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The issue of climate change has come to the forefront and people both in the North and the South have been feeling the devastating effects of global warming. However, the links between the neo-liberal system and the model of over consumption to the climate crisis are not clearly stated.
There is something surreal about the ongoing World Trade Organization
talks in Geneva , which aim at coming up with a new agreement to bring
down tariffs in order to expand world trade and resuscitate global
growth. In the face of the looming specter of climate change, these
negotiations amount to arguing over the arrangement of the deck chairs
while the Titanic is sinking.
Indeed, one of the most important steps in the struggle to come up with
a viable strategy to deal with climate change would be the derailment
of the so-called “Doha Round.”
Global trade is carried out with transportation that is heavily
dependent on fossil fuels. It is estimated that about 60 per cent of
the world’s use of oil goes to transportation activities which are more
than 95 per cent dependent on fossil fuels. An OECD study estimated
that the global transport sector accounts for 20-25 per cent of carbon
emissions, with some 66 per cent of this figure accounted for by
emissions in the industrialized countries.
Global Trade: Deeply Dysfunctional
From the point of view of environmental sustainability, global trade
has become deeply dysfunctional. Take agricultural trade. As the
International Forum on Globalization has pointed out, the average plate
of food eaten in Western industrial food-importing nations is likely to
have traveled fifteen hundred miles from its source. Long-distance
travel contributes to the absurd situation wherein “three times more
food is used to produce food in the industrial agricultural model than
is derived in consuming it.”
The WTO has been a central factor in increasing carbon emissions from
transport. A study by the OECD done in the mid-nineties estimated that
by 2004, the year marking the full implementation of free-trade
commitments under the WTO’s Uruguay Round, there would have been an
increase in the transport of internationally traded goods by 70 per
cent over 1992 levels. This figure, notes the New Economics
Foundation, “would make a mockery” of the Kyoto Protocol’s mandatory
emissions reduction targets for the industrialized countries.
Transportation: More Fossil Intensive than Ever
Ocean shipping accounts for nearly 80 per cent of the world’s
international trade in goods. The fuel commonly used by ships is a
mixture of diesel and low-quality oil known as “Bunker C,” which has
high levels of carbon and sulfur. As Jerry Mander and Simon Retallack
point out, “If not consumed by ships, it would otherwise be considered
a waste product.”
Aviation, which has the highest growth rate as a mode of transport, is
also the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, with its
consumption of fuel expected to rise by 65 per cent from 1990 levels by
2010, according to one study cited by the New Economics Foundation.
Other estimates are more pessimistic, with the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) suggesting that fuel consumption by civil
aviation is going up at the rate of three per cent a year and could
rise by nearly 350 per cent from 1992 levels by 2050. Note Mander and
Retallack: “Each ton of freight moved by plane uses forty nine times
as much energy per kilometer as when it’s moved by ship….A two minute
takeoff by a 747 is equal to 2.4 million lawn mowers running for twenty
minutes.” In support of trade expansion and global economic growth,
authorities have by and large not taxed aviation fuel as well as marine
bunker fuel, which now account for 20 per cent of all emissions in the
transport sector.
Along with fossil-fuel-intensive air transport, fossil-fuel-intensive road transport
has also been favored by the expansion of world trade, instead of modes
with less emission intensities like rail and marine traffic. In the
European Union, for instance, the focus on building up a road transport
network led an OECD study to comment that “the way in which the EU
liberalization policy has been implemented has favored the less
environment-friendly modes and accelerated the decline of rail and
inland waterways.”
Decoupling Growth and Energy: a Panacea
There has been talk about decoupling trade and growth from energy or
shifting from fossil fuels to other, less carbon-intensive energy
sources. The reality is that the other energy sources being seriously
considered are either dangerous, like nuclear power; with deleterious
side-effects, like biofuel’s negative impact on food production; or
science fiction as this stage, like carbon sequestration and storage
technology. For the foreseeable future, trade expansion and global
growth will fall in line with their historical trajectory of being
correlated with increased greenhouse gas emissions.
A sharp U-turn in consumption and growth in the developed countries and
a significant decrease in global trade are unavoidable if we are to
have a viable strategy against climate change. This will set the stage
for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, including from the
energy-intensive transportation sector. The outcome of the Doha
negotiations will determine whether free trade will intensify or lose
momentum. A successful conclusion to Doha will bring us closer to
uncontrollable climate change. It will continue what the New Economics
Foundation describes as “free trade’s free ride on the global climate.”
A derailment of Doha will not be a sufficient condition to formulate a
strategy to contain climate change, but given the likely negative
ecological consequences of a successful deal, it is a necessary
condition.
Focus on the Global South, a programme of development policy research, analysis and action, opens its 2009 Volunteer/Internship Program. The Focus internship is a non-salaried programme that is designed to provide exciting opportunities and exposure to highly-motivated college students, graduate students and fresh university graduates. Accepted interns/volunteers will have a chance to assist in a research on climate change.
ASEAN People's Forum
February 20-22 2009
Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
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Wall Street: The Causes of Collapse
by Walden Bello
Updated: 18 October 2008
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