The Political Economy of Global Warming

The Terminal Crisis

Del Weston

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415811774
• eBook ISBN: 9781135084929
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Development Economics
• Index: Economics

Humanity is facing an unprecedented global catastrophe as a result of global warming. This book examines the reasons why international agencies, together with national governments, are seemingly unable to provide real and binding solutions to the problems. The reasons presented relate to the existing dominant global economic structure of capitalism as well as the fact that global warming is too often seen as an isolated problem rather than one of a suite of exceptional, converging and accelerating crises arising from the global capitalist political economy.

This book adopts a political economy framework to address these issues. It accepts the science of global warming but challenges the predominant politics and economics of global warming. To illustrate the key issues involved, the book draws on South Africa – building on Samir Amin's thesis that the country represents a microcosm of the global political economy. By taking a political economy approach, the book provides a clear explanation of the deep and pervasive problem of the denial which fails to acknowledge global warming as a systemic rather than a market problem. The book should be of interest to students and scholars researching climate change, environmental politics, environmental and ecological economics, development studies and political economics.

Part I

The state of the world

1 Introduction

The omens are not good for the future of human civilisation. We have reached a historical juncture whereby we must either dramatically change course or face widespread and irreversible human catastrophe: the collapse of our institutions and the death of millions and eventually billions of people. Civilisations have collapsed before. We now face the prospect of another imminent collapse, but this time, on an unprecedented scale of suffering. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, Scientist and Economist, then Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said in 2007 that ‘if there's no action before 2012 [when the Kyoto Protocol ran out], that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.’

I am writing this book in the belief that it is not too late, that we still have a small window of opportunity to change the current course of human history, and that we have a moral imperative, given the potential scale of suffering, to act.

So, while there is no longer any doubt that human-induced global warming is occurring, what is not known is the timing and magnitude of effects and at what junctures irreversible tipping points will be passed, taking the planet on a warming trajectory which will be catastrophic for humans and most species. It is the greatest issue facing humanity. The key factors in the evidence of its existence are presented but this book is not about global warming per se. It is about the political economy of global warming. To be more accurate, I have argued in this book that it is necessary to see global warming as one of a suite of problems arising from the system of capitalist political economy – a system which is particular and also, now, globalised.

The term ‘political economy’ requires immediate definition. It has been chosen because it involves an insightful approach to understanding society – particularly in relation to power, class and ‘the social relations of production’ (see below) which are issues of particular concern in analysing the structural dynamics relevant to global warming. Weingast and Wittman (2006: 3) summarise the range of interpretations of political economy as follows:

For Adam Smith, political economy was the science of managing a nation's resources so as to generate wealth. For Marx, it was how the ownership of the means of production influenced historical processes. For much of the twentieth century, the phrase political economy … had contradictory meanings. Sometimes it was viewed as an area of study (the interrelationship between economics and politics) while at other times, it was viewed as a methodological approach. Even the methodological approach was divided into two parts – the economic approach (often called public choice) emphasising individual rationality and the sociological approach where the level of analysis tended to be institutional.

For this book, I have drawn on the definition from Munro (2004: 146–7):

Political economy is firstly a study of society and social processes. It focuses on ‘material production’ in two senses: (i) how the creation, distribution, exchange and consumption of goods, services, income and wealth occurs, and (ii) how the organisation and imperatives of material production influence almost all of society's other institutions, be they political, civil or cultural. Second [political economy] has analysed the nature of economic growth and change and how the prior distribution of resources (such as land, labour and capital, and the conflict between the respective classes) affects economic change. Third [political economy] is a social science both in terms of its social content (the study of how people, classes, social systems, institutions, gender, etc., produce and reproduce the material bases of societies), its use of scientific methodologies (whether empirical, historical materialist, deductive, etc.) and its self-reflexive and self-critical nature. Fourth, the values inherent in political economy reflect its status as a child of the Enlightenment. Finally, the founders of political economy were political activists who saw government as a fundamental (if flawed) buttress of the economy.

Ballaam and Veseth (2005: 5) add some points which are relevant to the use of the term in this book. In this, political economy is ‘necessarily international in context’ and looks at the ways that ‘individuals, states, and markets of the world are connected to one another and the arrangements or structures that have evolved to connect them [reflecting] culture, history and values’. It involves explicit analysis of power structures and an understanding of the power of ideology.

There is no pretence in the philosophical neutrality of political economy. This book will be drawing on Marxist theory (which fits well within the critical political economy approach) to take a critical and analytical approach to the structures underpinning global warming and the neoliberal solutions to this problem. For this book, political economy has considerable relevance in addressing the practical problem of global warming, situating it not as the central problem – albeit one that requires immediate attention – but a historical and material symptom of a political and economic system that is in crisis. The book draws on the methodology of political economy and critical theory (discussed in more detail below) to examine both the causes of and the possible solutions to global warming. The defence of such a methodology, if defence is needed, is that the debate about the causes of and solutions to global warming is strangely de-contextualised from broader social, economic and ecological crises, and largely ‘a-theoretical’.

It must also be recognised that the debate about global warming and its solutions has to be political. This is where the political economy of global warming, while drawing on environmentalism, at the same time has to challenge that body of knowledge. It is a point made by Rosewarne (2002: 180): ‘if the engagement of political economy with environmentalism is to be one of substance, it must be more than an intellectual excursion through competing paradigms. The intellectual task must also have a political edge to it so that it engages with environmentalism politically.’ In terms of the road travelled by this book, as it turns out, it is very much guided by what Rosewarne (ibid.: 181) then adds: ‘A political economy of the environment [and I would add global warming] should look towards identifying and critically engaging with the social forces that can create the transformation necessary for effecting a sustainable future.’

A second key concept for the book is the ‘social relations of production’. I am using this in a Marxist sense. Marx (1894: n.p.) wrote:

The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of direct producers, determines the relationship of rulers and ruled, as it grows directly out of production itself and, in turn, reacts upon it as a determining element. Upon this, however, is founded the entire formation of the economic community which grows up out of the production relations themselves, thereby simultaneously its specific political form. It is always the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers – a relation always naturally corresponding to a definite stage in the development of the methods of labour and thereby its social productivity – which reveals the innermost secret, the hidden basis of the entire social structure and with it the political form of the relation of sovereignty and dependence, in short, the corresponding specific form of the state.

Further, on the social relations of production, Marx (1847: 207) wrote that the ‘relations of production in their totality constitute what is called the social relations, society, and, moreover, a society at a definite stage of historical development, a society with peculiar, distinctive characteristics’.

In other words, humans’ impact on the environment is determined by the particular social structure of the society, the social relations amongst people and the material/social relations of people with the broad ecology. Within the capitalist social structure, the ecological conditions of social reproduction have been largely ignored with the natural environment being treated as a free and limitless resource for the economy, until more recent decades when various ecological crises have forced a reassessment. A political economy approach is based on the centrality of the social relations of production; it takes into account the class structure of society, as well as exploitation – of humans and nature – and hence social or class conficts. It also takes into account the role of institutions, including the state as a political institution, recognising the inseparable relationship between institutions and power relations.

The Marxist political economy approach is methodologically, theoretically and historically useful in answering the question: ‘can the problem of global warming be solved within the globalised capitalism political economy framework?’

This book is built on the premise agreed by all the major national and international scientific institutions, that human-induced global warming is occurring, and occurring at an accelerating rate. The book departs from this consensus, however, by maintaining that global warming is just one, although a profound, symptom rather than the fundamental issue. That fundamental issue is that the globalised capitalist economic system of production, with its imperatives for growth and expansion, for consuming land, water, and all parts of the biosphere beyond the capacity for regeneration, is taking the planetary system to the point of ecological collapse and the biosphere to a new geological era not conducive to human and other species’ life. We now have to choose between maintaining the globalised system of capitalism or restoring the planet to a stable state conducive to human civilisation. We have to choose between an immediate, planned and orderly transition or chaos, barbarism and large-scale destruction.

The fact of global warming has been known for a number of decades with almost twenty years of fruitless international negotiations around seeking a solution. The failure to agree to a real solution serves to legitimise the denial of the gravity and urgency of the situation. National political narratives that reach the world stage are congruent in their absence of attention to global warming. Our electronic media are almost mute on the subject; our print media run an occasional story around particularly devastating cyclones or foods or droughts with the occasional link to global warming. The global elite continues to add to its overflowing coffers from investments in the fossil fuel industry; our political leaders make at best the odd muffed noise seeking to establish, amidst conservative opposition, ineffective market mechanisms to tackle ‘the problem’, reassuring us that we can not only maintain our lifestyles but look forward to improvements. At the same time, our political leaders continue to ‘lock in’ decades more of dependence on fossil fuels. The 2012 US Presidential election saw barely a mention of global warming – until the election process itself was gatecrashed by the enormous scale of Hurricane Sandy that hit the nerve centre of US wealth and financial power. The wealthy and middle classes in industrialised countries continue to buy petrol-guzzling SUVs bearing stickers saying ‘carbon neutral’; while the unions and their members, reflecting the economistic imperatives of the wider society, fight to keep coal-fired power stations and coal mines open and forest logging unrestricted, so that their jobs are protected. There is a disconnect in high-income countries between today's struggle for jobs and livelihoods and the fundamental need to have a planet fit for human life.

Meanwhile carbon emissions continue to rise, and at an increasing rate. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere at Barrow, Alaska in May 2012 – the first time such a high monthly reading has happened on the planet (NOAA 2012). This reading presages more global readings at this level by 2016. This is far above the normal range over the last 650,000 years.

By 2008, the UN estimated over 300,000 people had died as a result of global warming (Vidal 2009), a figure which will rise exponentially, perhaps to billions of people, with numbers bunching towards the end of this century. And global warming is just one of a number of converging and accelerating symptoms of a planet plundered beyond its capacity to repair, regenerate and sustain life and civilisation as we have known it over the last 10,000 years of the Holocene epoch.

Global warming is a symptom illustrative of the inability of national governments to deal with the multitude of crises of the capitalist system. Our governments are products of the system that has given rise to the problems. At some level, our political leaders must know that really to tackle global warming, they will need to alter our economic trajectory radically and to depose themselves and the institutions they serve. Powerful political elites do not like to lose their power. Instead, confronted by the scientific evidence of global warming, they opt for carbon markets, ‘green’ capitalism, and green technologies – all of which will continue to grow the economy and exacerbate the problem, fooling compliant populations into believing that sensible action is being taken, and our non-negotiable lifestyles and values can continue without disruption, and perhaps, as some of the messages imply, be better than before. Even the big fossil fuel polluters can continue business as usual, with a frenetic rush to invest billions of dollars in new infrastructure to extract coal, oil and gas from increasingly fragile, risky and polluting areas. Our political elites reward this activity with billions of dollars each year in subsidies to some of the most powerful, richest and polluting corporations in the world. The total value of conventional global fossil fuel subsidies has been estimated by The Worldwatch Institute¹ to be between $775 billion and more than $1 trillion in 2012. If even a third of the projects now in the financial pipeline of the fossil fuel industry were to come to productive fruition, it would be game over for humanity. On the other hand, if the projects in this financial pipeline were closed down, as the science demands, it would make the global financial crisis (GFC) which began in 2007 and continues to have repercussions look like a hiccup, as our globally entwined financial systems would be hit with a massive drop in the valuation of some of the biggest and most powerful corporations on the planet.

And yet, despite the predictions of impending profound catastrophe, national and international governance institutions have not addressed the problem in any meaningful or substantive way. The closest international institutions have come to finding a solution was in the internationally binding United Nations Kyoto Protocol, adopted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 and which came into force in 2005. The Kyoto Protocol first commitment period expired in 2012 after not only failing to result in any reduction in carbon emissions, but presiding over a period of increasing carbon emission growth. It has not to date been replaced by any globally binding agreement. The Kyoto Protocol, despite being fundamentally flawed, represented something of a beacon of hope, at least around the ability of governments world wide (with the significant omission of the United States) to act together for the common good of humankind. The global financial crisis which began in 2007 has continued to overshadow the state of the biosphere, and the imperative for economic growth, notwithstanding the very close correlation between growth and carbon emissions, continues as the predominant economic concern of governments. The plethora of environmental agreements signed by governments over the past forty years since the first Earth Summit in 1992 has achieved little and the health of the biosphere continues to deteriorate. By the time of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, known colloquially as Rio+20, held in Brazil in June 2012, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels had increased by 40 parts per million since the first Rio Summit in 1992.² Biodiversity loss has increased by 30 per cent. Yet Rio+20 produced no binding agreements or any clear path forward. US President Obama, German Chancellor Merkel and UK Prime Minister Cameron did not even attend. Such a vacuum provided the perfect environment for the ever adaptable, ever opportunistic and ever expanding forces of capital. ‘Green’ capitalism moved seamlessly to the lead role on the UN's premier global climate stage. In the absence of governments engaging with UN climate mitigation, corporations are to be the new forces for driving climate mitigation strategies through green public-private partnerships, commodifying nature and natural processes and turning them into another component of capital accumulation. The fox is now well and truly in charge of the chickens.

This book provides answers as to why there has been such complete failure at the international governance level on an issue that is of profound importance to every human being. It goes beyond the science, the technical and market solutions, to an understanding of the power and economic structural reasons behind the lack of real action in addressing global warming. It seeks to spell out that a world based on new economic principles is not only desirable but essential for the survival of humanity. The capitalist system must go if humanity is to continue.

It begins with the issue of how we conceptualise global warming, arguing that, while this is not usually made explicit, this conceptualisation is profoundly political. It is an issue encapsulated by the rhetoric and economic structures supporting the vested interests of the wealthy and powerful in globalised society. How we conceive of global warming determines how we tackle the problem. It is difficult to see the world differently from the way we are socially conditioned to do so, how it is presented every day through particular concepts and cultural...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part I The state of the world
• Part II African studies — a reflection of the global political economy
• Part III To have a future
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index