Michael Roberts blog 16-12-2023, por M Roberts
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2023/12/16/cop28-business-as-usual/
COP28: business as usual
The COP28 conference on what to do about global warming and climate change held in Dubai finished last Thursday. Attended by a record 70,000 people (carbon footprint?) and hosted by the head of Dubai’s state oil company (!), the final statement appeared to make a major breakthrough. The statement talked of “a transition away from all fossil fuels”. For the first time, it was agreed that fossil fuel exploration, production and use must end. An historic step, it has been argued.
But a ‘transition away’ is really mealy-mouthed sophistry to avoid ‘phasing down’, let alone ‘phasing out’ fossil fuels that cause over 90% of all carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The ‘transition away’ means that fossil fuel companies can go on producing oil, gas and coal and countries and governments and companies can go on using these energy sources with no agreed reductions. It’s business as usual for the energy companies and for countries with high greenhouse gas emissions. (..)
(..) According to Daniela Gabor, an associate professor in economics at the University of the West of England, we need states to undertake an “extensive, deep intervention in the reorganisation of economic activity that is necessary for a just transition. Carbon wealth taxes don’t even begin to scratch the surface of that transformation.” Jason Hickel wants “democratic control over investment … and production, because profit-seeking markets prioritise the wrong things. When people have democratic control over production, they prioritise human well-being and ecological sustainability,” he says.
This must mean a campaign to bring into public ownership the fossil fuel industry globally and to use the profits and revenues to dramatically invest in renewables, electrification and environmental projects. The solution does not lie in replacing petrol and diesel vehicles with electric cars, but in replacing private transport with carbon and price-free public transport. The solution is not in building homes for profit and speculation, but in well planned urban housing projects built by governments and controlled by working people.
And we still face hell if we do not stop the destruction of nature and instead save the forests, wetlands, land and ocean life. Saving the planet and its species is inexorably connected to controlling global warming.
2023-12-17
