Latest UN report condemns “green capitalism” as solution to climate change
The latest UN IPCC report on climate change, released this week, has reached worrying conclusions about the damage caused by human-induced climate change. The report states “The rise in weather and climate extremes has led to some irreversible impacts as natural and human systems are pushed beyond their ability to adapt” and “If global warming transiently exceeds 1.5°C in the coming decades or later, then many human and natural systems will face additional severe risks, and some will be irreversible, even if global warming is reduced.”
In response to the report, People Before Profit spokesperson Ruairí Fahy said, “this latest report makes it clear that we cannot avoid climate catastrophe under capitalism. The need for constant growth and the tendency towards monopoly and oligopoly is driving an undemocratic system that shuts out the voices of the most vulnerable. It’s a system where corporations are happy to carve up pieces of the economic pie amongst themselves while lobbying to maintain the status quo even if that means death, destruction and displacement for hundreds of millions.
“The only way we have any chance of avoiding this disaster is a swift change from a capitalist society to an ecosocialist one where the provision of goods is not dictated by the need to make profit but by our collective humanity, to ensure that all people have enough to eat, a roof over their heads and time to build and develop community.”
The report indicates that “soft limits” to adaptation have been reached in some areas but these can be overcome through political action to change financial, institutional and policy constraints. In some ecosystems hard limits have been reached and the number of areas affected by these hard limits will increase as climate change worsens.
There is a warning about the dangers of responses to climate change that “can create lock-ins of vulnerability, exposure and risks that are difficult and expensive to change and exacerbate existing inequalities.” The report suggests that this can “be avoided by flexible, multi-sectoral, inclusive and long-term planning and implementation of adaptation actions with benefits to many sectors and systems.”
The report has also highlighted the need for 30-50% of land, rivers and oceans to be conserved to maintain the resilience of biodiversity on the planet. In practice this would involve rewilding, protecting rivers from industrial and agricultural runoff and the expansion and greater enforcement of fishing quotas.
The authors make positive claims about the opportunity that urbanisation brings but emphasise the need for integrated, inclusive planning and investment in everyday decision-making about urban infrastructure, including social, ecological and physical infrastructures, to ensure that towns and cities become adaptable and sustainable.
On the suggestions the report makes for policymakers, the former councillor said, “to implement the necessary changes to avoid irreversible climate change would require a move away from investment serving the interest of private funds to investment decisions being made through bottom up democracy to serve all people instead of a select few.
“It would mean calling an immediate halt to the construction of climate destructive infrastructure like new data centres and Shannon LNG and the implementation of a broad green jobs program to speed up retrofitting of existing housing stock to reduce energy used for heating and an expanded free public transport system to reduce our dependence on cars.”
