Commentary
The
Failure of Copenhagen is the Failure of Capitalism
The UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen ended not only in failure, but in chaos. Despite the most brutal bullying of the smaller countries by the big powers and attempts to impose a back room deal on the delegates, no agreement was reached and no plan was adopted for further attempts to reach one. The message to the world’s people was that they either accept the dictate of the big powers or get used to a hotter, drier world. Of course, the “deal” reached by the big powers had nothing to do with reducing global warming and everything to do with reaping super profits from the looming crisis.
For its part, the Canadian government played a despicable role in Copenhagen, being the most vocal representatives of the oil monopolies and launching the most attacks on the smaller countries. Harper and Prentice played the “bad cops” to the Obama and Clinton “good cops”. They made sure that no agreement could be reached which would impact in any way on the profits of the oil cartels.
The failure to reach an agreement at Copenhagen is not because the leaders of the big capitalist countries fail to understand the consequences of failing to act. It is not because of doubts about the science of climate change. Instead, it is the result of the basic motive of production of capitalism – the maximization of capitalist profits. No capitalist will agree to restrictions of greenhouse gas emissions which put them at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis their rivals. Therefore, the U.S. and European monopoly capitalists are insisting that the emerging capitalist economies of China and India face the same restrictions as they do. Otherwise, more and more production will shift from North America and Europe to China and India. Conversely, the Chinese and Indian monopoly capitalists insist that they need such a competitive advantage in regard to greenhouse gas emissions in order to compete on a level playing field with the North American and European capitalists, who have had two centuries of unrestricted emissions during which they accumulated their wealth. Neither side cares about the negative impact on human society, or at least not enough to sacrifice any of their profits to do something about.
To expect any other outcome from the Copenhagen conference is to be either naive or to fail to understand the real nature of capitalism. The monopoly capitalists have been quite eager to force the adoption of a “cap and trade” system on the world’s people because this is an opportunity for them to create one more investment bubble from which they can profit, just as they did from the sub-prime mortgage bubble. As the world’s people experienced in the wake of the collapse of that bubble in 2008, it is always the people who end up footing the bill, while the big capitalists end up bleeding the public treasuries to make up any losses they may experience.
A solution to the climate crisis cannot be found so long as the world is under the dictate of monopoly capital. Only an economic system which puts the wellbeing of the people before any other consideration is capable of solving this problem. Only such an economic system will be capable of balancing the needs of the people for an increasing standard of living with their equally important need for a natural and social environment fit for human existence. Copenhagen is a symptom of the problem. No number of such conferences will succeed in making any advances in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The beginning point of a solution is necessarily the overthrow of the dictate of monopoly capitalism and the transformation of society from capitalism to socialism.