Naomi Klein: The Copenhagen Process Is Out Of Control, US Politicians Should Stay Home

Naomi Klein: The Copenhagen Process Is Out Of Control, US Politicians Should Stay Home, Mass Arrests May Occur

COPENHAGEN, Dec. 15 -- The climate talks are heading into their final three days, and Naomi Klein is concerned that little real progress has been made.

On Wednesday morning, a huge non-violent demonstration is planned that involves protesters marching into the Bella Center where talks are being held, and concerned delegates and NGO representatives -- including Klein -- are going to walk out. The goal? Shutting down the talks and establishing a people's assembly. For Klein and other protesters, what's on the table in negotiations is not nearly enough to really cut global emissions levels and to reduce further catastrophic climate change.

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KG: Heads of state are beginning to arrive and so is the US delegation: Senator Kerry and others will arrive Wednesday. Do you see anything positive about American politicians showing up?

NK: The US negotiators have squandered a tremendous amount of goodwill. Tremendous. I know readers of Huffington Post might not want to hear this, but the Democrats have squandered so many opportunities. We've seen these huge outpourings of support of the US -- we saw it after 9/11 and we saw it when Obama was elected. So many were so happy about the US re-engaging in the climate process. But I think it has done way more harm than good. It's given countries the opportunities to weaken the targets they are putting on the table, like Japan. The US has lowered the bar and set goals so low, it's been destructive. I think it would be better if the US had continued to stay out of it. I don't see any point in US politicians coming here.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/15/naomi-klein-the-copenhage_n_392962.html

Listen to Naomi's excellent comments here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDDdAPy_AtM&feature=player_embedded

Naomi Klein: "Time really is running out for the planet. But what's so important about this protest tomorrow is that it's a chance to say very clearly to politicians that we don't just want any deal. The point is not just to sign "a deal". You know, this is the way that politicians think-once they've started negotiations-that the end goal is "a deal" and they don't really care what is in the deal as long as they get 192 countries to sign on the dotted line. Normal people, who are not politicians, have a different standard for success. The deal actually has to be good enough to meet our climate crisis and it also has to be a just deal. So, that message is somehow getting lost inside these climate negotiations where the politicians believe that we just want "a deal, any deal, seal the deal". That's not what we want. We want a good deal. And that's what tomorrow's going to be about."


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Naomi Klein is right about the fact that time is running out, but what happens at Copenhagen won't matter. If nations can agree on anything, and I'm not convinced they can, then you still have issues of enforcement. Then you have issues of feet dragging. Then you have issues of people exploiting loopholes. Ultimately, it's destined to fail because environmental regulation cannot and will never work.

The fact of the matter is environmental regulation is good for polluters. They might cry and whine and protest about it, but at the end of the day it's the regulations that protect them from answering for their crimes. If you dump toxic sludge in someone's yard it's a crime. You've damaged their property. But if you followed the government regulations, which is more often than not written in such away as to give companies a free pass, then at the end of the day you're protecting them from being sued.

My solution to the problem is much more simple. Remove all environmental regulation, and allow individuals and groups of people sue companies and governments that pollute. If you're polluting, and it can be proven in a court of law to have damaged someone, a group of someones, or their property, then you have to pay to restore the damage you've done. This means if you're putting vast amounts of CO2 in the air, then you're going to have to pay a ton of cash to everyone in the United States. Everyone would get a check each month from such polluters, and the only way to end their payments is to go out of business or end their pollution.

This has the desired effect of making clean and renewable technology MUCH more cost efficient to set up and run; while at the same time holding those who pollute accountable for their actions.

To deal with other nations that pollute, we place a tax on foreign goods. If China or India want to sell us cheap goods, then they better be doing it in a clean and renewable way, otherwise it'd become more cost effective to create those goods right here in the United States.

There is no wiggle room in this and no middle ground. It's black and white. If you're causing harm to someone or a group of someones or their property, then you need to pay for it. It can't get more simple than that. The free market will take care of the rest.

The solution to corporate friendly regulation is to eliminate regulations altogether? Nonsense.

And to hell with the free market talk too, no offense.

The solution being proposed is this: end corporate friendly regulation by creating more corporate friendly regulation.

Regulation will -always- favor the corporations, especially big corporations. The only type of business that is actually hurt by regulation is small business. Regulation keeps small business out of the market place, allowing big business to continue to grow in size until they're virtual monopolies. Furthermore, have you ever heard of a grandfather clause? Big corporations can afford lobbyists to ensure that their plants are grandfathered in, and thus don't have to comply with the regulation. Alternatively, they can lobby to ensure that regulations are not as strong as they need to be. If that fails, then they can always go after the regulators directly bribing them as happened in many instances with oil and energy companies in the Bush Administration. Virtually every regulator that was supposed to oversee them ended up with a cushy oil and energy job once they left government. Surprise! They overlooked... well... everything. To say they didn't do their job would be charitable; more like they were criminally negligent.

Furthermore, do you honestly believe that anything that takes place in Copenhagen matters one wit? You're smart enough to know it doesn't. Even if everyone comes to an agreement, very few will follow it. Enforcement issues will abound, and when one country doesn't comply guess what happens? They benefit economically because it's cheaper to pollute than not to... and the three countries most likely not to comply are the three biggest polluters: China, the United States, and India.

I'm sorry, but it's just reality. Unless individuals can hold polluters accountable for their actions, then polluters will just use government as a legal shield. After all, if you're producing tons of CO2 and contributing in a significant factor toward climate change, but still comply with all government regulation what legal recourse do people have? None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Yet, it is individuals who are most directly impacted by this... and it's politicians who benefit from corporate pollution donations that have the most to gain by ensuring that there is no significant change.

However, if you have a better plan, then I'm open to suggestions. It's easy to criticize, it's much harder to actually come up with a solution.

1) You need 66 Senators to agree to a treaty. Not happening.

2) Congress is taking up no action on climate change in 2010. It is an election year and they just got beaten bloody in a fight in a clear and present problem in American life. There is no way democrats are taking on an issue in the midst of a recession that the opposition will say will destroy jobs.

3) Cap and Trade is bullshit. The US should lead. High tariffs on products made in countries that don't abide by our regulations and tougher regulations at home. Make foreign imports in countries that pollute so costly that it isn't worth importing them, and I guarantee the world will turn around.

I agree with everything you said, and the only part we differ on is the regulation. I just believe it's a hellva lot simpler to allow individuals to sue companies that pollute for the damages they cause, rather than allow such companies to hide behind government regulations. Individuals will push companies much harder than the government ever will.

However, with the current crop of representatives and chief executives, you are correct in the idea that our political class will look the other way.

Only problem is they also pick the judges.

...and it depends on where you live, but in some places Judges are elected and not appointed. That's actually a larger issue, for example in West Virginia there was a recent ruling by a Judge in favor of a coal company which was brought into the spotlight. That company was a large contributer to his campaign, so I would actually argue that being appointed with term limits is preferable.

In any event, Judges nominally uphold the law. If it can be proven that pollution is causing damage, then polluters must pay for the damage they cause. That's how the law should work, and of course, individuals (because they'd be directly effected) will hold polluters much more accountable than a government bureaucrat. When new regulations are created, many companies are "grandfathered" in giving them a competitive advantage. Furthermore, assuming regulations even pass and are as strong as we need them to advert disaster, there is always the issue of those who are supposed to be overseeing the companies being bribed.

Really, it comes down to the fact that the government is actually hurting more than helping here. It's common sense: If someone dumps toxic sludge into the river, and it contaminates a cities water, then they need to make it right somehow. No matter what that somehow is it's going to hit their bottom line. Hard. The reason companies continue to pollute, and are not investing in new technology to stop pollution, is because it pays off.

A business only understands one thing: profits. When it no longer pays to pollute, then pollution stops. It either stops because polluters go out of business, or they develop new technology to deal with it.

When the government creates regulation they're saying this: You don't need to stop completely, you only need to stop a little bit.

But in order to avert disaster we need them to stop completely, and no matter what we do the government is never going to support that type of strong regulation.

If you meant "exports from countries that pollute...", that would be a double-edged sword. While tariffs on exports from polluting countries would affect China's exports to the whole world, it would also affect US' exports to everywhere but China since we are the world's #2 polluter (#1 on a per capita basis).

I like the idea of an environmental tariff as a way to motivate countries to clean up their act, but it will be a sacrifice on our part as well.

We have a country of 350 million people where a majority has a car, multiple electronic equipment, and lights.

It would of course come with an investment in Clean Electrical production. Bigger issue in the states, you have to get the coal plants off line and replace them with Nuclear, Wind, and Solar.

Take a look at what the Third World is dumping right now, I'm more worried about that, than climate change.

while China's does to a greater extent, but who knows the percentages. It's not like our factories produce NO pollution or that China has NO CO2 emissions from cars, power plants, etc. (How do you prove whether CO2 from a power plant is manufacturing-related or life style-related?)

The rest of the world might look at an attempt to structure an international "environmental tariff" so that it impacts China but not the US with some suspicion. The average American produces 3.5 times the CO2 emissions that an average Chinese does. China has 4 times our population so it ends up producing more CO2. If China was broken up into 4 "US-size" countries each would have just a little over 1/4 of our total CO2 emissions. Is it fairer to use per capita emissions or total country emissions? I don't know that other countries will accept "My CO2 OK, their CO2 very bad."

"Take a look at what the Third World is dumping right now, I'm more worried about that, than climate change." - You must mean China and a very few other countries, because most of the Third World produces the tiniest fraction of the output of the developed world. Peasant farmers and shanty-town residents in cities produced very little CO2.

That's the problem at Copenhagen. The First World is worried about the increasing emissions from the Third World (other than China Third World emissions don't show up on any chart of the leading emitters), while the Third World is miffed because the rich countries that produce the vast majority of the globe's CO2 focus on "what the Third World is dumping right now". The poor country version of that is "We rich countries emit so much CO2 (life-style, not manufacturing) that you cannot be allowed to emit at anywhere near the same level that we do. The global environment can't handle that."

You're right that it's a double-edged sword. But when our economy starts to feel the pain, it will not only force businesses to adjust their actions, but it will also create the political will to carry out the necessary change both on an individual and societal level.

My biggest worry is that we've given up our economic sovereignty by taking on such a massive debt. China could cripple us in ways that are barely imaginable. We're their bitch, and getting into a trade battle with them is very nearly mutual self-destruction. Yet, at the same time, if China doesn't clean up their pollution we face long term problems that could be unrepairable.

it will not only force businesses to adjust their actions, but it will also create the political will to carry out the necessary change both on an individual and societal level." :)

We may have given up much of our economic sovereignty already, but any kind of global "environment tariff" will require every country to give up economic sovereignty to some "tariff enforcement" organization.

Rec

Something major is already coming out of this. (Thanks, Kpete)

"Negotiators have all but completed a sweeping deal that would compensate countries for preserving forests and in some cases other natural landscapes like peat soils, swamps and fields that play a crucial role in curbing climate change."

This is rather huge.

nations commit funding to. A big part of the reason is the US.

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