Capitalist plunder

The COP26 inside conference drew some 25,000 delegates representing 197 nations. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US Pres Joe Biden gave keynote addresses, but Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping did not attend.

At the conference center were grand exhibition spaces hosted by fossil fuel polluting countries and sponsored by large corporations. Over 100 fossil fuel companies were represented with 30 trade associations and membership organizations. At least 503 (some estimates said 600-plus) fossil fuel lobbyists attended. In addition, 27 official country delegations were registered fossil fuel lobbyists, including from Shell, Gazprom and BP.

Among the ‘pledges’ made by the assembled greenwashers was the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), a pledge by some 450 financial institutions in 45 countries that, by 2050, all of the assets under management will be aligned with ‘net zero’ emissions policy. Another pledge, Pres Biden announced a plan with 90 countries to cut methane by 30 percent by the end of the decade. Unfortunately, two of the leading emitters, China and Russia, did not sign on.

Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, represented the most forthright positions of corporate politicians. He embraced what he called ‘can-do capitalism’ as the means to address the deepening environmental crisis. “We believe climate change will ultimately be solved by ‘can do’ capitalism; not ‘don’t do’ governments seeking to control people’s lives and tell them what to do,” Morrison said. He championed ‘technology not taxes,’ warning that further regulation of capitalism and increased taxes would raise the cost of living and hurt businesses.

The outsider conference represented the global movement of opposition to the politicians and corporations promoting – and profiting from – the environmental crisis. At one protest, more than 100,000 rallied. According to The Scotsman, “environmental groups, charities, trade unionists and indigenous people joined the protest ….” Many of the activists reminded people that at COP15 (2009) the developed countries promised to provide $30 billion for the period 2010-2012 and long-term finance of $100 billion a year by 2020 to less wealthy nations by 2020. The monies were never provided.

These critical civil society and youth activists argued that capitalism is the root cause of the problem, together with its handmaiden colonialism. The only solution therefore is to overhaul capitalism and dismantle unequal global power relations.

The COPS26 gathering achieved the height of “blah, blah, blah” when India, joined by China, watered down a key commitment to end coal mining by shifting an original commitment for ‘phasing out’ to ‘phasing down.’ And the final COP26 document never used the words ‘fossil fuel.’ Over the last four to five centuries, capitalism has remade the world by turning every relation into a commodity exchange.

Capitalism emerges out the Black Death, the bubonic plague pandemic that swept Afro-Eurasia from 1346 to 1353.

Excerpted: ‘COP26: Capitalism = Death’

Counterpunch.org