Duty Now For The Future

Recent statements from the governments of the world’s fastest developing economies—the BRIC nations—Brazil, Russia, India and China respectively, have signaled that each have no intention of following the agenda of an Obama administration plan to drastically reduce the carbon footprint of industrial production around the world.

Due to the increasing wave of social acceptance towards anthropogenic global warming in the West, the vociferous calls for global carbon emission limits have increased dramatically.

Recently HR 2454, titled “American Clean Energy and Security Act“ passed the House of Representatives, while Australia and Britain have developed similar domestic measures.

The proposals of HR 2454, set to replace the Kyoto Protocols in an international capacity at the upcoming Copenhagen Conference, include a 17% general cut in carbon emissions of 2005 levels by 2020, with graduated goals to be met in subsequent years. Additional proposals have been discussed in which “carbon tariffs” would be placed on coal, fertilizers and other exports produced in carbon intensive industries—the kind which make up a majority of a developing nations’ industrial economy.

Because of this, the developing world has been skeptical and quick to summarily reject proposals with any long-term carbon emission limits.

The main thread of opposition from the developing world centers on the mandatory cuts in production that would stem from cuts in carbon emissions. Their argument is augmented by the inherent inequality in the role of the developed nations and the developing nations in the current state of the environment and the imposed mandates that each will be responsible for.

The wave of opposing sentiment from developing economies is summarized in a statement by an Indian delegation member at an early 2009 United Nations conference in Bonn, Germany stating, “If the question is whether India will take on binding emission reduction commitments, the answer is no. It is morally wrong for us to agree to reduce when 40 percent of Indians do not have access to electricity.”

This statement reveals the fundamental differences in the economies of the developed and the developing world. For the BRIC nations, acting in this case as a vanguard for the developing world, carbon limits will fundamentally trigger industrial production limits on already ravaged economies. For these nations often their only recourse in the global economy is to exploit carbon intensive methods of production.

At the recent G20 and G8 meetings in Paris and L’Aquila, as well as in subsequent correspondence, representatives of the BRIC and other developing nations have continued to steadfastly declare their opposition to any legally binding carbon emission legislation.

Additionally, the way in which Washington has dictated its demands to developing countries have factored negatively into cooperation over carbon emissions as many see a spearheading by the West as a cover for imperialistic economic controls under the veiled guise of egalitarianism.

Yao Jian, spokesman for China’s Ministry of Commerce commented that, “the proposal of some developed countries to slap a carbon tariff on some imported products violates the WTO’s basic principles and is trade protectionism in the disguise of environmental protection.”

Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh, who has described carbon tariffs as “pernicious”, added “there is no way India is going to accept any emission reduction target, period, between now and the Copenhagen meeting and thereafter.”

“We won’t sacrifice economic growth for the sake of emission reduction,” added top Russian economic advisor Arkady Dvorkovich.

While Brazil has been less vocal in opposition compared to India, China and Russia still President Lula has demonstrated reservations on agreed-upon limits in the long term, favoring tempered short term goals, and also calling on developed nations to absorb a majority of the responsibility.

The United States has more responsibility than China; Europe has more responsibility than South America or Africa,” Lula said.

CARBON EMISSION LIMITS: ECONOMIC WARFARE?

In the view of many developing nations, because the developed world has been outputting large amounts of carbon for nearly a century, they have an increased responsibility to retroactively deal with problem.

Proponents for an international version of HR 2454 may argue that because the BRIC economies are presently among the greatest emitters of CO2 that they should be required to cut emissions as well, or else cuts will have little effect toward the intended outcome of reducing climate change.

But is the drive for cuts in carbon emissions really about saving the environment from the ravages of human induced climate change?

At work within the confines of this debate, the U.S/NATO-based oligarchic ruling class has reached a crossroads. The seemingly invincible global hegemonic power of the US/NATO-centered economy is weakening, with the BRIC nations leading the way with hearty economic growth. In addition, Western military supremacy has been stretched and challenged to deal with asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq, and as a result appear weaker than ever. Concurrently, hotbeds of anti-Western sentiment continue to rise in South America, Central Asia and the Middle East and new areas of resource conflict have emerged with global implications. And with regional partnerships forming between Russia and China (as well as Russia and Iran) that include participation in joint military maneuvers, defense agreements, arms sales and economic cooperation; international competition against an Anglo-American dominated geopolitical system is beginning to take shape.

The result of this tidal storm of consequence is the need by the West to prematurely impede the development of the fastest rising economies in the world, which if aligned, could topple the global supremacy of the U.S/NATO in multiple fronts. To achieve this goal, U.S military doctrine must be examined as a possible driver for a carbon emissions policy.

From the DOD 2008 National Defense Strategy,

U.S. interests include protecting the nation and our allies from attack or coercion, promoting international security to reduce conflict and foster economic growth, and securing the global commons and with them access to world markets and resources. To pursue these interests, the U.S. has developed military capabilities and alliances and coalitions, participated in and supported international security and economic institutions, used diplomacy and soft power to shape the behavior of individual states and the international system, and using force when necessary. These tools help inform the strategic framework with which the United States plans for the future, and help us achieve our ends.

Carbon emissions limits enacted through “diplomacy and soft power”, in this light, are certainly pursuant to securing the “global commons…and access to world markets and resources” as well as shaping the behavior and internal composition of domestic economies. However, more enlightening is the admission that the Defense Department actively engages in operations aimed specifically at gaining influence or outright control of natural resources and world markets, goals which in certain situations may require military force as a last resort.

By hindering the international influence and economic progress of potential rivals through these tactics, especially during a time that has seen Western economic power and political capital wane, Western oligarchs hope that the hegemony held by the Anglo-American establishment can be continued indefinitely.

For most developing countries, economic growth contra posed with a focus on carbon emissions and the obsession with negative man-made effects remains a contradiction, one which does not compel these nations to go along with Washington’s best-laid plans. For populations living in abject poverty, cuts on carbon emissions work diametrically opposed to economic growth and acts to artificially freeze any future expansion of industrial capabilities. The question then becomes an easier matter; a choice between cutting carbon emissions globally or fostering economic growth domestically.

CARBON TRADING BENEFITS CORPORATE PARTICIPANTS, “CARBON OFFENDERS”

What other effects could be felt through regulation of carbon emission standards?

Besides the possibility of economic degradation for the developing world, the creation of a new market can be observed. In this new market, the carbon market, a gas central to the human life cycle becomes monetized and acts as an instrument of speculation, trading and general enrichment for corporate participants.

A cursory examination of the proponents for HR 2454 and similar global proposals will reveal an interesting catalog of rapacious private corporations like Dow Chemical, DuPont, General Electric, Ford and questionable environmental foundations like the World Resources Institute, Natural Resource Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy and the Environmental Defense Fund. These sort of strange bedfellows usually signal corporate participation in the concept of “carbon trading”.

The idea of carbon trading is based around the concept that businesses and corporations that release excess carbon emissions during operation be required to purchase “carbon offsets” in order the make up for their environmental misdeeds. These “offsets” can be classified in a variety of demagogic endeavors like planting trees or financing solar and wind energy projects. However, more importantly, carbon trading creates a new speculative market on a gas central to the human life cycle.

Of the carbon trading firms that exist the largest in the U.S in the Chicago Climate Exchange, the CCX.

The Chicago Climate Exchange members include the same suspicious list of supporters of HR 2454 and multi-million dollar benefactors of environmental foundations—Amtrak, Citigroup, International Paper, Motorola, Cargill, Monsanto, Baxter, Bayer, Honeywell, Bank of America and many more.

The European counterpart, the ECX or European Climate Exchange, includes such members as Barclay’s, Morgan Stanley, Shell and Goldman Sachs. In fact, Goldman Sachs owns 10% of the CCX and stands to gain handsomely from investment, compulsory or otherwise, in the new carbon market.

While membership is voluntary, CCX and ECX members are cashing in on the ground floor. In the event of mandated carbon emissions imposed by international treaty or domestic laws like HR 2454, carbon trading firms whose connections reach into the highest stratum of the government and multi-national corporations will be able to control the outcome of such mandates—profiting greatly in the process.

Secondarily, if heavy tariffs are levied on carbon intensive industries only those corporations who participate in the CCX or ECX will have the ability to lessen the financial burden on themselves.

Due the possibility for incredible profit, the participation of perhaps the most egregious carbon emitters and the purpose of carbon emission mandates altogether have to be viewed as suspect; either as a tool for economic warfare, collusion for corporate enrichment, or both.

Are the largest corporations in the world, usually identified as being complicit in environmental degradation, truly concerned about the environment? Working through corporate-funded NGO’s and foundations that lobby for carbon emission limits; corporations, banks, and brokerage houses are now at the forefront of the supposed solution for the problem many would blame them for creating. With this sort of blatant hypocrisy the basis of claims that anthropogenic global warming is radically deteriorating the earth’s ecosystem should also be examined much more closely.

CONCLUSIONS

Regardless of the contentious debate over the severity of human-induced environmental problems, the calls for globally regulated carbon emission standards have given corporate interests the ability to steer the direction of policy through lobbying organizations and foundations.

In terms of foreign policy, proposals have created a divisive opposition from developing nations, led by the BRIC nations, who reject such proposals as economic hari-kari and counter intuitive to ending endemic poverty and fostering economic growth.

President Obama has already stated that in order for the developing world to receive even the most meager of aid from the United States, nations must display characteristics of “good governance”—that is, working for the behest of American interests. Neither conditionality’s nor a plan which signals a radical limit to growth acts as a solution for the social, economic, political and medical problems effecting billions of people far away from the lens of the Western media.

Rather then simply being ineffective, the “de-development“ agenda which comes as a result of carbon emission limits seems more cynically directed at strangling the economic progress of those developing nations. When observing the United States operational military doctrine of “full spectrum dominance” and soft power to control markets and resources, this agenda seems logical and more pragmatic for the Western elites then armed conflict.

The power of the BRIC nations is increasing, and with increased partnership aligned against Western interests, the BRIC nations seemingly hold the cards of the future of global economy. Their unwillingness to bend to the will of Washington underlines the divisions of a potential sea change in the evolving geopolitical landscape.

In all, the Obama administration appears to have underestimated the worldwide commitment to the policies surrounding cap and trade, as well as the deference paid to its wishes for cooperation.