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The climate challenge
Is ‘Human Society’ the cause?
• This crisis is man-made (not natural)
• Overpopulation?
• This crisis is directly linked to the capitalist
mode of production
Too many people?
Rise of CO2 concentration in the
atmosphere since 1958
(Mauna Loa observatory)
The greenhouse effect
Solar
radiation
Infrared
Capture
153 Wm-2
H2O
CO2 , CH4, N20
Conduction,
Evaporation
390 Wm-2
+15°C
The greenhouse effect
• A natural phenomenon
• Makes life on Earth possible
• Higher temperature: liquid water is available
• Brings inertia to the system
• Main gases responsible:
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Carbon dioxide (CO2)
Methane (CH4)
Nitrous oxide (N2O)
Water vapour (H2O)
• Direct link to the carbon cycle
The carbon cycle
The imbalance of the carbon cycle
• Vegetation / Atmosphere
• Respiration : 60 Gt / year
• Photosynthesis : 62 Gt / year
• Net result = - 2 Gt / year
• Oceans / Atmosphere
• In solution : 92 Gt / year
• Release : 90 Gt / year
• Net result = - 2 Gt / year
• Deforestation : +2 Gt / year
• Burning of oil, coal, gas = +6 Gt / year
• In total :
• +8 Gt / year released by human activities
• THIS IS TWO TIMES TOO MUCH!!
The phenomenon of warming,
causes and consequences
Effective global warming
• Since the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution:
– CO2 : + 31 %
– CH4 : + 150 %
– N2O : + 15 %
• 3 crucial « events »
– Industrial Revolution
– Post war boom
– Globalisation of exchanges
Total ocean heat content from the surface to 2000 m
Acidification of the oceans
Heat wave anomalies
Russia 2010
USA 2012
Causes of global warming
• Emitting sectors in France:
• And globally :
The coming climate change
• The IPCC:
– Notes the state of affairs in research and
technologies
– Publishes a report every 4 years (next report
in 2013)
– Works with scientific consensus
– Prudent in its positions by nature
• Yet they are not reassuring us…
The future evolution of the climate
• Today: the highest
concentration of CO2
and CH4 since
400,000 years
• This is only the
beginning … if we
don’t do anything
The reality for climate change
• No more doubts on the existence of
future climate disorders
• Sudden and irreversible changes
• The facts confirm the most pessimistic
forecasts
• Yet retroactive changes are not even
taken into account: melting of the
permafrost, destruction of the ice shelves
at the poles …
Arctic sea ice summer 2012
Melting event Greenland 2012
•
Arctic sea ice minimum on the 16th
of September 2012
OccupySandy.org
What concrete consequences?
• Central scenarios:
– Between + 2°C et + 4°C
• Highly probable scenarios:
– Between + 1,1°C et + 6,4°C
The facts confront us with the most
pessimistic scenarios
Concrete consequences
• With + 2°C :
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Decrease of agricultural yields
Risk of famine : + 200 million people
Lack of water : 1,8 billion people
Rising water levels: : 10 million people
Expansion of zones with malaria : + 50 million people
Extinction of 25 to 40% of all species
• With + 3°C :
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- 30% of the yield of wheat in India
Risk of famine : + 600 million people
Lack of water: 4 billion people
Rising water levels: 170 million people
Numerous islands erased from the globe
• With + 4°C :
• Collapse of agricultural yields
• Expansion of the zones with malaria: + 400 million of people
• Rising water levels:330 million people
Stop temperature rise at + 2 °C
• + 2 °C : danger limit
• How do we do it?
– Stabilise the temperature
– Stabilise the concentrations of GHG’s
(450ppm)
– Bring emissions back to natural « recycling »
capacity
– Divide worldwide emissions by half
– The factor 4 to garanty equal rights for all
CO2 emissions per person
Emissions total 2004 – 2030
Emissions per inhabitant
Maximum emission
rights (TC/inhabitant) to
divide world emissions
by 2, with 6 billion
people…
…or to
divide by 3
with 9
billion
people
Berger 2005
To stop at + 2 °C
• Emissions must decline before 2015
• Developed countries (compared to 1990)
• - 25 to - 40% in 2020
• - 80 to - 95% in 2050
• From 2020 on, developed countries must
deviate substantially from the trajectory
(except Africa)
• World emissions : -50 à -85% en 2050
Climate policies of the
dominant Powers
The general trend
• Subordinate adaptation to the rhythm and
needs of capital
– Cost-risk analysis (example = Stern report)
– Priority of technological solutions
– Creation of new markets
– New developement cycle of capital : « green
capitalism »
• Point to the responsability of emerging countries
• Use climate menace to impose their neoliberal
policies
The Kyoto protocol
• Some positive aspects :
– « common but differentiated responsabilities »
– Concrete targets and sanctions
• BUT numerous problems
– Insufficient targets: - 5,2 % (reduced to - 1,7%)
– Emissions of maritime and air transport not taken into
account
– Carbon sinks = Emission reductions
– Possible delocalisation of the efforts (CDM,MOC…)
– Emission rights and carbon market: a form of
privatisation of parts of the atmosphere
Recent evolution of policies by the
great powers
• Insufficient commitments:
• -20% in 2020 for the EU
• Obama wants less than Kyoto
• Ever more flexible mecanisms
• Their role was limited with Kyoto
• New technologies integrated as clean technologies: carbon
sequestration, nuclear, biofuels…
• A specific market for the forests:REDD
• Make the lower classes take the brunt of the effort
(ex : Carbon Tax )
• The answers to the climate and the economic crisis
are contradictory, inconsistent public policies: cars,
public transport…
All negotiations ended in failure
• UNEP: market forces, economic growth,
green technologies
In the face of a predicted failure, the
menace of a barbaric management
• New Orleans
• Tuvalu, Vanuatu
• The « Climate » report of the Pentagon:
• The monstre storm « Sandy »
« the numbers of deaths caused by wars, by
famine and by disease will decrease the size of
the population which will readapt to the
carrying capacity ».
Source: An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and its Implications for the US National
Security, SCWARTZ & RANDALL, 2003
A catastrophy can perhaps be
avoided (in part…)
Personal energy savings …
• A policy of« small gestures » is not
sufficient
• Fight against attempts to make you feel
guilty
• An important part of what you buy, of
transportation … is unavoidable
• Necessity of collective action to
make possible a lifestyle that saves
energy and is low in carbon use
Saving energy to lower emissions
• What possibilities?
– Suppress useless/harmful productions
• Armement, the army…
• Numerous manufacturing of chemicals, of fertilisers…
• Advertisements
– Energy efficiency
• Rehabilitation of housing
• Norms for electrical devices
• Norms of car engines…
– Reorganisation of society (the most important source)
• Ex. of transportation :
– Urbanisation : working class expulsed far from the city centre
– Problemes of freight : production « just in time », international
division of labour according to the cost of labour
Renewable energies
• Solar : an IMMENSE potential
• Its caracter limits its valorisation in a
capitalist system:
– Low density in energy
– Difficult to appropriate
• Necessity of a new orientation of research
• Necessity of making available and of large
distribution of technologies: not only for
those who can pay …
Renewables? But which?
Budgets R&D Energie (AIE)
Research to be
urgently redirected!
Renewa
bles
8,1%
Our anticapitalist project
Necessity of
an anticapitalist strategy
• The market is powerless:
– A change which is too radical
– Time is too short
– Any change needs the « agreement of the citizens »
• Capitalism confronts social forces with a dilemma
– « To save nature or to increase the conditions of
exploitation of the workers »
– Increase the costs of the exploitation of nature versus a
lowering of the cost of the work force
• Our ecosocialist project :
– Planning based at the same time on the democratically
determined needs and taking into account the ecological
problems
Transitional method linked to
an emergency program
• A pedagocical role:
– Demonstrate that it is possible
– Confront capitalism with its contradictions
• Link the social and the ecological dimension
– The crises are fed by the same mecanisms:
competition, search for profits, dictatorship of the
markets …
– Put the fulfillment of social needs and the respect of
ecological equilibria at the centre of our program and
our struggles
Examples of sectoral demands
• Suppression of unnecessary and harmful industries
• The building sector :
– Public service of housing and renovation
• Transportation of commodities:
– Ban on long distance transport by road
– Public policy for the development of infrastructure for rail transport
• Transportation of people:
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Free public transport
Development of the possibilities for public transport infrastructure
Stop the development of suburbia
« reintroduction » of the working classes in the city centres
• The energy sector:
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For a public service of the whole of the energy sector
Nationalisation of the big companies in the sector
Decentralisation of the means of production of energy
… in order to allow control by users and by employees
• Agriculture : food sovereignty and organic/ecological farming
– Drastic reduction of nitrogen containing fertilizers
– A break with the productivist logic in the farming world
An emergency plan with
profound transformations
• Reorganisation and transformation of labour
• People’s control on production
• Get out of the contradiction consumer/worker:
– Reduction of working hours must be a central axis of our
program
• Necessary industrial reconversions :
– Garantee employment, contracts, wages and work
collectives
– To be applied by the workers themselves
Eat more
meat??
No comment …
NPA
CAMPAIGN
2009