Climate Rage

[Guest guest]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30841581/climate_rage/

Climate Rage

The only way to stop global warming is for rich nations to pay for the damage

they've done - or face the consequences

NAOMI KLEIN Posted Nov 11, 2009 8:29 AM

 

One last chance to save the world — for months, that's how the United Nations

summit on climate change in Copenhagen, which starts in early December, was

being hyped. Officials from 192 countries were finally going to make a deal to

keep global temperatures below catastrophic levels. The summit called for " that

old comic-book sensibility of uniting in the face of a common danger threatening

the Earth, " said Todd Stern, President Obama's chief envoy on climate issues.

" It's not a meteor or a space invader, but the damage to our planet, to our

community, to our children and their children will be just as great. "

 

That was back in March. Since then, the endless battle over health care reform

has robbed much of the president's momentum on climate change. With Copenhagen

now likely to begin before Congress has passed even a weak-ass climate bill

co-authored by the coal lobby, U.S. politicians have dropped the superhero

metaphors and are scrambling to lower expectations for achieving a serious deal

at the climate summit. It's just one meeting, says U.S. Energy Secretary Steven

Chu, not " the be-all and end-all. "

 

As faith in government action dwindles, however, climate activists are treating

Copenhagen as an opportunity of a different kind. On track to be the largest

environmental gathering in history, the summit represents a chance to seize the

political terrain back from business-friendly half-measures, such as carbon

offsets and emissions trading, and introduce some effective, common-sense

proposals — ideas that have less to do with creating complex new markets for

pollution and more to do with keeping coal and oil in the ground.

 

Among the smartest and most promising — not to mention controversial — proposals

is " climate debt, " the idea that rich countries should pay reparations to poor

countries for the climate crisis. In the world of climate-change activism, this

marks a dramatic shift in both tone and content. American environmentalism tends

to treat global warming as a force that transcends difference: We all share this

fragile blue planet, so we all need to work together to save it. But the

coalition of Latin American and African governments making the case for climate

debt actually stresses difference, zeroing in on the cruel contrast between

those who caused the climate crisis (the developed world) and those who are

suffering its worst effects (the developing world). Justin Lin, chief economist

at the World Bank, puts the equation bluntly: " About 75 to 80 percent " of the

damages caused by global warming " will be suffered by developing countries,

although they only contribute about one-third of greenhouse gases. "

 

Climate debt is about who will pick up the bill. The grass-roots movement behind

the proposal argues that all the costs associated with adapting to a more

hostile ecology — everything from building stronger sea walls to switching to

cleaner, more expensive technologies — are the responsibility of the countries

that created the crisis. " What we need is not something we should be begging for

but something that is owed to us, because we are dealing with a crisis not of

our making, " says Lidy Nacpil, one of the coordinators of Jubilee South, an

international organization that has staged demonstrations to promote climate

reparations. " Climate debt is not a matter of charity. "

 

Sharon Looremeta, an advocate for Maasai tribespeople in Kenya who have lost at

least 5 million cattle to drought in recent years, puts it in even sharper

terms. " The Maasai community does not drive 4x4s or fly off on holidays in

airplanes, " she says. " We have not caused climate change, yet we are the ones

suffering. This is an injustice and should be stopped right now. "

 

The case for climate debt begins like most discussions of climate change: with

the science. Before the Industrial Revolution, the density of carbon dioxide in

the atmosphere — the key cause of global warming — was about 280 parts per

million. Today, it has reached 387 ppm — far above safe limits — and it's still

rising. Developed countries, which represent less than 20 percent of the world's

population, have emitted almost 75 percent of all greenhouse-gas pollution that

is now destabilizing the climate. (The U.S. alone, which comprises barely five

percent of the global population, contributes 25 percent of all carbon

emissions.) And while developing countries like China and India have also begun

to spew large amounts of carbon dioxide, the reasoning goes, they are not

equally responsible for the cost of the cleanup, because they have contributed

only a small fraction of the 200 years of cumulative pollution that has caused

the crisis.

 

In Latin America, left-wing economists have long argued that Western powers owe

a vaguely defined " ecological debt " to the continent for centuries of colonial

land-grabs and resource extraction. But the emerging argument for climate debt

is far more concrete, thanks to a relatively new body of research putting

precise figures on who emitted what and when. " What is exciting, " says Antonio

Hill, senior climate adviser at Oxfam, " is you can really put numbers on it. We

can measure it in tons of CO & #8322; and come up with a cost. "

 

Equally important, the idea is supported by the United Nations Framework

Convention on Climate Change — ratified by 192 countries, including the United

States. The framework not only asserts that " the largest share of historical and

current global emissions of greenhouse gases has originated in developed

countries, " it clearly states that actions taken to fix the problem should be

made " on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but

differentiated responsibilities. "

 

The reparations movement has brought together a diverse coalition of big

international organizations, from Friends of the Earth to the World Council of

Churches, that have joined up with climate scientists and political economists,

many of them linked to the influential Third World Network, which has been

leading the call. Until recently, however, there was no government pushing for

climate debt to be included in the Copenhagen agreement. That changed in June,

when Angelica Navarro, the chief climate negotiator for Bolivia, took the podium

at a U.N. climate negotiation in Bonn, Germany. Only 36 and dressed casually in

a black sweater, Navarro looked more like the hippies outside than the

bureaucrats and civil servants inside the session. Mixing the latest emissions

science with accounts of how melting glaciers were threatening the water supply

in two major Bolivian cities, Navarro made the case for why developing countries

are owed massive compensation for the climate crisis.

 

" Millions of people — in small islands, least-developed countries, landlocked

countries as well as vulnerable communities in Brazil, India and China, and all

around the world — are suffering from the effects of a problem to which they did

not contribute, " Navarro told the packed room. In addition to facing an

increasingly hostile climate, she added, countries like Bolivia cannot fuel

economic growth with cheap and dirty energy, as the rich countries did, since

that would only add to the climate crisis — yet they cannot afford the heavy

upfront costs of switching to renewable energies like wind and solar.

 

The solution, Navarro argued, is three-fold. Rich countries need to pay the

costs associated with adapting to a changing climate, make deep cuts to their

own emission levels " to make atmospheric space available " for the developing

world, and pay Third World countries to leapfrog over fossil fuels and go

straight to cleaner alternatives. " We cannot and will not give up our rightful

claim to a fair share of atmospheric space on the promise that, at some future

stage, technology will be provided to us, " she said.

 

The speech galvanized activists across the world. In recent months, the

governments of Sri Lanka, Venezuela, Paraguay and Malaysia have endorsed the

concept of climate debt. More than 240 environmental and development

organizations have signed a statement calling for wealthy nations to pay their

climate debt, and 49 of the world's least-developed countries will take the

demand to Copenhagen as a negotiating bloc.

 

" If we are to curb emissions in the next decade, we need a massive mobilization

larger than any in history, " Navarro declared at the end of her talk. " We need a

Marshall Plan for the Earth. This plan must mobilize financing and technology

transfer on scales never seen before. It must get technology onto the ground in

every country to ensure we reduce emissions while raising people's quality of

life. We have only a decade. "

 

A very expensive decade. The World Bank puts the cost that developing countries

face from climate change — everything from crops destroyed by drought and floods

to malaria spread by mosquito-infested waters — as high as $100 billion a year.

And shifting to renewable energy, according to a team of United Nations

researchers, will raise the cost far more: to as much as $600 billion a year

over the next decade.

 

Unlike the recent bank bailouts, however, which simply transferred public wealth

to the world's richest financial institutions, the money spent on climate debt

would fuel a global environmental transformation essential to saving the entire

planet. The most exciting example of what could be accomplished is the ongoing

effort to protect Ecuador's Yasuní National Park. This extraordinary swath of

Amazonian rainforest, which is home to several indigenous tribes and a surreal

number of rare and exotic animals, contains nearly as many species of trees in

2.5 acres as exist in all of North America. The catch is that underneath that

riot of life sits an estimated 850 million barrels of crude oil, worth about $7

billion. Burning that oil — and logging the rainforest to get it — would add

another 547 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

 

Two years ago, Ecuador's center-left president, Rafael Correa, said something

very rare for the leader of an oil-exporting nation: He wanted to leave the oil

in the ground. But, he argued, wealthy countries should pay Ecuador — where half

the population lives in poverty — not to release that carbon into the

atmosphere, as " compensation for the damages caused by the out-of-proportion

amount of historical and current emissions of greenhouse gases. " He didn't ask

for the entire amount; just half. And he committed to spending much of the money

to move Ecuador to alternative energy sources like solar and geothermal.

 

Largely because of the beauty of the Yasuní, the plan has generated widespread

international support. Germany has already offered $70 million a year for 13

years, and several other European governments have expressed interest in

participating. If Yasuní is saved, it will demonstrate that climate debt isn't

just a disguised ploy for more aid — it's a far more credible solution to the

climate crisis than the ones we have now. " This initiative needs to succeed, "

says Atossa Soltani, executive director of Amazon Watch. " I think we can set a

model for other countries. "

 

Activists point to a huge range of other green initiatives that would become

possible if wealthy countries paid their climate debts. In India, mini power

plants that run on biomass and solar power could bring low-carbon electricity to

many of the 400 million Indians currently living without a light bulb. In cities

from Cairo to Manila, financial support could be given to the armies of

impoverished " trash pickers " who save as much as 80 percent of municipal waste

in some areas from winding up in garbage dumps and trash incinerators that

release planet-warming pollution. And on a much larger scale, coal-fired power

plants across the developing world could be converted into more efficient

facilities using existing technology, cutting their emissions by more than a

third.

 

But to ensure that climate reparations are real, advocates insist, they must be

independent of the current system of international aid. Climate money cannot

simply be diverted from existing aid programs, such as primary education or HIV

prevention. What's more, the funds must be provided as grants, not loans, since

the last thing developing countries need is more debt. Furthermore, the money

should not be administered by the usual suspects like the World Bank and USAID,

which too often push pet projects based on Western agendas, but must be

controlled by the United Nations climate convention, where developing countries

would have a direct say in how the money is spent.

 

Without such guarantees, reparations will be meaningless — and without

reparations, the climate talks in Copenhagen will likely collapse. As it stands,

the U.S. and other Western nations are engaged in a lose-lose game of chicken

with developing nations like India and China: We refuse to lower our emissions

unless they cut theirs and submit to international monitoring, and they refuse

to budge unless wealthy nations cut first and cough up serious funding to help

them adapt to climate change and switch to clean energy. " No money, no deal, " is

how one of South Africa's top environmental officials put it. " If need be, " says

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, speaking on behalf of the African Union,

" we are prepared to walk out. "

 

In the past, President Obama has recognized the principle on which climate debt

rests. " Yes, the developed nations that caused much of the damage to our climate

over the last century still have a responsibility to lead, " he acknowledged in

his September speech at the United Nations. " We have a responsibility to provide

the financial and technical assistance needed to help these [developing] nations

adapt to the impacts of climate change and pursue low-carbon development. "

 

Yet as Copenhagen draws near, the U.S. negotiating position appears to be to

pretend that 200 years of over-emissions never happened. Todd Stern, the chief

U.S. climate negotiator, has scoffed at a Chinese and African proposal that

developed countries pay as much as $400 billion a year in climate financing as

" wildly unrealistic " and " untethered to reality. " Yet he put no alternative

number on the table — unlike the European Union, which has offered to kick in up

to $22 billion. U.S. negotiators have even suggested that countries could fund

climate debt by holding periodic " pledge parties, " making it clear that they see

covering the costs of climate change as a matter of whimsy, not duty.

 

But shunning the high price of climate change carries a cost of its own. U.S.

military and intelligence agencies now consider global warming a leading threat

to national security. As sea levels rise and droughts spread, competition for

food and water will only increase in many of the world's poorest nations. These

regions will become " breeding grounds for instability, for insurgencies, for

warlords, " according to a 2007 study for the Center for Naval Analyses led by

Gen. Anthony Zinni, the former Centcom commander. To keep out millions of

climate refugees fleeing hunger and conflict, a report commissioned by the

Pentagon in 2003 predicted that the U.S. and other rich nations would likely

decide to " build defensive fortresses around their countries. "

 

Setting aside the morality of building high-tech fortresses to protect ourselves

from a crisis we inflicted on the world, those enclaves and resource wars won't

come cheap. And unless we pay our climate debt, and quickly, we may well find

ourselves living in a world of climate rage. " Privately, we already hear the

simmering resentment of diplomats whose countries bear the costs of our

emissions, " Sen. John Kerry observed recently. " I can tell you from my own

experience: It is real, and it is prevalent. It's not hard to see how this could

crystallize into a virulent, dangerous, public anti-Americanism. That's a threat

too. Remember: The very places least responsible for climate change — and least

equipped to deal with its impacts — will be among the very worst affected. "

 

That, in a nutshell, is the argument for climate debt. The developing world has

always had plenty of reasons to be pissed off with their northern neighbors,

with our tendency to overthrow their governments, invade their countries and

pillage their natural resources. But never before has there been an issue so

politically inflammatory as the refusal of people living in the rich world to

make even small sacrifices to avert a potential climate catastrophe. In

Bangladesh, the Maldives, Bolivia, the Arctic, our climate pollution is directly

responsible for destroying entire ways of life — yet we keep doing it.

 

From outside our borders, the climate crisis doesn't look anything like the

meteors or space invaders that Todd Stern imagined hurtling toward Earth. It

looks, instead, like a long and silent war waged by the rich against the poor.

And for that, regardless of what happens in Copenhagen, the poor will continue

to demand their rightful reparations. " This is about the rich world taking

responsibility for the damage done, " says Ilana Solomon, policy analyst for

ActionAid USA, one of the groups recently converted to the cause. " This money

belongs to poor communities affected by climate change. It is their

compensation. "

 

[From Issue 1091 — November 12, 2009]