The world’s leaders are not coming to save us. That was the message in brilliant technicolour from the 28th COP meeting that concluded in Dubai this week.
Yes, COP28 was a catastrophic failure, but that failure is not down to the individual frailties of the negotiators present. It was preordained. COP can’t work while the global balance of forces remain as they are.
With no mechanism to force the rich countries of the North to pay to support the South to both adapt to climate change and for the loss and damage they suffer from climate breakdown, targets for finance and technology transfers will never be met. That’s why the global commitment to raise $100 billion per year for climate finance is pushed back every year and the much touted Loss and Damage fund, which is projected to need over $200 billion per year by 2030, has amassed only $700 million in commitments - not even hard cash. The US pledged just $17 million to the fund. Compare that with the $14 billion of weaponry for Israel to pursue its campaign of murder and destruction in Gaza.
$100 billion dollars sounds like a lot of money - and it would be for Southern states adapting to the worst impacts of climate breakdown - but it is just around one tenth of one percent of global economic output.
But COP’s biggest structural flaw isn’t even the stingy hypocrisy of the Global North. It’s the overweening power of Big Oil in the global system.
This dominance was on full display in Dubai, giving satire its second death after Henry Kissinger’s Nobel Prize. The conference was presided over by the CEO of an oil company and was lousy with fossil fuel lobbyists, whose number quadrupled to 2,400, making them the largest delegation by far.
So it should come as no shock that COP28, like all previous COPs before it failed to agree on the need to phase out fossil fuels and to set a deadline for doing so. Instead, the final document suggests that states may - with no obligations - “draw down” fossil fuel production. The demands from over 120 countries to completely eliminate new fossil fuel production were ignored.
Climate breakdown cannot be averted without addressing the first order issue: fossil fuels power our global system. That has to change. Increasing investment in cleaner energy sources alone won’t do the job. COP28 agreed on tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, but, as we’ve seen with the policies of Joe Biden, President of the world’s biggest oil producer, expanding clean energy investment is compatible with expanding fossil fuel investment.
Investment in fossil fuels continues to soar because it is profitable and we live under capitalism. As we have seen in the past two years, rising prices have meant bumper profits and therefore increased investment in fossil fuels. While rising interest rates puts downward pressure on renewables investment, which is much more capital intensive at the front end.
The world system as it is won’t save us, but rather condemns us to live on a planet that becomes less and less hospitable to human life as we know it. 2023 has been a year of catastrophic extreme weather, from monster heatwaves in Europe to a flooding emergency in Libya and a continental inferno in Canada. January to October was 1.43 degrees above pre-industrial average. Next year will be worse, breaking new records as El Niño accelerates global heating to above 1.5°C, a threshold that risks setting off a cascade of irreversible tipping points.
Next year’s COP 29 will be held in another oil-producing state with no interest in ending fossil fuels, Azerbaijan.
This is the dilemma: humanity is trapped in an overheating train helmed by fossil capitalists structurally obliged to fan the flames. Our task is to unite and organise the social forces that can seize the engine room and pull the emergency brake. No more cop-outs.
Humanity demands a ceasefire
153 countries at the United Nations voted this week to demand a ceasefire. The US and Israel could only find eight other countries to join them in voting against.
With the will of the vast majority of people on earth - and the natural demands of justice - thwarted by US imperial support for Israel’s murderous campaign of destruction against the Palestinians, more citizens are taking direct action against Israel’s war machine. On Thursday 21 December, the PI has called for a Global Day of Action against Israeli arms company Elbit Systems and its global supply chain. Building on work by Palestine Action, we developed a global map charting the locations of Elbit Systems, its subsidiaries, and its financiers. New locations are added daily. You can navigate the map and sign up to join the campaign here.
These actions work. Just this week, Fisher German has announced it will cut ties with Elbit Systems after a direct action campaign. Also this week, the offices of BP in London were picketed, preventing workers and executives from entering after the company was awards a gas license off the coast of Gaza by Israeli authorities.
Guatemala faces down coup efforts
Last week, prosecutors in the Guatemalan Attorney General’s Office once again moved to disqualify all elected representatives from the Progressive International’s member party, Movimiento Semilla, declaring their elections to be “null and void.” This action represents a desperate, last-minute attempt to annul the results of Guatemala’s 2023 general elections.
Facing this latest wave of lawfare, Movimiento Semilla said, “We are now witnessing the last ditch attempts, the last faltering moves of a coup d'état. This coup is not against [president-elect] Bernardo Arévalo and [vice president-elect] Karin Herrera. It is not against the Movimiento Semilla. It is against Guatemala.”
After the move by the Attorney General’s Office last week, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) has reaffirmed the results of the 2023 electoral process as “validated, formalized and unchangeable.” The inauguration of Guatemalan president-elect Bernardo Arévalo is scheduled to take place on 14 January 2024.
MVIWATA turns 30
This week Tanzanian PI member MVIWATA celebrated its 30th anniversary with a conference and the annual general assembly of the organisation. The conference saw around 1500 delegates, representing the more than 300,000 members of MVIMWATA, assembled in Njombe to deliberate about the future of this powerful and growing peasants movement. In his opening remarks, Executive Director of MVIWATA, Stephen Ruvuga reminded delegates that MVIWATA was formed to bring dignity to farmers - something that the turn towards neoliberalism in the early 1990s seemed set against. The conference was attended and addressed by the speaker of the Tanzanian parliament but the Ministry of Agriculture was notable in its absence. After thirty years of MVIWATA’s existence, the struggle for the dignity of farmers continues.
Belmarsh back in DC
The extradition case against Julian Assange is now entering its final phase — and the international pressure for his freedom is mounting. From Presidents and Prime Ministers to Nobel Peace Prize winners, the international community is crying out against the injustice of Assange's prosecution — and its implication for press freedom worldwide.
On Saturday 9 December, the world's leading journalists, lawyers, and human rights defenders gathered at the National Press Club in Washington, DC as witnesses to the Biden administration’s crackdown on free speech and the First Amendment. You can watch the full proceedings back here.
As three members of the Belmarsh Tribunal, John Kiriakou, former CIA intelligence officer, Yanis Varoufakis, Greek economist and politician and Lina Attalah, Co-founder and Chief Editor of Mada Masr — explain in an article for the Nation that Assange’s fate “could stifle the beacon of transparency he represents” and have impact far beyond US borders.
Does socialist Cuba have the best healthcare in the world?
Episode #4 of “The International,” a world-spanning video series brought to you by Jacobin and the Progressive International, presents Cuban healthcare.
For 60 years, the United States has enforced a crippling embargo against the island of Cuba in order to "bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government," according to a 1960 State Department memorandum.
But against the odds, Cuba has developed a revolutionary model of scientific innovation and medical provision that has not only ensured universal healthcare for its own citizens, but also — through its world-renowned medical brigades — delivered high-quality care to millions of people across the global South free of charge.
For Episode #4, Dr. Samira M. Addrey — a graduate of Cuba's Latin American School of Medicine — tells the story of Cuba's revolutionary healthcare model that the US government desperately does not want you to know.
Democratic Socialists of America go to Okinawa
DSA members participated in a week-long delegation to Okinawa and Yokosuka to tour US military bases and meet anti-war organisers fighting against ongoing US military occupation. They produced a short documentary about the delegation, which you can watch here.
Art: Freedom Watermelons by Cibelle Cavalli Bastos is one of three limited edition posters in the first series of art editions curated by Ché Zara Blomfield for Progressive International. This poster, as well as the rest of the series and other artworks, is available via the PI workshop.
