"steve" <misledrkstar@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> spat forth nothing worth quoting...
--
USA Under Imperical Bush Regime Seen as Largest Obstacle to GW Talks
Bali: Wa****ngton sabotages climate conference
Workers World - Dec 27, 2007 issue
http://www.workers.org/2007/world/bali-1227
Profit-hungry imperialism created global crisis
Wa****ngton sabotages climate conference
By Deirdre Griswold
The unborn children that the Bush administration professes to care so
much about have yet another reason to curse this reactionary
imperialist government. It has again dissed the world, especially
future generations, by throwing a monkey wrench into plans worked out
by thousands of scientists and officials to get all the countries in
the world to agree on limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
It happened during the first two weeks of December at the United
Nations Climate Change Conference, held in Bali, Indonesia.
Ministers and government heads attended from nearly 190 countries, most
of which already have seen extreme weather events directly linked to
global warming. They had been warned by scientists that urgent action
is required.
In August the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which
brought together both scientists and officials, had announced that the
window of op****tunity to prevent catastrophic changes to the planets
climate is narrowing rapidly. Greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced
between 25 and 40 percent by 2020, said the UNFCCC, or many changes may
become irreversible, leading to massive extinctions of animal and plant
species and economic havoc in many parts of the world.
In November the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which
was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, reaffirmed that view,
issuing urgent warnings that a commitment must be made to turn things
around and begin reducing greenhouse gases within 10 to 15 years.
But no action was adopted at the December meeting in Bali, despite two
weeks of discussion.
The major roadblock, as has happened before, was the U.S. government,
which at first refused to be part of any global action at all. The
United States is the country most responsible for global warming.
Finally, at the very end, the delegation from Wa****ngton signed on to
the weakest possible resolution: that it would take part in more
discussions over the next two years. The scientists proposal that
mandatory limits be placed on emissions was reduced to nothing but a
footnote reference in the final do***ent. That Wa****ngton agreed to
anything at all was written up in the U.S. cor****ate media as though it
were a big concession.
Among the 11,000 people present at this conference were many from NGOs
that state their mission is to protect the interests of the poor of the
world. For the first time, and largely because of their presence, much
of the discussion focused not only on the science and technology of
climate change but also on how to deal with the terrible social
consequences of drought, floods, severe storms and other climate events
that are predicted to grow worse in the poorest areas: drought in
Africa, floods in South Asia and Latin America, melting of the
permafrost in the Far North and the virtual disappearance of many
island nations as sea levels rise.
Also under discussion was how to reduce emissions while promoting
sustainable development in poorer countries. So far, according to the
Global Footprint Network, only one country in the world"socialist
Cuba"has been able to build up its infrastructure and raise the
peoples educational and health levels without impacting adversely on
the environment. Among the proposals at the Bali meeting was an
Adaptation Fund that would provide some help to developing countries
having to deal with dramatic changes in the environment.
A side meeting organized by developing countries heard an analysis by
some of the social groups present that revealed the depth of inequity
the poor would face from some of the solutions that were being
discussed, commented Pakistani ambassador Munir Akram, who currently
chairs the G-77 plus China group. (Inter Press Service, Dec. 17)
That meeting drove home the message that there was a missing
perspective in the discussion of the official conference, said Rashed
Al Mahmud Titumir, the Asian regional policy coordinator for Action
Aid. It can no more be limited to a discussion only about the
environment. What we have in Bali are questions about politics and
power, like the issues of trade and finance being taken up. That is why
we are here.
Action Aid, which originated in South Africa, used the conference in
Bali to raise the perspective of environmental justice. The
approaches being pushed by the wealthy imperialist countries would
leave the underdeveloped countries"made that way by years of colonial
domination and plunder"to take the brunt of climate change with the
fewest resources. How can this happen?
It is hard to imagine a more urgent and universal problem than global
climate change. Scientists are no longer ambiguous or doubtful about
it; rather, they are crying out in anguish that work must start
immediately to turn the clock back before it is too late. Moreover,
polls have shown that most people in the United States are aware of the
dangers and are willing to sup****t measures and regulations that would
reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, whole new industries are now
selling products that supposedly will benefit the environment"although
they amount to little more than a drop in the bucket.
On the government level, however, nothing much seems to happen. And
each year the scientific projections keep getting more ominous.
To understand this criminal dilly-dallying one must look beyond the
personality of George W. Bush and his immediate cronies to the record
of U.S. imperialisms impact on the world over many generations. Take
the beautiful island of Bali, for example, where the conference was
held.
Just a little over four decades ago, in 1965 and 1966, the streams and
rivers of Bali ran red with the blood of communists and nationalists
when the Indonesian military overthrew the Sukarno government and
installed General Suharto as the new ruler. Even the U.S. media
admitted that the fascist coup killed upwards of 1 million people.
The generals had the blessings and material sup****t of the CIA and the
Lyndon B. Johnson administration in Wa****ngton.
On Bali, an estimated one-tenth of the population was slaughtered as
the military went from village to village, picking out the
activists"students, workers, farmers, women"and killing them.
The Suharto regime did exactly what U.S. big business wanted. It opened
up the vast territory of Indonesia to breakneck exploitation. Vast
fortunes were made by transnational cor****ations that pumped out the
oil, cut down the mighty rainforests, and established factories where
once there were green fields.
Bali and other islands were developed as havens for wealthy tourists.
The mangrove swamps that had protected the shoreline were cut down to
create beachfront hotels"some of which were washed away in the terrible
tsunami of 2004.
The generals took their cut of this development, but the lions share
went to wealthy investors in the West.
Global warming and climate change are the heritage of centuries of this
kind of imperialist plunder of the earths people and resources, which
frequently brings the added devastation of war, as we see today in Iraq
and Afghanistan. All the suffering, all the crimes carried out by the
capitalists and their agents have never yielded to conferences and
discussions, no matter how well meaning. They have the power and they
use it primarily to secure the profits that keep their system going.
Everything else is window dressing.
The grim prospect of global climate change can only deepen the
revolutionary mass struggle to bring down capitalism that is surely
coming. It must be replaced with a socialist planned economy, like
Cubas, that can bring about human development for all, free of the
rapacious and destructive profit motive.
Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and
distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without
royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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