CLIMATE JUSTICE: "CARBON TRADING"

IEN and Other Activists Criticize Carbon Trading As
       "PRIVATIZATION of the ATMOSPHERE"

The following appeared in the February 2005 edition of Z Magazine. Note the GE Trees mentioned in the side bar.

UN Global Warming Convention Meets US Resistance
While Activists Criticize Carbon Trading As "Privatization of the Atmosphere"

By Anne Petermann & Orin Langelle,
Co-Directors, Global Justice Ecology Project

The United Nation's Framework Convention on Climate Change, which oversees the Kyoto Protocol, celebrated its tenth Anniversary of attempting to address global warming with the launch of its tenth Conference of the Parties (COP 10) on December 6, 2004 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The meeting was marked by an Alaskan oil spill, reports that 2004 was one of the hottest and stormiest years on record, and the announcement that Inuit peoples are appealing to an international court for a ruling against the US for its climate changing activities. Shortly before the meeting, it was uncovered that the Arctic regions are warming at twice the rate of the rest of the globe, with predictably dire results, and shortly after the conclusion of the meeting, the US experienced one of its highest days of casualties in the war for oil in Iraq. It is becoming undeniable, even to the most stubborn, that the world's oil-dependent economy is leading to the rapid demise of peoples, wildlife and ecosystems around the globe.

Even the Pentagon believes in the danger of global warming. According to London's The Observer, a secret Pentagon report leaked to the press in February of this year, "predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents." The Observer quotes the report as concluding, "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life. Once again, warfare would define human life."

As a result of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and in response to the emerging global warming threat, the UNFCCC was initiated. The Kyoto Protocol, the global warming agreement negotiated by the UNFCCC, is due to finally come into effect on February 16, 2005, following the October 22, 2004 ratification of the agreement by Russia. Russia's signing on gives the agreement a high enough level of participation by industrialized countries for it to now take effect. But many activists wonder if it isn't too little, too late; especially since the world's biggest polluter, the United States, with 25% of worldwide annual global carbon emissions, refuses to sign on.

Jutta Kill, of the Sinkswatch project of FERN in the United Kingdom, who has been following the process for several years states, "Scientists have projected that immediate carbon emission cuts of 60-80% are needed to avert climate catastrophe. The Kyoto Protocol only establishes carbon emission reduction targets of 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2012, and even these are being evaded."

Statements from the UN, however, remain positive about the progress that has been made on global warming in the past ten years. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote in a UN report entitled The First Ten Years, "The issue of climate change has been placed firmly on local, national and international agendas, in the forefront of public and media scrutiny, and in the strategies of a growing number of businesses."

The aspects of the Kyoto Protocol that have come most under fire from activists are "loopholes" that help corporations evade emissions cuts. These loopholes include the agreement's "Flexible Mechanisms," which include trading in carbon credits, as well as Joint Implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Through the CDM, corporations that wish to maintain or increase carbon emissions can purchase carbon credits from developing countries that in some way claim to have reduced emissions—by, for example, converting a coal burning plant to natural gas, or by planting trees to soak up carbon dioxide. These countries emissions, however, reminds Jutta Kill, "are not monitored, and reductions therefore are unverifiable." The CDM would be funded by the industrialized North and enforced by multilateral development agencies such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

OilWatch criticized the direction of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations stating, "Trade in carbon emissions, CDMs and the World Bank's Prototype Carbon Fund… are viewed by [industrialized countries] as an opportunity to evade their obligations, and by the countries of the G77 as an opportunity to channel their resources. However, these mechanisms do not resolve the global climatic change crisis, but on the contrary, transfer responsibility from the guilty parties to the Global South."

During the Buenos Aires climate talks, the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network released their report, A Wrong Turn from Rio which charges that the World Bank is part of the problem, not part of the solution. It argues that while the 1992 Rio Earth Summit put much of the financial control over sustainable energy development within the confines of the World Bank, since Rio the Bank has instead spent $28 billion on fossil fuel projects including extraction and power plants.

"The World Bank poses a hazard to climate stability," stated Jim Vallette, research director for SEEN. "Instead of fulfilling the role world leaders entrusted them with in Rio, they are now actually profiting from pollution of the Earth's atmosphere, both via finance for accelerated extraction of fossil fuels and via carbon trading." Nadia Martinez, SEEN Latin America Coordinator when on to charge, "The World Bank has done more that any other institution to entrench the global fossil fuel industry. It must be removed from any scheme that purports to solve the climate crisis."

Even the World Bank's own Extractive Industries Review criticizes the Bank's support of extractive industries (oil, gas and mining). After spending millions of dollars on the EIR, however, the Bank's board in September 2004 voted to ignore most of the recommendations. SEEN reports that Dr. Emil Salim, who led the EIR, called the Bank's response, "business as usual." Dr. Salim told an EIR consultation, "It is not the World Bank that must determine whether this is to be done, it is up to us."

The US maintains a defacto veto power over the World Bank.

Though the US is not a party to the Kyoto Protocol, they remain active with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which allows them to have influence in the process. Their role in this process has been criticized as obstructionist and designed to weaken the global warming agreement. The Kyoto Protocol's Flexible Mechanism loopholes were incorporated due to US pressure during the Clinton Administration.

Immediately after the COP 10 talks in Buenos Aires, the New York Times reported that the COP "ended … with a weak pledge to start limited, informal talks on ways to slow down global warming, after the United States blocked efforts to begin more substantive discussions."

US Under Secretary of Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky was quoted in the COP 10 publication El Diario saying, "we believe that the best way to face climate change is through economic growth."

But Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), was quoted in The Observer suggesting other motives of the Bush Administration saying, "This administration is ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies."

This year's COP was ostensibly to focus on advancing measures to help developing countries with "adaptation" to the effects that will be or are already being felt due to climate change. However, FERN's Jutta Kill believes the US is also behind demands by Saudi Arabia and rich OPEC nations for a piece of the adaptation pie—demands which are helping to derail the talks. In December of 2003 following last year's COP 9, The Australian reported, "The oil rich OPEC nations upset poor countries by demanding a share of the money promised to help developing countries cope with the affects of global warming in compensation for consumers switching to clean energy."

And even back in 2000, London's Guardian Weekly was charging the US with trying to disrupt progress on global warming reporting, "the whole international effort had been hijacked and corrupted by the United States' ideological obsession with the disciplines of the market as a panacea for all ills."

The Guardian Weekly went on to say, "the US...insisted on a market for carbon trading that would enable it to buy the right to carry on polluting. It wanted to plant forests to absorb carbon in so-called carbon sinks, and even claim carbon credits for changing the way farmers plow their fields," adding, "scientists are very uncertain about how and whether carbon sinks work at all; some estimated that the US proposals would lead to massive increases in emissions."

There are even doubts from within the U.S. corporate structure about carbon trading. Dale E. Heydlauff, of American Electric Power was reported in the New York Times stating, "If you don't have a system that's legitimate and verifiable, there's tremendous potential for gaming the system."

And that's precisely the problem, insists FERN's Kill. "Carbon trading, which involves carbon saving and carbon sequestering projects that can't be verified, can only count toward carbon credits if it can be proven the project wouldn't have happened anyway without the financing from the carbon credit fund, but there is no way to know that."

"On purely economic terms, a market built on carbon credits will inevitably become a "lemons market.' Because carbon projects cannot be verified, investors cannot know if what they are buying is legitimate or not. When bad projects purchased are inevitably exposed, investors will lose confidence and the market will fall apart," Kill continued.

Never the less, within days of Russia's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, carbon trading in Europe tripled. The carbon market is projected to become the largest market ever, reaching US$60 billion by 2008.

In response to the focus on a carbon market as a "solution" to global warming, in early October, 2004 organizations and social movements from around the world came together in Durban, South Africa to discuss carbon trading and to look at potential alternatives. They emerged with a declaration that states in part:

"The carbon market creates transferable rights to dump carbon in the air, oceans, soil and vegetation far in excess of the capacity of these systems to hold it. Billions of dollars worth of these rights are to be awarded free of charge to the biggest corporate emitters of greenhouse gases in the electric power, iron and steel, cement, pulp and paper, and other sectors in industrialised nations who have caused the climate crisis and already exploit these systems the most. Costs of future reductions in fossil fuel use are likely to fall disproportionately on the public sector, communities, indigenous peoples and individual taxpayers."

At the COP 10, members of the Durban Group held a press conference demanding "climate justice" on International Human Right's Day, December 10. "Powerful interests have hijacked the climate debate and are forcing a corporate, free market approach to the earth's peril," stated Tom Goldtooth, director of the Indigenous Environmental Network.

"Carbon trading," argues FERN's Kill, who was also at the Durban meeting, "leads to privatization of the atmosphere. Emissions can only be traded if you own them. So corporations are being awarded a certain portion of the atmosphere into which to dump their pollution. Before carbon trading they had free access to the atmosphere, now they are being given the 'right' to it. Those who have caused this terrible problem are now supposed to save us from it while continuing to pollute and making a lot of money."

And it may already be too late to avert climate catastrophe. The COP 10 publication El Diario reported that over just the past decade climate change has been responsible for nearly 500,000 people killed, over 2.5 billion impacted and economic losses of over $690 billion. 95% of climate change casualties belonged to countries of middle to low-level income.

In addition, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, released on November 24, found that arctic regions are warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet. This rapid warming is leading to a rapid recession of the ice sheet, threatening polar bears, walruses, and other wildlife that depend on the ice as well as 155,000 Inuit peoples who live throughout the Arctic region.

Following the release of this damning report, during the second week of COP 10, Inuit leaders announced that they are seeking a ruling from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights affirming that the refusal of the US to reduce their 25% of global carbon emissions is threatening their existence. Such a declaration could assist in an eventual lawsuit by the Inuit against the US or US companies.

But it is not just the Arctic populations that will experience the impact of the melting ice. A report from the UN Environment Program estimates that sea level has already risen 4-8 inches over the past 50 years and is expected to rise much higher. This rising sea level threatens coastal communities all over the world and is predicted to cause some small islands to become uninhabitable or disappear completely. Small island nations have expressed exasperation with the inaction of the global community regarding global warming.

About other impacts of a global economy dependent on oil, COP 10 remained remarkably short-sighted. On the third day of the convention, a freighter broke in two off the coast of Unalaska Island, coating it with thousands of gallons of oil. This received remarkably little attention at the convention. Additionally, shortly after the conference ended, on December 21, the US experienced one the highest days yet of casualties in Iraq, when 14 soldiers and 8 others were killed in an attack on a US military base. While the US continues to insist that its ongoing operations in Iraq are aimed at establishing democracy in the country, it is widely acknowledged that the war is directed at controlling the world's second largest oil field, which is consistent with US refusal to curb global warming emissions.

The Durban Group acknowledged the need for a more broad-based and holistic approach to global warming with the release of a "Call to Action" to global grassroots movements to “stand up for real action on climate change." This call states, "The refusal of governments and international financial institutions like the World Bank to force corporations to phase out use of fossil fuels, and which in fact encourage accelerated use of increasingly limited fossil fuel stocks, is causing more and more military conflicts around the world, magnifying social and environmental injustice."

It continues, "If we are to avert a climate crisis, drastic reductions in fossil fuel investment and use are inescapable, as is the protection of remaining native forests. The current flawed approach of international negotiations must be met by the active participation of a global movement of Northern and Southern peoples to take the climate back into their hands."

The Guardian Weekly concurs, "What has been singularly lacking [in the climate debate] has been any widespread popular campaign. There have been no Seattle-style protests… Politicians respond to pressure. When they have big, angry demonstrations outside of their conference centers, it focuses their minds…"

"What is really needed," agrees Kill, "is an effort that involves civil society and grassroots movements, because governments will not change otherwise. Time is clearly running out and at the pace the governments are moving it will run out and we will face climate catastrophe."

[SIDE BAR]

Tree Plantations to Store Carbon?

Tree plantations are being developed in the Global South, with subsidies from World Bank "carbon funds," to "offset" emissions from the industrial North under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism.

While the World Bank insists that its carbon funds were designed to help alleviate poverty and promote development, Ken Newcomb, Senior Manager of the World Bank's Carbon Finance Business explained at the Carbon Expo in Cologne, Germany in July, 2004 that the real motive for their involvement is to "reduce the risk for private investors."

The Bank's largest carbon offset forestry plantation project, called Plantar, is in Brazil. Plantar has come under fire from the Rural Workers Trade Union and others from the community of Minais Gerais, where the plantations are located. At a protest outside of the Carbon Expo, Juarez Teixera Santana of the Rural Workers Trade Union stated, "We have been fighting against the destruction caused by industrial tree plantations in our country for years. Yet now we are being told that these destructive projects are "clean development" projects that protect the climate. They are neither."

Last December in Milan, Italy, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed that genetically engineered trees could be used in carbon storage plantations. However, forest protection groups criticized this decision saying the inevitable escape of engineered pollen into native forests will lead to forest health crises that destroy the delicate ecological balance of native forests, causing increased forest mortality—and additional releases of CO2 greenhouse gas. Trees are being engineered to kill insects, grow faster, have reduced lignin and resist herbicides, in addition to increasing carbon storage. Tree pollen has been documented to travel over 400 miles.

Studies at North Carolina's Duke University found that when trees are subjected to increased carbon dioxide in the air, they will only increase their carbon storage if soils are rich in nitrogen. This suggests that plantations developed specifically to store carbon will need to be located on fertile lands. As a result, say environmental justice activists, these plantations are likely to result in more logging of native forests, or take over of agricultural lands. They will also lead to other impacts on rural poor communities including loss of fresh water and biodiversity and contamination with toxic chemical herbicides and pesticides, that come with establishment of industrial tree plantations.

At a press conference at the UNFCCC tenth Conference of the Parties, on the impacts of GE trees and plantations, Lorena Ojeda, a Mapuche scientist explained, "plantations impact southern Chile causing great environmental and social problems. Pollen from these plantations travels in the wind large distances, contaminating water and affecting people with allergies and asthma."

"If industrial tree plantations already cause so many problems with pollen, what will be the effect of GE tree pollen that contains the pesticide Bt?" she asked. "This engineered pollen could cause increased illness as it contaminates water, ecosystems, flora, fauna and people."

"Monoculture tree plantations are devastating for local communities and the environment," said Rachel Nuñez of the World Rainforest Movement. "If the Kyoto Protocol allows large plantations of GE trees to count as clean development projects, the results will be catastrophic."

The press conference was jointly organized by the World Rainforest Movement, FERN, Peoples Forest Forum and Global Justice Ecology Project after their request for an official GE trees side event at the UN convention, where they could address UN delegates directly, was lost.

Additional concerns about carbon storage plantations include the temporary nature of the carbon storage and the impossibility of protecting plantations from activities that would re-release the carbon. Wildfires in Indonesian plantations in 1997 released more carbon that year than the entire European Union.

Though the United Nations' Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change authored a report in February, 2001 which supported the idea of tree plantations for carbon storage, it admitted the carbon storage effects would be temporary.

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