Climate Movement Across Movements

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We reprint below the report of South African socialist Patrick Bond, who attended the March 23-24 Climat21 conference in Tunis. The conference, to be followed by an­ other in June in Europe, focused on strategies and tactics to in anticipation of the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, set for Paris in November-December 2015. Bond takes note of the important political divisions that marked the Tunis proceedings, ranging from “reformist” perspectives that looked to capitalist governments and market-based solutions to those presenting a “radical” perspective that looks to “Seattle”-type actions that imply “closing down” the system.

The Tunis conference took on a sense of urgency due to leaked reports that none of the world’s great polluters would be offering real solutions to stop and reverse the present trend, in which a rise of two degrees centigrade in the global mean temperature would bring with it irre­ versible and catastrophic consequences for life on earth. In this context, it appears from Bond’s report that few, if any, perspectives were seriously considered that saw the independent and united actions of working people and their class allies organizing on a broad front to challenge capitalist prerogatives—that is, mobilizing the only mass forces that can effectively fight for “System change, not climate change.” Until such an independent class-based movement emerges to lead the climate struggle, the ef­ forts based on reformist forces will achieve very little. See the pamphlet, “The Fight for Class and Climate Jus­ tice,” by Bill Onasch and Carl Sack, containing portions of the resolution approved by the 16th National Convention of Socialist Action. Order from Socialist Action, $2 plus $1 postage.

TUNIS—Looming ahead in eight months’ time is an­ other Conference of Polluters, or COP (technically, the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Frame­ work Convention on Climate Change). The last 20 did zilch to save us from climate catastrophe. Judging by early rough drafts of the Paris COP21 agreement recent­ ly leaked, another UN fiasco is inevitable. The Coalition Climat21 strategy meeting on March 2324 began in Tunis just before the World Social Forum. I had a momentary sense this could be a breakthrough gathering, if indeed fusions were ripe now, to move local versions of “Blockadia”—i.e., hundreds of courageous physical resistances to CO2 and methane emissions sources—towards a genuine global political project.

The diverse climate activists present seemed ready for progressive ideology, analysis, strategy, tactics, and alli­ ances. Between 150 and 400 people jammed a univer­ sity auditorium over the course of the two days, mixing French, English, and Arabic.

It was far more promising than the last time people gathered for a European COP, in 2009 at Copenhagen, when the “Seal the Deal” narrative served to draw activ­ ist lemmings towards—and over—a cliff: first up the hill of raised expectations placed on UN negotiators, before crashing down into a despondency void lasting several years once leaders of the US, Brazil, South Africa, India, and China did a backroom deal that sabotaged a binding emissions follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol.

In “Hopenhagen,” even phrases like System change, not climate change” were co-opted, as green capital edu­ cated by NGO allies agreed that a definition of “system” (e.g., from fossil fuels to nuclear) could be sufficiently malleable to meet their rhetorical needs. That prec­ edent notwithstanding, the phrase “a climate movement across the movements” used here seemed to justify an urgent unity of diverse climate activists, along with heightened attempts to draw in those who should be us­ ing climate in their own specific sectoral work. Unity— without clarity, responsibility, and accountability?

Over the last nine months, since an August gathering in Paris, a great deal of coalition building has occurred in France and indeed across Europe. The proximate goal is to use awareness of the Paris COP21 to generate events around the world in national capitals on both Nov. 2829—just before the summit begins—and on Dec. 12, as it climaxes. There was consensus that later events should be more robust than the first, and that mo­ mentum should carry into 2016. (The December 2016 COP22 will be in Morocco.)

Christophe Aguiton, one of Attac’s founders, opened the event: “In the room are Climate Justice Now! (CJN!), Climate Action Network (CAN), international unions, the faith community, and the newer actors in the global movement, especially 350.org and Avaaz. We have had a massive New York City march and some other inspiring recent experiences in the Basque country and with the Belgium Climate Express.”

But, he went on, there are some serious problems ahead that must be soberly faced: there is no CJ move­ ment in most countries; grounded local CJ organisations are lacking; we need not just resistances but alterna­ tives; and there are some important ideological divi­ sions. Still, he explained, “We won’t talk content because in the same room, there are some who are moderate, some who are radical—so we will stress mobilisation, because we all agree, without mobilisation we won’t save the climate.”

But this unity-seeking-minus-politics was reminiscent of a process four years ago in South Africa known as “C17,” a collection of 17 civil society organisations that did local preparatory work before the UN’s COP17 Dur­ ban climate summit. Actually, fewer than a half-dozen of the 17 representatives really pitched in throughout, and the moderate organisations which had promised to mobilise financial resources, media attention, and bod­ ies ultimately did none of these.

South Africa’s Big Green groups and trade unions failed to take C17 ownership, to commit resources and to add the institutional muscle needed. The Durban counter-summit messaging was vapid, and virtually no impact was made on the COP or on South Africa’s own reaction­ ary emissions policy. The final rally of 10,000 activists midway through the COP17 unfortunately presented UN elites and local politicians with a legitimating platform. Nor did we use the event to build a South African climate justice movement worthy of the name. So my own as­ sessment of the “state failure, market failure, and critic failure” in Durban strongly emphasised the problem of excessive unity, without ideological clarity, institutional responsibility or political accountability.

Maybe it will be different in France, because their (continued on page 11, in “University workers strike blow against austerity”)

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12 SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 2015 ‘Keep the oil in the soil, the coal in the hole, the tar sands in the land, and the shale gas under the grass.’ — Oilwatch International