The recent release of 250,000 confidential State Department cables by Wikileaks has exposed the cynical, self-serving motivations of U.S. foreign policy. The leak includes cables that reveal the U.S. government’s desire to “co-opt and marginalize” underdeveloped countries that seek a just solution to the climate change crisis.
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Global climate change, also known as global warming, is a direct result of carbon emissions in the environment. These emissions are the product of unfettered capitalist development. The U.S. used its clout at the Copenhagen climate conference last year to derail the adoption of any kind of meaningful, binding international agreement to reduce emissions on the part of industrialized nations.
Last year, the world’s attention was focused on Copenhagen, Denmark, where on Dec. 7, the United Nations Climate Change Conference began. The two-week meeting—the 15th Conference of the 193 Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the fifth meeting of the 189 Parties to the Kyoto Protocol—was supposed to be the culmination of a process set in motion in Bali in 2005, where Parties to the UNFCCC agreed to conclude negotiations on a new global deal by 2009. Highlighting the growing alarm at the effects of climate change, 110 leaders of countries attended the conference by its conclusion.
As has now been revealed by the leak of these cables, many poor countries were victims of bullying and bribery as the U.S. used its power to force other countries to support the so-called Copenhagen climate accord, a non-binding statement that does nothing to stop the perilous course of continued global climate change. (Fidel Castro, Humanity’s right to life; PSLWeb.org, 12/16.09 insert links)
Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters, “We have always voiced throughout these years the pressures of the blackmail by the administration of the U.S., WikiLeaks just confirms that.” He continued by stating that U.S. imperialism, “uses mechanisms to force others to accept its position” on responding to global warming. (AOL News, Dec. 8)
Bolivia not the only victim
One cable mentions how “Hedegaard [the top climate change official of the European Union] responded that we will need to work around unhelpful countries such as Venezuela or Bolivia. Froman [U.S. deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs] agreed that we will need to neutralize, co-opt or marginalize these and others such as Nicaragua, Cuba, Ecuador.” (AOL News, Dec. 8)
Another example is a cable about a meeting between U.S. Undersecretary of sSate Mario Otero and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. In order to receive substantial economic aid, Ethiopia had to support the U.S.-backed climate statement at Copenhagen. The government of the small island nation of the Maldives received millions of dollars from the U.S. government for their support, even though they are among the first threatened with extinction by rising sea waters. (The Guardian, Dec. 3)
On February 11, Jonathan Pershing, U.S. deputy climate change envoy, met with EU climate action commissioner, Connie Hedegaard in Brussels, where she told him, according to a cable, “the Aosis [Alliance of Small Island States] countries could be our best allies given their need for financing” (The Guardian, Dec. 3). This shows the overt character of U.S. imperialism’s effort to co-opt underdeveloped countries for the benefit of imperialist ambitions.
According to a Dec. 3 article from the British newspaper The Guardian, “The U.S. diplomatic cables reveal how the U.S. seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the U.S. mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial ‘Copenhagen accord,’ the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009.”
The Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America, also known as ALBA, has criticized the Copenhagen accord and has remained critical of the U.S. contribution to global warming as the largest per-capita emitter of greenhouse gases.
The Wikileaks cable revelations have exposed the behind-the-scenes work of the U.S. government and its drive to intimidate and bribe underdeveloped countries for the benefit of imperialist interests. U.S. imperialism will continue to impose its power on oppressed countries who oppose U.S. foreign and climate policy.
