Many years ago, in a desperately poor village in Rajasthan, people decided to plant trees on the land adjoining their pond so that its catchment would be protected. But this land belonged to the revenue department and people were fined for trespass. The issue hit national headlines. The stink made the local administration uncomfortable. They then came up with a brilliant game plan—they allotted the land to a group of equally poor people. In this way the poor ended up fighting the poor. The local government got away with the deliberate murder of a water body.

I recall this episode as I watch recent developments on climate change. At the recent Durban climate change conference small island nations—from the Maldives to Granada —believed, rightly so, that the world has not delivered on its promise to cut emissions and is jeopardising their future. But they do not have the power to fight the powerful. So, this coalition of climate victims turned against its partner developing countries, targeting India, for instance, for inaction. These nations pushed for India to take legal commitments to reduce emissions, dismissing its concerns of equity as inconsequential.

The divide is complete. According to Bangladeshi climate change researcher and old friend Saleemul Huq, the issue of equity—the setting of emission targets based on the contribution of each country to the stock of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere—is an old fashioned idea. He says it will not work in the new world where the dichotomy of the rich and poor countries has vanished; instead, there are equal and big polluters like China, India, South Africa and Brazil (BASIC). These, he says, are equally responsible and must take steps to cut emissions. He wants the notion of historical emissions junked. For him, countries like the Maldives and Bangladesh are victims. India is a polluter, a rich country whose government is hiding behind the poor to avoid cutting emissions.

But the fact is Maldives’ per capita emission is higher than India’s. So, should the Maldives take mandatory emission reductions? Is it a victim or a polluter? India also has a longer coastline than vulnerable Bangladesh. Is it a polluter? Or an equal victim? Sivan Kartha, a climate change researcher with the Stockholm Environment Institute, tears into this argument that is dividing the poor world and taking the focus away from countries that need to be told to take action fast. He compares India and Africa, countering the charge that Africa is being destroyed because of rich India’s reluctance to take emission reductions. “Actually, 1.1 per cent of Africans have made it to the top global wealth decile against 0.9 per cent Indians. As against this, 21 per cent Americans are in the top global wealth decile. Then, India’s total emissions are only two-thirds of what Africa emits.” As against this, US emissions are four times India’s. In this way, while the poor fight over crumbs, the cake is eaten by the rich.

My colleagues at the Centre for Science and Environment analysed income distribution and emissions data to see if rich Indians emitted more than their counterparts in rich countries. They found that the per capita emission of the richest 10 per cent of India’s population was the same or slightly less than the per capita emission of America’s poorest 10 per cent and it was less than one-tenth the per capita emission of America’s richest 10 per cent. In other words, the rich in India emitted less than even the poorest Americans. This is not to deny that Mukesh Ambani’s enormous house and electricity consumption—reportedly Rs 75 lakh a month—is distasteful. But energy and emission apartheid in the world remains unacceptable.

Simple plot. Sinister design. The poor have been divided to fight over who is more vulnerable. But one must realise that this divide is a deliberate creation. In 2009 at the Copenhagen Conference of Parties, two categories of countries were devised. One, vulnerable countries that would get fast track funds to adapt to climate change and two, emerging polluters grouped under the BASIC banner. The bribe and divide was blatant and successful. It was openly said in the conference plenary that polluting countries like India, who wanted an agreement based on equity, were blocking funds that would flow to Bangladesh and the Maldives. That penultimate night of the conference the poor fought the poor. Since then the divide has grown.

It’s time we stopped this kindergarten fight. Let us be clear the world has to cut emissions drastically and fast. There must be limits on each country based on its per capita emission and taking into account its historical contribution. China is the biggest current emitter. But in cumulative terms—taking into account the stock in the atmosphere accumulated over the years—it contributes 11 per cent against US share of 26 per cent. It must also be brought under limits, as must India. But these limits will have to be based on the principle of equity so that these countries will also have the right to development.

This is the most inconvenient of truths. But it is the truth.

This piece was originally published at CSE India.

What will the presidential election in November mean for U.S. environmental policy? Although we don’t yet know who the Republican candidate will be, we know all too well what will be on his environmental agenda. The endless televised debates have exposed what the New York Times called “the broken windows of the Republican idea factory.” It’s not a pretty sight.

The candidates all share the same approach to the environment. Ron Paul plans to govern primarily by abolishing things. His hit list includes America’s foreign wars, but also the Federal Reserve, most federal taxes, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and all limits on offshore drilling and the use of coal and nuclear power. Rick Santorum agrees that energy companies must be entirely deregulated. Newt Gingrich will build a moon colony by 2020, and will replace the EPA with a new agency that “will operate on the premise that most environmental problems can and should be solved by states and local communities.” Mitt Romney promises to “eliminate the regulations promulgated in pursuit of the Obama administration’s costly and ineffective anti-carbon agenda,” and to slow down or block regulations in general whenever industry complains about their costs (i.e., always).

Do we really need to slow down the snail’s pace of current environmental regulation, and pay more attention to industry as it bemoans the cost of compliance? Consider the case of coal ash: produced in stupendous quantities by coal-burning power plants, it contains dangerous concentrations of arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxic metals. Improper disposal has led to contamination of groundwater in many communities, and to occasional disasters such as the billion-gallon sludge spill that inundated Kingston, Tennessee in 2008.

This looks like the poster child for hazardous waste regulation – except that the coal industry has consistently used its considerable political clout to win special treatment. Back in 1980, near the dawn of modern waste regulations, Congress directed EPA to study coal ash in detail before applying hazardous waste rules to it.

That process of study has already stretched over more than 30 years. Under the Obama administration, closure was finally in sight; in 2009, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said she would complete regulation of coal ash that year. It turns out that the industry’s clout is undiminished, and the revised Obama plan is to punt until after the election. In January a coalition of environmental groups announced plans to sue EPA to force regulation of ash disposal.

Industry’s grumbling about regulatory costs has taken two forms. One is the claim of job losses: regulation of coal ash as hazardous waste, according to an industry-sponsored report, would eliminate more than 300,000 jobs a year. I re-examined their report and found it to be close to a complete fabrication; using standard methods of economic analysis, regulation of coal ash as hazardous waste would cause a net annual gain of 28,000 jobs.

A more exotic claim is that the stigma created by regulation of coal ash disposal would destroy the market for ash reuse. More than one-third of coal ash is recycled, often used in construction materials such as concrete, cement, and wallboard. Although EPA’s proposed rules explicitly exempt ash recycling, the industry claims that regulation of ash disposal as hazardous waste would stigmatize all uses of ash, including recycling.

If coal ash disposal bears a regulatory stigma, is it deserved? Nuclear waste is stigmatized as dangerous, which is a huge setback for any plans you might have to bury it in your backyard. No one, however, would count the lost income from your inability to open a backyard nuclear waste dump as a cost of regulation. Nor would we count the loss of income if sales dropped for a different product that was mistakenly stigmatized as nuclear waste. The latter is exactly parallel to the purported stigma effect on coal ash reuse.

Liz Stanton and I critiqued the stigma theory in testimony on ash disposal rules in 2010. At the time, the idea seemed purely hypothetical. Now the industry alleges that regulatory uncertainty and “toxic” publicity are already driving down recycling; after soaring under the previous administration, the ash recycling rate stalled in 2008-2009 and declined in 2010.

The industry has missed the obvious explanation for these trends. Coal ash is created by electricity generation; ash reuse often occurs in construction. In the economic boom before 2008, construction grew more rapidly than electricity generation, so markets for ash reuse expanded relative to the supply. In the crash after 2008, the reverse was true: construction declined more steeply than electricity generation, so reuse markets shrank relative to ash supply.

Is regulation too expensive because it calls hazardous materials hazardous, and clueless customers could accidentally extend the resulting stigma to other products? In rational debate in ordinary times, this notion would be greeted with derisive laughter, at best. Yet in a year when leading presidential candidates discuss statehood for a non-existent future moon colony, or plans to make immigrants engage in voluntary self-deportation, it’s hard to know what will count as serious.

The current administration’s environmental policies have frequently been a disappointment, but the choice in the November elections seems sure to be between disappointment and disaster.

Ecuador must be one of the most exciting places on Earth right now, in terms of working towards a new development paradigm. It shows how much can be achieved with political will, even in uncertain economic times.

Just 10 years ago, Ecuador was more or less a basket case, a quintessential “banana republic” (it happens to be the world’s largest exporter of bananas), characterised by political instability, inequality, a poorly-performing economy, and the ever-looming impact of the US on its domestic politics.

In 2000, in response to hyperinflation and balance of payments problems, the government dollarised the economy, replacing the sucre with the US currency as legal tender. This subdued inflation, but it did nothing to address the core economic problems, and further constrained the domestic policy space.

A major turning point came with the election of the economist Rafael Correa as president. After taking over in January 2007, his government ushered in a series of changes, based on a new constitution (the country’s 20th, approved in 2008) that was itself mandated by a popular referendum. A hallmark of the changes that have occurred since then is that major policies have first been put through the referendum process. This has given the government the political ability to take on major vested interests and powerful lobbies.

The government is now the most stable in recent times and will soon become the longest serving in Ecuador’s tumultuous history. The president’s approval ratings are well over 70%. All this is due to the reorientation of the government’s approach, made possible by a constitution remarkable for its recognition of human rights and the rights of nature, and its acceptance of plurality and cultural diversity.

Consider just some economic changes brought about in the past four years, beginning with the renegotiation of oil contracts with multinational companies. Ecuador is an oil exporter, but had benefited relatively little from this because of the high shares of oil sales that went to foreign oil companies. A new law in July 2010 dramatically changed the terms, increasing the government’s share from 13% to 87% of gross oil revenues.

Seven of the 16 foreign oil companies decided to pull out, and their fields were taken over by state-run companies. But the others stayed on and, as a result, state revenues increased by $870m (£563m) in 2011.

Second, and possibly even more impressively, the government managed a dramatic increase in direct tax receipts. In fact, this has been even more important in revenue terms than oil receipts. Direct taxes (mainly corporation taxes) increased from around 35% of total taxes in 2006 to more than 40% in 2011. This was largely because of better enforcement, since the nexus between big business and the public tax administration was broken.

Third, these increased government revenues were put to good use in infrastructure investment and social spending. Ecuador now has the highest proportion of public investment to GDP (10%) in Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, social spending has doubled since 2006. This has enabled real progress towards the constitutional goals of free education at all levels, and access to free healthcare for all citizens. Significant increases in public housing have followed the constitution’s affirmation of the right of all citizens to dignified housing with proper amenities.

There are numerous other measures: expanding direct public employment; increasing minimum wages and legally enforcing social security provision for all workers; diversifying the economy to reduce dependence on oil exports, and diversifying trading partners to reduce dependence on the US; enlarging public banking operations to reach more small and medium entrepreneurs; auditing external debt to reduce debt service payments; and abandoning unfair bilateral investment agreements. Other efforts include reform of the justice system.

One exciting recent initiative is the Yasuní-ITT biosphere reserve, perhaps the world’s first attempt to avoid greenhouse emissions by leaving oil underground. This not only protects the extraordinary biodiversity of the area but also the habitats of its indigenous peoples. The scheme proposes to use ecotourism to make human activity compatible with nature.

All this may sound too good to be true, and certainly the process of transformation has only just begun. There are bound to be conflicts with those whose profits and power are threatened, as well as other hurdles along the way. But for those who believe that we are not condemned to the gloomy status quo, and that societies can do things differently, what is happening in Ecuador provides inspiration and even guidance. The rest of the world has much to learn from this ongoing radical experiment.

This piece was originally published by The Guardian.

For nearly a decade, Goldcorp’s Marlin gold and silver mine in the Guatemalan altiplano has been at the center of intense local conflict and international scrutiny. The conflict was ignited in 2005 when local Mayan communities overwhelmingly rejected mining in popular plebiscites called consultas. Chief among their concerns was the potential for water contamination in the agricultural areas.

Virtually every international human rights organization—from the ILO to the UN Special Rapporteur – has weighed in, urging Goldcorp and the Guatemalan government to suspend mine operations to ensure protection of the rights, health and livelihoods of the indigenous people. In mid-2010, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (IACHR) went one step further and issued precautionary measures ordering the Guatemalan government to suspend operations at the Marlin mine.

Through it all, the Marlin mine has continued to operate, raking in a bonanza for Goldcorp shareholders. Between 2006-2009, Marlin generated nearly $1 billion in revenues and almost $350 million in earnings, making it Goldcorp’s third best performing mine. According to the company’s annual report, 2010 was a banner year: Marlin generated a record $500 million in revenues and $268 million in earnings, nearly double over the previous year.

Costs of production at Marlin are the lowest of all of Goldcorp’s operations, generating what the company calls “tremendous cash flow”.  While production costs have stayed flat or even decreased since mine operations began in December 2005, the price of gold has increased by more than 300%. The forecast is for more of the same: analysts predict the average gold price in 2012 could hit as high as $2500 per ounce.

Crumbs off the table

Guatemala’s share of the bonanza can best be described as “crumbs off the table”. In a report published in October by the Global Development and Environment Institute, Leonardo Stanley and I show that between 2006-2009, royalties and taxes paid to the Guatemalan government averaged a paltry $13 million per year and amounted to only 5.8% of total mine revenues and 15% of total earnings.

Comparisons are tricky because mining royalties and taxes vary so much within and between countries. But as a ball park figure, a PWC report estimated that South Africa—the world’s second largest gold producer—charged mining companies an income tax of 28% in 2010, plus remittance taxes and royalties. Venezuela recently imposed a royalty rate of 13% on gold mining, compared to Guatemala’s all-minerals royalty rate of 1%.

Goldcorp, which calls itself a “responsible mining” company, claims that it brings substantial benefits to Guatemala through local jobs, local procurement, and social investment in sustainable development projects, including a clinic, schools, and deforestation projects. There is little doubt that the 2000 or so jobs at the mine—about half of which are held by locals—bring significant benefits in the very poor local Mayan communities. Indeed, the availability and competition for mining jobs has generated intense social conflict. However, these jobs will vanish when the mine closes and there is little evidence of any lasting development benefits.

We found no data to support Goldcorp’s claim that it spends $150 million annually procuring local goods and services.  Based on case studies in other countries, it is likely that a substantial portion is accounted for by goods and services purchased locally from importers.  Local economic benefits flow when companies buy goods and services produced by local companies.  When they are imported, economic benefits mostly flow out of the country.

As for social investment, Goldcorp claims it has invested $20 million in sustainable development and reforestation projects. Local communities also received about $8 million of the royalties, bringing their total “return” on the mine to date to $28 million. Between 2006-2010, Marlin earnings totaled about $863 million. That means that the share of local communities in the Marlin bonanza amounted to about 3% of the income it generated–crumbs indeed. Meanwhile, Goldcorp has generously contributed to Canadian universities, including $10 million to Simon Fraser and $25 million to the Teffler Business School at the University of Ottawa.

Environmental risk

Gold mining poses severe environmental risks stemming from the use of cyanide and the potential release of heavy metals into ground and surface water. While the economic benefits of the mine are flowing largely to far-away shareholders, the risks are borne by local communities. As we document in the GDAE report, four independent studies have found evidence of heavy metals contamination, including arsenic leaking into groundwater. Heavy metals are extremely toxic to humans and other living beings—and they can remain in the environment for generations.

Goldcorp claims that “credible third party investigations” have found no evidence to date of water contamination. The available government reports, however, are not based on independent environmental monitoring but simply review and accept reports provided by Goldcorp.  The other source Goldcorp points to, the Community Environmental Monitoring Association, is financially supported by the company.

Two other environmental risks afflict the Marlin mine. Despite its promise to do so, Goldcorp has not made public a mine closure report and provides a surety bond of only $1 million. A report published by the Catholic Peace and Ecology Commission in July of 2011 estimated the costs of reclamation and monitoring following closure at $49 million. In addition, the mine was built to specifications that did not take climate change into account. High-intensity floods could breach the tailings pond and increase the risk of cyanide and heavy metals contamination. The number of high-intensity floods in Guatemala between 1990-2009 was nearly 300% greater than between 1970-1989.

What’s next?

Last month, in the face of substantial pressure from the Guatemalan government, the IACHR lifted its suspension order of the Marlin mine. Ignoring independent studies, the Government argued that company reports had found no proof of imminent or probable harm. While lifting the order to close, the IACHR ordered the government to “implement effective measures to prevent environmental pollution” and ensure that local people have access to water fit for human consumption and agriculture.

The IACHR is coming under increasing pressure by Latin American countries to back off from intervening in large development projects. In April, the Commission ordered Brazil to immediately suspend operations at the Belo Monte Dam Complex and undertake a consultation process to gain the “free, prior and informed consent” of local indigenous people. The IACHR backed down after Brazil threatened to withdraw from the Commission.

But Goldcorp and other large mining companies will continue to face scrutiny and pressure. In 2011, Ernst and Young found that “resource nationalism”—the attempt by host governments to get a larger share of the returns from mining—was the number one business risk facing mining and metals companies. In Guatemala, bills to reform the Minerals Royalty Law have been introduced in the legislature.

Shareholders, including large pension funds, are increasingly scrutinizing the human rights and environmental practices of mining operations. In September, Goldcorp was de-listed from the Dow Jones North American Sustainability Index.

And local opposition to the mining projects continues to grow. Dozens of plebiscites have been held in the Mayan communities in the Guatemalan highlands, including one in Quetzaltenango last February in which all but 30 of 6,758 voters rejected seven exploration licenses granted to Goldcorp.

With independent environmental monitoring and a closure report still lacking, and the continued failure to gain consent from indigenous communities—and the lack of a fair share of benefits– there is a long way to go before “responsible mining” comes to Guatemala.

Download the full report in English or Spanish. Read the executive summary here. Watch two Real News Network interviews with Zarsky on the report, here and here.

At this time 12 months ago, this column had highlighted how the dying year 2010 could be labeled the year of natural calamities, and predicted more on the way.

Sure enough, the year that has just passed witnessed even worse disasters. If 2010 was marked by the Haiti earthquake, 2011 surpassed that in impact (if not in deaths) by the Fukushima triple tragedy of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident.

But Fukushima was only the worst of the calamities that included hurricanes in Central and Latin America, drought in parts of Africa, massive floods in Thailand and elsewhere, and many typhoons and storms in the Philippines.

This new year, more is in store from Mother Nature. Extreme weather events are expected to be more frequent and more intense, and some of these are linked to climate change, according to a recent report of the inter-governmental panel on climate change (IPCC).

The extensive flooding in Thailand in October and November, which wreaked havoc on homes, factories, farms and entire towns, is a warning to Malaysians on the intensity of what may happen here someday. The floods that have recently affected many Malaysian states may in future be even more intense and more damaging.

Another disaster in our region was caused by the tropical storm Washi that swept across Mindanao in Southern Philippines in December, killing over 1,000 people and displacing 300,000 in massive flooding, flash floods and landslides.

Better disaster risk preparations would have helped avert the high number of casualties, according to Filipino Senator Loren Legarda, a disaster risk reduction champion for the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).

She called on local authorities throughout Philippines to invest in flood infrastructure, including river embankments, pumping stations, flood walls, drainage systems, storm drains, canals and flood retention areas, noting the high number of casualties caused by Washi could be due to a lack of awareness of the risks involved.

Countries should implement the UNISDR strategy, which aims to guide and coordinate efforts to reduce disaster losses and build more resilient communities and countries.

As Greenhouse Gases continue to increase at an alarming rate in the atmosphere, the effects of climate change are bound to worsen. Thus, a useful New Year resolution that countries should make is to put in much more effort and funds to strengthen disaster preparedness. It will save many lives, homes and other properties.

The new year 2012 will likely suffer from man-made disasters as well. A new world-wide recession is now a larger possibility, as the economic austerity policies across Europe and the deleveraging of its banks take effect this year in reduced demand, higher unemployment, credit tightening and reduced output.

The year will continue to witness the Eurozone governments wrestling to save the Euro. If, as many analysts predict, the policy makers remain behind the curve of events on the ground, then 2012 will be a disaster year for Europe, with recessionary effects on the rest of the world.

If, however, the European leaders and institutions get their act together, then the disaster could yet be averted. But fewer experts believe that policy will finally get ahead and prevent chaos.

As with natural disasters, preparedness for economic slowdown or recession is needed, at least to cushion the effects.

A slowdown in the advanced economies will affect developing countries through the trade and finance channels. On the trade front, developing countries that are more export-dependent must expect to be hit by reduced demand for their products and by lower commodity prices.

On the finance front, developing countries should expect a reversal of the strong capital inflows of the past couple of years as Western funds seek the “safe havens” of their own countries during these uncertain economic times.

Indeed, a significant net outflow of portfolio capital has already begun in several Asian countries, including India, Thailand and Malaysia.

The outflow can be absorbed without much difficulty in countries like Malaysia that have strong current-account surpluses, but can be a significant problem for countries like India which have a current-account deficit and which have relied on capital inflows to cover it.

2011 was a turning point in laying the foundations for the current economic problems. Thus, 2012 could be the year when these problems mature into fully-fledged crises. Thus we should be preparing early for what the year may bring.

This piece was originally published at the Third World Network.

Greenhouse gas emissions are a global problem. Regardless of who emits them, these gases impact everyone, everywhere around the world: raising average temperatures and sea levels, and changing historical weather patterns. But climate change will not affect everyone equally. The two dozen island nations of the Caribbean are a case in point. With 40 million people living on islands in a small geographic area, it would be easy – but incorrect – to expect that they will all face the same climate damages. In fact, according to new research from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Caribbean residents are not all “in the same boat” and should expect to face a very wide diversity of climate impacts.

Yes, each person living in the Caribbean will experience about the same change in climate – temperature increase and shift in weather patterns – and degree of sea-level rise as her neighbors over the next decades. And her children and grandchildren can expect about the same changes to weather and sea levels as their neighbors. But these changes in the physical world will not impact all Caribbean residents in the same way.

SEI’s new Climate Impact Equity Lens (SEI-CIEL, see www.sei-ciel.org for more information) examines the diverse impacts of climate change by zooming in on four important types of diversity that affect individuals’ expected impacts from climate change: family income; share of income from economic sectors that are especially vulnerable to damages from climate change; exposure to sea-level rise and storm surge; and present-day water availability.

Family income plays an important role in who will be vulnerable to damages and who can afford to adapt as the climate changes. The Caribbean islands include the countries with the highest and lowest average incomes in the greater Latin American and Caribbean region: in Haiti, the average person makes less than US$500 a year (but, of course, some people make a lot more than $500 and some people make a lot less); in the Cayman islands, the average income is $52,000. The Caribbean islands account for less than 1 percent of global population, but Caribbean incomes span the same diversity as world incomes: from the very poorest to the very richest. Families making a few hundred U.S. dollars each year can scarcely afford basic living expenses much less investments in air conditioning, sea walls, or imported water. The richest families, in contrast, can afford these investments and much more; it seems unlikely that the very rich will experience much real suffering from climate change.

The diversity of climate impacts is also affected by the source of income. For those that work in agriculture, fisheries, tourism, or other sectors or industries especially vulnerable to climate change, expected damages are much higher. Tourism, for example, contributes about half of all income in Aruba, Netherlands Antilles, Saint Lucia, and Turks and Caicos, and far more than half of all income for many households throughout the Caribbean.

Physical vulnerabilities like exposure to sea-level rise and water scarcity also vary throughout the region. Some families live close to the shoreline, at low elevations, or in floodplains, but many others – especially on the largest islands, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) – are well protected from the first several meters of sea-level rise. On most Caribbean islands, fresh water is a scarce resource, but on a few islands water resources are more abundant. Climate change is expected to make many of the most arid areas around the world even drier; where present-day water scarcity is severe, families are more vulnerable to changing weather patterns.

The SEI-CIEL model finds that, if greenhouse gas emissions continue, climate damages for the average person in Latin America and the Caribbean would equal “savings” from not paying to reduce emissions through about 2100. (If emissions are not controlled, we all “save” by paying lower energy costs.) This average does not, however, represent the diversity of individual impacts from climate change expected in the Caribbean, where damages for many individuals will outstrip “savings” by 2050, and by 2100, most people experience net damages.

If policy makers pay attention only to the average regional result, their conclusions about the urgency of climate change would be very different than if they consider the diversity of individual impacts. Many people, in the Caribbean and around the world, will experience serious net damages from climate change by 2050. Those who care about the well-being of the most vulnerable will press climate policy makers to slow emissions as quickly as possible.

This piece was originally published by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network blog. Ramón Bueno is a staff scientist for the Climate Economics Group at the Stockholm Environment Institute.

In Durban, South Africa, world officials and diplomats decided to do nothing about climate change. Although China produces per capita emissions that are four times lower than those of the United States,  it should not ignore the fact that these emissions are already above the world average. Meanwhile, the US blames China for the rise in its aggregate emissions and refuses to make any commitments to reduce its own emissions. In Durban, rich countries pledged money, but also more carbon dioxide. Latin American countries took a variety of positions.

The Seventeenth International Climate Change Summit (Conference of Parties (COP-17)), which ended last month in Durban, should have forged a strong international agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which will expire in 2012.

The Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted in December 1997 and came into force in February 2005 after ratification by the Russian Federation. The US signed the agreement but it was not ratified by any of the successive administrations of Clinton, Bush and Obama. The Kyoto Protocol has tried unsuccessfully to  reduce emissions of greenhouse gases from most polluting countries by at least 5% between 2008 and 2012 as compared to 1990.

The agreement of the COP-17 calls for the negotiation of a “protocol, a legal instrument or a legally binding result” in 2015, which limits emissions by all countries “from 2020″ onwards. That is, the “ball” – or rather the planet – is kicked forward into the abyss.

Over time, aggregate carbon emissions are increasing. Globally, annual growth rates were 3.3% in the seventies, 2% in the eighties, 1.2% in the nineties, and 2.5% in 2000s. There were reductions in the emissions growth rate in 1980-1982, in 1992, and during the economic crisis of 2008-2009. The concentration of parts per million (ppm) of CO2, the most important indicator to measure climate change in the atmosphere, also rises. Worldwide, between 1970 and 2010, the average concentration increased from 325.7 to 389.8 ppm, i.e.,  0.6% per year, according to measurements from the Mauna Loa Observatory, in Hawaii.

Sometimes, officials and diplomats gather and talk,  but they produce agreements that are useless or even exacerbate the problems. It is only a lot of talk. So it is with climate change.

Read this post in Portuguese.

With economic crashes and ecological calamities so prevalent in 2011, concluding with a do-little November G20 meeting in Cannes and a do-nothing December climate summit in Durban, January has opened with intense fear of eurozone deterioration. In this uncertain context loom the two most potent forces shaping the period ahead: China’s capital accumulation process and class struggle.

Because of the country’s uneven and combined development, within an extraordinary boom we can see the beginnings of a potentially world-scale bust, plus prodigious socioeconomic battles from below alongside brutal attacks on the environment such as coal-fired power and the Three Gorges Dam (notwithstanding exceptional ‘green economy’ advances).

Some observers of China are optimistic, but they’re mostly from the Bretton Woods Institutions. Six weeks ago, opined World Bank Chief Economist Justin Yifu Lin, “China can continue its dynamic economic growth for at least another 20 years,” and six months ago, the International Monetary Fund’s Executive Board Assessment “noted that China’s near-term growth prospects continue to be vigorous and are increasingly self-sustained, underpinned by structural adjustment.” After all, “A broad-based recovery is well in train and there has been a hand-off to private investment as the stimulus winds down.”

To receive such praise from Washington should set off warning sirens. Triple Crisis bloggers Jayati Ghosh and C.P. Chandrasekhar are more sober: “As the housing bubble in China is pricked and real estate prices fall, this will have negative multiplier effects on all related activities.” Added Paul Krugman in The New York Times last month: “China’s story just sounds too much like the crack-ups we’ve already seen elsewhere.”

My guides on a mid-December trip to south and central China were Professors Wen Tiejun of Renmin University and Lau Kin Chi of Lingnan University. We began at the South South Forum in Hong Kong, whose core theme reflected the Chinese ‘New Left’ perspective: “Mainstream scholars and commentators, purposefully or unconsciously at the service of vested interests, have often been too eager to attribute developmental experiences to generic and reified concepts such as marketization and globalization.”

To debunk mainstream stories requires understanding state (especially municipal) power to shape China’s capitalist development trajectory. In central China, the world’s fastest-growing major city, Chongqing, has since 1997 enjoyed self-management status equivalent to Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin. With 7 million urban residents (rising a million a year), this is where China best marries efficiency and equity. The historian Philip Huang argues that a ‘Third Hand’ – the municipal corporation, between socialism and capitalism – is creating Chongqing’s extraordinary landscape.

Elsewhere in China, the vast speculative housing boom, part state-driven but then joined by private investors who overbuilt, created vast ghost cities with tens of millions of empty apartments at a time worker housing was unaffordable. In contrast to the developers’ over-priced, for-profit housing, Chongqing is building 700,000 low-cost public units for two million people in just seven years. This is critical to both labour supply management (generously state subsidised at the point of reproduction) and consumer demand, especially for appliances and other household goods.

Behind this is the model for ‘nonmingong’ migrant workers, operating similarly to what Southern Africans refer to as ‘articulations of modes of production’: male workers in capitalist firms are reproduced through gendered superexploitation because they lack urban citizens’ rights, relying instead upon rural women for childcare, healthcare for sick workers and old-age care. That apartheid-like system helps explain China’s persistently low wage rates (alongside a state-controlled, low-value currency).

A crucial factor in rearranging Chongqing’s social and economic space over the last four years is the role played by Bo Xilai, son of a former deputy premier who has the vision, determination and raw power to cut through bureaucratic red tape. He has crushed protests but also made concessions such as much higher land payments to the rural dispossessed, as well as public housing – because so far, state profits from rising land prices provide the needed subsidy.

Most estimates of annual protests in China are in excess of 100,000. University of California geographer You-Tien Hsing explains how the system can be challenged from below, to increase the compensation given via social protest of the type underway recently in Wukan. “What this new regime of social stabilisation has brought is the commodification of citizens perception of justice and rights… Constrained by the limited political space, in their struggle, cash became the goal of their struggle and the measure of justice.”

In sum, it strikes me that five ‘s’ contradictions are rising that even the finest Chinese managers will probably not overcome. First, subsidies flow from central government to select industrial sites – about $15 billion to Chongqing annually – and into the transport system, but can these continue?

Second, surpluses earned from the proletariat – which in China are unusually high, as migrants push reproduction costs back to women – may not be so easy to realize when exporting to shaky world markets. (Chongqing’s take has been $30 billion/year.) Can the model shift quickly enough from dependence on foreign trade?

Third, structure/struggle dialectic means that from above, on the one hand, sociopolitical leadership from the likes of Bo Xilai is rare, and required a sustained attack on Chongqing’s strong mafioso elements – but how replicable is this leadership? And on the other hand, from below, massive social unrest continues from peasants and workers – but can it link beyond the current localized grievance expressions and pay-outs?

Fourth, the maniacal speculation in real estate required for ever-increasing municipal revenue appears now to have peaked, threatening even Chongqing’s model.

Fifth, sustainability in ecological terms is failing, with severe air and land pollution, climate change and water shortages. Beyond the fast trains, massive tree-planting and vast solar panel production, the broader western fossil-fuel model of accumulation needs questioning.

The extraordinary accomplishments made possible by a strong state taming capital accumulation may not withstand such contradictions. Given the troubles above and turbulence below, it is overdue for China’s emerging New Left to take its critiques to scale and connect these dots.

Read this post in Portuguese at INESC.