tribalism and even Freud’s death wish have
been invoked as obstacles.
The fossil fuel industry is often
simplistically identified as the major/only
obstacle to climate change progress. But
the fossil fuel industry has never been,
and is still not, recognised by the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change. The UNFCCC recognises only
governments via their political leaders.
So there is little analysis of the tight
and complex, symbiotic relationship
between the dominant economic and
political interests in all societies, even
if differences sometimes occur between
them. This reality adds still more
complexity to any strategy intended to
counter climate change.
The working class
Since the Communist Manifesto of 1848,
the Marxian left has seen organised labour
and the working class more
broadly as the major drivers of
societal change.
In the US, Matthew Huber
is prominent among those who
have extended this thinking. He
places a radical transformation
of the US electricity trade unions
at the centre of his proposed
strategy. However, by his own
acknowledgement, these unions
are weak. They represent well
below 25% of even the electricity
workers.
Likewise, electricity workers
in South Africa occupy a strategic
position within the economy. And
in a similar way they are weak and
divided. This division is not only
between unions but also within
unions, as we are witnessing
with Numsa. Organised labour is,
indeed, very weak in the US and
South Africa (and elsewhere). With
time running out for stopping
climate change, radicalising even parts
of the labour movement is a long-term
strategy.
I will continue with Monbiot to look at
what he has to say about system change.
He begins with the very assured
premise that:
... only a demand for system
change, directly confronting the
power driving us to planetary
destruction, has the potential to
match the scale of the problem
and to inspire ... So let’s break
our own silence. Let’s stop
lying to ourselves and others by
pretending that small measures
deliver major change. Let’s
abandon the timidity and
tokenism. Let’s stop bringing
buckets of water when onlyfire engines will do. Let’s build
our campaign for systemic
change towards the critical 25%
threshold of public acceptance.He then offers us doughnut economics, an
ecological civilisation and participatory
democracy as the rallying cries. He doesn’t
explain these concepts, but nonetheless
concludes “so, some of us are very clear
about the system change we want to see,
but very few of us are actually prepared to
call for that system change. And that has
been our great failing.”
What, then, do I offer?Opt out and build an
alternative
Let’s start with an irrefutable fact:
measured against what is required to
keep the global temperature increase to a
maximum of 1.5°C, the COPs have been asingular failure. This failure is not specific
to any COP but to all 26 of them. It is safe
to say that all COPs since COP21, in Paris in
2015, have ended in global disappointment
and despair for the tens of millions of
people expecting each specific COP to be
different from all the preceding ones.
COP26, in 2021, was different from
Paris only in how deep and how broad
the disappointment was. The let-down
left increasing millions with a sense of
hopelessness. Sustaining action becomes
even more difficult in the absence of
hope. This growing hopelessness can be
seen in the declining numbers of trade
unions, faith-based organisations, NGOs,
NPOs, other organs of civil society and,
more recently, youth groups, which have
attended the post-Paris COPs.
Is it not therefore time to accept
that the COPs do not provide radical andenforceable solutions? That they are an
integral part of the problem? Instead of
the passive stay away we saw from COP26,
there is an alternative: an active and very
public and organised stay away from
COP27. Expecting COP27 to be any different
from all the preceding ones is to continue
to give credence to the COPs.
Hundreds of millions of people
have now directly experienced climate
change. That could support what would be
needed: the building of the largest possible
worldwide agreement to actively opt out.
A consequence of this agreement would be
to draw the greatest attention to why the
COPs are unable to deliver on what they
have pledged to do.
Active opting out of COP could also
mean holding an alternative COP27 to
coincide with the official one. Virtual
attendance would allow for a much
wider participation. Doing this wouldoffer the possibility of coverage by the
media attending the official COP. Such an
alternative COP would provide a forum to
discuss how to capture the imagination
of people in numbers sufficient to make a
difference.
In the words of German climate
activist Luisa Neubauer:If activism is saying, ‘It cannot
be business as usual, it cannot
be government as usual,’ then
surely we must be saying to
ourselves, ‘It cannot be activism
as usual’.Jeff Rudin is a member of the
Amandla! Collective.Instead of the passive stay away we saw from COP26, there is
an alternative: an active and very public and organised stay
away from COP27. Expecting COP27 to be any different from all
the preceding ones is to continue to give credence to the COPs.CLIMATE CRISIS