Critical Times

Various strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have been suggested, especially by corporate monopolies concerned about future investments and maintaining their rate of profit. Will either carbon trading or a carbon tax really reduce emissions; will biofuel be a good alternative to fossil fuels?

There are plenty of dire warnings about the effects of climate warming in the coming decades. They argue that greenhouse gases will need to be reduced significantly over the next fifty years, or the world will become a miserable place.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that average temperatures will rise by 1.8 and 3 degrees Celsius because of greenhouse gas emissions and that by 2080, 3.2 billion people – a third of the world’s population – will be short of water, 600 million will be short of food, and 7 million people will have to move from flooded coastal areas.

Another report released in London by Christian Aid was titled, Human tide; the real migration crisis. It pointed to the likely effects of climate warming in causing mass migrations of people, with terrible consequences. The report stated, “We estimate that, unless strong preventative action is taken, between now and 2050 climate change will push the number of displaced people globally to at least 1 billion.”

It quoted the British Chief of Defence Staff, Sir Jock Stirrup, who said in a touching display of compassion, “Climate change and growing competition for scarce resources are together likely to increase the incidence of humanitarian crises. The spread of desert regions, a scarcity of water, coastal erosion, declining arable land, damage to infrastructure from extreme weather: all this could undermine security.”

This really spells out the major concern of the imperialist rulers of the world; that climate change could upset their apple-cart and maybe disturb their rate of profits, even undermine their continued domination of the world and its people.

A few, more far-sighted entrepreneurs have staked their future on alternative energy sources, such as solar, wind, wave-power, or geothermal. But most of today’s big corporations and western governments generally, are looking to market-based solutions that presume the eternal continuance of corporate monopoly domination.

Carbon trading
Their most favoured solution, endorsed by the Kyoto Protocol, seems to be the notion of carbon trading. This essentially means the government (or group of governments, if they can ever reach agreement) setting the maximum amount of carbon dioxide emissions permitted to be released over a period of time, and then issuing permits to each enterprise.

Companies that exceed the set amounts can buy permits from companies that are not going to need them. The price is determined by market forces.

As time goes on, the government is supposed to progressively reduce the amount of permitted emissions and the number of permits, so that the overall climate warming effect can eventually be halted. The theory is that it will become too expensive for the companies to continue their polluting ways.

Critics of carbon trading argue that a universal carbon trading scheme is almost impossible to achieve and that even a regional scheme would take a long time to set up and become effective. This has been the experience in Europe.

This is not the only problem. The main one is accountability, that is, the accurate reporting of emission levels, and the real opportunities for corruption and cheating. Don’t forget, we’re talking about the effect on profits. Cosy deals between sellers and buyers of emissions permits aren’t too difficult to imagine, while hedging markets would influence the prices in unpredictable ways.

Carbon trading has been recently embraced by the Business Council of Australia and a number of companies have decided to join newly formed carbon trading groups. For example, one scheme includes Origin Energy, Transurban, Lend Lease, Insurance Australia Group, National Australia Bank, STA Travel and the AFL. (Plenty of hot air there).

In another move, AGL, the largest energy retailer, has joined the Chicago Climate Exchange.

Presumably, these companies are hopeful that their membership of these schemes will mean they will not have to adhere to any harsher regimes introduced in the future.

Carbon tax
The other solution put forward is a carbon tax. In this case, the government sets the price of emissions, rather than the quantity. Typical estimates vary between $25-50 per tonne by 2020, an amount considered necessary to bring down the level of emissions in line with projections made by the Sir Nicholas Stern’s report and other international agencies.

Again, the theory is that emitting greenhouse gases would become too expensive for the companies and they would be forced to clean up their act.

One problem may be that some companies already making filthy profits could be prepared to pay the tax and just keep on polluting.

Supporters of this system argue that it would be much easier to implement quickly, and that the level of tax could be readily adjusted to increase or moderate its effectiveness.

Against this are very real concerns about the effect on prices, as there would be tremendous pressure on companies to simply pass on the extra costs to their customers. This would particularly disadvantage the poor, those on fixed incomes, pensions, unemployed and renters, who have few opportunities to reduce their own energy use and little chance of converting to solar systems, grey water systems, and so on.

A carbon tax has much less support from western governments because taxes are not popular with big business, especially new ones, and they essentially represent the interests of big business and their need to continue “business as usual”.

Biofuel
President Fidel Castro of Cuba has issued a number of strong statements warning about the effects of converting much needed food crops and agricultural land into a fuel source for automobiles in wealthy western countries. The biofuel issue is more to do with this than with producing a clean source of energy.

Yet this is the path George Bush has mapped out in consultation with US car manufacturers earlier this year, as a way of reducing America’s dependence on imported oil. The scheme was kicked along by a rare visit Bush then made to Brazil to lean on President Lula de Silva to join in.

Castro points out, “It is known very precisely today that one ton of corn can only produce 413 litres of ethanol on average, according to densities…Thus 320 million tons of corn would be required to produce 35 billion gallons of ethanol”, the amount Bush is seeking to meet America’s crisis.

Biofuels can be made from corn, palm oil, sugarcane and many other agricultural products. The concern is that a massive increase in large-scale commercial production would cut into agricultural land and forests, increase the cost of food, drive people away from their communities and destroy their culture. Cultivation on the scale envisaged would also use vast amounts of water and introduce chemical fertilisers and genetically modified strains.

The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has campaigned for a declaration on indigenous rights to protect native peoples from this sort of displacement. It was accepted by the UN Human Rights Council, but finally rejected by the UN General Assembly due to opposition from African countries and the US, who argued that it was “fundamentally flawed”.

Australia, New Zealand and Canada, all with indigenous populations, also voted against.

Biofuels will have a role to play in easing the transition away from a fossil fuelled world and can be useful in under-developed countries with smaller economies. However Bush’s scheme is merely designed to keep millions of American cars running and to enrich the large corn grower monopolies. It has nothing to with reducing greenhouse gases.

Getting rid of imperialism
What is common to all these proposals is making the ordinary people of the world bear the burden of fixing climate warming, caused essentially by the operations of big business in America and Europe, and lifestyles generated and fed on massive exploited wealth.

It is a severe crisis for imperialism, but also a crisis for the people. Their best hope lays in continued, relentless struggle to tear down the castles of imperialism, to take back control over their lands, their resources, their economies and working lives, and to remake the world based on cooperation and peace, rather than competition, greed and war.