CLIMATE CHANGE AND INADEQUATE SOLUTIONS

The main aim of the Global Convention on Climate Change is to cut greenhouse gas (GG) emissions to mitigate the effects of climate change (CC). Between October 19 and 23, 2015, in Bonn, Germany, the technical committee of the 193 member states of the United Nations met to conclude agreements on mitigating CC and produced a document riddled with inconsistencies, which form the basis for discussions at COP 21, which is taking place in Paris, where Heads of state have to make commitments to reduce GGs and thus the rise in Earth's temperature to under 2 C by 2030. In view of this problem, Laurence Tubiana, the French Ambassador said, "In Paris we'll have to negotiate everything at the same time."

Large corporations impose their interests on governments and governments impose their authority on the people, stating that "Any agreement to cut GGs must be voluntary"; developing countries, however, are calling for binding agreements, and for GGs to be reduced in a "fair but differentiated way ... the biggest polluters should pay more and a mechanism for losses and damages should apply." In short, the former do not want to abandon their system for making money (mining, oil, transport, construction, monocultures, pesticides, arms, etc.) and in return propose "to market" nature, while the latter show interest in selling it and even in giving it away in exchange for obtaining funding to "conserve it". Here, CC is a commodity and the environment is not the shared heritage of humanity.

Corporations dominate COPs and use them as an opportunity to introduce and propose "solutions" that could be useful were they to consider human rights, conservation of the environment and real, just and fair participation of the people, to complement measures to significantly reduce GGs "in situ" and worldwide, but which, instead, are incomplete, inadequate, "fake" and useless.

Using environmental language, corporations call what is provided by nature "Environmental Services", which have to be paid for. For example: Forests "sequester" (capture) carbon dioxide (GG) and store it, reducing its impact on the atmosphere; on that basis they propose Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD), adding REDD PLUS or REDD+ for "marketing nature, sustainable management of forests and programs to increase carbon stocks." In these cases, a foreign entity (such as an NGO, foundation or corporation) takes control of a forest to "conserve" it, which means it can stop communities from taking timber and firewood, hunting, fishing, etc., and expel local residents if necessary. The "sequestered" carbon stored in the forest is valued, a price is put on it and it is offered on the "carbon market", where any corporation that pollutes elsewhere buys "carbon credits" in order to continue polluting, because it pays for some or all of its total GG emissions. The "entity" can authorize mining, oil extraction and even "smart wood-cutting", which means cutting down trees in a forest and planting monoculture plantations elsewhere, which counts as "zero deforestation". It is cynical to call a monoculture plantation with no biodiversity a forest! Meanwhile, those who have used these ecosystems for generations are criminalized as the perpetrators of deforestation, predators, etc. Also proposed as a solution to CC is "smart agriculture", meaning agriculture that uses genetically modified seeds treated with pesticides for plants, sold exclusively by the international corporation that produces them.

Now at COP 21 "Blue Carbon" is proposed to conserve wetlands (mangroves, salt marshes and seagrasses) which, under the same REDD + methodology, has every potential of affecting millions of small-scale fishermen.

 

In conclusion, "selling nature to save it" is another form of land and water grabbing by corporations and is neither an effective nor fair policy for mitigating CC ... and as President Obama said, "Paris should result in binding agreements". If they don't mitigate climate change, God help us!"

 

Traslated by: Slow Food