Human rights: Food to counter delaying and distracting thoughts ‘HR and Mother Earth’
[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader contains critical reflections on COP29-related issues. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
We humans are poorly equipped to deal with non-linear change
1. Our ‘fight or flight’ response programmed into the limbic part of our brains may allow us to react instantaneously to the attack of a tiger, but there is no corresponding part of our brain that reacts instinctively to long term threats. We simply ignore them most of the time. That characteristic allows cigarette, fossil fuel and agro-industrial corporations to whisper sweet nothings into our ears to distract us from threats that are less than immediate so they can continue socking away hundreds of billions in profits. The fact they overlook is that non-linear climate change is coming for them too, and there will be no way all their piles of money will protect them. (cited by David Zakus)
2. The perilous overshoot of planetary boundaries is often referred to as ‘the Anthropocene’ –a new, ominous geological epochal order. But the term ‘anthro’ is misleading since this overshoot is being driven less by individual humans than by a global economic system built and dependent upon continued economic growth that is of primary benefit to those in the global North and their acolytes. This acknowledges the reality of our responsibilities to counter the ongoing overshoot of planetary boundaries. (Ron Labonte, Remco van der Pas)
Here, then, comes-in the concept of post-growth economics
–We have to be very careful not to relay on false green, globalist and techno-positive policy solutions.
3. How do we move forward in the post-capitalist era with a post-growth economic agenda that is relevant for the global and planetary health domain? Similar to the ‘wellbeing economy’ initiatives, at its core, post-growth economics abandons GDP growth as an objective and instead reorganizes production around societal and planetary well-being rather than consumption and accumulation. Through analyses and insights from an ecological and feminist economics, post-growth policies focus on equitably meeting human rights (HR) within planetary boundaries and acknowledges the role of the informal economy in doing so, partly by measuring and rewarding its contributions.
4. But beware: Post-growth/wellbeing policies will face opposition from interests vested in maintaining the current system. So, this opposition will need to be met by collective actions through what some call a ‘movement of movements’ that simply must find a planetary common ground. Economically advanced nations will not voluntarily degrow their destructive economies. None of this will happen on its own. It will require a major political struggle against those who benefit so handsomely from the status-quo. This is not a time for mild reformism, tweaking around the edges of a failing system. This is a time for revolutionary change. (R. Labonte, R. van der Pas) [This change is what these Readers have been calling-for for years].
The rights of Mother Earth are to be seen as an anti-capitalist alternative
5. As said, solutions on the table do not address the root causes of the planetary crises, but rather green-wash the real problems by distracting and misleading efforts. False solutions (like carbon markets, net zero, clean hydrogen, or multiple other ‘green technologies that rely on the mining of critical minerals*) abound and promote capitalist-centric models that further push the planet into deeper ecological disaster. (escr-net)
*: Every mined metal loses its luck, its attribute of being a metal; all the veins would be golden if no one touched them. (Carlos Fuentes, Mexican writer, 1928-2012)
The history of UN summits, treaties and voluntary guidelines negotiations is a history of delay, distraction and refusal to address the injustices behind the respective issues they pretend to address
6. Non-action and continuing delay on climate finance, for instance, could cost future generations to pay U$38 trillion/year as a consequence of climate breakdowns. This, because adequate actions are not being taken now; they are endlessly delayed. This means that we will need to pay each year the amount of money that all the wars in the 20th century cost together –each year. The public finance scarcity arguments used by the countries rendered rich and their push for false solutions (like carbon finance) are being countered by social movements and progressive research groups that are arguing that there ARE enough resources to address the climate crisis.** (Dorothy Guerrero)
**: A wealth tax on billionaires could generate $483bn globally; a financial transaction tax could raise $327bn; taxes on sales of big technology, arms and luxury fashion would be another $112bn; redistributing 20% of public military spending would be worth $454bn if implemented around the world; stopping subsidies to fossil fuels would free up $270bn of public money in the rich world, and about $846bn globally; and taxes on fossil fuel extraction would be worth $160bn in the rich world, and $618bn globally. (2024 report ‘Road to COP29’, Oil Change International)
7. The promotion of false solutions on climate technology, like carbon removals almost broke the negotiations in the COP28 –and the pushing of these false solutions continued in COP29. False solutions are actions that delay genuine climate actions, they ultimately cause harm to communities and the ecosystem instead of addressing global heating.
8. New and renewed partnerships between governments, corporations and other private actors are purportedly creating and expanding protected areas supposedly for ecosystems to thrive. But do not be fooled. On the one hand, this promotes the protection of distinct parcels of nature fenced like fortresses with boundaries (as if excluding humans from nature will restore the ‘natural state’ of the environment). On the other hand, it disregards the ecological disaster also in other much wider areas (for instance allowing land grabbing and the marginalization of indigenous people to continue). Parties and movements of the Left ought to forge alliances with Global South climate justice movements and climate justice campaigners to denounce such public-private partnerships. (D. Guerrero)
Expanding who has access-to and usufruct-of land rights in rural and urban contexts can begin to reverse an ingrained systemic discrimination
9. It is critical for HR advocates to continue exposing and contesting existing and deepening structures of concentrated land ownership/grabbing and their implications for HR. We must collectively move away from the notion of land as a wealth extraction machine and move towards notions of land as a common good on which all of our lives and well-being depend. Doing so does not mean an end to property rights, but viewing them through a perspective of justice, fairness and the protection of the environment. The first step is the recognition and protection of existing land rights, including those of indigenous peoples.
10. Power struggles over land are at the core of the human experience. They have implications across the full range of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights –plus the rights of nature. With escalating climate change, urbanization and widespread conflict, it is more important than ever to proactively engage strategically, collectively, and creatively with the numerous violations of the rights of Mother Earth. (Annabel Short)
The defeat of fossil fuel interests is the first step to social justice
11. Any serious analysis of the state must account for the structural constraints that prevent state politicians from acting against the interests of the capitalist class. Today, perhaps the most significant such constraint is the immense political power that fossil fuel interests (including over plastics and fertilizers, for example) have amassed over the last few generations. Whatever states are today, they are not what they once were –in part because the state now faces the fait-accompli of serious competition for center stage in the organization of human society. This means that a handful of enormously powerful actors, not only have decisive influence over the actions of the corporations in which they hold shares, but also enjoy enormous power over the economy at large –an amount of power and influence that meaningfully competes with states’ ability to manage and shape economic life. More often, this represents the capture of many public institutions by private interests. Nothing less than the total defeat of the interests of oil, gas, and coal producers is necessary. The recent history of the Latin American popular left provides a useful template. (Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò)
12. Bottom line: One–liners for you to ponder AND to use
–We are paying for decisions we did not make.
- It is not climate change, stupid! It is (an altogether) planetary crisis. (Think plastic, water, air, natural resources, desertification, erosion, wildfires…).
- We are not at a critical point; we are at a cliff hanging point.
- We have to remind people, as soon as possible, that their condition is one of ‘planet earth parasites’. (Bernard Maris, French economist, 1946-2015, murdered at the Charlie Hebdo incident)
- Are we talking about an unhealthy planet or rather a planet made/rendered unhealthy?
- Was Marx wrong? “Nature must not only be understood, it must be transformed”.
- The planet is warming up, it is time to put it in the shade. (B. Maris)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com