The Group of Eight—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Britain and the United States, with limited membership for the European Union— recently held a summit in Toyako, Japan, intended to focus on the global climate crisis. The summit ended July 9 amid criticism from developing nations and the United Nation’s top environmental leaders.
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The summit ended with an official call to “consider and adopt” a goal of a 50 percent reduction in emissions by 2050. While this might sound like a step in the right direction to reduce the emissions that cause global warming, the call did not indicate the baseline for the 50 percent reduction—in other words, 50 percent of what?
“I don’t find the outcome very significant,” said Yvo de Boer, the leader of the U.N. effort to negotiate a new climate change treaty. He pointed out that the vague 50 percent target for reducing carbon emissions by 2050 was not legally binding and could be interpreted in different ways. In addition, the agreement did not define any specific actions to be taken in the next ten years towards achieving the reductions goal.
China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, five of the developing nations at the sideline meetings who represent 42 percent of the world’s population, issued a statement. They rejected the idea that all countries should adhere to the 50 percent target when the wealthier, industrialized countries have emitted the lion’s share of green house gases to date.
“It is essential that developed countries take the lead in achieving ambitious and absolute greenhouse gas emissions reductions,” said the statement.
Without denying the need for developing nations to take action on global warming, Chinese President Hu Jintao said, “Developed countries should make explicit commitments to continue to take the lead in emissions reduction.”
“China’s central task now is to develop the economy and make life better for the people,” he added. “… China’s per capita emission is relatively low.”
Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environmental Program, commented, “We are wasting time, the consequences are becoming more and more dramatic, the cost of reversing the global warming trend is greater and greater,” he said. “[W]e are having problems—particularly in the industrialised countries—taking great steps forward internationally,” he added.
Environmental Protection Agency reveals its class loyalties
Meanwhile, within days of the conclusion of the summit, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency essentially refused once more to take action to regulate greenhouse gases.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, treating the emissions as a form of pollution. The decision put the ball back in the EPA’s court in terms of taking action.
Recently, the EPA’s environmental experts sent documents to the White House and other government agencies, suggesting ways the Clean Air Act could be used to regulate and reduce emissions. These suggestions were rejected out of hand by the Bush administration as “posing a threat” to the U.S. capitalist economy.
Under pressure from the White House, the EPA reversed its position and published a massive 588-page document saying the Clean Air Act was “ill-suited” to dealing with global warming. The EPA passed the problem on to Congress—the same institution which was unable to pass even the most moderate of climate change bills in June—one founded on the market-based “cap-and-trade” system.
“EPA’s approach to this has been completely thrown out by the White House, which is only attempting to stall any kind of cleanup,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of the environmental group Clean Air Watch. “It sounds like the Bush administration is trying to ignore the Supreme Court and to pretend it doesn’t exist.”
Despite the EPA’s backpedaling on taking action, pro-capitalist organizations are still not satisfied with the modest suggestions made in the EPA document. “Our point on this is that EPA has set forth a road map which literally throws the entire way which we manage the environment and economy in complete turmoil,” said Bill Kovacs, vice president of the Environment, Technology and Regulatory Affairs Division at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Kovacs is right, in a sense: The only way to solve the problem of global warming is to completely change the way in which the economy and environment are managed.
Today, short term capitalist profits always take precedence over long-term environmental protection and safety for human and animal species and habitats. In order to stop catastrophic climate change, drastic reductions must be made in green house gas emissions—much of which come from fossil fuels used in vehicles and the energy industry.
Neither imperialist summits nor instruments of the capitalist government and state are capable of taking effective action against the global warming crisis, because that would directly contradict the highest imperative of the capitalist class: the maximization of profits. A planned socialist economy based on human needs is the only economic system which can protect the environment in the long run.
