Naomi Klein's new book: Change energy policies now or the planet boils over!

I’ve just finished reading a powerful and sometimes quite personal book called “This changes everything” by investigative journalist Naomi Klein. 

The book has a clear and simple message: Climate change cannot be fought through market mechanisms. Environmental policy is in direct competition with energy and industry policy; if we want to keep our planet from boiling over, environmental policy needs to go first. 

Klein shows that all attempts by governments to incentivise good behaviour by the industry through carrots and sticks are failing. As long as pollution is economically viable, emissions increase further. The half-hearted policies by our governments, if they remain the same, will heat our planet by much more than 2°C. Klein says that our governments wasted precious years doing nothing and must now immediately pass courageous legislation to drive down absolute emissions. Market solutions are no longer sufficient if climate change is to be stopped.

Below, I have collected some of the main arguments of the book. The Canadian journalist is also working on a documentary to be released in autumn 2015 (see preview embedded at the bottom of this post). 

• The total coal, gas and oil reserves already indexed for exploitation by companies today equal about 2,795 Gigatons of CO2 emissions. However, studies today can say quite exactly how much more CO2 can be burned until 2050 to keep global warming below 2°C: not more than 565 Gigatons, only one fifth of the total resources already on the books. If governments were serious about curbing climate change, extraction of these resources should be heavily restricted; investment in fossil fuel companies should as a consequence become uninteresting. However, in March 2014 ExxonMobil informed its investors that current climate policies makes them “confident that none of [their] hydrocarbon reserves are now or will become ‘stranded’” (i.e. unusable). 
• Fossil fuel companies hate renewable energy because it is a decentralised, locally- and people-owned form of energy. Meanwhile, fossil fuels rely on a centralised resource-extraction system that allows a few companies to make millions of dollars in profits. 
• Fossil fuel companies and their employees follow a locust-principle: exploit and move on. None of the employees in the oil sector want to grow old in the places where they work. All want to get filthy-rich and take early retirement in a clean place far away. Meanwhile, locals in the regions under threat do not want to see their homes destroyed because of short-term profiteering. They want solutions which will preserve the local environment and lifestyle. 
• 97% of the world’s climate scientists including the World Bank and the International Energy Association agree that climate change is man-made and that it will have unprecedented and dangerous consequences for the next generations. If no far-reaching changes are made, the scientists agree, we are headed for disaster. 
• Right-wing politicians and businessmen in the US try to frame climate change as a hoax that the left employs to argue for more regulatory power of the state, less free markets and more redistribution of wealth. The right wingers perfectly understand the “dangerous” implications of strong carbon legislation. That’s why they spend millions of dollars to discredit the science and to kill climate legislation plans before they can get dangerous. 
•  Some businesspeople and scientists think that human activity doesn’t need to change. Everything can be solved by shooting chemicals into the sky that will block sunlight. However, it is proven that using them will cause serious draughts and food crises in some parts of the world. And using them instead of reducing carbon will lock us into using them forever. 
• It is not enough to encourage renewable energy – at the same time, fossil energy has to discouraged with increasing severity. Since this was not done in Germany, coal in that country has become a big competitor for renewable energy. To discourage fossil fuels, governments can for example introduce higher fossil fuel taxes that can be used to subsidies renewable energies. 
• Bridge technologies only work if they do not become competitors to renewable energy. By exploiting bridge technologies like shale gas and tar sands, energy companies continue to make billions from fossil fuels without any restrictions. 
• Much of the necessary climate saving depends on countries like China and India. However, the West carries a massive historical climate debt for 140 years of pollution. Even today, the West continues to outsource its pollution to the developing world. As a result of both, Western states must provide much of the financial resources to save the climate. 
• Indigenous people in several North and Latin American countries are becoming pivotal actors in the fight against carbon extraction because they can lay ancient claims to the land in which oil and gas are buried. 
• In many parts of the world, more and more determined “Blockadia” protests have sprung up. In these protests, citizens of all generations defend their regions against the profit-and-destroy mentality of the fossil fuel companies. Many governments including Canada’s, Greece’s, France’s and Nigeria’s are bitterly opposed to the protests and try to protect the extractionists. But it looks more and more that they are losing the fight against the citizen protests. 

The book makes it clear beyond any doubt that governments need to act now and impose binding limits on carbon extraction. No more market solutions, carbon-trading schemes and pollution offsets. The shift to renewable energy needs to be financed by taxing fossil fuel companies (and their customers). Obviously, this will redistribute a lot of cost to all of us energy consumers. 

Klein makes no secret about the challenges. No politician wants to destroy the jobs that rely indirectly on oil and industrial production by skyrocketing the oil price. Klein answers half of the question by pointing to the potential of new green jobs. But for the rest, she is clearly putting the reader in front of the choice: Either our politicians start today to eliminate fossil fuels, at the cost of job losses and re-education, or we will have unprecedented devastation and life insecurity for the next generations. We need to choose what we want.

No investor-state litigation clause in EU-US trade agreement!

American and European negotiators have met for the second round of bilateral talks for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) on Monday. In different negotiating groups such as "market access", "public procurement" and "regulatory aspects", EU and US officials are working to simplify business rules for both sides of the Atlantic. 

In one of the groups, negotiators are trying to establish a mechanism for investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). This would allow an American investor to claim damages from the EU in front of an international court if the EU was to modify its public policy in a way that would spoil the investor's profits. Canada is feeling the heat of such a dispute since a group of investors has sued the region of Quebec under NAFTA for its ban on fracking. Argentina had to pay US investors hundreds of million dollars for their losses after it had to devalue its currency in 2001.

If US and EU negotiators agree to put an ISDS clause into the TTIP, this could curb the EU's and the member states' regulatory powers. A British fracking ban could for example cost the EU millions of Euros if it spoils a planned investment by US investors. In the same way, if a European country was to introduce an eco-tax or a financial transactions tax (FTT), this could also lead to compensation for American investors. 

EU and US negotiations keep affirming that both entities have a well-developed legal system and the need for ISDS should never arise. But once the system is in place, it can be freely used by every investor who wants to. It is a system that can become very dangerous for the shaping of democratic politics.

For this reason, there should be no ISDS clause in the TTIP.

MEPs ask for an end to Brussels-Strasbourg travelling circus

Members of the Constitutional Committee of the European Parliament on Monday took a first step to end the travelling circus of the Parliament between Brussels and Strasbourg.

In a report (see the draft report here) that was adopted by 20 to 4 votes, the committee urges to give the Parliament the say over its location, its calendar and the modalities of its meetings. 

"We want to have one seat, so that we can save money and carbon dioxide," commented the co-rapporteur of the resolution, British MEP Ashley Fox, in a press conference on Tuesday. At a time where European citizens are asked to make cuts, an estimated 200 million EUR is spent by taxpayers every year to fund the monthly travel of 766 MEPs, their assistants and Parliament staff from Brussels to Strasbourg and back. The MEPs of the Constitutional committee find this an unnecessary waste of money and carbon dioxide.

"This report is a small revolution, but it will be the beginning of a bigger revolution," the second co-rapporteur Gerald Häfner (Germany) added. "We want to take our own decision about where to have the Parliament's seat, but we are hostages of the European Council, the member states and their governments." The seat of the Parliament is written into the EU treaties, and a treaty change requires unanimity by all 28 EU member states. The French government has indicated many times that it will not agree to abolish the EP seat in Strasbourg.

Many people have tried to end the monthly travelling circus before, but always in vain. Fox and Häfner believe that this time will be different. "This is a new thing," said Häfner, "because the Parliament has never before asked for a treaty change that would allow it to decide itself where and when to hold its meetings." 

Fox and Häfner are certain that by now there is a majority in the European Parliament in favour of a single seat, a majority that runs through all the political groups. It appears that quite a few European governments are also in favour of putting an end to the travelling circus but they would not like to directly pronounce themselves in favour of either Strasbourg or Brussels. To bring the report through Parliament, the two rapporteurs have therefore decided not to mention either Brussels or Strasbourg. "We don't take a stance about where the single seat should be," said Fox. 

Nonetheless, there was a bit of opposition to the single seat report. When it was voted on Monday, a number of French MEPs not belonging to the Constitutional committee tried to highjack the decision. They had added 87 amendments to dilute the impact of the report (most of which were rejected) and attempted to cast votes in the committee even though they were not member of it. The committee had to pause several times until the final vote could take place.

The report will now be voted by the plenary on 11 November vote and Ashley Fox believes that only few MEPs will be brave enough to put down their name for a two-seat solution. If the report is adopted, the Parliament would wait until after the elections in May 2014 and then formally submit the report to Council. The Council would then be forced to debate the question of the single seat and take a vote on it.

The next European convention to review the EU treaties, probably in 2015, would then debate the Parliament's request to decide itself on its location, said Häfner. And an agreement would have to be found to compensate the country which would lose its European institutions, added Fox.

48 hours of blogging action against East Africa food crisis

This blogpost is part of the 48 Hours of Action against the famine in the Horn of Africa. It currently has a value of five working hours and 40 EUR of donations. Please let me know via the contact form if it influenced you to donate; I will adapt the figures.


In the 1980s, towards the end of the Cold War, Somalia was heavily dependent on food aid. After the Soviet Union stopped supporting the dictator Siad Barre, the United States saw their chance. The US and other Western countries planned to make Somalia a hub to increase their influence into the Indian Ocean; in particular, they tried to buy influence through food aid.

UK Secretary of State for Development,
Andrew Mitchell, in Dadaab refugee camp
in Kenya CC BY DFID

In consequence, the "value of foreign aid to Somalia soared to $80 per person, equivalent to half the gross domestic product," Martin Meredith observes in his book The State of Africa. "Leading loyalists [of the ruling clans] made fortunes from food aid, appropriating it then selling it on the market. A World Bank study, published in 1988, estimated that the growth of food aid was fourteen times higher than the growth of food consumption. From being a country self-sufficient in food grains, Somalia became dependent on imported food, all to the advantage of the ruling elite."

Until today, it has been difficult for common people in Somalia to access healthy, nutritious food. The country remains ruled by various clans and torn apart by civil war. What is new in the current crisis is that climate change has aggravated the situation. It means that consumption behavior and mobility preferences in industrial states are now directly related to food insecurity in developing countries.

A mother with her children
in Dadaab refugee camp
CC BY Oxfam

Our immediate humanitarian impulse should be to wire the equivalent of a night out in the pubs to the donor agency of your choice – please see the buttons – to provide food to the starving population of Somalia (plus Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda). But in the long term we have to urgently stop climate change. This year will hopefully see commitments to significantly reduce emissions at the COP17 Conference in Durban. The EU and China are progressing in emission reductions (the EU rather cautiously, China at an impressive pace), while the US has relegated climate change mitigation to the back row.

Farm animals in Somaliland died
from undernutrition -
CC BY-NC-ND Oxfam

Reduction of GHG emissions are not a luxury but a security question. With every additional day that companies and airlines are allowed to pollute the environment, we are more likely to see droughts, rising temperatures, freshwater scarcity, unpredictable rain and monsoon, a rising sea level and more. In his movie An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore has mapped out the consequences of 100 million climate refugees. The EU is already overburdened with 25,000 migrants.

It is time that the highest polluters per capita (2008) such as Qatar, Trinidad & Tobago and the United Arab Emirates, but also the US, Canada, Australia and several EU countries, realize the urgent necessity of fighting climate change. Otherwise, climate refugees may come and occupy their farmlands.

Update 08/08/2011: See the Guardian's take here: Is climate change to blame for famine in the Horn of Africa?

This blogpost is part of the 48 Hours of Action against the famine in the Horn of Africa. It currently has a value of five working hours and 40 EUR of donations. Please let me know via the contact form if it influenced you to donate; I will adapt the figures.

MEP Robert Goebbels: We don't move if others don't move

Center-right MEPs today tore apart a report by Green MEP Bas Eickhout that would have asked the Commission to establish a 30% GHG emission reduction by 2020. The Greens ended up voting against their own report. Gulf Stream Blues has an interesting take on the vote and I have written about the 30% target last year.

I came across this post by Robert Goebbels, Luxembourgish S&D MEP, who proudly notes that he voted against the Eickhout report. I would have liked to comment on his blog but the captcha didn't let me. So here is my answer to his idea that the EU shouldn't move on GHG emissions before other global actors don't move.

Monsieur,

votre position montre le fait que vous êtes prêt a envoyer les générations suivantes vers un monde rechauffé.
Jouer des jeux de pouvoir avec la Chine et les Etats Unis dans le développement durable, cela n'a pas de sens. Une fois la planète rechauffée, il ne sert plus à rien d'avancer vers les 30%. Pour arrêter le changement climatique, il faut agir maintenant.

Sir,

your position shows that you are ready to send future generations into a warmer planet.
Playing power games with China and the United States doesn't make any sense in sustainable development. Once the planet is heated up, it won't help any more to fix a 30% target. To stop climate change, action is needed right now.

As a side remark, you may note that China is actually quite progressive (update: extremely progressive) in its sustainable development policies. The US remain the prime polluter in the world, failing to adopt an emission trading scheme in 2010 and now attacking the EU's emission trading scheme.


Update (23/07/2011): Over at La Treizième Etoile, Andrew J. Burgess shows what happens to citizens who demand ambitious climate commitments from the EP. 

E.on's doublespeak

A company isn't just your average food or service provider. A company with a good marketing strategy wants to get into your heart. And stay in your heart.

When I was working in market research, I did surveys on energy providers. One of the questions that I asked interviewees: "On a scale between 0 and 10, to what extent do you consider XYZ an attractive energy provider?"

One energy provider just went from 8 to 2 on my scale. E.on used to be an attractive energy provider, active beyond the provision of electricity and gas. It integrated local communities into saving schemes and participated in the DESERTEC project in Northern Africa.

But last year, the Düsseldorf-based company funded climate change deniers in the US election campaign, and this year they are paying people to spy on environmental campaigners in the UK.

Not a smart move. E.on wants to be more than an energy provider, and it will be judged on that. Such a series of faux pas tarnishes the shiny image of the enterprise. It had better not get caught red-handed again.

Once upon a time in California...

Slightly modified from Flickr CC/D A P
Posted in response to this

North Sea grid: A test case for European leadership

With the new power grid that nine European countries are planning to install in the North Sea, the EU can easily increase the share of renewable energy to 30% by 2020, Justin Wilkes, policy director of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), told Deutsche Welle. It can only be hoped that the EU will indeed raise its commitments and start to be a veritable leader in the development of stable renewable energy sources.

Unlike the Desertec projects in the MENA countries and in Southeast Asia, the project headed by the Commission can produce results within ten years. Its success or failure will be an important milestone for the other two projects. It will show whether the ambitious projects can work or not. The essential questions for success or failure in the North Sea are:

• will the participating countries fully cooperate, invest their resources and clear out legal obstacles? Or will fearful national politicians maintain a backdoor? (in which case everybody loses according to the prisoners' dilemma)
• will the participating enterprises and credit agencies make a long-term commitment that can endure setbacks?
• will citizens be prepared to give attention and donations to the project so that it can become a space for personal investment and personal identification?
• will the media continue to report about the issue, so that the climate change discussion can maintain the momentum it has at the moment?
  

If the European aspiration is to be the leader in renewable energy in the world, this project must not fail. Since Copenhagen, the international negotiations are even less of a common effort and even more of a national power game. The Chinese lion has woken and will claim a greater say in global politics. After the soft power approach has failed in Copenhagen, the EU can win back its influence through enormous, astonishing success in its own front yard. The North Sea grid will be a test case: Can European countries unite for the greater good, or will we have another lose-lose situation as in Copenhagen?


Cross-posted on Th!nk about it

Desertec - Development for Africa

It's an ambitious undertaking which the German and international companies are going to launch today with the Desertec project. Until 2019, the project may be running and generate 15% of Europe's electricity needs. Until 2050 this could be enlarged to 20-25% of its needs.

If it works, the project could have remarkable political implications and benefit the world in three ways: Firstly, a successful project shows the maturity of renewable energy sources vis-à-vis conventional energy. In a first instance, it will allow Northern Africa and Europe to reduce their emissions, to preserve their environment and to export the successes of the project to the rest of the world. This takes away excuses from polluting countries to rely on carbon emitters and exerts pressure on reluctant governments and enterprises to change their policies as well. The success of the project can thereby bring a greater change in mentality than the catchphrases uttered by our heads of state at the G8.

Source: DESERTEC Foundation

Secondly, the investment by European companies not only benefits the climate, but it is also a tremendous help in African development. The security of a long-term investment and the need for skilled Northern African engineers and workers bring more knowledge and more purchasing power into the region. Other than development aid which has to travel through governments, the Desertec project directly benefits the local economies and stabilizes life for the citizens. Meanwhile, the international prestige of the project may force governments to support Desertec rather than to take the blame for failure. Whether this will also lead to more pressure for democratic governance...we will see.
Thirld, I think that the project and the economic boost given to the region will make other African countries want to take a piece of the cake. The southern line of the electricity grid runs far into the continent and could feed energy into sub-Saharan energy systems. Likewise, I am hoping that Desertec will incite more investment and research in solar technology in sub-Saharan countries. This can lead them to become energy self-sufficient and carbon-neutral in the long run.

However, the project also has enemies. The strongest one is the French nuclear lobby which would love to see French nuclear power stations rather than German solar panels in Morocco. After the recent quarries of Germany and France over the right way out of the financial crisis (Germany: budget cuts, France: deficit spending), I wonder in how far this new controversy will hamper the Franco-German friendship.
A second problem is the insecurity about the political development in Northern Africa. While Morocco has come closer to a base-democracy, Algeria and Tunesia still have de facto autocratic structures and Libya even more so. Critics - many of them Germans - would love to see the Desertec investment stalled until a functioning political administration can definitely be ensured. Yet, these critics don't consider the importance of an economic investment itself for stability in the region.

Overall, the project is definitely a milestone. Ahead of the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December, this is good news and a success for the defenders of the environment. The project will certainly meet controversy in future, but if it works the success will radiate across the world.

Here are two more soundbites about it, both in German unfortunately:

Short one (5 minutes, Tagesschau.de)

Long one (18 minutes, Deutschlandfunk)