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Trond Andresen
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Organization: Corporate Europe Observatory
From: Olivier Hoedeman <paxaran@antenna.nl>
Date: Sunday, 12 November, 2000
Greenhouse Market Mania -
UN Climate Talks Corrupted by Corporate Pseudo-Solutions
by Olivier Hoedeman
A special report on the eve of the UN climate summit
http://www.xs4all/nl/~ceo/greenhouse/index.html
From November 13th through 24th, the Dutch city of The Hague will
host the sixth UN Climate Summit (COP-6). The Hague Summit is
critical, as it is there that final decisions for the implementation of
the 1997 Kyoto Protocol will be taken. The Kyoto Protocol is in
danger of becoming the most corporate-friendly environmental
treaty in history, not only at the expense of social and political
equity between North and South, but also to the detriment of the
climate itself. The rules for implementing the Protocol as promoted
by an unholy alliance of market-obsessed Northern governments
and corporate lobby groups would result in a net increase of
greenhouse gas emissions rather than the reduction targets agreed
upon in 1997.
On top of that, many of the corporate activities that might become
eligible for "carbon credits" after COP-6 — including nuclear energy
as well as industrial and genetically-engineered agriculture and tree
plantations — have serious negative social and environmental
impacts. A whole new industrial sector has emerged even before
consensus has been reached on the Kyoto rules— the emissions
brokers. The attraction is clear— the market in global greenhouse
gases could grow to trillions of US dollars over the next decades.
Most corporations have discovered that huge profits lie ahead if
they manage to shape the Kyoto mechanisms to their interests.
This is why, after years of pure and unapologetic obstruction, most
transnational corporations (TNCs) have now adopted what they
claim to be a more ‘constructive’ approach. Business, they argue,
will not block the negotiations nor prevent the implementation of the
Kyoto Protocol at COP-6. Instead, they will focus on ensuring an
unlimited use of the Protocol’s market-based mechanisms. The
Kyoto Protocol opened up possibilities for countries to meet their
reduction commitments through emissions trading and a range of
other pseudo-solutions that have gained disturbing mainstream
political acceptance in the run-up to COP-6. Indeed, the large-scale
global offensive launched by these industrial interests has been a
key force behind the adoption of dubious market-based
mechanisms to solve the climate crisis. The net effect of this
corporate coup will be a corrupted and anaemic Kyoto Protocol.
The key challenge at COP-6 will be to bring the commodification of
the climate to a halt. The alternative is climate policies that pursue
real emissions reductions and equity, including a complete
withdrawal from fossil fuel dependency and the ever-increasing
growth in energy production and use.
‘Greenhouse Market Mania’ provides an extensive overview of the
climate-damaging lobbying offensive of groupings like the European
Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT), the Global Climate Coalition
(GCC), and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC),
including their ambitions for the Climate Summit in the Hague.
Check out the CEO website for updates from the UN climate
summit (November 13th - 24th ).
Excerpt on MAI, WTO and economic globalisation:
Economic Globalisation vs. Climate Stability
There is no escaping the conclusion that environmental concerns
have been usurped by corporate interests in the UN climate
negotiations. Using the full toolbox of corporate lobbying and
greenwash techniques, business has succeeded in promoting itself
and global free trade in greenhouse gases as the solutions for the
climate crisis. The Kyoto Protocol has been corrupted in order to
give TNCs - the main culprits behind accelerating climate change -
a privileged status as implementers of the market-based 'solutions'.
[76] Carbon trading opens up new markets for corporations and
enables them to fully exploit the financial opportunities arising from
the climate crisis, whether from the massive markets in
environmental end-of-pipe technologies or through the widening
range of subsidised climate fraud. The inclusion of market-based
solutions in the Kyoto Protocol has opened up a Pandora's Box
that will end in the complete undermining of the Kyoto reduction
targets. In the process, the global warming debate has been
reduced to a technical discussion, and pressing fundamental
questions about efficiency and equity are ignored.
These deeply disturbing developments are intrinsically linked to the
ideology behind the ongoing process of economic globalisation.
Northern governments remain blindly committed to the neo-liberal
dogma that embraces deregulated market as the solution to every
imaginable problem. After having seen governments agree to the
marketisation of one area of society after the other, the
commercialisation of the atmosphere should not come as a big
surprise. Emissions trading and other 'market-based solutions'
(such as voluntary agreements between government and business)
fit seamlessly in the political climate that pervaded the 1990s.
Influenced by corporate 'environmentalist' groupings like the World
Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD),
governments and international institutions have embraced the idea
that there is no contradiction between corporations pursuing profits
and corporations solving environmental problems.
Indeed, according to this line of thinking, market liberalisation is
good for the environment, as corporations are seen to know best
how to solve ecological problems (through technological
improvements). The dominance of market-based mechanisms in
the UN climate talks consolidates this shift in the discussion away
from technology transfer and the redistribution of public funding to
assist climate efforts in Southern countries, and towards a reliance
on another damaging neo-liberal trend of the 1990s- private capital
flows. Predictably, industry lobbyists are also profiting from the
climate debate to call for further deregulation of barriers to foreign
investments, echoing the corporate ambitions behind the failed
Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). [77] The OECD's
Business Dialogue on Climate Change, for instance, stated in May
that a "framework which reduces political, economic, and
regulatory uncertainty will increase capital flows and lead to the
diffusion of technology," specifying free capital flows and protection
of intellectual property rights as key demands. [78]
The massive push to model the Kyoto Protocol rulebook in their
interests is part of a much broader, multifaceted offensive by
corporations and their lobby groups. The aim is nothing less than
the deregulation and marketisation of every field of society, and the
pre-emption of any movement towards binding regulation or
government intervention that would interfere with corporate conduct.
The very same struggle that is being played out between
corporations and activists in the climate discussions is also taking
place in other global arenas, including the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) and in the United Nations with its Global
Compact with TNCs. Northern governments aggressively identify
with the commercial interests of 'their' corporations in the climate
talks, just as they do with international trade policies in the WTO.
For instance, the US government's Climate Change Action Plan
explicitly mentions how its climate strategies aim at "positioning
our country to compete and win in the global market." [79]
A closer look at corporate attempts to appear environmentally
responsible exposes the irreparable damage that would result if
businesses were left to their own devices in countering climate
change. In fact, it is the corporate strategy of globalising
unsustainable Northern lifestyles and consumption patterns that
constitutes one of the most serious threats to the earth's
ecosystems today. Behind the myth of self-regulation is a naked
attempt by corporations to control the global environmental debate
before public pressure forces them to enact real change.
Corporations try to sell the illusion that continued trade and
investment liberalisation, such as embodied in the WTO
agreements or the collapsed MAI, are a prerequisite to sustainable
development. But their ideal deregulated economic framework only
increases the global dependency upon a fossil fuel-based
development path. WTO agreements serve to consolidate and
globalise unfair and totally unsustainable agriculture, energy and
transport models that rely on an ever-increasing use of resources
and accelerate global climate change.
The growing economic and political power of TNCs - another prime
feature of economic globalisation - has become an intimidating
barrier to effective action against global warming. The process of
corporate-led globalisation involves floods of international mergers
and the creation of mega-corporations with massive resources and
political clout. This dramatically increased economic and political
reliance on corporations throws up new hurdles to making
governments reject the corporate climate agenda. It is hardly
surprising that Southern countries are eager to grab opportunities
to reap additional income through selling carbon credits, by
providing space for industrial tree plantations, and so forth. Most of
these countries are crippled by foreign debt, and following
intervention by the IMF their economies have been restructured to
depend on luring in foreign investors and an unsustainable over-
dependency on exports.
The Way Forward: Climate Justice
The main challenge in The Hague is to stop the Kyoto Protocol
from being further perverted by market-obsessed governments and
corporate lobby groups. The political space that has been
appropriated by this unholy alliance, for the deeply flawed 'market-
based' mechanisms, needs to be reclaimed.
Calling a halt to the market-mania that has colonised the UN
climate talks is a prerequisite to moving towards effective and
socially just solutions to the climate crisis. A first necessity is an
acknowledgement by the North of its ecological debt to the South
(80% of all CO2 emitted since 1850 has come from the North). [80]
A fair solution also implies the full recognition of equity between
and within nations, with equal rights to the atmosphere for all
human beings. Highly developed models for an equitable path to
reducing global CO2 emissions to sustainable levels exist, such as
'Contraction and Convergence', or 'Contraction, Convergence,
Allocation and Trade' developed by the Global Commons Institute.
[81] However, real equity cannot be achieved in any regime which
opens-up the potential for the commercialisation of the atmosphere.
It must be said that most environmental NGOs have failed to
challenge the steadily growing dominance of market-based
mechanisms in the UN climate negotiations. A number of
mainstream NGOs have even actively endorsed emissions trading
and entered into partnerships with corporations including some of
the biggest contributors to climate change. [82] These alliances
have given corporate strategies undeserved legitimacy, and have
provided momentum for the market-based climate regime. By
justifying this model, they have made it even more difficult to
promote real alternatives.
Any sustainable solution certainly implies an end to all new oil
exploration and a just phase-out of existing exploitation projects. A
smooth and fair transition will be required for all communities and
workers currently dependent on unsustainable businesses. The
burden must be overwhelmingly bared by the largest producers of
greenhouse gases- the corporations themselves. Ecological taxes
are an obvious part of the realignment of economic policies towards
more social and ecological ends.
Real solutions imply a profound societal transformation- a sharp
turn away from fossil fuel dependent economies. The addiction to
ever-increasing energy consumption needs to be broken, as even
renewable energy will have negative social and environmental
impacts if current growth patterns are to be sustained.[83]
The burden is now on grassroots movements all over the world to
increase pressure on governments to adopt real solutions to the
climate crisis rather than caving-in to corporate 'greenwash'. It is
clear that increased synergy between various grassroots
movements and groups, for instance those campaigning on global
trade and investment issues and those that work solely on climate
change, is sorely needed. Such a convergence of knowledge and
campaign experience could form the foundation of a new politic
emphasising movement-building and participatory democracy as
the means to achieve climate justice.
For the full report, see:
http://www.xs4all/nl/~ceo/greenhouse/index.html
Greenhouse Market Mania
UN Climate Talks Corrupted by Corporate Pseudo-Solutions
Table of contents:
· Introduction: Corporate Eyes on The Hague
· License to Pollute?
· What's at Stake in The Hague
· From Saving the Climate to Free Trade in Greenhouse Gases
· The Climate Fraud Catalogue
· The Corporate Strategy: From Opposition to Co-optation
- 'The Europeans': Voluntary Action Will Do
- US: The Boldest Offensive
- Speaking With One Voice in the International Front
· Economic Globalisation vs. Climate Stability
· The Way Forward: Climate Justice
· Notes
Corporate Lobby Groups - An Overview
· The European Corporate Climate Lobby
The ERT's 'Positive Action'
CEFIC: Opposing environmental regulation
UNICE: Avoiding Binding Targets
European Lobby Groups Fighting Ecological Taxes
CEPS: European Think Tank Joins the Climate Debate
· The Climate Greenwash Vanguard: Shell and BP Amoco
· The USA: The Boldest Offensive
The GCC: Still Going Strong
The American Petroleum Institute
The Business Roundtable
USCIB
A Shift in Strategy
The Pew Center: the next generation
The Climate Council
· International Groups
ICC and WBCSD
The International Climate Change Partnership (ICCP)
IPIECA
The Transatlantic Dimension
The Emission Brokers Lobby
The Nuclear Lobby
· Notes
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Olivier Hoedeman
Corporate Europe Observatory
Paulus Potterstraat 20
1071 DA Amsterdam
Netherlands
tel/fax: +31-20-612-7023
e-mail: <ceo@xs4all.nl>
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo
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