CLIMATE CHANGE, GLOBALISATION AND IMPERIALISM South Africa will be welcoming the world to the COP 17 in Durban, climate change is affecting the whole world with the poor at the receiving end. We believe in science which always tries to give solutions to global problems. >From the famous Kyoto protocol to the Cancun agreement the issue of the >mitigation, adaptation technology, financial and capacity- building; the >question of food security in the mist of the climate change and the >preservation of the forestry has been emphasised. In South Africa the majority of the poor masses are residing in the rural areas that depend in tilling the land for their survival. The amount of the rain fall determines their yield, especially for the maize as an important diet for the South Africans. The change in the weather pattern has caused many people to abandoned their land due to poor yield or loses, rural people have been relying on the rainy season to prepare their soil as changes in the rainy season has been occurring slowly while people have continued to plough using their traditional knowledge of the weather pattern which was becoming outdated without anybody to advise them. As they were abandoning their agricultural land they were exposed to poverty and high food price. In mitigating climate change bio fuel has been identified as the future, many commercial farmers have switched to sunflower and other agricultural crops used in producing bio fuel. The new product has developed a new market at the expense of food security, which has lead to the increase in food prices. It reminds me of the booming days of tourism more commercial turned their farms to private game reserves in the expense of food security. The South African government has secured funding from the IMF/ WORLD BANK through Eskom as a guarantor for its loan, the purpose is to invest into the green renewable energy, especially the wind and the solar system. South Africa has a competitive advantage in coal production and coal will remain the biggest source of energy in the next half century. The question is why South Africa does not invest more in technology which can reduce the CO2 produced by coal? The developing world has committed itself to reduce carbon emission more than the developed world. The new concept of green energy has brought new opportunities for a new business. It is said that the new green energy is more expensive compared to the traditional coal production of electricity. WHAT ARE THE CONTRADICTION? We have witnessed the destruction of the Amazon forest in the quest to open agricultural land for bio fuel production in the Latin American countries especially in Brazil where by those who oppose the wealthy have been executed and nothing is being done to protect the indigenous people of the Amazon, which in turn it makes the green energy to be the enemy of the poor masses because will be associated with killings and poverty as its attractiveness in terms of profit making makes farmers to abandon their traditional crops for food production which produces a high demand of food in the presence of low level of food production which lead to high food prices. High food prices will send the majority of the world population to severe poverty as it now the majority are living below the poverty line of a one dollar per day. It is alleged that the tests for wind electrical generation in South Africa were done in farms which were suppose to produce food, farmers were paid enough to cover their annual production by the investors. Why they did not open new areas in order to create new jobs and opportunities than to shrink the farming land and to add more farm workers to the unemployed list? In the business world especially under capitalism, every disaster is an opportunity to make more profit; the climate change is not an exception. WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM THE GREEN ENERGY? The majority of the people will just have the social benefit of being in touch with their nature but they will be excluded for the next decade due to their position in society, the people who enjoy the green energy in our society are the rich. We have seen in the build up towards the COP17 in Durban we were shown houses of the multi millionaires with large solar systems for electricity; no squatter camp was shown or visited by the media. The countries with large economy will continue to benefit from this new market because they are the ones who own the technology and the patent/ licenses to produce the green energy. America has been dragging and looking for excuses not to commit to the Kyoto protocol, it was not for an accident but because America is not dominating in the field and the technology used in the green energy. We must remember when HIV/ AIDS was killing millions and millions of people around the world the rich countries through their pharmaceutics industries made a huge profit in the expense of the human lives and the poor, only the rich benefited from the ARV. Countries like Cuba and Brazil were under serious and constant threats from the multinational pharmaceutics for producing ARV for their people were said to be contravening international laws of trade by not respecting the so called patent mean while the prices for the ARVS were very high making impossible for the developing world to have access to treatment even if are the ones who are affected by the disease. The South African government was taken to task too, had to seek the intervention of the courts, in the case of Cuba the world health organisation had to intervene and Cuba can only produce ARVS for its people and not for commercial purposes or use or donate the drugs to a third party in simple language means they must not support Africa (Cuba must not produce ARVS and donate them to Africa.) If human lives were not important compared to profit therefore climate change and renewable energy is will be subjected to the forces of globalisation.Our own South African companies will not benefit the billion rands loan for the building of the renewable energy but we have to repay the loan or when we are in dept only South African especially the working class and the poor will pay the price from the IMF/ WORLD BANK. WHAT SHOULD BE DONE? We must remember that after the world war every international convention or treaty is benefitting the big economies of the world including the United Nations therefore we must not relax and allow the big economies and our former colonisers to comeback and run our lives and our economies in the name of climate change and renewable energy. Let the treaty benefit everybody rich countries and poor countries, let this treaty not be used to punish third world countries or for regime change and to perpetuate under development and dependency especially in Africa. South Africa must invest more in research for new technologies to mitigate the carbon dioxide produced by coal; SA must lead and assist Africa in developing cheaper ways of developing renewable energy using our own available natural resources than importing the expensive equipment and this will keep our competitive advantage intact as leaders of coal producers and leaders in producing electricity from coal and including all coal products. We did it with SASOL, producing oil/ petrol from coal. We must not allow climate change to be used as the imperialist order of the day and dictate other countries through monopolise of knowledge and technology. Let us save our planet. BY MAVIYO NDINISA
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