Climate
Compromise Masks
Mounting Conflicts
By Peter Schwarz
09 June, 2007
World
Socialist Web
The
3,500 reporters and photographers who travelled to the G8 summit in
Heiligendamm, Germany, have accomplished their assigned mission. The
world has been inundated with reports of progress and idyllic photos:
Bush, Merkel and Putin sitting relaxed and chatting in beach chairs;
Sarkozy and Blair talking over a glass of beer; a harmonious walk on
the beach of the picturesque resort by all of the world leaders.
In Germany, the daily newspapers
are carrying triumphant headlines: “G8 Summit Agrees on Climate
Goals,” “G8 Decides Billion-Euro Program for AIDS Assistance,”
etc. The public relations department of the German Chancellery has been
hard at work. If one believed the headlines and official propaganda,
one would have little inkling that the world’s main power brokers
are divided amongst themselves and have no real concern for the concerns
of ordinary people.
On a closer look, however,
the alleged breakthrough on the climate question, which German Chancellor
Angela Merkel made the primary topic of the summit, proves to be nothing
other than a hollow compromise. The G8 have agreed to aim for a “substantial
reduction” of greenhouse gas emissions. Concrete goals, however,
have not been determined—not to speak of binding obligations.
The halving of emissions
by 2050, which scientists regard as necessary to limit earth warming
to 2 degrees centigrade, is only to be “seriously considered”—a
formula that imposes no obligations on anyone.
The US has also agreed—at
least this is the interpretation of the Europeans—to a common
campaign against climate change within the framework of the United Nations,
a position that Washington had rejected up to now.
In contrast to the German
media, the international press was largely sceptical over the climate-protection
agreement.
The French La Tribune wrote
there could be “no talk of a triumph.” The “minor
linguistic concession” made by the American president will not
make “the terrestrial atmosphere healthier in the coming years,”
it continued. “This required more than a fraction of a sentence
which everyone can interpret as he likes the next day.”
The Italian La Repubblica
also sees “no success in the indefinite obligation to undertake
measures more or less in the future.” It goes on to say: “The
elephant roared and gave birth to a mouse.... [D]eclarations of intent
are not sufficient; the problem is much too urgent.”
Environmental organisations
and Merkel’s coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD),
also reacted critically to the agreement. The SPD environmental expert
Hermann Scheer even declared that the agreement was an obstacle to climate
protection. “The global search for consensus prevents rapid action
for climate protection, because minimal compromises then become the
accepted standard,” he told the Berliner Zeitung.
The token nature of the climate
deal agreed on in Heiligendamm does not mean, however, that the debate
over the issue was of no importance. It served as a means for pursuing
other goals.
Particularly in Europe, the
conservative parties have suddenly discovered the environment question
and seek to use it to woo layers of the electorate that formerly oriented
to the left. This applies not only to Merkel, but also to the Gaullist
Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
In the current parliamentary election campaign, his deputy prime minister
and secretary for the environment, Alain Juppé, has demonstrably
ridden a bicycle to election meetings, inviting the press to take photographs.
This political tack coincides
with a shift in the attitude of major sections of the corporate elite
towards environmental policy. Formerly, big business instinctively reacted
against any form of environmental protection as an attack on their profits.
But now, alternative energies, fuel-efficient autos, thermal insulation
and other forms of energy conservation have become a lucrative and growing
market.
The climate question has
also served as a proxy for differences that led to open confrontations
prior to the summit. They have now been translated into the more subtle
language of diplomacy.
Thus, the Süddeutsche
Zeitung regards one of most important successes of the summit to be
the fact that the four European participants had stood as a bloc against
the US. The newspaper’s July 8 editorial states: “Half of
the G8 countries—the four European states—remained together
to the end; they stayed together in a bloc. Under pressure from Angela
Merkel, they stuck to their positions. It was the others who moved.
In the end, they had no other choice.”
The word “bloc”
is crucial, because the real issue centres on the building of great-power
blocs. The German political elite, in particular, has long maintained
that it can advance against the US on an international level only if
it succeeds in imposing a common line on Europe.
Now, for the first time in
recent history, it was possible on the basis of the climate question
to develop a united front between Germany, France, England and Italy
and force the American president to make concessions—even though
they were largely of a verbal nature. This is considered to be a precedent
for dealing with other controversial topics, particularly in the field
of foreign policy.
Russian President Vladimir
Putin also used the summit for a diplomatic manoeuvre. Prior to the
summit, he had vehemently protested against the planned stationing of
a US missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic, even threatening
to aim Russian missiles at Europe and risk a new cold war. But he surprised
the summit with a proposal to station a joint US-Russian missile defence
system in Azerbaijan.
The proposal has little chance
of realisation and has already been rejected by American defence experts.
In the US, Putin’s proposal has been interpreted in some quarters
as a retreat, because up to now the Russian president has categorically
rejected any sort of missile defence system.
From Putin’s standpoint,
however, the initiative is aimed at gaining time and winning support
in Europe, where he has been rather isolated in recent months. He stressed
that if his proposal were carried out, it would protect all of Europe,
and that hostile missiles intercepted by the system would crash into
the sea, rather than in the middle of the European continent.
Moreover, by embracing the
idea of a missile defence system in principle, and proposing that it
be based in Central Asia and be developed as a joint US-Russian project,
he was, in effect, calling Washington’s bluff. The US has insisted
that its plan, which calls for 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and
a radar station in the Czech Republic, is not aimed at Russia, but rather
at “rogue states” such as Iran. This, as is well known by
all, is a subterfuge. The essential purpose of the US plan is to contain
Russia and tip the military balance of nuclear forces against it.
With his counter-plan, which,
at least on the surface, appears to have logic on its side—assuming
that Iran is really the threat to be contained—Putin wants to
put Bush on the defensive and expose the real aims of the American plan.
His proposal evidently caught the US delegation off-guard. Indeed, Bush
skipped the next morning’s session of the summit, claiming a sudden
illness.
Behind the harmonious front
at Heiligendamm—some critics are already referring to the “Scheinheiligendamm”
summit, (i.e., the summit of hypocrisy)—the conflicts and tensions
that dominated the run-up to the meeting are deepening. The more controversial
and divisive issues—the Iraq war, the attitude to Iran, the Middle
East conflict—were completely excluded from the main discussion
and merely mentioned in passing.
On the most pressing economic
question on the agenda—state supervision of hedge funds—the
world leaders failed to come to an agreement. The US and Britain blocked
any agreement, refusing even to consider a voluntary code of conduct
for hedge funds. These highly speculative funds, which have the potential
of unleashing financial chaos across the globe, will continue to manipulate
billions, free of any sort of regulatory control.
The summit in Heiligendamm
has done nothing to assuage the fundamental conflicts between the great
powers. The growing tensions between the US, Europe and Russia that
formed the background to the summit will inevitably intensify. They
have their origin in the fundamental incompatibility of the national
state system with modern global production. The rapid rise of new economic
giants in the form of China and India only serves to increase the competition
for raw materials, cheap labour and markets.
Russia is no longer prepared
to accept the aggressive intervention of the US and NATO in eastern
Europe and the former republics of the Soviet Union. This is what lies
behind the bitter exchanges over the US anti-missile system. For their
part, European countries are not prepared to concede to American domination
of the Middle and Far East. This is the driving force behind the attempts
to develop a common European foreign policy and military strike force.
In the long run, these conflicts
cannot be resolved through peaceful means. Only the reorganisation of
the global economy on a socialist basis can prevent the eruption of
a new epoch of world war.
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