People Before Profit blog

How green was 2015? A look back at struggles and victories

Fri, 18 Dec 2015 11:56:00 +0000

Though climate change persists to the tune of desperate urgency, it must be said that 2015 is ending on a high note. At the UN Climate Conference (COP 21) in Paris, talks have, for the first time, resulted in a real, legal, global agreement on climate between leaders of nations. This is, of course, a complex and multifaceted issue that is far from cut-and-dry, but the ability of world leaders to come to the table for the sake of the environment is, nonetheless, a triumphant turn of events.

We have achieved similar victories for Mother Earth throughout the year, though the planet has also had more than its fair share of disasters, most of them manmade. As 2016 approaches, it's time for careful reflection on the many battles, wins, and losses that we have faced these past 12 months. And then, it's time to think about where we go from here.

Good news: Keystone XL defeated

Instead of TransCanada laying down miles of pipeline, the ambitiously destructive Keystone XL project was laid to rest. The announcement came Nov. 2 that the corporation was suspending its U.S. application for approval, prompting cries of relief by the many indigenous people who would either have been displaced or exposed to dangerous health hazards by the project. It was also good news for the sensitive ecosystems and wildlife that would have been put in direct contact with the pipeline - and any potential oil spills that resulted from a mishap.

The defeat of the project was powerful and symbolic. According to 350.org founder Bill McKibben, it meant that "people aren't going to stand for our governments ignoring climate change and environmental degradation any longer. The Keystone XL pipeline was indicative of the things we cannot continue to do: dig up vast tracts in faraway places to produce more carbon than the atmosphere can stand. It's the epitome of senseless destruction."

Bad news: Arctic ice melting fast, cities to suffer

Experts have been documenting the melting of Arctic sea ice - and the disastrous ripple effects - for a while now, and that information has been in the public eye for just as long. It still came as a blow, however, when scientists declared that, as a result of ice melting faster than initially predicted, North America could be at risk by 2100. Tentative maps of the continent show that many major U.S. cities will be partially or completely underwater by that time period, if serious measures aren't taken before then.

New Orleans will be completely submerged by 2200, Miami and Boston partly underwater by the same time, and New York City could end up looking scarily similar to Venice, where storms frequently swell the New York Harbor until water fills the streets, and avenues of the financial district become canals. Ironically enough, the One Percent, say researchers, will certainly be touched directly by climate change. "We could expect water to be lapping around Wall Street," said oceanography professor Malcolm Bowman from Stony Brook University in Long Island. "We could also see vital infrastructure, hospitals, sewage treatment plants, and communication conduits all paralyzed by flooding."

Good news: Arctic oil drilling leases canceled

Activists know the struggle against Shell's campaign to drill in the Arctic quite well. They know about the kayaktivists who swam toward oil rigs in huge numbers, blocking them and crying out in protest. They know about the embarrassing and costly blunders the oil corporation has made, which have continually set back their own project. And they know that on Oct. 18, the Obama administration canceled the two drilling leases for the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, effectively ending Shell's bid to disturb those waters in their endless greed-driven search for oil.

"This is a historic decision to keep Arctic oil in the ground," said Greenpeace spokesman Travis Nichols. "It's great news for the Arctic and for everyone fighting against extreme fossil fuel projects. This is also the right move for President Obama to secure his climate legacy."

Bad news: Wildfires decimate the landscape

Sea ice has not been the only casualty of climate change. Extreme droughts have persisted throughout the southwestern U.S., and in many other parts of the world. At best, the seemingly endless dry spell has endangered species and even browned the redwood trees of California - the first time this has happened in such a severe fashion. And at worst, the drought in the states has led to wildfires that have ravaged the land (particularly in the Golden State), left people dead and structures destroyed, and challenged firefighters who are overworked and whose efforts are underfunded.

Capitalism, which, together with Big Oil, is no stranger to blackened landscapes, has managed to exploit the situation, with companies selling ludicrous products to the wealthier residents of Los Angeles so that they can keep up appearances by painting their dying lawns green. But that is no fix for the many working class people who are suffering the consequences of the parched climate, nor does it save the wildlife being negatively impacted, or prevent the many lush woodlands in the U.S. from burning.

Good news: Maryland bans fracking

Following in the footsteps of Connecticut, Vermont, and New York, the state of Maine imposed a moratorium on fracking this year, but there's a catch: the ban will only remain in effect until October 2017; afterward, the matter must be dealt with once more. However, this was a good development and the result of a statewide grassroots movement to fight the harmful natural gas extraction practice, although some credit an EPA report released around the same time, declaring - admitting, really - that fracking was indeed a dangerous, toxic practice.

"The EPA confirmed what communities living with fracking have known for years," said Earthworks policy director Lauren Pagel. "Fracking pollutes drinking water. Now the Obama administration, Congress, and state governments must act on this information to protect our drinking water and stop perpetuating the oil and gas industry's myth that fracking is safe."

Bad news: Report says oil trains endanger millions

Speaking of safety, many communities in the U.S. and Canada experienced just the opposite of that when oil trains derailed and exploded in their areas. This has been happening for years, but in 2015, the number of these disasters seemed to drastically increase as companies tried to market oil-by-train as a safer way of transporting the fossil fuel (compared with pipelines). But when the Center for Biological Diversity released a report Feb. 19 offering new insight into the huge risks posed by unregulated train-based oil transport, those who paid attention became aware that an estimated 25 million Americans lived within the one-mile evacuation zone recommended by the U.S. Department of Transportation in the event of an oil train derailment.

"The potential harm from oil train derailments cannot be easily ignored," said the report. "The amount of crude oil beings transported by rail throughout North America has increased dramatically in recent years. In 2008, only 9,500 rail cars of oil were transported on America's Class I railways. In 2013, more than 400,000 rail cars of oil traveled the nation's railways, representing a more than 40-fold increase. Recent reports indicate that it's continuing its dramatic escalation."

Good news: Leaders reach agreement at COP 21

If environmentalists were hoping for any sort of Christmas miracle, it arrived when the UN Climate Conference talks came to a close, with leaders finally establishing a proper climate agreement. COP 21, and the many side events (Climate Generations, the People's Climate Summit) and civil societies based around the worldwide fight against climate change, meant that Paris became, for two weeks, the true center of the environmental struggle. Nevertheless, analyses of the agreement have ranged from optimism to pessimism, and every ambivalent reaction in between.

Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune's response was more on the enthusiastic side, remarking, "The Paris agreement is a turning point for humanity. For the first time in history, the global community agreed to action that sets the foundation to help prevent the worst consequences of the climate crisis while embracing the opportunity to exponentially grow our clean energy economy."

However, 350.org's Bill McKibben warned that those who are rejoicing must not underestimate the strength of the fossil fuel industry. He said, "Every government seems now to recognize that the fossil fuel era must end, and soon. But the power of the fossil fuel industry is reflected even in the [agreement's] text, which drags out the transition so far that endless climate damage will be done. Since pace is the crucial question now, activists must redouble our efforts to weaken that industry."

Samantha Smith, leader of the World Wildlife Fund's Global Climate and Energy Initiative, concluded, "Governments have critically agreed to keep warming well below two degrees C. Everything they do from now on must be measured against that goal. Our leaders must make their actions stronger and stronger over time, in terms of mitigation, adaptation, and finance. This is vital."

Photo: An activist held a poster during a demonstration near the Eiffel Tower, as COP 21 came to a close. | Thibault Camus/AP

After Paris: Examining the COP 21 climate agreement

Fri, 18 Dec 2015 10:49:00 +0000

Not surprisingly, the climate agreement signed by 195 countries in Paris last weekend triggered much commentary on its merit or lack thereof. A few words about what the agreement says. First, the positives.

* The goal is to bring down the rise of global temperatures to zero by mid-century.

* A target temperature rise of no more than 2º C or 3.5º F was established.

* The agreement also set an "aspirational goal" of limiting the increase to 1.5º C. This number represents a shift in the goal posts, and, if achieved, would be a death sentence for the fossil fuel industries and fossil fuel driven economies in the next decade or two.

* Both developed and developing nations pledged to be part of the process. Although the main emissions contributors are the U.S. and Western Europe, developing countries like China, India, and Brazil have also become major emitters.

* It established a fund of $100 billion annually from public and private sources to help developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change. Though not exactly a full-blooded commitment to a "just transition" - lifting the burden of climate change from the most vulnerable and poorest countries which have contributed the least to the crisis - this very modest fund, along with the language in the agreement's preamble, is a start in that direction.

* The agreement requires each country to regularly and transparently disclose its progress in reducing carbon emissions, including a process to review and assess this every five years.

Now to the flaws

Critics - including many of the delegates who crafted the agreement - point out that there are obvious flaws. For one thing, it isn't legally binding, a condition the Obama administration insisted upon, in large measure because a binding agreement would have required approval by the climate change denying Republican-dominated Congress.

Compliance, therefore, is strictly voluntary, hence unenforceable. More to the point: the agreement could easily become the casualty of government leaders and parties on the right of the political spectrum. And as we know, in more than a few countries - the U.S. in the first place - the right wing, demagogically exploiting the chaos, dislocation, and violence in the Middle East and recent terrorist attacks in France and the U.S., is either ascendant or gaining momentum and strength.

Another major shortcoming is that even if the participating countries all meet their emissions reduction pledges, when these are added up, the result is still a temperature rise beyond 2º C - most experts say in the 3º-4º C range.

That outcome would be catastrophic for literally tens of millions of people in poor and vulnerable areas of Africa and Asia. Homelessness, disease, dislocation, poverty, and death would grow. Island nations would actually disappear. And many climate change models suggest that the effect of such a rise in temperatures could be considerably worse than predicted, due to feedback loops that, once triggered, would cause severe disruptive effects worldwide.

Still another flaw in the document is that its overriding objective isn't to eliminate the production of fossil fuels and the concentrations of capital that profit from it. Rather than pointing to supply side solutions (leaving carbon in the ground), the consumption-demand side (reducing emissions) is the focus.

The financial assistance to developing countries, while a start as mentioned, is woefully inadequate to the task. Aid, as the leaders of the developing world insist, isn't a handout. It is a matter of justice extended to countries that bear little of the responsibility, but will experience (and actually already are experiencing) a disproportionate share of the negative effects of rising global temperatures.

In short, the agreement falls far short of what science and justice demand. And here's the rub: while politics in many instances accommodates to delays and compromises, nature does not. And in the case of climate change, science tells us that lateness will be punished severely and forever. There are no makeup exams, no second chances, no getting it right the next time around.

Two camps of critics

Since most critics cite much of the above in their appraisal of the Paris agreement, one might think that everybody is more or less on the same page, but that isn't the case. And here's why: once the conversation moves beyond pointing out this or that positive feature or flaw in the agreement and turns to an overall assessment of it, critics find themselves at odds with one another and end up, essentially, in one of two camps.

In one are those who say that the overall agreement is a failure. In this camp is James Hansen, the former NASA scientist who broke new ground in the study of climate change and resisted pressures from the first Bush administration to button his lip. In an interview, he characterized the agreement as "worthless" and "a fraud."

With him stands Bill McKibbon, leader of the environmental action group 350.org, whose assessment in an op-ed article in the New York Times sounded like a funeral dirge. No less negative, George Monbiot, the highly respected author and blogger on climate change, headlined his post, "The COP21 climate talks in Paris were not the success that governments claim, but a disastrous failure."

And finally, Naomi Klein, author of the rightly celebrated book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism and the Climate, had little good to say about the agreement either.

In the other camp, assessments go in a different direction. "What we have now is a framework for cooperating on climate change that's suited to the task," said Michael Levi, an expert on energy and climate change policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Whether or not this becomes a true turning point for the world, though, depends critically on how seriously countries follow through."

Mark Hertsgaard, environmental writer for The Nation, also had a positive take, "The best way to lower the death toll and improve civilization's future prospects is for civil society all over the world - climate-justice advocates, community and religious leaders, business and financial executives - to push harder than ever to turn the noble but non-binding aspirations declared in Paris into rapid, concrete transformations of our energy, agriculture, consumerist, and other socioeconomic systems."

"We can build," Hertsgaard goes on to say, "a better future than what currently awaits us, and the Paris Agreement can help, but only if the resistance of the old order - as personified by the climate deniers and foot-draggers in Congress and their paymasters in the fossil-fuel industry - is routed once and for all."

Striking a positive note too, Khalid Pitts, Sierra Club political director, writes, "The politics of climate action in the United States just got a major transformational jolt. In Paris, one hundred and ninety five nations agreed to a universal and lasting accord that commits all countries to act together on climate for the first time."

"Due to the enormity of this historic agreement," he continues, "it is surprising that the leading Republican candidates have been uncharacteristically silent for the moment - but perhaps not so much upon closer examination. One of the main arguments Republicans have made against U.S. action is that America cannot act alone. Now, with the entire world acting as one on climate, the Paris agreement accomplishes the very thing which completely undercuts the most hackneyed objections of the GOP candidates."

My view

My conclusion is that although giddy celebration is not in order, neither is paralyzing despair. What science dictates can't be the singular yardstick with which to measure the success or failure of the Paris agreement.

Rather, we have to ask if it breathes new momentum into the efforts of people and governments to address the climate crisis. Does it bring new attention to the issue? Does it change people's thinking? Does it create new opportunities to extend and deepen the movement? Does it bring a new focus to the struggle to save the planet?

I would argue that it does all of these things, and therefore should also figure into any assessment of the agreement. After all, it's on the level of politics that this existential crisis facing humankind will or will not be resolved.

Starting point

What is needed now is a clarion call to fulfill and scale up the U.S. commitments, to make a speedy and just transition from fossil fuels to renewables, and to help ensure that the same happens worldwide.

Whether this can happen depends on a number of things. First, the scale and scope of people's activity has to ramp up. Governments do respond to the sustained actions of millions.

Second, it is imperative for climate change leaders and activists to reach out to a much broader section of the American people: to those who are too busy with their lives to do anything, those who are unconvinced of the urgency of the moment, those who believe that legislation to ameliorate the crisis threatens their livelihoods, and even those who deny that there is a crisis.

Third, a smorgasbord of entry points into the climate change movement is crucial. Blockading oil or coal shipments and street demonstrations aren't for everyone, and especially those who are becoming politically active for the first time.

Fourth, leaders and activists have to persuasively articulate the interconnections between the climate crisis and the other crises of capitalism - wage and income stagnation, inequality and discrimination, poverty, police brutality and mass incarceration, militarism, the shrinking public sector and services, and narrowing of democratic space. Each is part of an interlocking whole.

Finally, climate change activists must shift into overdrive to change the political makeup of Congress and transform the role and priorities of government.

Direct action versus electoral politics?

But herein lies a problem. Too many in the climate change movement consider street heat and direct action as the singular mode of struggle. Indeed many of its leaders and activists - not to mention sections of the left - seem allergic to participation in the electoral process, especially when it amounts to supporting Democratic Party candidates. It seems they feel that to engage in two-party politics stains their political credentials and isn't worth the effort.

This is in sharp contrast to of the broader people's movement that played such a major role in electing President Obama for two terms and is gearing up for a major battle in 2016. While divisions exist over whether to support Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, everyone is on the same page on the necessity of defeating the Republicans at every level. Such unanimity rests on the understanding of tens of millions of people and the organizations that represent them that the defeat of the right wing will bring some immediate relief as well as create a more favorable political terrain on which to fight for more fundamental solutions to the climate crisis and everything else.

Thus, when I see not a word concerning the urgency of defeating the right in next year's elections in the commentary of Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein, I have to wonder, what planet are they are, what planet are they trying to save? It's beyond me how anyone can think that we have a snowball's chance - pun intended - of challenging the grip of the energy corporations and enacting radical climate change measures as long as the right wing is in the driver's seat in Washington and the majority of states governments.

The point here isn't to denigrate McKibben or Klein, both are important and astute leaders and spokespeople of the climate change movement. Nor is it to throw cold water on demonstrations, divestment campaigns, mass civil disobedience, etc. Rather, I am arguing for a comprehensive and transformative strategy that not only combines different forms of democratic and class struggle, but also gives special urgency to defeating right-wing extremism at the polls next year.

While the past isn't always a reliable guide to the future, the fact is that every transformative period in the last century - the 1930s, '60s, and '80s - was facilitated, given momentum, and consolidated by an electoral sweep: Roosevelt and his coalition in the first instance, Lyndon Johnson in the second, and, Reagan, albeit in a rightward, neoliberal about-face, in the third.

If this terrain of struggle gets little attention from some sections of the climate change movement and the Left, the same can't be said about the adversaries on the other side. The climate change deniers and polluters have their fingerprints, money, and voice all over every phase of the political and electoral process. If anything, they have ramped up their participation over the last three decades, establishing a fixture in Washington that challenges the science of climate change, and resists the smallest measures that might cut down on carbon emissions. They understand that wealth, power and social policy are politically constituted. They also appreciate that deep-going solutions to the climate crisis are also deeply anti-capitalist. Abstention from politics, therefore, isn't in their vocabulary or practice.

Martin Luther King once said in another context, "We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late.'"

Were King alive today, my guess is that he would likely say much the same, and maybe with an even fiercer sense of urgency and moral righteousness. He would employ his moving oratory to challenge a social system whose essential logic and dynamic is endless growth and accumulation on an ever-expanding scale even as it violently threatens the very existence of our planet. And he would certainly declaim the reality that the climate crisis, while global in scope, falls most heavily on the dispossessed everywhere, and on the countries of the Global South.

But King was a soberminded politician as well as moral visionary and would remind us of what he learned in the Civil Rights movement. One is that any successful democratic movement has to single out the immediate obstacle, that is, the class grouping blocking social progress that if in power would push the country down the road to ruin. Another is that democratic demands have to be placed on governmental institutions, including radical ones that abolish certain classes of corporate property. A third is that only a movement of millions of people - not a militant minority, not the left alone - has the capacity to make transformative change, and in this case, heal the planet.

Still another lesson is that methods of non-violent struggle have to be combined into a single, mutually reinforcing whole. Finally, he would argue that it mattered who occupied the White House and the seats of power in Washington, as well as state capitals across the country. For King, the struggle against the "triplets of racism, militarism and poverty" depended on rearranging the political furniture. Like other outstanding leaders in our nation's history, King's moral vision and his sense of urgency never occluded concrete political realities that had to be negotiated on the longer march down freedom road.

Which makes me think that if he were still with us, he would insist that we step up to the challenge of the 2016 elections, a necessary fight that can't be bypassed if we hope to save our planet and create a world free of exploitation and oppression.

This was originally posted as an entry on Sam Webb's blog.

Photo: People's World reporter Teresa Albano stands behind a COP 21 sign at the Climate Generations event in Le Bourget, just outside of Paris, France. | Blake Deppe/PW

A Global Village of Alternatives assembles at climate summit

Wed, 16 Dec 2015 12:17:00 +0000

MONTREUIL, France - Just a single train stop away from Paris, in this nearby suburb, the People's Climate Summit took place on Dec. 5 and 6. Rue Dombasle; Rue Pépin; Rue François Debergue; Place Jean-Juarés; Rue Victor Hugo. These five streets were filled with forums, discussions, workshops, and a large, festive gathering of members of the environmental community - both local and worldwide - unlike any other.

Beginning from the entrance to the Metro station and wending its way throughout the town, people set up stands selling wholesome, healthy, and natural goods. It was collectively called the Global Village of Alternatives. Various groups of people set up tables with homemade organic wines, which many were sampling as they lined up to purchase burgers made from organic, farm-raised, grass-fed lamb. Others sold gluten-free and vegan products. One couple sold all-natural juices. Another man, fruit and vegetables.

But those attending the Summit were not merely merchants. Others set up informational areas, educating passersby on sustainable food and agriculture, shared gardening, environmental awareness, responsible consumption including recycling and waste reduction, grassroots energy and climate initiatives, and much more.

And on another street, the aforementioned forums and workshops were in full swing, with communities, groups, and organizations all the way from the U.S. gathering to exchange ideas with Parisians and find inspiration in the many actions centered around the climate talks in Le Bourget.

There were also many powerful displays, including Greenpeace activists clad in polar bear outfits, warning of the dangers posed to the Arctic and other ecosystems by offshore oil drilling. At one street corner, an enormous Statue of Liberty spewed dark smoke from its raised torch - obvious commentary on pollution.

Kate McNeely, an artist and activist from New York, came all the way to Montreuil to turn people on to the idea of climate ribbons; standing before the statue of a tree adorned with multi-colored ribbons, she said that the idea was, people write onto a ribbon the thing they love most, and which they fear might be lost due to climate change.

"The magnitude of what we are dealing with, I don't believe it can only be solved by governments and organizations inside Le Bourget," McNeely said. "We need a complete system change, and I believe civil society will make that change. I truly believe that gatherings like this village in Montreuil are the way forward."

Photos including slideshow: Blake Deppe/PW

At People's Climate Summit: Just transitions and environment

Tue, 15 Dec 2015 12:11:00 +0000

MONTREUIL, France - In this Parisian suburb, just eight miles from Le Bourget - the site of COP 21 - another event took place on Dec. 5. called the People's Climate Summit. It was host to a series of public forums where people could gather to discuss and exchange ideas on climate and environment. One of those forums featured the Jackson Just Transition Plan, in which activists, like those at a Le Bourget side event called Climate Generations, were using what they learned at the Paris climate conference and taking it with them back to the states.

Brandon King, a founding member of Cooperation Jackson, the community development organization that launched the plan, spoke to a group of listeners about bringing environmental initiatives into urban areas - specifically, Jackson, Mississippi, where members of the group believe that an alternative, clean energy economy can be achieved by empowering the underprivileged and unemployed sectors of the working class, with a heavy focus on black and Latino communities.

King is also a co-coordinator of Cooperation Jackson's Freedom Farms Urban Farming Cooperative, which focuses on a desperate social need in Jackson: affordable and accessible healthy food. Utilizing abandoned lots, undeveloped land, and disused industrial and commercial sites, the cooperative plans to supply that food by establishing urban organic farms throughout Jackson, and it has already taken steps to do just that. In west Jackson, the organization is converting an impoverished food desert into an 'eco-village.' "The food we grow on our farm there goes to our cafés, and we're also turning the area into an arts and culture space," said King, who is a DJ and visual artist as well as an activist. "It's a cooperative ecosystem. It's also about combating gentrification, but it's especially about creating a green space for living." Regarding the plan's relevance to the climate talks and civil societies taking place in Paris, he added, "It's important for the global community to come together to show that we have the resources and power to create sustainable and just communities."

The members of Cooperation Jackson also see environmentalism as the conduit through which myriad social issues flow. The idea of a just transition to a sustainable eco-village is based on connecting the dots between the economic and racial crises that have long affected the southern U.S., with climate change as the overarching threat that tethers the two together. The group sought to bring that narrative to Paris during the climate talks. Fa'Seye Aina Gonzalez, a member of the cooperative and coordinator of west Jackson's Nubia's Place Café, quoted Mahatma Gandhi, saying that "we must try to be the change we wish to see in the world." She said the trip here would be the chance to "network, show our presence, make friends, and build allies."

But Brandon King had more to add beyond the struggles that are taking place back home. Asked about his opinion on the climate talks, he remarked, "Being here is really important for frontline communities to express that we're not okay with how the conference has been going. Since the first COP, carbon emissions have risen astronomically. Their meetings haven't been effective, and there's been international outcry about that fact." (Notably, the COP 21 talks this year did finally result in a global agreement on climate, with many having mixed reactions.)

King also noted how Paris, unlike the U.S., is not so culturally divorced from environmental issues, nor are people here blind to the inextricable link between climate and other major world issues. Back home, he said, "It's really unfortunate that there's a disconnect between those things. I see the murder of black people every 28 hours in the United States as a direct signifier of ecological imbalance. Black people are part of the environment. Climate and violence are some of the most clear indicators of a society that is not working in ecological balance."

On that note, he added, the cooperative has also been networking with migrant communities in Paris. "Connecting with communities that face some of the same xenophobia as those back home is a way of bridging some gaps. It's very unfortunate that the Paris attacks happened, but it has made our analysis sharper in terms of understanding more deeply that the violence immigrant communities face needs to be a priority when we're talking about climate justice. One of our objectives here, after all, is to build with other communities, toward a just transition."

Photo: Brandon King. | Blake Deppe/PW

Hope and disappointment: Bridging two realities in Paris climate deal

Mon, 14 Dec 2015 13:45:00 +0000

LE BOURGET, France - They did it. The world came together here at the United Nations Climate Change Conference and on Dec. 12 agreed that each nation has to play a role in saving humanity from climate change by cutting their carbon emissions.

The agreement is many things. It's historic. It's a giant step forward for humanity and world cooperation. It's inadequate. It's missing many things that science suggests need to be agreed to in order to prevent the Earth's temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius or the more ambitious 1.5 degrees - a provision the Pacific Island nations, like the Marshall Islands, insisted upon including.

The agreement says the nations of the world pledge steps aimed at "Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change,"

Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum called anything over 2 degrees fatal for island nations.

"We cannot be expected to sign off on a small island death warrant here in Paris," said de Brum. "Anything over 2 degrees is a death warrant for us. It means the sea level will rise above ... our level of the islands. It means the islands go under."

My sense of the climate change agreement is it's a giant step in the right direction by the 195 countries at the table. To get all these countries involved in the process is a testament to our president. I know many of my left friends will roll their eyes at me when I say President Barack Obama played an outstanding role in trying to broker an accord everyone could agree to.

Given the vociferous Republican opposition to anything remotely reducing carbon emissions, how the president and his administration worked to make progress, starting with the breakthrough U.S.-China deal, despite the GOP's lock-step obstructionism, is to be commended.

The United States, because of our history of militaristic and Cold War/imperial foreign policy fueled by Big Oil and other political-economic interests, often plays a negative role in world forums. That was true to a certain degree in Paris as well. References to human rights and a "just transition" were scuttled in some sections of the agreement apparently from U.S. concerns.

But let's face it, national politics is the starting point for foreign policy, and to find ways to get an agreement among 195 nations and shield it from Republican attack is no easy feat.

That said, scientists, environmental and Indigenous groups, trade unions and social justice activists are quick to point out the numerous deficiencies in the agreement.

In a statement, the International Trade Union Confederation called the deal "a first step," while at the same time "weak" and "compromised."

"The Paris deal recognizes the reality of the climate threat, but only takes us part of the way," the ITUC said.

"Climate change is already destroying lives and livelihoods with more than 2.6 million people displaced by extreme weather events and changing seasons. This will only get worse," the statement reads.

Rainforest Action Network said in an email it viewed the agreement "with both hope and disappointment."

"We are encouraged at the recognition that deforestation and forest degradation play a critical role in the climate crisis, yet greatly disheartened at the lack of binding inclusion for Indigenous and human rights in the agreement."

Like the ITUC, the network said the protection of people and the planet will "ultimately" come from "people power."

"The past few weeks in Paris have presented a heartening display of the unity and solidarity of an ascendant global climate justice movement with Indigenous community voices and voices from the global south at its core," the network said. "Frontline communities, Indigenous communities, and everyday activists who are willing to stand up to those who place profits before people and planet will force the change we need to see. And that will allow us to keep forests standing, to keep fossil fuels in the ground, to protect human rights and to create a just and sustainable future."

The Paris deal included text on developing "policy approaches and positive incentives for activities relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests."

Scientists and climate experts also responded in similar ways, welcoming the agreement and "worrying" about the lack of clear and strong timetables for carbon emission reduction.

But some condemned the agreement. The man called the father of climate awareness, former NASA scientist James Hansen, called the Paris talks a "fraud." In a media release from Indigenous Environmental Network, 350.org and No Tar Sands, Indigenous activists condemned "the failure of the UN to achieve an agreement at COP21 that takes meaningful action on the climate crisis" and its "false solutions." They pledged to continue to give leadership on "keeping highly polluting fossil fuels in the ground and meaningful climate adaptation strategies."

The agreement's many shortcomings are apparent. Even President Obama, in his remarks on the Paris deal, agreed with critics, "Now, no agreement is perfect, including this one. Negotiations that involve nearly 200 nations are always challenging. Even if all the initial targets set in Paris are met, we'll only be part of the way there when it comes to reducing carbon from the atmosphere. So we cannot be complacent because of today's agreement. The problem is not solved because of this accord. But make no mistake, the Paris agreement establishes the enduring framework the world needs to solve the climate crisis. It creates the mechanism, the architecture, for us to continually tackle this problem in an effective way."

The planet works on its own timetable and not the human political one. In other words, while we may be happy today that the human world is recognizing the existential threat, the planet doesn't care one bit. Global warming and extreme weather events are objective reality. It doesn't stop because there is an agreement. The trajectory of global warming will only change if human - and capitalism's - behavior changes.

And there's the rub. Politics change human behavior and human behavior changes politics. The political and educational work to broaden and deepen the climate justice movement at the grassroots, to reach out and motivate all Americans to get involved, has to continue in order to make the agreement and more ambitious agreements or goals realizable.

Big jobs lay ahead. It means curbing Big Oil and the fossil fuel industry, including natural gas from fracking - curbing both the use of these fuels and their stranglehold on U.S. politics and economy. It means electing a president and Congress in 2016 that will continue the hard but necessary work of building an economy based on clean renewable energy, not fossil fuels and other greenhouse gas emitting sources.

You can donate to continue bringing climate coverage for the 99 percent here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/climate-coverage-for-the-99-percent-paris-cop21#/

Photo: Banner translates to: Agribusiness disrupts the climate, peasant/family farmer agriculture protects the planet. | Teresa Albano/PW

GOP out to sabotage climate talks in Paris

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 10:12:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. - Treachery! Pure and simple.

No sooner had President Obama finished pledging in Paris Dec. 1 that the U.S. would be a leader among nations seeking a successful accord on climate change than the House Republican leadership back in the nation's capital set up votes aimed to undermine him and to derail the conference.

Mostly along party lines, the Republican majority in the House passed two resolutions (already approved in the Republican-controlled Senate) to scuttle Environmental Protection Agency rules that would drastically cut carbon emissions from present and future coal-fired power plants.

This is an effort to undermine the Obama administration's credibility and, given our country's prominence, to sabotage the United Nations Climate Change Conference's potential for success in Paris, where leaders of nearly 200 nations were gathered to avert catastrophic harm to Mother Earth and its inhabitants.

Meanwhile, also on Dec. 1, Republican presidential candidate and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program that the climate "will always change and man will always contribute to it." But, "It's not a crisis."

The rest of the Republican pack was no better, trying to outdo one another with hybrid versions of Christie's assessment.

The challenges confronting negotiators at the #COP21 climate change conference in Paris are nothing short of phenomenal after 20 years of unproductive attempts to come up with some sort of binding agreement.

But of all the potential hurdles, none weighs more heavily on my mind than Election Day in November, 2016.

It could all come to naught on that fateful day.

Imagine waking up the next morning to a Republican president at the nation's helm and both houses of Congress still in Republican control, with carte blanche to select the next right-wing Supreme Court justice, tipping the court's balance decidedly to the right.

All three federal branches of government in Republican far-right hands would be a catastrophe for the American people, humanity and nature.

That need not be the outcome.

Whether you see President Obama's environmental agenda as opening a window of opportunity wide or just barely, it's nevertheless an opening and a far cry from the Republicans' solid wall of opposition.

Significantly, the Democratic presidential candidates are committed to pursuing the president's environmental agenda if any one of them were to be elected.

By all accounts, this time around the prospects for a meaningful worldwide climate change accord in Paris are better than ever - though significantly short of what's necessary to keep the climate from spiraling out of control.

The hoped-for-accord is being seen as the beginning of a process requiring close monitoring, unprecedented international cooperation and more consequential action by the world community in the near future.

Meanwhile, a rapidly growing movement to curb climate change at the sub-national level among states, provinces and metropolitan areas can already claim meaningful initiatives in some areas, however modest at this point.

At the same time, grassroots movements are popping up with greater frequency and existing ones are gaining strength across the globe, including in our own country, as the reality of global warming imposes its catastrophic consequences more widely and the movements' ideas resonate with ever-larger sections of the populace.

Hugely significant, two-thirds of Americans favor the U.S. joining a binding international agreement to curb the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll.

Sixty-three percent - including a bare majority of Republicans - said they would support domestic policy limiting carbon emissions from power plants.

All these developments, however uneven and faltering they may be at times, are cross-fertilizing.

They represent the emergence of a formidable constellation of class and social forces doing battle against the oil and fossil fuel giants of industry and allied interests.

Advancing climate goals means waging the struggle along four intersecting fronts: street heat, legislative struggle, electoral action and the battle of ideas.

Ignoring any one of them means battling the fossil fuel industrial goliath with one hand tied behind our backs.

A couple of challenges in the battle of ideas for those on the left.

In my opinion the president's executive actions on climate are significant, especially in the context of fierce opposition by the Republican majorities in congress and in the many states under Republican control, the powerful fossil fuel industry and allied interests, and some in his own party.

However, it's neither a matter of agreeing with President Obama across the board nor nitpicking at his admittedly imperfect proposals.

Rather, it is a matter of proactively defending the president's positive moves against the rightwing climate deniers while continuing to press him, other public officials and institutions to go further as, for example, the campaign to stop fracking.

On a related matter, I too think that the sooner capitalism is replaced by a socialism deeply rooted in the people and their democratic aspirations, the safer we will all be from the scourges of runaway climate change, war, poverty and injustice.

But it is in the present struggles - as they actually are, not as we wish they were - that more fundamental reforms and a vision of democratic socialism will resonate among the people.

Unquestionably, many questions of unity remain to be solved at the international and national level, but that is beyond this article's scope.

Finally, before we can move to higher ground in this struggle for survival, we have no choice but to cross the bridge that the 2016 elections represent.

Going into the elections, the environmental movement is not alone.

There is plenty of common ground with all sorts of movements championing their particular causes being attacked by the Republican right wing.

Many of these have come to embrace the struggle to sharply cut greenhouse gas emissions and transition to renewable energy sources.

All the more reason to join what amounts to an all people's front to defeat the Republican right come November.

Let's hope that with this crucial step, we will be sowing the seeds from which a robust environmental and democratic (in the broadest sense of the word) renewable order will spring and grow to fruition.

Photo: Blake Deppe/PW

Cuba and U.S. seal deal on defense of the environment

Mon, 07 Dec 2015 16:55:00 +0000

The Center for International Policy, a Washington D.C. think tank, has welcomed the agreement between the United States and Cuba on Nov. 24 to increase the two countries' cooperation on shared environmental issues. The agreement streamlines procedures to make it easier for U.S. and Cuban scientists to work toward the biological resources of both countries. For U.S. scientists, travel to Cuba to work on environmental projects will be eased, as will existing restrictions on funding such projects and shipping research equipment from the United States to Cuba.

In a press release, the Center for International Policy said: "This accord is the result of years of advocacy efforts by the Center for International Policy, the New York Botanical Garden and other research and conservation institutions and non-governmental organizations, as well as attorney/advocate Robert Muse."

"We couldn't be more pleased that the Department of State concluded the agreement," said Elizabeth Newhouse, Director of the Center for International Policy's Cuba Project. "Even if the next president does not share President Obama's desire to go forward with normalized relations with Cuba, yesterday's agreement puts bilateral environmental cooperation on a secure and lasting footing."

Robert Muse said "the agreement is a heartening instance of the U.S. government listening to NGOs, who spoke from a real desire to succeed in the important work they are doing in Cuba. The State Department is to be fulsomely commended for this."

The advocacy groups began in December 2008 with a letter to then president-elect Obama to ask that he make scientific exchanges with Cuba easier in order to confront shared, growing environmental threats. Changes in visa and licensing policies followed. However, the process for carrying out environmental projects in cooperation with Cuban institutions remained daunting. In 2012 non-governmental groups jointly urged the U.S. government to execute a declaration with Cuba to facilitate the flow of scientific information and the development of projects to protect the environment. The coalition of groups sent a detailed letter to President Obama in February 2013, making the case for an environmental protection agreement with Cuba.

"Signatories included, in addition to the Center for International Policy, the New York Botanical Garden and Robert Muse, the CEO's of the Environmental Defense Fund, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Museum of Natural History, the Ocean Foundation, the Sea to Shore Alliance, the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, the Tinker Foundation, the Nature Conservancy, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the World Wildlife Fund. Dan Whittle of the Environmental Defense Fund and David Guggenheim, founder of Ocean Doctor, contributed greatly to the initiative."

Photo: Florida and Cuba aerial photograph. Eco Cuba Network.