RINF.COM: L'ALTERNATIVA ROMPENTESI DI NOTIZIE
Lunedì 28 luglio 2008
RINF.COM: L'ALTERNATIVA ROMPENTESI DI NOTIZIE
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Commerciando via il pianeta con profitti
Lunedì 28 luglio 2008 Discuta questo rapporto nelle tribune di RINF > Da Joseph Zacune | Durante i colloqui di clima in Bali dicembre scorso, NASA lo scienziato James Hansen ha presentato la nuova rappresentazione di dati che gli effetti serii del cambiamento di clima già stanno accadendo più velocemente e al ttemperature globale più basso aumenta che precedentemente proiettato, indicando che l'atmosfera è più “sensibile„ ai gas della serra che precedentemente presupposto. (1) Sulla base di questo passo più veloce di cambiamento, otto milione chilometri del foglio del ghiaccio al palo del nord - una zona dei quadrato grande quanto l'Australia - è probabili interamente essere perso durante l'estate in cinque anni. Ciò può innescare la fusione del ghiaccio-foglio della Groenlandia di cui la disintegrazione totale solleverebbe i livelli di mare di sette tester. Hansen ha dichiarato che dobbiamo muoverci verso un sistema energetico pulito del combustibile del alberino-fossile e raffreddare il pianeta. Purtroppo, questi avvertimenti dire non stanno venendi a contatto di tramite azione dalle nazioni G8, che rappresentano appena 13 per cento della popolazione del mondo ma sono responsabili di 45 per cento delle emissioni di gas della serra del mondo. Questi paesi industrializzati hanno causato questa crisi mentre si avvantaggiano economicamente ed accrescendosi un debito di clima al sud. (2) Tuttavia stanno continuando a spingere il libero scambio ingiusto ed il ricorso alle iniziative di commercio del carbonio che potrebbero accelera il cambiamento di clima e più ulteriormente esacerba la vulnerabilità dei p#si in via di sviluppo' ai relativi effetti. Quei il più minimo responsabili della generazione della crisi corrente quali la gente indigena, i coltivatori agricoli e la gente del pescatore saranno sbattuti il più con violenza dal cambiamento di clima ed iniziative anche da queste pericolose e corporativo-guidate che perversely stanno marcande a caldo come soluzioni di clima. Per illustrare: La gente e le Comunità indigene della foresta-dimora sono fra le prime per affrontare le conseguenze dirette del cambiamento di clima, a causa della loro dipendenza su e chiudono il rapporto con l'ambiente e le relative risorse. Delle 350 milione genti indigene nel mondo, mezzo viva nei rainforests tropicali, che sono conosciuti per harbour 80 per cento della diversità biologica del nostro pianeta. (3) La maggior parte di questi rainforests sono i territori tradizionali della gente indigena. Sia le dichiarazioni delle Nazioni Unite sulla destra a sviluppo (4) che la dichiarazione dei diritti della gente indigena (5) assericono la sovranità della gente indigena' sopra le loro risorse naturali. Tuttavia, la gente indigena continua ad essere marginata nei processi decisionali internazionali compreso la convenzione di struttura delle Nazioni Unite sul cambiamento di clima (UNFCCC). (6) UNFCCC negotiations are now taking place on ways to reduce emissions of deforestation in developing countries (REDD) that will have direct impacts on the lives of millions of Indigenous Peoples. Member Parties nations that have ratified the UNFCCC have agreed that they will conserve and enhance forests, and also provide financial assistance to developing countries to achieve these obligations.(7) However, the UN definition of forests includes plantations and this poses major concerns as the expansion of monoculture plantations is a major driver of deforestation – undermining Indigenous Peoples’ land rights and damaging the environment through pesticides usage, water stress and biodiversity loss. In addition – according to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) – at the most, plantations store only one-fifth of carbon compared to untouched primary forests. There is conserted lobbying by both some governments and conservation-based NGOs for REDD mechanisms through the UNFCCC to implement carbon trading for forests, instead of a fund-based approach to community-based forest management, let alone other reliable non-money-based approaches such as strengthening land rights, leaving fossil fuels in the ground and bans on deforestation. The central idea of carbon trading for forests is that developing countries reduce their deforestation rates and this will allow them to sell the carbon stored in their forests to the North. This allows Northern countries and corporations to buy their way out of emission reductions and continue business-as-usual polluting. It is also based on a false premise that the inactive underground carbon cycles (coal, oil and gas in stable underground reservoirs) and the active land-based carbon cycles are the same. This false assumption enables the protection of one carbon cycle to offset the exploitation of the other. So at best this should theoretically lead to zero global emission reductions if it were not for the fact that the different carbon cycles vary hugely, making it impossible to actually verify whether or not emissions have actually been reduced. If our last remaining forests are to be included in carbon markets, the question naturally arises of who owns those trees and what happens to those forest-dwelling communities that have depended on them for generations? There are huge risks for a dramatic expansion of exclusionary models of forest conservation that violate Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities’ customary and human rights on a global scale. The World Bank is at the helm in the trading of forest carbon credits and its portfolio is rapidly expanding with its Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) which was launched amidst protests at climate talks in Bali last December. At the G8 in Japan, the Bank’s multi-billion dollar climate investment funds – which include carbon finance for forests – are being formally launched and these funds are already casting a dark shadow over United Nations climate negotiations.(8) The World Bank’s conflict of interests is all too apparent since the majority of its carbon finance portfolio has been channeled toward polluting industries and it has even been supporting industrial logging. (9) The Bank must be excluded from the UN talks or the integrity of a post-2012 Kyoto agreement will be severely undermined. In a similar vein to carbon trading for forests, trade liberalisation is also being promoted as a solution to the climate crisis when in reality it also threatens communities that are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change by accelerating the commodification of their natural resources. Hundreds of millions of people rely on the world’s last remaining forests and are dependent on them for their livelihoods, medicine and food. The European Commission has stated that: “Trade liberalisation can accentuate negative sustainability trends unless appropriate forest governance systems are in place and enforced”. Such systems are clearly not operating in many countries and further liberalisation should therefore not take place. The report also points out that in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries such as the Congo Basin countries and Papua New Guinea, possible negative impacts on biodiversity can be irreversible. A United Nations Environment Program study reinforces by highlighting how trade liberalisation in Tanzania led to a rapid increase in deforestation as exports for forest-based products rose dramatically.(10) Another of the EU’s impact assessment states that Central African countries should consider the environmental costs of trade liberalisation such as increased deforestation resulting from timber exports and environmental degradation linked to oil exploration.(11) The liberalisation of energy markets – a key demand by the European Commission – is also going to have obvious climate change impacts and undermine community-based campaigns to leave fossil fuels in the ground. The European Union is so often portrayed internationally as a force for good – a enlightened voice of reason in a world dominated by an intransigent and deeply unpopular Washington administration. Yet often below the media radar and away from the gaze of the general public, the EU has been bullying 77 ACP countries to sign unfair trade deals misnamed Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). Leaders of ACP Ministers issued a joint statement deploring “the enormous pressure that has been brought to bear on the ACP States by the European Commission to initial the interim trade arrangements, contrary to the spirit of the ACP-EU partnership”. The Pacific’s lead negotiator, Jo Keil has slammed the EC’s aggressive bully-boy approach to the negotiations stating: “None of that will ever happen again to the Pacific to suffer that indignity that was forced upon us by Commissioner Mandelson”.(12) The Pacific region is holding out, the Caribbean region has agreed to an EPA and many African countries have relented to the EU’s bullying. A Nambian diplomat reportedly lamented: ‘‘The pressure was too much. …. Bully tactics are used with the threat ‘you either sign or you don’t have the market.” (13) Millions of peasant farmers and fisherfolk are facing the combined threat of climate change and unfair trade impacts. In Senegal, trade liberalisation exposed its waters to heavily subsidised fleets. Ecologists claim that some 11,000 tonnes of fish caught in Senegalese waters are discarded annually by EU trawlers. UN studies show that in Mauritania fishing stocks have been devastated largely as a result of trade liberalisation with certain species such, as sawfish, disappearing altogether.(14) Studies by the United Nations Environmental Programme highlight that further trade liberalisation threatens small-scale rice farmers and the environment in countries such as Senegal and Nigeria.(15) Friends of the Earth Ghana has warned that EPAs are likely to undermine agricultural sectors. Rice and poultry farmers have already suffered from trade liberalisation and unfair competition from subsidised imports. An increase in cheap EU imports of frozen chicken and cheap rice would force rice farmers out of work and could lead to the collapse of the poultry industry. Both carbon trading and trade liberalisation have appalling track records. The corporate takeover of the climate agenda – cloaked in philanthropic, planet-saving rhetoric and backed up with billions of dollars of financial support – poses new grave dangers that will be resisted from the corridors of international negotiations to communities struggling for survival on the ground. A radical shift away from neo-liberalism must take place. We need to radically reduce our unsustainable consumption, secure peoples’ food sovereignty, leave fossil fuels in the ground, promote community-based forest conservation and invest in clean energy generated from the sun, wind and sea to help us cool the planet and attain sustainable societies. The North must repay its ecological debt to the South – it’s time for climate justice. Joseph Zacune is Friends of the Earth International Climate and Energy Coordinator, joseph.zacune@foe.co.uk NOTES Discuss this report in the RINF forums > Have Your Say: Trading away the Planet for Profits 2 Responses to “Trading away the Planet for Profits”
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Why we need socialism?
Other than the main contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat – between capital and labour – in a capitalist society, other than the main contradiction between finance-capitalists and the workers, working people, unemployed, poor and oppressed in the imperialist system, there are other newly emerging conflicts between society and imperialism, which have to be addressed and dealt with urgently.
The conflicts arise from the way that our ever-growing science and technology are used by the increasingly centralized and empowered private sector in expense of the people’s destitution and planet’s destruction.
On the other hand, adventurism, individual outbursts and terrorism – the direct consequences of imperialists and reactionary forces suppressive behaviour – nowadays can have easy access to the destructive aspects of this high technology, and make things even more precarious.
Let us look at a few examples:
Genetically Modified Organisms; In this matter, the genes of living things which are the products of billions of years of natural selection, evolution and adaptation of species, are manipulated to bring more profits to the unsaturating pockets of the private sector, regardless of being harmful to humans. Natural organisms are replaced by GMOs. This practice may cause unpredictable dangerous consequences to the whole ecosystem.
Organ transplantation which is one of the extraordinary human achievements, has already taken a nasty face. Poor people are selling their organs for a small amount of money to continue their existence. This problem has led to the emergence of the organ black-market. Organ traffickers even abduct and kill the poor in backwarded countries to sell their organs to the more demanding markets.
Human cloning: In a capitalist system, the very rich are seduced to bring this technology and its related experts to their service. They will make many clones of themselves, graze and cherish them in their private islands, to use them whenever there is a need to replace their old and sick organs with new ones.
To stress the dangerousness of the present world situation, we refer you to some news that was broadcasted recently in the first few days of November, 2006:
On November 1st, very intelligent robots were displayed in Japan. These robots can be programmed for good or for bad. By ownership of the private sector, they can be programmed to be senseless immortal soldiers, prison guards, interrogators and police. But by ownership of the society they will be programmed as rescuers, firefighters, and assistants for disabled persons.
One day later the BBC reported “that with newly advanced technology, everyone could be watched by the private sector”. They will gather vast information about individuals and of course their weaknesses and will use it to enslave them.
By mid-century marine life will disappear. “Species are declined continuously and the trend is intensifying,” (Journal of Science, November 2nd). All water bodies have to be brought under the control of society. Private sector does not care about environment. It cares only about its profit.
According to the PBS, “a UN report says that greenhouse gas emissions increased last year”. Safe fuel is available, but while the corporations are fighting with each other for their survival and their supremacy, the least thing they would consider is the use of safer fuels (November 2nd).
On November the 3rd we have two surprising news, the first one: All information about making a nuclear bomb was available under the title of “Iraq – US documents” for a whole week in a US government site (ABC News). The 2nd news was about a woman that had access to all documents in Los Alamos, New Mexico, including nuclear weapons. It is interesting to know that about 20’000 laboratories around the world have facilities to make biological weapons like germs and viruses, harmful to every living things on the planet.
As we see, the Weapons of Mass Destruction will no longer be in the monopoly of governments anymore. In the near future, individuals and groups just like governments will be able to commit mass killings and vast destructions.
Finally, in a video which was broadcasted on November 5th by the BBC, shows that cyanide is sprayed in the gold mines around the world to extract microscopic gold deposits. As a result, lands were destroyed, waters were poisoned and people became sick and are dying, as we see in the case of Honduras.
Science and technology which are the result of thousands of years of human endeavour and experience have risen to a level that ought to be brought under the control of the whole society. These achievements have to be used for the well-being of all, and this will only happen in a socialistic society!
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