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星期二， 2008年7月29日
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行星用贏利交換
星期一， 2008年7月28日 談論這個報告在RINF論壇 > 由 約瑟夫Zacune | 在氣候期間在巴釐島談話上12月， 美國航空航天局 科學家詹姆斯Hansen介紹新的數據陳列嚴肅的氣候變化衝擊更加迅速地已經發生，并且在更低的全球性ttemperature比早先被射出上升，表明大氣對溫室氣體比早先假設更是「敏感的」。 (1) 基於變動的這高速，八百萬正方形公里冰床在北極-區域一樣大像澳洲-在夏天期間在五年之內，可能整個地丟失。 這也許觸發總崩解將由七米提高海標準的熔化格陵蘭冰板料。 Hansen闡明，我們需要移動朝崗位化石燃料清明節系統和冷卻行星。 不幸地，這些可怕的警告沒有由行動遇見由G8國家，代表世界的人口的13%，但負責對世界的導致溫室效應的氣體的45%。 這些工業化國家導致了這次危機，當經濟有益於和累積氣候債務到South.(2)，他們繼續推擠對碳可能加速氣候變化和進一步惡化發展中國家』弱點到它的衝擊的貿易主動性時的不合理的自由貿易和信賴。 那些最少負責任對創造當前危機例如土著人民、農民農夫和不合情理被烙記當氣候解答的漁夫人將由氣候變化並且這些危險，公司被駕駛的主動性艱苦擊中。 說明： 土著人民和森林住宅社區是在面對氣候變化的直接後果的一个之中，由於他們的依賴性，并且與環境和它的資源的密切的關係。 350百萬個土著人民在世界上，半居住在熱帶雨林，知道懷有我們的行星的生物差異的80%。 (3)大多這些雨林是土著人民傳統疆土。 聯合國聲明在發展(4)的右邊和土著人民權利的聲明(5)斷言土著人民』主權在他們的自然資源。 然而，土著人民在國際決策過程中在氣候變化繼續被排斥包括聯合國框架協定(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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