L’associazione Utopia Rossa lavora e lotta per l’unità dei movimenti rivoluzionari di tutto il mondo in una nuova internazionale: la Quinta. Al suo interno convivono felicemente – con un progetto internazionalista e princìpi di etica politica – persone di provenienza marxista e libertaria, anarcocomunista, situazionista, femminista, trotskista, guevarista, leninista, credente e atea, oltre a liberi pensatori. Non succedeva dai tempi della Prima internazionale.

PER SAPERNE DI PIÙ CI SONO UNA COLLANA DI LIBRI E UN BLOG IN VARIE LINGUE…

ČESKÝDEUTSCHΕΛΛΗΝΙΚÁENGLISHESPAÑOLFRANÇAISPOLSKIPORTUGUÊSРУССКИЙ

giovedì 23 novembre 2017

A WAIT-AND-SEE CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE, by Andrea Vento (GIGA – Self-organised Geography Teachers Group)

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)

© World Meteorological Organization
The great hopes for a historical understanding to contain global warming, caused by the proclamations of world leaders prior to the recent UN Climate Change Conference, have evaporated.
The ‘climate’ of confidence surrounding the conference – held in Bonn from November 6 to 17, officially known as the 23rd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) and presided over by Fiji – soon disappeared into thin air as environmental experts looked at what had been achieved.
Criticism has centred on the failure to establish a “compliance control committee” and a “sanctioning mechanism” against countries which do not respect the commitments they have entered into.
In practice, these are legally non-binding agreements, implementation of which is linked only to the environmental sensitivity and political determination of the various governments, but which are often however heavily influenced by enormous economic interests, primarily those of the multinationals in the energy and automotive industries.
The Bonn Conference, which many believed should have accelerated action and set more stringent rules on measures to combat climate change, ended without any major decision, so that a kind “supplementary session” will take place at the Paris summit in December.
This was a partially announced failure which was confirmed by the absence of the most important world leaders (except Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron) and the great international media circus, which largely deserted the event.
However, despite their low profile, four decisions were worthy of note:

• approval of a Gender Action Plan (certainly appreciable, but which does not contain significant relevance for climatic problems);
• recognition of the role of “indigenous peoples” (officially considered a resource, not an obstacle) in combating climate change, conserving biodiversity and protecting the environment;
• activation of the Thematic Working Group – TWG – on Agriculture, Food Security and Land Use (after six years of evanescent negotiations, it was recognised at COP23 that climate change aggravates the food insecurity of the most fragile populations and that, at the same time, today’s “agro-industrial” agricultural practices account for about 21% of total greenhouse gas emissions, necessitating a radical rethinking of the agribusiness sector);
• sanctions for “exceeding” by local entities – regions, cities, municipalities, indigenous communities, etc. – on the official representations of States (the case of California is emblematic: despite Trump ignoring the Paris Agreement, in Bonn its governor Jerry Brown announced that he would honour the commitments made).

For all the rest we are at a complete impasse.
In real terms, no significant decisions were made regarding the following:

• a compensation mechanism for loss and damage;
• funding of compensation measures designed to induce developing countries to reduce emissions;
• transparency of the funding to be granted for implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures.

Responsibility for failure is mainly due to the national selfishness of the most industrialised countries, which, although they claim to want to move forward regardless of Trump’s positions, have distinguished themselves by their absence or “vague” declarations. Take German Chancellor Merkel, for example, who first said that “climate change is an issue determining our destiny as mankind – it will determine the wellbeing of all of us”, before carefully changing tack: “it is not easy” to meet the commitments to end coal-fired power stations due to “social and job issues”, de facto postponing the decarbonisation of energy in her country to an unspecified date.
According to Merkel, doing so now would lead to an increase in the cost of energy.
The failure of the work of the climate conference is summarised in the concluding document, which explicitly calls on UN Secretary-General António Guterres to take care that Member States actually put in practice what has been decided.

The present state of the atmosphere

While the ritual comedy of wait-and-see and inconsistency took to the stage in Germany, reports on the subject published by various research institutes were photographing an alarming evolution of both the chemical composition of the atmosphere and global weather and climate conditions.
According to the climate report issued at the beginning of November by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the concentration of CO2 (the main greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere has now stabilised at well over four hundred parts per million – rising, in fact, from the 400 recorded in 2015 to 403.3 at the end of the following year.
This represents a structural overrun of the safety threshold set at 350, beyond which the possibilities of reduction become extremely complex.
Indeed, even if we were able to completely eliminate pollutant emissions today, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere would continue to increase for a few decades – because of the inertia of the phenomenon –, making it difficult to return to under this threshold.
This particularity, typical of complex systems, has been confirmed by the annual report of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (NEAA), which shows that in 2016 – for the third consecutive year – global CO2 emissions remained unchanged, but this has not, however, served to contain the increase of concentration in the atmosphere.
To date, the presence of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by 145% compared with the pre-industrial era (1750), with an abrupt rise in the last half century, during which it rose by about eighty parts per million, rising from about one hundred and twenty to the current 403.3 ppm.
This is an unstoppable growth which, if not radically addressed, is likely to undermine the goals set out in the Paris Agreement: limiting the rise in the average terrestrial temperature – again compared with 1750 – to 2 °C (possibly 1.5) from here up to the end of the century.
If we consider the peculiarities of the Earth system with regard to the CO2 absorption cycle and that, based on the WMO report, the average temperature of the oceans and the atmosphere has increased by 1.1 °C compared with the pre-industrial period, the overall picture becomes dramatic.
In the absence of concrete measures aimed at reducing global emissions, according to scientific forecasts we are heading towards an average rise in terrestrial temperature of between 3 and 5 °C, with catastrophic consequences on agriculture and on the very life of people.

Global warming and climate change

Alarming confirmations with respect to forecasts are reaching us on the climate values front.
The WMO report issued on the eve of COP23 states that “it is very likely that 2017 will be one of the three hottest years on record”, thus confirming the inexorable warming trend already established by the statistics: from the beginning of meteorological surveys (1880), 16 of the 17 hottest years – except for 1983 – were those from 2001 onwards.
Of course, the data disseminated by research institutes refer to the Earth as a whole, without taking into account the local implications of phenomena in progress, which unfortunately sometimes occur through dramatic meteorological abnormalities (resulting in devastating effects on the environment and people).
In recent years, in many terrestrial regions, there has been a significant increase in extreme climatic events such as hurricanes and catastrophic floods, water bombs and torrential rains, heat waves and record droughts, melting of polar ice caps and rises in ocean levels.
According to WMO data, the January-September 2017 interval was characterised by a global average temperature of about 1.1 °C above the pre-industrial level.
Various areas of southern Europe, North Africa, East and South Africa, Asian Russia and China recorded unprecedented maximum temperatures.
North-western United States and western Canada, on the contrary, recorded lower temperatures than the average of the 1981-2010 period.

How can the course be reversed?

Global warming and climate change – coupled with a worrying rise in extreme weather events – are not just a matter of academic concern, but they are phenomena of such seriousness that they damage the lives of ordinary citizens – for example, impacting on agricultural production, with life-threatening consequences for the farmers of the South of the world, who are increasingly forced to abandon their now parched lands to seek hope of survival elsewhere.
Migration due to climatic-environmental causes is dramatically rising, to the extent that 23.5 million people were involved in 2016. Faced with this human tide, the United Nations and international conventions, particularly that of Geneva, should finally recognise the status of “climatic refugees”, guaranteeing the possibility of requesting asylum to those who find refugee abroad.
The situation is progressively becoming more dramatic and intervention times are increasingly shrinking, so the continuous beating around the bush by world leaders finds no justification.
It is necessary to intervene quickly and with incisive actions aimed at overcoming the current development model – based on the infinite pursuit of growth and dependence on fossil sources –, introducing new forms of production based on the circular economy, agroecology, decarbonisation and renewable energy sources, in the perspective of a transition to an ecosocialist society, the only one capable of assuring the rights of workers and of the environment, indissolubly linked to resistance to capitalism: climatic justice is also social justice.
It is necessary to act now without hesitation before it is too late and alteration of the Earth system becomes irreversible: at stake is not only the fate of the environment and the planet, but of humanity as a whole.

November 19, 2017

[translation from Italian by Phil Harris (for IDN-InDepthNews)]

In propagating and/or republishing this text you are kindly requested to quote the source: www.utopiarossa.blogspot.com

RED UTOPIA ROJA – Principles / Principios / Princìpi / Principes / Princípios

a) The end does not justify the means, but the means which we use must reflect the essence of the end.

b) Support for the struggle of all peoples against imperialism and/or for their self determination, independently of their political leaderships.

c) For the autonomy and total independence from the political projects of capitalism.

d) The unity of the workers of the world - intellectual and physical workers, without ideological discrimination of any kind (apart from the basics of anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism and of socialism).

e) Fight against political bureaucracies, for direct and councils democracy.

f) Save all life on the Planet, save humanity.

g) For a Red Utopist, cultural work and artistic creation in particular, represent the noblest revolutionary attempt to fight against fear and death. Each creation is an act of love for life, and at the same time a proposal for humanization.

* * *

a) El fin no justifica los medios, y en los medios que empleamos debe estar reflejada la esencia del fin.

b) Apoyo a las luchas de todos los pueblos contra el imperialismo y/o por su autodeterminación, independientemente de sus direcciones políticas.

c) Por la autonomía y la independencia total respecto a los proyectos políticos del capitalismo.

d) Unidad del mundo del trabajo intelectual y físico, sin discriminaciones ideológicas de ningún tipo, fuera de la identidad “anticapitalista, antiimperialista y por el socialismo”.

e) Lucha contra las burocracias políticas, por la democracia directa y consejista.

f) Salvar la vida sobre la Tierra, salvar a la humanidad.

g) Para un Utopista Rojo el trabajo cultural y la creación artística en particular son el más noble intento revolucionario de lucha contra los miedos y la muerte. Toda creación es un acto de amor a la vida, por lo mismo es una propuesta de humanización.

* * *

a) Il fine non giustifica i mezzi, ma nei mezzi che impieghiamo dev’essere riflessa l’essenza del fine.

b) Sostegno alle lotte di tutti i popoli contro l’imperialismo e/o per la loro autodeterminazione, indipendentemente dalle loro direzioni politiche.

c) Per l’autonomia e l’indipendenza totale dai progetti politici del capitalismo.

d) Unità del mondo del lavoro mentale e materiale, senza discriminazioni ideologiche di alcun tipo (a parte le «basi anticapitaliste, antimperialiste e per il socialismo».

e) Lotta contro le burocrazie politiche, per la democrazia diretta e consigliare.

f) Salvare la vita sulla Terra, salvare l’umanità.

g) Per un Utopista Rosso il lavoro culturale e la creazione artistica in particolare rappresentano il più nobile tentativo rivoluzionario per lottare contro le paure e la morte. Ogni creazione è un atto d’amore per la vita, e allo stesso tempo una proposta di umanizzazione.

* * *

a) La fin ne justifie pas les moyens, et dans les moyens que nous utilisons doit apparaître l'essence de la fin projetée.

b) Appui aux luttes de tous les peuples menées contre l'impérialisme et/ou pour leur autodétermination, indépendamment de leurs directions politiques.

c) Pour l'autonomie et la totale indépendance par rapport aux projets politiques du capitalisme.

d) Unité du monde du travail intellectuel et manuel, sans discriminations idéologiques d'aucun type, en dehors de l'identité "anticapitaliste, anti-impérialiste et pour le socialisme".

e) Lutte contre les bureaucraties politiques, et pour la démocratie directe et conseilliste.

f) Sauver la vie sur Terre, sauver l'Humanité.

g) Pour un Utopiste Rouge, le travail culturel, et plus particulièrement la création artistique, représentent la plus noble tentative révolutionnaire pour lutter contre la peur et contre la mort. Toute création est un acte d'amour pour la vie, et en même temps une proposition d'humanisation.

* * *

a) O fim não justifica os médios, e os médios utilizados devem reflectir a essência do fim.

b) Apoio às lutas de todos os povos contra o imperialismo e/ou pela auto-determinação, independentemente das direcções políticas deles.

c) Pela autonomia e a independência respeito total para com os projectos políticos do capitalismo.

d) Unidade do mundo do trabalho intelectual e físico, sem discriminações ideológicas de nenhum tipo, fora da identidade “anti-capitalista, anti-imperialista e pelo socialismo”.

e) Luta contra as burocracias políticas, pela democracia directa e dos conselhos.

f) Salvar a vida na Terra, salvar a humanidade.

g) Para um Utopista Vermelho o trabalho cultural e a criação artística em particular representam os mais nobres tentativos revolucionários por lutar contra os medos e a morte. Cada criação é um ato de amor para com a vida e, no mesmo tempo, uma proposta de humanização.