Someone who was in Durban wrote me off-list: > The Durban Framework is not overtly "market > fundamentalist"; it is *cover* for market fundamentalism. > The text may seem aspirational, but it is part of a > process that is not genuinely committed to finding > solutions.
This accords with my own impression: the only reason the Durban process was adopted is because it was so watered down that those opposed to climate action thought it would never work. Therefore they thought it would be a nice window dressing, that they could use is as a cover. I am hoping that those powers underestimate the strength of the forces of global civil society and also the economic realities, the continued fall in the price of solar panels and the rise in the price of extreme energy. So many people are supporting this process, not only radicals but the EU "government" and some of the poor countries are supporting it, that the question whether it can be made to work should not be dismissed out of hand. The capitalist world system is not monolithic. The fact that the capitalists did not put a world government in place may work to our avantage if we use the internet to put a coordinated world grassroots movement in place which can make inroads and gains against some governments and create a domino effect. After all, Denmark, a capitalist country, has a viable decarbonization strategy supported by 95% of their parliament. After watching the video stream at http://ec.europa.eu/clima/events/0073/index_en.htm which demonstrated to me the potential of the Durban process I discovered the global power shift conference in Istanbul on June 24-30. Here is the web site: http://globalpowershift.org It is a training for youth leaders around the world for a big push between now and 2015. I.e., it is an effort to influence the Durban process. I think all other progressive forces should join in this push. If the push does not succeed, it will at least strengthen our organization, but it may actually be successful. Right now I think this is the best thing we can do to stay below 2 degrees. Hans. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
