COP 27. The extinction must go on…
Zero wording on phasing out fossil fuel production
COP27 ended. The lights have dimmed. The main curtains went down. The performances went as planned. The main actors delivered a farce after the drama, now, the show must go on…
The objective of the main imperialist governments of the world, they have shown once again, is to maintain business as usual, as long and as much as possible.
Real and consequential decisions will continue to be made behind closed doors, within the war and corporate rooms of world imperialism. Public conferences on climate change are nothing more than mere public relations events. The international ruling class has already decided what to do. Right now, they need to expand the exploration and exploitation of fossil fuels because the energy supply chain is in chaos. Corporations are intensifying exploration and exploitation of fossil fuels in Africa and the South Atlantic Sea, selecting countries whose economic dependency keeps them as captive semi-colonial countries.
The false possibility of any kind of agreement on phasing out fossil fuel production is most striking against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, where the imperialist blocs of the East and West continue to be engaged in anachronistic geopolitical battles of the cold war era, meanwhile the planet’s poles are melting at an increasing rate taking the climate to an irreversible state that existentially threatens life on the planet and therefore the very existence of a human civilization, capitalist or not.
The capitalist class at the international level has not left the slightest doubt that it is incapable of undertaking some kind of global action to carry out the necessary structural changes in the productive chain of the world economy. Each imperialist country has its own economic and political interests that take precedence over any other consideration. The capitalist class will never reform itself, nationally or internationally, nor cede its political and economic power, just as it will never abandon its geopolitical ambitions or its sources of privilege.
No matter how stridently the UN Secretary General proclaims that we are headed for the precipice because the planet is about to reach irreversible tipping points in the earth’s climate systems [which is what scientists are increasingly openly and visibly warn about], no significant action will be taken. On the contrary, the radical-sounding denunciations of the UN Secretary General are the best smoke screen for the real inaction of the world’s main polluters.
These governments will readily claim that progress is being made on fiscal and market measures, such as the carbon tax [Cop26], or its ban or phasing out in the European Union. They will also proclaim that a future electrification of transport is a panacea, careful to hide the fact that energy production will continue to depend fundamentally on fossil fuels and that the production of electric vehicles itself is highly polluting, from the production of batteries required, with all the damage that the mining industry causes to ecosystems, up to the manufacturing of the vehicles themselves.
Fossil fuel corporate lobbyists are participating in increasing numbers at COP meetings with the goal of derailing any language in final official statements that blames them for climate change disasters while also seeking to divert the responsibility of their industry, not towards capitalist production itself, but towards the consumers who are asked, cynically, to take responsibility for the clothes they wear, the products they buy or the transport they use.
What they now proclaim as the great achievement at COP 27 is the creation of a fund to help the countries most affected with the irreversible losses they suffer due to climate change, with what in the current revelry they call the “Loss and Damages fund, ” but carefully avoid ascribing legal ‘liabilities’ to the countries and corporations that are responsible. The fund itself is also completely insufficient and does not define which countries could access it.
The central idea behind the “Loss and Damages” scheme, far from being progressive, is nothing more than a mechanism that can be used to force millions of people to stay in the places they are, even if they become increasingly precarious. The inevitable will happen: millions and millions will become climate refugees, they will seek to emigrate to other latitudes. These massive migrations will bring about a destabilization of all societies globally and the reactionary and chauvinist movements that have recently proliferated will be strengthened.
The next meeting of the UN COP will take place in Dubai, UAE, the seventh largest fossil fuel producing country in the world. That is enough to indicate the direction that the world bourgeoisie wants to continue taking.
The fight against extinction will not advance by pushing the notion that it is enough to create pressure groups for the bourgeoisie to change course. It is necessary to take into our hands the conduction of the material and political bases of human society to stop the destruction.
The entire productive apparatus of capitalism needs to be reinvented under socialist and democratic forms that will be tasked to redefine the levels of production and consumption that are compatible with life on the planet.
To the masses who launch into the struggle we say:
Not an ounce of confidence in the ruling class and its agents!
Let us now demand the expropriation of all polluting corporations and their placing under democratic worker and public control.
Down with all the structures of exploitation and oppression that enslave the working class and oppressed communities and destroy the environment and all species!
Down with capitalism!
Down with the imperialist war!
Socialism or Extinction.
#Socialismorextinction #Climaticchange #COP27 #Climaticstruggle