COP26, the United Nations 26th climate change conference, was held in Glasgow from 31 October to 13 November after being postponed for one year due to the coronavirus pandemic. COP26 was the first opportunity since the Paris Agreement of 2015 for nations to submit their new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for cutting global emissions. This was especially significant after a UN report stated that the current NDCs submitted in Paris left the planet on course for a 2.7°C rise in global temperatures at the end of 2100. A major goal of COP26 was to ‘keep 1.5 degrees within reach’, but despite this rhetoric a report published by Climate Action Tracker indicated that even with the pledges made at COP26 a 2.4°C rise was the most likely outcome. The interests of the multinationals and the banks were represented throughout as COP26 demonstrated it cannot offer any solutions for the climate crisis. It was, as Greta Thunberg said, a case of more ‘blah blah blah’ from world leaders. GEORGE O’CONNELL reports.
Carbon imperialism
The Glasgow Climate Pact, agreed at COP26, became the first of any such UN treaties to specifically mention coal or fossil fuels, prompting COP26 president and Tory MP Alok Sharma to declare it a ‘fragile win’. The language of the agreement remains deliberately geared in favour of the imperialist nations. Only ‘unabated coal power’ is referenced, described at June’s G7 summit as ‘coal power that isn’t mitigated with technologies to reduce carbon emissions’, ie carbon capture. Carbon capture schemes are a luxury afforded solely to imperialist nations, who appropriate the land of oppressed nations to mitigate their emissions through planting forests. Indeed, the pledge of net-zero by 2050 made by the UK, as well as similar net-zero pledges rife at COP26, heavily rely on such schemes. Solely attacking ‘unabated coal’ is simply attacking coal power usage in developing countries, an attempt to force them into a state of permanent underdevelopment to ensure imperialist interests are unhindered.
Shifting the blame
Western corporate media has used COP26 to unleash fresh attacks upon China and India. Pressure from both countries prompted a last-minute rewording of the final document from ‘phase-out of unabated coal power’ to ‘phasedown’, an amendment that left Sharma ‘close to tears’. US President Biden attacked China, claiming they ‘walked away’ from COP26 negotiations. China’s role as number one emitter prompts such attacks, both from imperialist politicians and corporate media. This completely ignores the historical role of the imperialist nations in cumulative emissions, as well as emissions per capita. As of 2019, US and Europe were responsible for 62% of historical emissions, with China and India at just 13% and 3% respectively. Emissions per capita in the US stand at twice as high as China and eight times as high as India, even when ignoring the consumption of imported goods consumed in the US. Once again, the narrow framework of COP conferences allows imperialist nations to dodge responsibility and shift the blame elsewhere.
Business as usual
Carbon market schemes have dominated discussions at recent COP conferences, with imperialist multinationals eyeing up their potential for profits. COP26 saw 503 fossil fuel lobbyists present as official delegates, representing the interests of the imperialist multinationals and banks: the most prolific climate criminals. This delegation was larger than that of any nation and dwarfed the total number of indigenous delegates two to one. Of these lobbyists, 103 were representing the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), a supposedly non-profit collection of fossil fuel multinationals, mining monopolies, banks, investment companies, petrochemical corporations: institutions with blood on their hands.
The organisation, which includes members such as Shell, BP, BHP, Bank of America, Citigroup, Rio Tinto and Standard Chartered, expressed delight at the outcome of COP26. In particular, they welcome the new guidance on Article 6 of the Paris agreement, and its ‘new structure for carbon markets’. Such schemes allow the monopolies that make up the IETA to freely trade carbon credits in return for a licence to release emissions. This is the response of the capitalist system to the climate crisis: to commodify the destruction of the planet. It is a new form of neo-colonial division. The purportedly ‘non-profit’ IETA stated that ‘Paris Article 6 can generate $1 trillion a year in capital flows by 2050’. It is clear where the profit is coming from. The structure of COP26 allows these racketeers to use it as an opportunity for business, to scramble for these new markets encapsulating eye-watering sums, while the planet burns.
Greenwashing
COP26 was also used as a platform for climate criminals to conceal their illicit investments. Thunberg aptly characterised the conference as a ‘greenwash festival of empty promises’. The list of corporate sponsors was an assortment of British multinationals, many of which are directly responsible for the climate crisis. Among them was Unilever, an Anglo-Dutch consumer goods monopoly responsible for 128,700 hectares of deforestation solely for palm oil since 2015. Another was British bank NatWest that has pumped $13.4bn into the fossil fuel industry since the Paris agreement.
The chairman of NatWest is a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, a former chairman of the Airports Commission when it was pushing for an extra runway at Heathrow, and the first executive chairman of the UK Financial Authority, appointed by Blair’s Labour government to oversee the entire financial services industry in the UK. This is the ‘revolving door’ of capitalism through which the interests of the monopolies dominate the state. COP26 further demonstrates this.
The UK government is another promoter of greenwashing. In October Boris Johnson described the UK as a ‘global leader in tackling climate change’, citing the UK’s commitment to net-zero by 2050. This ignores the emissions that follow the investments made by the five largest British banks, totalling £143bn since 2018, the same period which saw these banks making similar net-zero by 2050 commitments. Britain, through the City of London, maintains a particularly parasitic role within imperialism: four out of five of the largest mining companies and two out of five of the largest oil and gas companies are British. These are multinationals whose operations will attribute emissions to other countries whilst British imperialism reaps the consequent profits.
Barack Obama attended COP26 in an attempt to rebrand himself as a climate justice warrior, while still encouraging us to ‘settle for imperfect compromises’. At Copenhagen in 2015, while US President, he ensured that the US made only the most minor of concessions, both in terms of cutting emissions as well as funding for the poorer nations to help mitigate the effects of climate change. By the time Obama left office in 2017, the US military was emitting 59 million tonnes of carbon a year, more than the whole of Sweden or Switzerland. He was never held accountable for this: including military emissions is voluntary at COP. COP26 did not discuss amending this.
Shifting the cost
Glasgow also hosted another, albeit one sided, battle between the imperialist nations and the oppressed nations, regarding funds for mitigating the impacts of climate change. At Copenhagen, the Africa group of countries demanded $400bn yearly; the imperialist nations offered a paltry $100bn a year, a level to be reached by 2020. By COP they had reached only $84bn a year, with 80% of this in loans that will need to be repaid. In 2021 Britain cut the amount of aid it sends to countries most exposed to global warming by more than £100m.
At COP26 the imperialist nations said they would not reach the $100bn a year rate until 2023, shortly after the Africa group demanded $1.3 trillion a year. This is at a time when the so-called ‘Third World debt’ stands at $11 trillion, with $3.9 trillion yearly being paid on debt service. The foreign minister of Tuvalu addressed the conference whilst standing knee deep in seawater, highlighting the disproportionate impact of climate change on small island nations, or those situated near the equator; the very same nations trapped under this crushing debt. Imperialism will not address this debt; it remains crucial for the exploitation and plunder of these nations for their wealth, labour and resources.
Tomorrow will be too late
The urgency of the climate crisis was made clear by the recent IPCC report, described as ‘code red’ for humanity. It found that the 1.5°C target will be surpassed under all scenarios by 2040. A leaked draft of the third part of this report, due to be published in March, said global emissions must peak by 2025 before 1.5°C becomes impossible. This is in just four years; COP26’s aim of net-zero by 2050 is clearly not enough. Indeed, ‘blah blah blah’. According to a report published by Carbon Brief, the 1.5°C scenario would see a 10% chance of at least one arctic ice-free summer occurring before 2100, this rises to 80% with 2°C.
A 1.5°C rise or 2°C rise is the difference between 14% or 37% of the population facing at least one severe heatwave every five years, and 9% or 28% facing at least one extreme heatwave. A 2.4°C rise, which COP26 has paved the way for, would be disastrous for humanity. After pressure from the poorer nations, the imperialist nations have conceded to update NDCs yearly.
Despite being a minor victory, it is clearly insufficient. In the intervening six years, including a global pandemic that forced fossil fuel consumption down through lockdown, Glasgow has only yielded a 0.3°C improvement upon Paris. How many COP conferences before the goal is to ‘keep 2°C within reach’? For the extra 62m people who would be subjected to ‘severe drought’ if it is breached, keeping 1.5°C alive is vital.
It is evident that any real change in defence of the planet will not come through amendments to capitalism. It will not come through politicians committed to defending imperialism, or UN conferences that are flooded with fossil fuel lobbyists. The only fight in defence of the planet is a revolutionary, anti-imperialist fight. In this country this means a struggle against the British state that will fight tooth and nail to protect the interests of British imperialism. This means a fight for socialism.
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 286, December 2021/January 2022
