Subjects Archives: Climate Change

Fighting back against extractivism, false solutions, and social and climate abuse around the world.

Funding for developing countries to address global warming is grossly inadequate. Very little finance is for adaptation to climate change, the urgent need of countries most adversely affected. Also, adaptation needs to be forward-looking rather than only addressing accumulated problems.

Capitalist accumulation has always depended on cheap labor and resources extracted from the Global South. To end this violence we need a post-capitalist transition—otherwise, as climate breakdown accelerates, the ceaseless search for profit will drive us further into barbarism.

Thirty years ago, climate modeling scientists predicted exactly the global events–massive wildfires, intensified tropical storms, flooding and droughts–that we’re seeing right now.

In the week before the COP26 international summit, John Bellamy Foster analyzed the climate emergency and how we can achieve climate justice.

This recent disaster is just a hint of the climate-related challenges to come.

The balance sheet is clear: on paper, Glasgow clarifies the ambiguous Paris goal by making it more radical (1.5°C is now the target) and mentions the responsibility of fossil fuels; but in practice, the conference did not take any steps to stop the catastrophe.

Carbon offset markets allow the rich to emit as financial intermediaries profit. By fostering the fiction that others can be paid to cut greenhouse gases (GHGs) instead, it undermines efforts to do so.

Former Irish President Mary Robinson observed, “People will see this as a historically shameful dereliction of duty,… nowhere near enough to avoid climate disaster.”

A gaping hole in the COP26 official agenda was the oversized role of the military industrial complex in environmental devastation. The US is a global leader on this front with the Pentagon being a bigger polluter than 140 countries combined.

COP26 reaffirmed what has been obvious from the beginning: the Northern colonial and capitalist states most responsible for creating the climate crisis are unwilling to place people before profits in order to address the planet’s looming ecological collapse and humanitarian catastrophe.

The organisers of COP26 designated themes for many of the days during the conference, such as energy, finance, and transport. There was no day set aside for a discussion of agriculture; instead, it was bundled into ‘Nature Day’ on 6 November, during which the main topic was deforestation.

To create a safer, more sustainable world, the United States needs to divert border money toward climate action.

Following two weeks of negotiations, the UN climate summit COP26 concluded with the Glasgow Climate Pact.

A group of climate change conspiracy theorists has uncovered a set of strange patterns and repeated terminology in research papers which they say is highly suspicious.

Has COP26, which has wound up in Glasgow after two weeks of political showboating and grassroots protest, been a failure?

Nothing useful seemed to emerge from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at COP26 this week. The leaders of developed countries made tired speeches about their commitment to reversing the climate catastrophe.

The most powerful private financial interests in the world, under the cover of COP26, have developed a plan to transform the global financial system by fusing with institutions like the World Bank and using them to further erode national sovereignty in the developing world.

Addressing global warming requires cutting carbon emissions by almost half by 2030! For the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, emissions must fall by 45% below 2010 levels by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C, instead of the 2.7°C now expected.

John Bellamy Foster – Deutscher Memorial Lecture