"Globalization" and global warming

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Today's NY Times has a full page ad attacking the United Nations Kyoto
Global Warming treaty. In addition to a handful of unions like the United
Mineworkers who have identified their interests as being the same on this
issue as the boss's, the sponsors include industry groups like:

American Automobile Manufacturers Association
American International Automobile Dealers Association
American Iron and Steel Institute
American Petroleum Institute
American Plastics Council
American Trucking Associations
Association of American Railroads
Chemical Manufacturers Association
The Fertilizer Institute
National Association of Manufacturers
National Automobile Dealers Association
The National Cattlemen?s Beef Association
National Mining Association
The Small Business Survival Committee
U.S. Chamber of Commerce

They are angry that the treaty allows 134 of 168 countries like India,
China and Mexico to be exempt from the emissions controls stipulated by the
treaty. The ad complains that they are "responsible for almost half of the
world's greenhouse gases." What a striking admission. 134 of 168
countries--79%-- are responsible for 50% of the carbon emissions. What this
means is that these countries are underdeveloped and use fewer resources
per capita. The treaty, with all of its deficiencies, takes this into
account. That is why trade associations from the world's most powerful
imperialist nation attack the treaty.

The web page tied to the ad is also aggravated by other provisions that
favor the weak at the expense of the poor:

"Oil producing and other developing nations have proposed that they be
reimbursed for the economic losses they would suffer if the industrialized
world cuts back on its use of fossil fuel. The negotiating text before the
UN includes a proposal for developed countries to compensate oil producing
and other nations, which will not be bound by the agreement, for 'social
and economic losses arising from implementation of the present instrument"
and developing countries "shall have a claim ? for the loss of income from
export of fossil fuel products, raw material other than fossil fuels or
finished or semi-finished goods.'

"Unless all nations participate in an agreement, global emissions levels
will continue to rise. This means that Americans could end up making
sacrifices for little or no environmental benefit."

The fight over this treaty foreshadows the big class questions we face in
the environmental movement in the 21st century. The capitalist class in the
exploiter nations resents any controls over its profit-making prerogatives.
The developing nations are fighting for the right to catch up to the
imperialist nations economically and regard emission controls as a burden.
Socialists should support whatever financing is necessary to allow these
countries to produce energy without generating greenhouse gases. From each
according to their ability, to each according to their needs is
encapsulated in the fight over global warming.

We have to subject the bourgeoisie of the developing nations to a
class-based critique as well. The governments of India, Mexico and China
are among the most environmentally insensitive in the world. The Chinese
have just completed work on the Yangtze dam, which is an assault on the
environment as well as on Chinese civilization. The landscape along the
river, which is a national treasure like the Grand Canyon or the beaches of
Cuba, will be marred permanently by this project.

So where will energy come from to satisfy the needs of the world's
population? That is the big question for socialists and bourgeois
ideologues as well. Socialists urge the expropriation of the bourgeoisie
and bringing the resources of the world under rational and scientific
control. Bourgeois ideologues, who inevitably identify with their own
ruling class, argue that their own capitalist system can not be regulated.
If American big business is saddled with costly emission controls, prices
will have to rise. If prices rise, the French capitalists or the German
capitalists will take advantage of us.

The interesting thing about the United Nations taking responsibility for
drafting a universal treaty on global warming is that it presumes a
"globalization" political framework, when all evidence points to the
contrary. The "globalization" theorists have it all wrong. Economic
nationalism is still the rule.

Louis Proyect