The failure of the November 13-24 international climate change conference at the Hague presents a major challenge for the environment movement.
The seriousness and urgency of climate change has recently been highlighted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which now projects that global mean surface temperatures will rise 1.5-6oC between 1990 and 2100, up from its 1995 forecast of 1-3.5oC. Adverse impacts of climate change are already in evidence and on current trends the environmental and social impacts are likely to be catastrophic.
The Hague conference was supposed to establish rules governing the Kyoto protocol, which calls for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions averaging 5% between 1990 and 2008-2012 for 39 "developed" countries. Far greater reductions are necessary. According to the CSIRO's Dr Graeme Pearman, current carbon dioxide emissions would have to be cut by more than 60% just to stabilise levels in the atmosphere.
The failure of the Hague conference and the fact that the modest Kyoto targets are unlikely to be met in many countries — including the US (the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter) and Australia (the world's biggest per capita emitter) — gives the lie to claims that corporate greenhouse polluters or their political allies can be trusted to protect the planet. They are not implementing the changes required to avert the adverse effects of climate change, but blocking them.
The Climate Action Network Australia (CANA), a coalition of 30 Australian environment groups, noted in a November 25 media release that the failure of the Hague conference was primarily due to Australia, the US, Canada and Japan, and that the Howard government's agenda at the Hague was driven by the interests of a small number of mining and energy companies.
So what logic is there in CANA's announcement that it "will be seeking discussions with the government to try to improve [its] stance on the key issues" prior to the next UN greenhouse conference in six months time?
The Howard government understands the seriousness and urgency of climate change but chooses to protect powerful corporate interests instead. The ALP leadership also understands the seriousness and urgency of climate change, but still chose at its last national conference to drop its commitment to meeting the modest Kyoto targets.
The Australian Conservation Foundation is pursuing "collaborative, forward thinking work" with a number of Australia's worst corporate polluters and greenhouse gangsters, including BP, BHP, Shell and Rio Tinto. The ACF is pushing for a national summit to develop a 10-year "sustainability business plan" for Australia.
The ACF asserts that "Companies like BP are on the cusp of providing [environmental] leadership", and it urges corporations to "join Greg Bourne from BP in his call for leadership".
However, this is the same Greg Bourne who, along with representatives of Rio Tinto, the Business Council of Australia, the Minerals Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, met with federal government ministers on June 20 to put industry demands on climate change.
These demands — including modest (and inadequate) emissions targets, unlimited use of carbon sinks and other "flexibility mechanisms" to offset greenhouse gas emissions, and weak penalties (if any) for countries failing to meet their targets — quickly became government policy.
ACF president Peter Garrett said the Australian government was directly responsible for the collapse of the Hague talks. Unfortunately, the ACF itself is unwittingly playing a support role for the greenhouse gangsters by providing political cover for "forward looking" companies that choose to greenwash their corporate image rather than maintaining the increasingly implausible stance of denying the science of climate change.
The ACF's recently released "Blueprint for a Sustainable Economy" asserts that "National leadership is essential. Only by sending strong signals from the top can an economy and a society be expected to change direction."
The Hague conference suggests just the opposite — that greenhouse gangsters and the political parties that support them will be the last to change, not the first, for the self-evident reason that they have a vested interest in the status quo.
The elitist, ineffective approach of the conservative wing of the environment movement needs to be rejected. The environment movement urgently needs to return to its roots as an anti-corporate protest movement.