No relief from hot air at COP26, the 2021 UN climate summit

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Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice mailing list
November 11, 2021

People take to the streets to demand real action
as the UN climate conference turns into Greenwash 2021

by Joseph Green, Detroit Workers’ Voice

Excerpts:

The UN climate conference in Glasgow, COP26, is heading for disaster. Even UN sources say so. ...

Different estimates by other sources put the expected warming at anywhere from 2.4 to 2.7 degrees C. Moreover, all these estimates depend on various market measures actually working, which goes against what’s happened in the last few decades. But COP26 is determined to keep trudging along the same path. That’s despite the fact that the UNEP report itself talks about pledges not being fulfilled, measurements of greenhouse emissions being inaccurate, and the continued lack of transparency.
Global Greenwash 2021

Meanwhile there has been a flood of optimistic, feel-good talk from Biden, his representative John Kerry, Obama, corporations, financiers, and others about what is being accomplished at COP26 ....

COP26 is ending up to be business-as-usual, a global greenwashing of the rush to disaster. It’s exactly as Greta Thunberg said, several days after COP26 began — the conference was

“sort of turning into a greenwash campaign, a P.R. campaign … Since we are so far from what actually we need, I think what would be considered a success would be if people realize what a failure this COP is.”

Climate strikes and protests around the world

So it’s not surprising that COP26 has been accompanied by large demonstrations, not just in Glasgow but around the world, demanding the slashing of greenhouse emissions. Youth, indigenous peoples, climate activists, small countries faced with being submerged in the ocean, and others are tired of the empty words of the corporations and the officials, and worried about the ongoing deterioration of the environment. ...

Many groups with different viewpoints about what had to be done took part in the demonstrations. The state of the militant section of the mass environmental movement is that there is unity over the need for actual progress in eliminating fossils fuels and in refusing to accept the honeyed statements of establishment figures, but not over precisely what should be done to achieve the necessary goals. The protest movement around COP26 is an attempt to force serious action, but it is united on the goals of this action, not the methods to achieve these goals. The bitter statements of Thunberg denouncing the sham actions of world leaders and demanding real change, but not specifying the precise nature of this change, express the overall mood of the present movement. But the time will come when the movement will be faced with itself uniting on some of the key changes that must take place. ...

These failings of COP26 aren’t the result of mere mistakes or misunderstandings or lack of knowledge by delegates and officials. It’s the result of the fact that the UN represents the dominant capitalist governments, and the influential delegates represent the moneyed interests. The failure of COP26 is the failure of the world bourgeoisie to take even a slight break from money-making in order to ensure world survival. The result is that the climate crisis will lead to social clashes on an immense scale. Only if the exploited and oppressed masses succeed in forcing some major changes will the world avoid being burnt to a crisp.

Full text at https://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-211111.html.