News and Views from the People's Struggle
Tacoma, WA – Dozens of community members gathered at the Tacoma City Council chambers on Tuesday, December 17, in preparation for the city of Tacoma’s vote to pass the city’s first Climate and Sustainability Commission into law.
St. Paul, MN – Members of the Minnesota Climate Justice Committee (CJC) held a bannering, December 15, in opposition to Lawton Standard (formerly known as Northern Iron) in Eastside neighborhood of Saint Paul on Sunday.
Minneapolis, MN – The 2024 United Nations climate conference, COP29, ended last Friday, November 22, after running into overtime, with little to show for its efforts. Every year, representatives from around the world convene at these conferences to negotiate agreements on how nations will cooperate – or not cooperate – to address the looming threat of climate change.
The attendees of COP, which stands for “Conference of the Parties”, as in, members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), are a wide mix, ranging from climate scientists to NGO delegates, to government bureaucrats, to heads of state. Some take an active role in negotiations while others are just observers. Like at the U.N. more broadly, countries of all types are represented at COP conferences, but it is an open secret that the U.S., Canada and the EU members are the ones who really run the show – and the problems manifested by this unfair arrangement are what took center stage at COP29, especially around the issue of “climate finance.”
When you boil it down, the recurring problem of the COP conferences are as follows:
First, the dominance of North America and Europe in climate negotiations is at odds with the fact that these are the nations who are most responsible for climate change.
Second, the effects of climate change are projected to be most severe in the Global South – not just as an accident of geography, but because those countries have been subject to systematic plundering and deliberate maldevelopment by the so-called “First World,” and now have the least resources to invest in green development or even damage control.
And third, these wealthy nations that have spent centuries rigging the world economy in their favor, and who are increasingly divided amongst themselves, have the least interest in implementing any changes that could further jeopardize their slipping foothold.
The struggle over climate finance
The big subject at COP29 was around the issue of climate finance, meaning, how the world is going to pay for one, the shift towards sustainable economies, and two, fixing the destruction we’re already starting to see from climate change, both in terms of building preventative infrastructure and financing “loss and damage funds” to replace things destroyed by wildfires, floods, and so on.
Throughout the conference, delegates from developing countries – particularly from those in Africa and South America – insisted that the scale of the crisis is going to require investment by wealthier nations on a massive scale, something in the order of $3-plus trillion per year. North America and Europe on the other hand, complained that there was simply no budget for this, that these numbers put forward by other countries were based on bad data, and that more of the burden should fall on the private sector rather than government money.
By the end of the nearly two-week conference, the goal was set that by 2035 the world would be allocating just $300 billion annually, with a sizable portion of that coming from private banks. Panama's climate envoy Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez captured the mood felt by many representatives as they prepared to head home: “I’m so mad. It's ridiculous. Just ridiculous,” adding, “It feels that the developed world wants the planet to burn.”
The specter of Trump
Just days before COP29 began, Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election. In the past, Trump has called climate change a “hoax.” He used his powers during his first term to cut back environmental regulations and enforcement and has campaigned on doing more of the same. According to several reports, there was a general atmosphere of anxiety at COP29 that many of these negotiations wouldn’t even matter in a few months, since Trump is even less likely than Harris would’ve been to honor U.S. commitments pledged at the conference.
The other side of this, though, is that the election of Donald Trump signals to many countries that they can no longer expect any good to come from hitching themselves to the United States’ wagon, and that forging new alliances outside of U.S. dominion, such as with the BRICS nations, is going to be a major part of the road ahead when it comes to fighting climate change.
The need for a new system
As outlined above, the COP conferences lay bare a core problem with the world as it currently exists. Everyday people in every part of the world are starting to see the effects of climate change already; scientists in every part of the world agree that our current trajectory is towards catastrophe; but government officials in wealthy Western nations are bound by the intractable laws of monopoly capitalism -“increase profits forever, or die” – and thus are unable to right the ship.
There are few issues like climate change that expose this contradiction so plainly, where right in front of our eyes we see nothing but excuses, half measures, and false promises from the people who, in theory, should have the power to avert this global catastrophe. They instead use their resources to perpetrate genocide in Palestine, wage a proxy war in Ukraine, and prepare for all-out war on China and possibly Iran.
China, on the other hand, whose economy is not bound by the dog-eat-dog logic of the “free market” and aimless capital accumulation, is leading the world in the development and export of green technology. It is poised to become the main player in the world that nations can turn to for development aid. More importantly, that nation's economy is materially governed by a party of the working class, and thus is run in service of the working class, and that means popular policies like fighting pollution and climate change can be pursued for their own sake, not just as secondary measures when it’s politically convenient.
For the sake of our planetary future, those who care about the environment should look to countries like China as a model of what we ought to be fighting for – not just a seat at the table in failing institutions like COP29, but for an entirely different society where power is in the hands of the people, whose interests lie in actually stopping climate change at the source.
Charlie Berg is a member of the Climate Justice Committee – Minneapolis, MN
Minneapolis, MN – On Wednesday November 21, 50 members of the newly formed Coalition for a Nuclear-free Mississippi River and their supporters rallied in front of Xcel Energy headquarters on Nicollet Mall in the heart of downtown. They demanded the energy company keep to its 2030 shutdown date for the Monticello Nuclear Reactor, because of the serious threats posed to public health, the Mississippi River, and drinking water for millions.
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization – Wisconsin District denounces the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) decision to reroute Enbridge’s Line 5 Pipeline through the lands of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. We call on all progressives and revolutionaries to oppose this move and demand the immediate shutdown of Line 5. Motivated by profit, this decision infringes on the sovereignty of the Bad River Tribe and puts the ecosystems of the Great Lakes region as a whole in danger. The DNR, state, and federal government have made it clear that they are only paying lip service to indigenous people while upholding the interests of the ruling monopoly-capitalist class.
Minneapolis, MN – On Sunday, November 17, around 100 people gathered in Uptown Minneapolis’ Painter Park as Families Against Military Madness (FAMM) and the Climate Justice Committee (CJC) led a protest focused on bringing families into the climate and anti-war movements. Speakers discussed the post-election struggle and the need for young people to learn and practice organizing skills for the long struggles ahead.
Tampa, FL – El miércoles 10 de octubre, alrededor de las 8:30 p.m., Milton impactó aproximadamente 40 millas al sur de la Bahía de Tampa como un huracán de categoría tres. Ni siquiera han pasado dos semanas desde el huracán Helene, y los daños causados por Milton han sido devastadores.
Antes de que el huracán Milton impactara, la demanda de gasolina en Tampa ya había vaciado muchas estaciones de servicio. Días después, la gasolina es difícil de conseguir, con el 77% de las estaciones sin combustible el viernes. Las pocas estaciones con suministro tienen filas de una hora, vigiladas por policías estatales.
Tampa, FL – On Wednesday, October 9, Hurricane Milton made landfall in Siesta Key, Florida as a Category 3 hurricane that devastated the state. Five days later, Tampa Bay residents are still experiencing power outages, gas shortages and widespread damage to their homes.
According to PowerOutage.us, 400,000 customers in Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee and Sarasota counties still do not have power. The largest number of outages are in Hillsborough County, where over 150,000 Tampa Electric (TECO) customers remain without power. The CEO of TECO promised the county that 100% of customers will have their power restored by Thursday, October 17.
Tampa, FL – On Wednesday, October 10, at around 8:30 p.m., Milton hit about 40 miles south of Tampa Bay as a category three hurricane. Not even two weeks after Hurricane Helene, Milton's damage has been staggering.
Tacoma, WA – Saturday morning, October 5, over 200 people representing at least 21 member organizations gathered in Tacoma, Washington for the launch of a new climate coalition: Climate Catastrophe Ground Zero (CCG0).