[PEN-L:29944] RE: Posted to a-list by Michael Keany

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L:29942] Posted to a-list by Michael Keany

 what is the "a-list"?

-----Original Message-----
From: Louis Proyect
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 8/28/2002 5:34 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:29942] Posted to a-list by Michael Keany

I've been impressed by Lou Proyect's characterisation of the EU and US
as
performing a "good cop, bad cop" routine with respect to the global
South.
Certainly, the EU seems to have a better image, and when respected
progressives like Jurgen Habermas are given free rein in the likes of
New
Left Review to talk up the EU's potential as a moral counterweight to US

greed/bullying/selfishness/aggression/etc the ideology can be seductive.
Of
course there are elements of European political traditions that are
attractive. Margaret Thatcher herself identified Marxism as of European
origin (!) But the EU hardly has the monopoly on lofty ideals. A scan of

the US Constitution and Bill of Rights would suggest that there is an
institutionalised hope of better things stateside. It's all too easy to
point to the manifest failures of that hope (slavery, Jim Crow,
annihilation of the American Indian, ecological destruction,
imperialism).
But, aside from the long history of colonialism, the experience of
fascism
and inter-imperialist warfare, more recent EU initiatives are not so
encouraging for the dispossessed and downtrodden. The rise of the far
right
and the incorporation of its agenda by all mainstream parties bodes ill
for
the supposed beacon of tolerance (especially in Holland and Denmark).
Pascal Lamy's efforts to dictate public service privatisation in less
developed countries (covered earlier on the A-list) shows just how
ruthless
European capital is in exploiting and expropriating -- just as ruthless
as
US capital, actually. The Common Agricultural Policy is a massive
protection racket that sits ill with the "development via free trade"
mantra forced upon the Third World. And now we have this, following all
the
fanfare about the Kyoto Protocol...

EU 'sell-out' is massive blow for renewable energy plans
By Geoffrey Lean in Johannesburg

The Independent, 28 August 2002

Hopes that world leaders would agree to boost renewable energy, such as
wind and solar power, were dealt a devastating blow yesterday when
European
Union negotiators abandoned attempts to press for it.

Confidential conference documents seen by The Independent reveal that
the
EU - which has led attempts for an increase in renewable energy - is
proposing that it rises by only a single percentage point worldwide over

this entire decade.

The development endangers any remaining prospect that the World Summit
on
Sustainable Development will make progress in protecting the environment

and reducing poverty, just two days after it opened. It is also a
humiliating personal rebuff for Tony Blair.

Green groups hope that ministers will overrule the European Commission
officials who put it forward and are calling on Margaret Beckett, the
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Michael
Meacher, the Environment Minister, to lead the way.

Agreeing ambitious targets for renewable energy has long been seen as
one
of the touchstones for the success of the summit, which will bring
together
104 world leaders next week. So far delegations from 190 of the world's
195
countries have arrived, making it the biggest conference the world has
seen.

Boosting solar, wind and other clean forms of energy is widely seen to
be
one of the main ways of fulfilling the summit's twin objectives of
tackling
world poverty and reversing the degradation of the environment. They are

accepted to be the best way of bringing electricity to the one third of
the
world's people who burn wood and dung, which give off toxic chemicals
that
kill more than 2 million people a year. Renewables are also one of the
keys
to reducing emissions of carbon dioxide that are the main cause of
global
warming.

Two years ago Tony Blair persuaded the leaders of the world's richest
nations to launch an initiative to bring renewable energy to a billion
people by 2010. However, President Bush vigorously opposed setting any
targets for increasing renewables. More surprisingly, Opec countries
succeeded in persuading the Third World to oppose them too. The EU was
left
as an isolated advocate.

Its proposal yesterday was that renewables should be increased to "at
least
15 per cent of global total primary energy supply by 2010". A
confidential
EU paper says the present level is "in the range of 13.5 to 14 per
cent".
It justifies the increase as going beyond, "albeit modestly, a mere
stablisation".

The proposal goes on to suggest that industrialised countries should
"aim
at an increase of the share of renewable energy sources in the total
primary energy supply by at least two percentage points by 2010 relative
to
2000". This is a tiny increase, far below many individual targets in
Western countries.

Green groups are also angry because, as yet another confidential
document
makes clear, the EU's definition of renewable energy includes
hydroelectric
power and the burning of wood and other "biomass". The document admits
that
hydropower is "controversial" because the building of dams has made
people
homeless and damaged the environment. And it also acknowledges that
burning
biomass is "leading to deforestation" and will increase global warming.

Jennifer Morgan, of WWF International, says that this will encourage
countries to build more big dams and allow the burning of wood to go
unchecked.

She said: "Ministers must stop this process and ensure that this summit
produces a real renewable energy target that will benefit people and the

planet."

Philip Clapp, of the US's National Environmental Trust, said the EU's
position was now almost identical to that of the Bush administration.

Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org