From Nov. 28 until
Dec. 10, diplomats from around the world met in Durban, South Africa,
to discuss a new agreement addressing climate change. From the first
day, activists from around the world, not wanting to wait for another
failure like Copenhagen in 2009 and Cancun in 2010, gathered outside
the meeting rooms and inside them as well. An OccupyCOP17 started in
solidarity with Occupy movements across the world. The protests began
on the first day and lasted through the two-week summit.
Numbers ranged from
a few hundred daily to, on Dec. 3, 20,000 farmers, workers, students
and environmental activists demanding action now. Students from
across the world filled the halls demanding that leaders listen to
the people, not their big-oil partners. As leaders failed to reach a
legally binding agreement, the real progress coming out of Durban was
a fight-back movement on the rise.
The deal that did
come out of the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) is a
“roadmap” for coming to a bigger agreement next year in Qatar.
The roadmap includes the preliminary text for “Reducing Emissions
from Deforestation and Forest Degradation,” or REDD+, a program
being fiercely fought by indigenous people all over the world.
The program allows
companies of polluting nations to buy forests in “developing
nations” to offset their carbon output. The Indigenous
Environmental Network and other indigenous rights groups have called
this program “rife with fundamental flaws that make it little more
than a green mask for more pollution.” They also denounced its lack
of safeguards to protect indigenous peoples’ land. They have called
for an immediate moratorium on the program.
The roadmap also
includes the initial framework for a “Green Climate Fund.”
Several Latin American countries have opposed this fund because the
World Bank is to administer its finances, which by 2020 are projected
to reach $100 billion a year. The “Green Climate Fund” would loan
money to poor countries to invest in clean energy, but it allows
private companies to receive the money and use it in any way they
deem profitable.
As details of this
deal are still being set, there is one clear outcome. The climate
talks in Durban produced nothing that will stem the tide of climate
change. This year is on track to being the 10th hottest year on
record and the hottest La Niña year on record. La Niña cools the
surface of the Pacific Ocean by a few degrees, but this year will see
the highest temperatures ever recorded. The world is reaching a
turning point, and without action now it may be too late.
While the United
States and the European Union demand to be allowed to keep polluting
and delaying action, island nations are being threatened daily by
rising sea levels. The year 2015 is too late to have a deal agreed
on, and 2020 is, in the words of the executive director of
Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria, a “death sentence for
Africa.”
Capitalism is based
upon exploitation, and the climate is now the largest victim of that
system. Capitalism cannot fix the problems it has created and must be
replaced by a new system and government based on meeting people’s
needs, not profit. Socialism is the solution to the climate crisis.
