On 6/2/2021 9:13 PM, Howie Hawkins wrote:
...This longer version of the article — "Biden’s Climate Pledge Is a
Promise He Cannot Keep,”
https://solidarity-us.org/bidens_climate_pledge/
<https://solidarity-us.org/bidens_climate_pledge/> — has additional
material...
Thanks! It's very impressive to see Howie and the Green Party addressing
not only the climate debt so forthrightly, but also flagging the broader
concept of ecologically unequal exchange relations, mainly along
North-South lines (though China and other BRICS are subimperial allies
of the West when it comes to this extractive process).
These relations generate a broader set of environmental liabilities
deserving reparations, as spelled out in the three paragraphs way below.
It's so rare to find this kind of political-ecological reckoning in
Northern political parties - or NGOs, Big Green group and even
eco-social movements - although it's getting obvious enough that even
reformist agencies like Publish What You Pay are beginning to recognize
this particular source of Southern impoverishment (i.e., uncompensated
resource extraction termed by Marx "free gifts of nature").
If you're interested in number crunching,
* a new set of calculations about this process in relation not only to
Northern-appropriated products of "rainforests, agricultural lands,
and fisheries," but also minerals, drawing on World Bank data
(albeit with big reservations) is here
<https://www.cadtm.org/Unequal-ecological-exchange-worsens-across-time-and-space-creating-growing>:
https://www.cadtm.org/Unequal-ecological-exchange-worsens-across-time-and-space-creating-growing
* ideas for putting these empirical findings - at least from here in
South Africa - in a theoretical frame, drawing on Rosa Luxemburg's
theory of capitalist crisis and capitalism/non-capitalism
appropriations as the source and outcome of the imperialist
imperative, are here
<https://www.cadtm.org/Measuring-Capital-s-Super-Exploitation-of-People-and-Nature-in-South-Africa>:
https://www.cadtm.org/Measuring-Capital-s-Super-Exploitation-of-People-and-Nature-in-South-Africa
If this argument can be sustained in your movement, Howie, here are two
ideas. First, it would have been good to see a more explicit statement
of the special dangers of mining and fossil fuel extractivism (i.e., the
specifically /non-renewable/ natural wealth) as the first-priority
target for these sorts of reparations. Second, there are case study
sites like Yasuni Park in Ecuador (where we had optimism from 2007-13
<http://www.ejolt.org/2013/05/towards-a-post-oil-civilization-yasunization-and-other-initiatives-to-leave-fossil-fuels-in-the-soil/>)
and Cabo Delgado gas field in Mozambique (in recent weeks
<https://kubatana.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SAPSN-Solidarity-Statement-Mozambique-5-May.pdf>,
including reckoning with the South African climate debt
<https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2021-05-28-suicidal-sadc-military-deployment-to-mozambique-looms/>
to our neighbor).
On climate, here
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/02/01/biden-kerry-international-climate-politricks/>
are a few more critiques of Biden-Kerry's utilization of the Paris
Climate Agreement's fatal flaws:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/02/01/biden-kerry-international-climate-politricks/
I'll circulate this widely, as one of the finest statements of the
interconnectedness of Northern riches, and Southern economic and
ecological oppression:
/Biden made no international commitments to address global warming
in either his American Jobs Plan or his Earth Day announcement. He
did, however, include $1.2 billion for the Green Climate Fund in his
budget proposal to Congress on April 9. The Green Climate Fund was
//established <https://www.greenclimate.fund/about/timeline>//by
U.N. climate change conference in Cancun in 2010 to have rich
countries finance projects to counter global warming in poor
countries. The fund has sought to raise //$100 billion per year
<https://www.greenclimate.fund/about/resource-mobilisation>//by
2020, but only //$8.3 billion
<https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/status-pledges-irm_1.pdf>//total
had been received by July 2020./
/Environmental justice groups responded to the token U.S.
contribution to international climate justice financing by calling
upon the U.S. to contribute $800 billion over 10 years to climate
action financing in the Global South over the next decade as a down
payment on the U.S. climate debt to the world. They declared that
the new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) by the U.S. under
the Paris Climate Agreement of 50% by 2030 was not nearly enough.
They called upon the U.S. to make a //Fair Shares
<https://1bps6437gg8c169i0y1drtgz-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/USA_Fair_Shares_NDC.pdf>//NDC
of 195% by 2030 from the 2005 level. 70% should come from cutting
domestic emissions and 125% from providing international finance to
cut emissions in developing countries. They also rejected the “net
zero” concept because it will promote a huge land grab by foreign
corporations for tree plantations in the Global South to “offset”
their carbon emissions elsewhere. The offsets allow continued use of
carbon-emitting energy sources and the tree plantations degrade
carbon-storing biodiverse natural forest ecosystems and displace
indigenous people from the lands that provide their means to life./
/The U.S. climate debt is not only due to its historical emissions.
It is part of a broader //ecological debt
<https://www.amazon.com/Ecological-Debt-Second-Warming-Nations/dp/0745327273>//from
the destruction of carbon-storing forests, soils, and wetlands by
the resource-extracting foreign corporations of the Global North
that have expropriated the resources, destroyed the biodiversity,
and impoverished the people of the Global South. We in the U.S. are
linked to this destruction of biodiversity by the globalization of
supply chains and trade. This ecological unequal exchange exploits
the rainforests, agricultural lands, and fisheries of the Global
South to provide wood, palm oil, and other food and fiber products
to the rich countries. The U.S. is the world’s biggest importer of
the tropical products of the Global South, which means the U.S. is
the //top destroyer
<https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11145>//of carbon-storing and
ecosystem-stabilizing biodiversity./
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