Lessons from Copenhagen

As COP 15 teeters on the edge of failure and crisis, we ask, what’s happening? First the global connections between rich and poor are being exposed. And second, as the elite grasp on polluting profits is being threatened the real vested interests are shown in clear light, hence denialist frenzy led by the hidden right of the old established order. Third, the so-called progressive nature of the Obama administration is being exposed as a charade.

Whilst the bourgeois press here still debates the ‘realities’ of climate change, you won’t find people in developing countries debating such niceties. Instead, according to Attac the African contingent says: “No to the commodification of the climate” and issued this statement.

“It is now widely acknowledged within the international scientific community that an increase in two degrees Celsius of the average temperature on the globe surface would directly result in Africa, our continent, in: a 127% increase of the flood death toll, a shortage of water affecting 600 million people, famines that would affect 55 million people, an increase of 17% of malaria-infected people and of 16% for diarrheic diseases. On the continent, agriculture and cattle breeding will also suffer severe losses, estimated to mount up to 133 billions USD. Confronted with these coming disasters, the African Governments need, today more than ever, to firmly commit in denouncing the responsibility of the current capitalist economic system in this drama, rather than keeping to ceaselessly claim for humanitarian aid, and so fueling in the world imagination the image of a permanently begging Africa .”

The role of the state in protecting these interest needs to be understood clearly by liberal greens. Here the Attac Bloc try to liberate about 700 people arrested as ‘preventive measure’ and retained for 6 hours in the ‘climate prison’…

The embedded video presents an insight view of the group of protestors standing in front of the police blockade:

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  1. Readers might be interested in our coverage of the COP15 at http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/433

  2. bellacaledonia says:

    Thanks for that Terry

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