Over 30,000 attend Bolivia climate conference

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The oppressed people of the Earth have stepped forward forcefully into the climate-change debate with new declarations emerging from the “The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth,” held near Cochabamba, Bolivia, in late April. The statements, which were formed in various workshops, accurately placed the responsibility for the climate crisis where it belongs—with the capitalist system.

It was abundantly clear that the working masses of the world needed their own conference where their voice would be heard after the majority of the world’s countries were undemocratically excluded from participating in the creation of the “Copenhagan Accord,” the only document to emerge from the UN Climate Change Conference in Denmark in late 2009.

The Copenhagen Accord pledged to continue the policies of the Kyoto Accord of 1997, which relied on inadequate “market” mechanisms to achieve carbon reductions. Like Kyoto, the Copenhagen Accord is nonbinding on participants.

The Cochabamba conference was called by President Evo Morales of Bolivia, a country that might very well lose the snowcaps on its mountains (a vital source of water for the Bolivian people) as a consequence of global warming. This would be one of a huge number of catastrophes that the world would face if the world’s temperature rise were permitted to exceed the 2 degrees Celsius that the Copenhagen Accord called for as a goal.

Over 30,000 activists attended the four-day Bolivian event, including over 9000 people from outside Bolivia. Participants came from over 140 countries, and heads of state or officials represented 48 governments.

The presence of thousands of indigenous people from all over the Americas highlighted the perspective of this conference that human life has to achieve a balance with nature instead of allowing capitalists to exploit natural resources with only profits in mind. There were also many rank-and-file activists and peasant, student, and labor groups who mobilized for this important event.

The conference approved an Agreement of the People, which demands that industrially developed countries, which are primarily responsible for the carbon emissions leading to climate change, reduce their emissions by 50 percent by the year 2017, based on 1990 levels. The Agreement calls for an international Environmental Justice Tribunal, which could take action against countries and private entities that fail to comply with agreed upon standards.

The viewpoint that the capitalist system is primarily to blame for the world’s alarming ecological situation, including climate change, was prominently featured in the conference and its resolutions. President Morales said, “The main cause of the destruction of the planet Earth is capitalism.”

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela said, “Let’s not change the climate, let’s change the system! And con... Gulf oil spill (Above) An indigenous man from Ecuador attends the conference on April 20.

(Left) An indigenous woman from Peru waves a Bolivian flag as Evo Morales speaks to the conference.

sequently we will begin to save the planet. Capitalism is a destructive development model that is putting an end to life; it threatens to put a definitive end to the human species.” Later he added jokingly, “If the climate were a bank it would have been saved already.”

Cuban Vice-President Esteban Lazo Hernández said, “The struggle for the defense of life today must indisputably include the necessity of abolishing the capitalist system. … It is intolerable that the total income of the 500 richest people in the world is superior to the income of the 416 million poorest people in the world.”

The next round of UN talks on climate change will be late this year in Cancun, Mexico, under the shadow of the undemocratically imposed Copenhagen Accord. The Cochabamba conference rallied forces against any possible acceptance of the Copenhagen Accord and also called for a “Global People’s Movement” to coordinate mass actions that struggle for a serious response to this crisis based on the best interests of human beings and their environment rather than profit. n and Congress will try to find individuals (possibly even a few corporate execs) to blame for this disaster. We need an exhaustive investigation of the disaster, and a trial and jail time for the perpetrators. But the sources of the problem must also be exposed.

The naked lust for profits by petroleum capitalists are at the root of this disaster. The Mississippi delta has been fouled countless times by oil spills, and a large body of land has been lost to the sea partly due to canals built for oil pipelines. The oil and chemical refineries have made southern Louisiana one of the most polluted areas of the world.

BP bears responsibility for this latest crisis, but so do the capitalist politicians in both of the major parties who act as their accomplices by gutting attempts to regulate safety and protect workers and the environment.

A few years back the Greens were talking about a “corporate death penalty” that would entail breaking corporations up into smaller businesses. This isn’t enough. Nationalize the energy industry under workers’ control, and run the industry for the benefit of the people! Convert jobs in fossil fuel production to the production of safe, clean, renewable energy. We need a crash program to overcome dependence on fossil fuels by emphasizing mass transit and sustainable production for people’s needs instead of private profit.

The ultimate solution depends on taking political and economic power out of the hands of those who are ruled only by their drive for personal wealth. n Socialist Action may 2010 3