, energy, transportation, trade and the whole economy must be dismantled. The energy sector—from sourcing to production to distribution—should be based principally on public ownership. This would allow the public to exercise demo-cratic control over the overhauling of existing fossil-fuel based and other large-scale energy systems—such as nuclear and hydro power—towards sustainable, renewable, and scaled-down energy systems. Communities can choose from a blend of renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, mini-hydro, wave, and biomass; while promoting less consumption and more energy effi -ciency.

Public ownership will also be the basis for promoting mass transportation sys-tems, such as light and high-speed rail systems. Failing giant car companies should be taken over immediately by the state and the entire transport sector should be regulated to discourage resource-ineffi cient private motor vehicles. This will help decongest roads, improve health, and of course lower carbon emis-sions.

The fi nance sector is another strategic sector that must be placed under public control. This will help stamp out fi nancial speculation and re-subordinate fi nance to the needs of the real economy. By socializing banking, fi nancial resources may be redirected towards investments in renewable energy, public transportation, sustainable agriculture, low-carbon industrial production, energy-effi cient ur-ban systems and recycling.

At the international level, sustainable human development requires the equita-ble reallocation of global resources through payment of reparations for past im-perialist plunder and inequities in resource use that underlie present economic disparities between nations. Transnational corporations and unaccountable global bureaucracies such as the WTO and international fi nancial institutions should be disempowered. Neoliberal globalization policies that promote corpo-rate interests and reinforce unjust economic relations between countries should be reversed. This would also reverse the Northward fl ows of Southern wealth through unfair trade, debt, and investment transactions.

Patents on commercial technologies that prevent the more rapid and widespread restructuring of energy, manufacturing, transport, agricultural and urban sys-

40

tems towards low-carbon systems should be removed. This should go along with the removal of trade rules that prevent the transfer of such low-carbon technolo-gies to developing countries.

Environmental resources, such as the atmosphere, lands, forests, and their car-bon-cycling services, should be respected as commons that enable everyone’s capacity to live, and therefore may not be abused or appropriated.

Democratizing decision-making and social planning

On the basis of public, cooperative, and community-based forms of ownership, participatory and inclusive modes of planning and decision making will help en-sure that the economy is geared towards meeting broader social goals such as employment, health, education, food security, and ecological sustainability. This will reorient the economic system away from its current pre-occupation with pri-vate accumulation of wealth and wasteful competition.

The locus of decision-making should be devolved to the lowest level of govern-ment with the competence to deal with the issues concerned—as close as pos-sible to the people most affected. This encourages citizen participation and dis-courages bureaucratism.

Participatory social planning can better regulate and allocate the use of resourc-es to avoid unproductive, resource-wasteful, and socially or ecologically harmful activities. Through it the economy can be directed towards achieving self-reli-ance; prioritizing domestic demand and local consumption over international trade and export markets; increasing public welfare, creating jobs, and sustain-ing livelihoods while minimizing energy, resource use, and waste in the process.

Enterprises should be rooted in communities. Food production must be decen-tralized and located as close to local population centers as possible. Doing so would obviate the need to maintain the long chain of fossil-fueled processes (food manufacturing, packaging, and transportation) that stand between the food and end consumers.

Farms and factories should be managed by workers and the communities they serve rather than distant shareholders removed from local conditions. Work should be valued and rewarded accordingly while the workweek may be short-ened as warranted by levels of productivity. Without the necessity to accumu-late and grow production limitlessly, and with the benefi ts of production more equally distributed in society, the economy demands less time from workers to spend in the workplace. Paid work hours can be more evenly distributed among the people in order to address unemployment and allow people to spend more time on recreation, culture, discourse, and building relationships.

Social planning at multiple levels can help improve cooperation among enter-

41

prises within and between sectors, localities, and regions. This can help reverse urban sprawl and urban congestion by promoting diversifi cation, decentraliza-tion and a more even development between regions and between urban and ru-ral areas.

At the international level, new cooperative institutions and arrangements be-tween countries, and regions are also necessary for the responsible stewardship, conservation, and equitable and sustainable use of global and trans-boundary commons and resources such as the atmosphere, oceans, forests, river systems, and so on. These institutions should be based on principles of equity and soli-darity among nations.

Rethinking the nexus between society and nature

With the reality of climate change and ecological crisis now looming in our con-sciousness, it should be easier to acknowledge that humanity is part of both so-ciety and nature, and that the economy is embedded in ecology. This means fos-tering greater concern and sensitivity to the ecological consequences of human activities rather than regarding nature as an inexhaustible source of materials for human consumption and a bottomless sink for waste.

This can be done by investing more public resources into public education and cultural institutions that reclaim people’s aspirations lost to individualism and consumerism, and instill ideals that value community, solidarity, diversity and respect for nature. Modern science should be combined with traditional knowl-edge and practices of indigenous peoples and other communities to help people achieve greater understanding of the metabolic relationship between social sys-tems and ecological systems.

Science, education, research and development should be re-oriented to remove the bias in knowledge production for commercially profi table proprietary tech-nologies. Open and collaborative research and development of new technolo-gies should be encouraged and supported.

Agricultural production should be weaned away from chemical-intensive, large-scale industrial monoculture farming towards ecologically sound, sustainable methods of production which rely on local ecosystems and traditional knowl-edge as well as appropriate farmer-controlled technologies. Public institutions must help develop and encourage the adoption of crops and farming methods that are adaptable to site-specifi c conditions; improve soil and water conserva-tion; increase small-scale farm diversifi cation; safeguard biodiversity; reduce the use of fossil fuels and other inputs; and improve labor productivity. The separa-tion of livestock and crop farming has to be undone. Crops and livestock have to be reintegrated in the farm to help bring organic matter back into soils and restore fertility. Patenting life-forms and genetic resources must be prohibited.

42

The productivity of industries should be continuously improved not necessarily to increase output but always to reduce inputs of labor, energy and raw materi-als. The recycling of waste products back into the production cycle should also be promoted.

Enterprises and governments should practice full lifecycle cost accounting of goods and services in the economy. This means taking into account all the nega-tive social and environmental costs of production, distribution, consumption, waste and recycling. This should also refl ect the costs of maintaining the health and well-being of workers, the community, and the environment.

Box 4.

Cuba’s Organic Revolution

Cuba’s highly industrialized, capital-intensive farming practice came to a screeching halt in

1989 when the Soviet Union collapsed. Cuba lost 85 percent of its foreign trade, including

food, agricultural imports and petroleum. Already crippled by the U.S. embargo, the country

was fi nancially devastated with its food supply hit hardest.

The Cuban response was to go organic, a much cheaper alternative to conventional chemi-

cal farming that doesn’t rely on imports. The state’s priorities shifted to food production, the

scientifi c community began focusing on organic practices and city dwellers were mobilized

as urban farming became a vital source of food.

With limited gasoline to transport, refrigerate and store food from the countryside, food pro-

duction was brought to the cities. Cuba now has one of the most successful urban agriculture

programs in the world. The State is making unused land available to fl edgling urban farmers

and thousands of empty lots have been turned into organic oases.

In Havana alone there are 8,000 organic gardens producing a million tons of food annually.

The gardens range in size from a few meters to several hectares. The urban farmers primarily

grow lettuce, bok choy, onions, chard, radishes, tomato, cabbage and broccoli. Gardens can

employ anywhere from one to 70 people depending on the size of the garden. And people

from all walks of life are participating.

The state is supporting the new urban gardeners through extensive university research into

sustainable organic practices, including soil health and fertility.

Cuba’s scientifi c community is also developing breakthrough biological fertilizers and pesti-

cides using naturally occurring organisms and insects.

According to Food First executive director Peter Rosset, there are more than 200 biotech

centers in Cuba producing and distributing cutting-edge, non-toxic biofertilizers and pes-

ticides based on local microorganisms. Biological controls, such as Bt, a common organic

pesticide, are available in the U.S., but Rosset says by focusing so much of its research re-

sources in this arena, Cuba is way ahead of the rest of the world.

In Havana, the Urban Agriculture Department was formed to educate and assist the neophyte

city gardeners in implementing these new techniques. Small state run stores were estab-

lished to sell seeds, hand tools, pots and some biological controls and serve as educational

sites, offering workshops and advising the urban farmers and gardeners.

43

The Cuban gardeners incorporate some traditional organic practices, such as the use of worm

compost-castings (worm poo) from redworms fed a diet of kitchen scraps. Worm compost

is generated quickly and is higher in nitrogen that is more quickly accessible by crops than

regular compost.

They also rely heavily on interplanting--where diverse crops are planted together--which dis-

courages the pests that accompany monocrop farming. This is a major shift from contempo-

rary industrialized farming, with its acres of corn that provide a veritable buffet for bugs, as

well as monocropping's inherent dependency on pesticides.

The gardeners are also experimenting with their soil by leaving their crop residue (the stalks,

vines, and anything else left after the harvest) on the fi eld instead of clearing it off. A layer of

worm compost is added on top to create rich soil another old-fashioned organic idea.

The city farmers are also tackling the lack of medicine in Cuba. A casualty of the trade em-

bargo, Cuba can import neither medicine nor the ingredients to make it. Even aspirin is a rarity

in Cuba. Rieux says she saw a lot of people growing green medicine in their urban gardens.

"I saw a beautiful green medicine garden grown by one man," she says. He's growing oreg-

ano, marjoram, lemon grass, sage, tila (a kind of sedative), chamomile, calendula, aloe. The

herbs are processed as teas and tinctures. In half an hour he had eight or nine customers, a

steady fl ow of business."

Cuba's advanced organic farming techniques have led to major cultural shifts as many city-

dwellers have become farmers. But what happens when the Cuban economy shifts and the

embargo is lifted? Now that they are such capable organic growers, will they revert to chemi-

cal farming? Amanda Rieux of the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners' Gardening and

Composting Educator Training Program thinks otherwise.

Rieux joined a trip to Cuba with a Food First Sustainable Agriculture delegation to see organic

practices in use on a nationwide scale and a chance to assess the implications for all of us.

"Yes, there are people who believe some of the gardeners will revert to the old practices, but

many people will still farm organically. Even when the embargo lifts, the small farmer will make

more money organically because he spends so little. He's not going to start buying chemicals.

He won't have to. He has the knowledge now.

For the rest of the food-eating world, the Cuban agricultural greening shows that when a

government decides to, it can put its strength behind sustainable, profi table, non-toxic agri-

culture. "The shift towards sustainable agriculture has been very successful in Cuba, people

are eating better there now than they did fi ve years ago," says Rieux. (Sustainable agriculture

refers to an integrated system whereby the gardener works within natural biological cycles

and uses only naturally occurring resources.) "And, there is an understanding that these

methods have social and environmental values, as well as economic. It has been an empow-

ering movement for the Cuban people.

Granted, Cuba was in a tough, hungry place that made willingness to experiment essential.

But at a time when we are dumping ever-increasing amounts of chemical pesticides on our

crops, poisoning our aquifers and sterilizing our soil, this large-scale experiment should be

watched by all.

Lisa Van Cleef, “The Big Green Experiment: Cuba’s Organic Revolution”, reprinted from the San Francisco Chronicle, Wednesday, March 15, 2000; published in The Trowel, #11, spring-summer 2000, by San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners, accessed from http://westgatehouse.com/art9.html

44

PART 4

Immediate tasks of social movements fi ghting for a just and sustainable future

With the failure of offi cial international processes to deliver climate justice, more people are convinced of the need to look for alternative frameworks for dealing with the climate crisis. In this context, it is high time to promote an alternative compact that comes from the grassroots. One that is not just a list of demands but a framework around which people and communities around the world could set their own goals and plan their own actions to stave off climate disaster and fi ght for justice, especially for those who did not cause the problem but are now feeling its worst effects. A shared framework or platform that links disparate ac-tions and builds a stronger global movement working for political and social change necessary to address the climate crisis along with other social and eco-nomic injustices.

The Peoples’ Protocol on Climate Change (PPCC) offers such a framework. It is a product of a two-year process of awareness-raising and movement-building among Southern civil society and social movement organizations from Asia, Afri-ca, Latin America and the Middle East. It has been ratifi ed by peoples’ assemblies in 11 countries held in December 2009.

The PPCC proposes a fi ve-point platform of action for peoples’ movements strug-gling for climate justice and social change:

1. Continue pushing for comprehensive and equitable global effort to achieve rapid emissions reductions to stabilize CO

2 concentrations at

350ppm or less.

2. Demand reparations for Southern countries and the poor by Northern states, TNCs, and Northern-controlled institutions to redress ecological debt and other historical injustices.

3. Reject false solutions that allow Northern states and corporations to continue harming the environment and communities, provide new and greater opportunities for profi t, and reinforce and expand corporate control over natural resources and technologies.

45

4. Struggle for ecologically sustainable, socially just, pro-people, and long-lasting solutions to the climate crisis.

5. Build, strengthen and advance a people’s movement on climate change.

This platform of action can and should be pursued at various levels -- from the local community, to the national and international levels.

In building the movement, there are at least three tasks that are of immediate importance in the current period.

First is the need to devote more of our efforts to grassroots organizing and mo-bilization. We must intensify our education and organizing in communities, schools, workplaces, churches, and other social spaces to raise awareness about the systemic roots of and genuine solutions to the climate crisis and other social crises that we are confronting today. We must remain vigilant of false solutions being peddled by corporate interests and their spokespersons in the academe, media and government. We must continue to push forward our own alternative vision and program for social transformation. Even where governments have expressed support for a progressive agenda, we must hold them accountable through popular participation and mobilization, always critical of attempts to compromise the interests of the majority and the marginalized.

Second is the need to link and combine the struggle for climate justice with other social justice struggles, especially struggles over control of productive re-sources. Indeed, for the people most affected by climate change, their lack of access or control over land, seeds, water, forests, energy, factories, etc. is the prin-cipal source of their vulnerability and marginalization. Hence their struggle for food sovereignty, for decent work, for peace and self-determination, for human dignity are all inseparable. Climate struggles are also related to struggles against unfair trade, illegitimate debt, militarization, and human rights violations inas-much as they are also instrumental to perpetuating the drivers of climate change and the exploitation of peoples, especially on the global South. Making these linkages helps broaden the movement and weakens the system from all sides.

Third is the need to combine oppositional politics with the active promotion of concrete alternatives. There is a wealth of traditional knowledge and practice among indigenous peoples and other communities that are more ecologically sound at the same time based on an ethos of solidarity and reciprocity that chal-lenges the logic of the dominant order. There are also important lessons to be learned from actual people’s experience with democratic control and planning of social production according to people’s needs and with respect to ecological limits. One can look for examples in the national experiences of revolutionary China, Cuba, Bolivia, and Venezuela as well as in particular communities such as in Mexico, Colombia, India, and many other countries today (see Box 4). These

46

help inspire people to think out of the box, to learn from one another, to innovate and cooperate and continue to challenge and ultimately change the prevailing unjust and unsustainable system.

47

ENDNOTES

1 Based on unit CO2-eq (carbon dioxide equivalent).Timothy Herzog, World Greenhouse

Gas Emissions in 2005, WRI Working Paper (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 2009), available from http://www.wri.org/publication/navigating-the-numbers, 2; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change Science 2007: Synthesis Report, Summary for Policymakers, 5.

2 Kevin Baumert, Timothy Herzog, Jonathan Pershing, Navigating the Numbers: Green-house Gas Data and International Climate Policy (Washington DC: World Resources Institute, 2005), 4, 86, 91; IPCC, Climate Change Science 2007, 5.

3 Average 1950-2006 annual growth rate of 3.9%.

4 3.6% average annual growth from 1820-2006.

5 The global GDP grew from $ 690 billion in 1820 to $ 50.97 trillion in 2008 (in 1990 Geary-Khamis dollars). Angus Maddison, Statistics on World Population, GDP and Per Capita GDP, 1-2008 AD, available from http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/. 320 billion tons of carbon, equiva-lent to 1.17 trillion tons of CO

2, were released from fossil fuel sources from 1820 to 2006. T.A.

Boden, G. Marland, and R.J. Andres, Global Fossil-Fuel CO2 Emissions, (Carbon Dioxide Informa-

tion Analysis Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 2009) available from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_glob.html. 6 Energy Information Administration (EIA), International Energy Outlook 2009 (US Department of Energy, Washington, DC: 2009) available from http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/index.html, 124, 131; International Energy Agency (IEA), World Energy Outlook (WEO) 2009 Fact Sheet, available from http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/.

7 IEA, WEO 2009 Fact Sheet.

8 Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT) Version 7.0, GHG Emissions by Sector in 2005 (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 2010), available from http://cait.wri.org. 9 International Energy Agency (IEA), Kew World Energy Statistics 2009 (Paris: International Energy Agency and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2009), 6.

10 The Supermajors are ExxonMobil, British Petroleum, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Total. The fi rst four emerged from mergers within the so-called ‘seven sisters’ which dominated the oil industry between 1945 and 1970.

11 UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), World Investment Report 2007: Transnational Corporations, Extractive Industries and Development (New York and Geneva: United Nations, 2007).

12 CAIT Version 7.0, GHG Emissions by Sector in 2005.

13 ETC Group, “Who Owns Nature? Corporate Power and the Final Frontier in the Com-

48

modifi cation of Life,” Communiqué, no. 100 (ETC Group, 2008), 11-16.

14 Ibid., 21-22.

15 CAIT Version 7.0, GHG Emissions by Sector in 2005.

16 Baumert, Herzog, and Pershing, Navigating the Numbers: Greenhouse Gas Data and International Climate Policy, 63.

17 Ibid.

18 Jean-Paul Rodrigue and Brian Slack, “Road Transportation,” in The Geography of Trans-port Systems (New York: Routledge, 2009) available from http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch3en/conc3en/carprodfl eet.html; International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufac-turers (OICA), 2008 Production Statistics, available from http://oica.net/category/production-statistics/.

19 World Trade Organization Statistics Database, Total merchandise trade, 1950-2008 (World Trade Organization, 2010), available from http://stat.wto.org/.

20 Helge Hveem, “The Politics of Transnational Production Systems: A Political Economy Perspective,” Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, available from http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/csgr/events/conferences/conference2007/papers/hveem.pdf

21 GRAIN, “The international food system and the climate crisis,” Seedling, October 2009, 7.

22 Kathy Mamen, Steven Gorelick Helena Norberg-Hodge, and Diana Deumlig, Ripe for Change: Rethinking California’s Food Economy (Berkeley, CA: International Society for Ecology and Culture, 2004), 27.

23 Ibid, 25.

24 Andrew Simms, Don Moran, and Peter Chawla, The UK Interdependence Report (Lon-don: New Economics Foundation, 2006), 22-23.

25 This is also the accounting framework followed by the Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT) version 5.0. (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 2008) available at http://cait.wri.org.

26 Dieter Helm, “ Sins of Emission,” Wall Street Journal, 13 March 2008.

27 Larry Lohman, “Climate as Investment,” Development and Change 40, no. 6 (2009): 1073.

28 Tamra Gilbertson and Oscar Reyes, “Introduction,” in Carbon Trading: How it Works and Why it Fails? (Critical Currents, no. 7, Occasional Papers Series) (Uppsala: Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, 2009), 14.

29 UNEP RISØ Centre, “CDM/JI Pipeline Database” 1 March 2010, available from http://cdmpipeline.org/cdm-projects-type.htm#6.

30 CAIT Version 7.0, Yearly Emissions, 2006.

31 “Carbon Sequestration: Injecting Realities,” Energy Tribune, March 19, 2008.

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32 Richard Heinberg, Searching for a Miracle: “Net Energy” Limits and the Fate of Industrial Society (CA: International Forum on Globalization and Post Carbon Institute, 2009), 35.

33 International Rivers Network, Warming the Earth: Hydropower Threatens Efforts to Curb Climate Change (Berkeley, CA: International Rivers Network, 2003) available from http://www.internationalrivers.org, 2.

34 There are approximately 45 MJ per kilogram contained in both fi nished gasoline and crude oil, while ethanol has an energy density of about 26 MJ per kilogram and corn has only 16 MJ per kilogram. In general, this means that large amounts of corn must be grown and harvested to equal even a small portion of existing gasoline consumption on an energy-equivalent level. Hein-berg, Searching for a Miracle, 48.

35 Ibid.

36 Simms et al., Growth Isn’t Possible, 96.

37 The study is by Cornell University agriculturalist David Pimentel and UC Berkeley engi-neering professor Ted Patzek. Brian Tokar, The Real Scoop on Biofuels, available from http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1101-32.htm.

38 Simms et al., Growth Isn’t Possible, 100.

39 Diana Bronson, Pat Mooney, and Kathy Jo Wetter, Retooling the Planet? Climate Chaos in the Geoengineering Age (Stockholm: Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, 2009), 29.

40 From http://hdr.undp.org/en/humandev/.

41 UN General Assembly, “Article 1,” Declaration of the Righ to Development resolution / adopted by the General Assembly, 4 December 1986 (A/RES/41/128) available from http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3b00f22544.html.

42 G. Bruntland, ed., Our Common Future: The World Commission on Environment and Development, available from http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm.

43 Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (Allen Lane, 2009).

44 Robert Constanza, “A New Development Model for a ‘Full World’ in Development,” De-velopment 52, no. 3 (2009): 369-376.

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