Since power and media establishments are occupied by the wealthiest sections, So 30 on climate change This aspect has not been allowed to emerge in the debate that lasted for years. Or whenever this aspect has been illuminated, So immediately raising other types of issues, it has been kept out of discussion. This fact has come out better from a report of non-governmental organization Oxfam released during the Glasgow meeting itself. It has been told in this report that one percent of the world’s richest population is 30 percent more than the rest of the population. times more emissions. glasgow climate change conference
The Global Conference on Climate Change, held in Glasgow, Scotland, will now be remembered perhaps because the world’s rational people have been completely disillusioned with this process, popularly known as CoP. It can also be said in such a way that this process was completely exposed. This is the 26th position of the Conference of Parties (COP). Conference of Parties means those concerned parties who, 29 years ago at the Earth Summit held in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, resolved to stop the dangerous changes in the Earth’s climate due to global warming. Will try. But where has this thing reached since then, it was unequivocally told by Greta Tunberg, an 18-year-old activist who reached Glasgow with thousands of protesters.
On the occasion of Cop-26, there was a demonstration in Glasgow, which Greta addressed, in the course of public demonstrations happening around the world. Greta bluntly declared the conference a “failure” in her speech. He said- “We do not need such resolutions, which are of long duration and whose observance is not binding. We don’t want any more empty promises. But similar promises are being made to us again. He held 26 conferences of the parties concerned and made a lot of talks. But where have they brought us? This question was answered by thousands of people together saying ‘nowhere’.
Greta has a few other important points that must be addressed during the ongoing climate change discussion. He said- ‘People in power are afraid of the truth. … But they cannot ignore the consensus that has been built among scientists.’ He meant that due to the public awareness about the dangers that scientists are telling, it has become a compulsion for the leaders to be seen doing something. But Greta Tunberg bluntly said – ‘Our leaders have failed to lead us.’
Greta said- ‘The question we must ask ourselves is, what are we fighting for? Are we fighting to save ourselves and our earth or to maintain what is going on? Our leaders say that both things can go together, but the bitter truth is that it is not possible.
It is also worth mentioning that Greta Tunberg – ‘The people in power can continue to live in such a hypothetical acacia that infinite economic growth will continue in the finite resources of the earth and suddenly out of nowhere such technological solutions will solve these crises. . Meanwhile, the world is burning and the population standing on the front lines of the climate crisis is getting scorched by it. Our leaders may continue to ignore its consequences, but history will judge them harshly and we cannot accept their view.
This anger of this young worker actually tells that how people have lost their hopes due to the process of COP. These hopes are broken because the people in whose hands the economic and political power of the world are in their hands, despite the deep scientific understanding of the problem and the serious consequences of the problem are constantly being revealed to the world, they have not moved ahead with the word of solution. In this form, the entire process of coop has actually become a medium to instill false hopes among the people.
The fear that much would not be achieved in COP-26 took concrete form at the G-20 summit in Rome just before this meeting. At the same time, it was indicated that the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases (whose over-consumption based living standards have led to the problem of rising Earth’s temperature) are not ready to make any sacrifices. Whereas the consequences of global warming are now visible in their own land and atmosphere as well. Despite this, these countries continue to measure the same statement, which was told by the then US President George Bush Sr. in the Earth Summit. Bush said that there can be no compromise on the American standard of living.
The question has remained since then whether countries whose affluent sections have adopted a very high consumption lifestyle, if they do not cut this consumption or pay a fair price for it, then ultimately the reduction in greenhouse gases. How can the goals be achieved? In the Earth Summit, this principle was accepted that everyone has the responsibility to save the climate, but this responsibility will have to be fulfilled more by those countries, which have polluted the earth’s atmosphere more in history. This was called the principle of common but differentiated responsibility. It is also called the principle of climate justice in common parlance.
After five years of negotiations, when protocols to implement this principle were signed in the Japanese city of Kyoto, three categories of countries were determined in terms of their role in pollution. In this, mainly developed countries of America, Europe were kept in the first list. But the reality is that the emissions reduction targets set for this category of countries have not been met.
On the contrary, for the past several years, he has targeted countries like China and India, which have achieved a level of economic development in the last 20 years, but which still come in the category of developing countries. Western developed countries have also kept their geopolitical equations a part of climate diplomacy. A clear example of this has also been seen in Glasgow, where America and European countries have tried to create the impression that China is mainly to blame for the rising temperature of the earth. Whereas the measures taken by different countries to stop climate change, if they are compared factually, then such allegation will appear completely baseless.
After all, what is the motive behind trying to create such an impression? Obviously, on the one hand, their aim is to mislead their people, so that they do not blame their leaders and the wealthy class, but countries like China or India, for the ill-effects of climate change. The second motive is to advance its geopolitical goals on the pretext of climate change. But when the whole world is facing existential threat due to climate change, then such manipulations only give evidence of short-sightedness born of selfishness.
While considering the problem of global warming, attention must be paid to this aspect that after all, who is responsible for how much greenhouse gases. This responsibility has to be seen in the context of countries and also in the context of classes within countries. Greenhouse gas emissions are directly related to higher consumption levels. This fact has come out better from a report of non-governmental organization Oxfam released during the Glasgow meeting itself. It has been told in this report that the richest one percent of the world’s population is emitting 30 times more than the rest of the population. Such people travel in private planes, own megayachts (luxury cruise boats), and now have a new hobby of personal space travel. Obviously, people who take plane trips, drive in a car, stay in the air conditioner, use the refrigerator are responsible for a lot of emissions. Oxfam’s report mentions that if the goals of the Paris Treaty on Climate Change are to be achieved, then by 2030, the world’s average carbon emissions per person per year will have to be reduced to 2.3 tons. Right now this emission is almost two times of this.
More recently, the wealthiest 1% are emitting an average of 70 tons of carbon per capita. Whereas in terms of wealth, the bottom 50 percent of the population does not emit even one ton per year. In view of this, Oxfam’s climate policy chief Nafkote Dabi has aptly remarked that ‘a minority elite population has a free pass to pollute’. On the sidelines of the Glasgow conference, the fact has also come to the fore that the US military is a major culprit of the emission of greenhouse gases in the world.
So these things clearly show that there is a class aspect to climate change or global warming. Since the wealthiest sections of power and the media establishment are occupied, this aspect has not been allowed to emerge in the 30-year debate on climate change. Or whenever this aspect has been illuminated, it has been immediately kept out of discussion by raising other types of issues. Whereas from a class perspective, climate change will be directly related to colonialism/imperialism, the regional disparity in the world due to it, and the state of class conflict within different countries. Although this aspect is not discussed very openly in the struggle that Greta Tunberg embodies, the way her campaign has been instrumental in exposing the COP process, it is creating a favorable atmosphere for discussion on this aspect. .
This is what the team of scientists studying climate change under the supervision of the United Nations has also said that to stop climate change, the world will have to move away from the current capitalist development model based on the maximum exploitation of the earth’s resources. This report of the United Nations has been coming under the name of Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). A part of its latest report was leaked in August last. It stated that if the Earth’s temperature is not to increase by more than 1.5 °C compared to the start of the Industrial Age, then the emissions of carbon gases in the world should reach the highest limit in the next four years. That is, after that it is necessary to decline.
Scientists understand that the consequences of climate change will be extremely dangerous if the temperature rises above 1.5 ° C. The leaked draft said that economic policies focused on increasing the current GDP growth rate are proving to be disastrous for the climate.
But there is no discussion on these aspects in COP-26. On the contrary, the world’s richest businessmen were called there and they were requested to contribute to curbing emissions. These people and the leaders of wealthy countries came there with gusto and gaiety – demonstrating exactly the kind of lifestyle that has a big role to play in carbon emissions and the resulting global warming.
Glasgow The leaders of various countries again made such resolutions and promises, which the Great Tunberg has pointed to. But no action plan was given to fulfill these resolutions. Rather, an attempt was made to send a misleading message. An example of this is the declaration of India there. Just before the start of the Glasgow summit, India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal declined to say that India would announce a net zero target in Glasgow. But while addressing the Glasgow conference, suddenly Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that by 2070, India will achieve the target of Net Zero. Some media reports said that the Prime Minister’s announcement took Indian officials by surprise. However, after this India did not sign agreements to stop deforestation and zero emissions of methane gas. Then it was told to the Indian media on behalf of the Government of India that the announcement to the Prime Minister is conditional. If rich countries keep their promise of funding the adoption of green technology, then India will move towards the goal of net zero. Obviously, there are many ifs and buts in this announcement.
But it is not just India’s view. Similar announcements have been doing the rounds in Glasgow. And what happened there is a repeat of the 25 meetings of the Conference of the Parties before that. But now this process of coop has been exposed. It can be estimated that due to this, people facing the dangers of climate change and fearing the possibility of it getting worse, will now consider different measures. Massive public demonstrations about global warming in cities around the world over the past two years have indicated that more and more people are beginning to rely on the power of their struggle. If the class understanding of this problem is deepened in them, then this struggle can take on a wider dimension. The reality is that if this happens, then only climate change can be controlled. Otherwise, right now all the signs are increasing the worry every day.
