If there is one thing that the failed Copenhagen climate (COP15) talks taught us, it is that we can no longer depend on our elected leaders to bring us into a sustainable energy future. The climate legislation drafted by the COP15, the “Copenhagen Accord,” was negotiated primarily by President Obama, and contains no specifics on emissions reduction levels, no timetables for reduction implantation, and is not legally binding. It sets a cap on ocean temperature rise at 2 degrees Celsius, even though many small island nations have stated that an increase of even 1.5 degrees Celsius is enough to drown their entire island.
Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the main negotiator for the G77 block of 77 developing nations, heavily criticized the accord, saying that the deal would be a death sentence for hundreds of thousands of Africans. He made it very clear that those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, developing and island nations, refused to settle for any agreement that exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius sea temperature rise, 350 ppm carbon in the atmosphere, and no emissions reductions below 60% from 1990 levels by 2020 (the U.S. suggested 4% from 1990 levels). None of these ambitious targets were met by the Copenhagen Accord, and the hope for a robust, global climate deal to curb the effects of climate change is now gone.
It is in times like these, when our elected leaders cannot create the dire changes we need to see, that we must simply do it ourselves. If we are to truly achieve climate justice, for indigenous peoples, for urban communities, for the mountains, then we must take direct action now to stop climate change. Direct action is simply doing something with your own hands, rather than depending on a representative to do it for you. In the movement for climate justice, feeding the hungry, planting a community garden, and engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience are all useful and effective tactics for each of us to change the world in which we live to a more sustainable and just society.
However, achieving climate justice will take a lot more than environmentalists blockading logging roads and planting free food; we must engage with a broad and diverse coalition of people, and actively seek out new perspectives and struggles, if we are going to gain the influence and skills needed to change our system. Labor unions, peace and anti-war groups, community organizers, feminist organizations, anti-racist groups, indigenous rights activists, and universal health care advocates are all natural allies in a movement away from overconsumption and environmental racism. We must reach out to affected populations, such as coal miners, whose health and safety are jeopardized daily by the coal industry, as natural partners in the struggle for clean renewable energy. Every life on this planet has a vested interest in sustainability, and only if we act quickly can we save the earth from ecological crisis.
Unfortunately, all of the efforts of the climate justice movement will be in vain if the movement is not highly critical of the capitalist system, and rampant “free market” ideology. Any system motivated by profit, which values overproduction and overconsumption, is simply not compatible with a movement towards sustainable living and a small carbon footprint. Global capitalism has created the climate crisis as we know it, and we cannot depend on massive multinational corporations or “Green” markets to get us out of this mess. In order to reach a state of renewable energy solutions, we have to work to reduce and eliminate certain high-emissions industries all together, such as the oil, coal, and agribusiness sectors, and the corporations who control them.
As we phase out high carbon markets, we must usher in new forms of energy and agriculture which will employ more small farmers and workers, and protect the needs of the planet, over the need for profit. We must resist all false market solutions to climate change, such as a proposed “cap and trade” system, which will undermine emissions reductions and facilitate the formation of a profitable carbon trading market for the world’s biggest polluters.
We have reached a time when those of us who are not currently suffering the debilitating effects of climate change are living in a state of privilege. From the poor in our inner cities, who live closest to waste dumps and other unhealthy industrial pollution, to the indigenous peoples of Africa, South America, and island nations suffering from water pollution, soil erosion, and deforestation, those most vulnerable in our world today are those who will suffer the most from climate change, even though they did not produce the pollution and emissions which created the crisis. We must work for their protection and health, as well as the preservation of the earth’s natural resources, and we must each take on a role in the collective struggle.
In solidarity with the protestors at the COP15 climate summit, we must march under the banner “System Change, Not Climate Change,” and reach out to all people to build a climate justice movement that can reclaim power from the fossil “fool” industry. It’s high tide for a climate uprising, and we aren’t asking anymore. Just remember, we can create anything we set our minds, and our hearts to, but we can’t bailout a dead planet.
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