Dear Editor,
In 2008, Hilary Benn, then the United Kingdom Secretary of State for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, boasted that the Climate Change Act of that year would make the UK the first country in the world to put carbon reduction targets into law, and asked us to imagine what that meant for a newborn child. “By the time she is three years old, we will be recycling and composting 40 per cent of our waste. By the time she is eight, Britain will be generating 15 per cent of our electricity from renewable…. By the time she celebrates her ninth birthday, every single new house built that year and for the rest of her life will be zero carbon, millions of existing homes will be better insulated, and micro generation will be a reality for many of her friends and neighbours, and not just a few pioneers.”
Almost every section of the 2010 National Security Strategy of the US government speaks to the importance of climate change. “The international order we seek,” it claims, “is one that can resolve the challenges of our times – countering violent extremism and insurgency; stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials; combating a changing climate and sustaining global growth; helping countries feed themselves and care for their sick; resolving and preventing conflict, while also healing its wounds.”
What then are we to make of Mr Patrick Pereira’s claim that our concern with the human contribution to climate change is: “The biggest scam in the history of mankind” (SN, June 8)? Given the depth and pervasiveness of what is being proposed and implemented, are we to believe that all these persons are being duped and/or are compliant in some grand international conspiracy? I think not, and I stand with the conventional wisdom on the issue of man’s contribution to climate change. I do, however, agree with the growing body of opinion that what is at present being proposed in official quarters does not properly identify the major difficulties or constitute a comprehensive solution (for a fair representation of the issues, see Simms and Smith, Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth? 2008).
Lest it be thought otherwise, I am not for one moment suggesting that Mr Pereira’s position does not raise important issues about governance in Guyana. In a previous contribution, I drew attention to the difference between ‘substantive’ and ‘procedural’ considerations (SN, 12.3.10). Much of the consultations that have taken place around climate change and the Low Carbon Development Strategy have been concerned with the latter, ie, what is the best way to implement the strategy? By way of his claim that we are caught in a scam, Mr Pereira is requesting a “substantive” discourse about whether or not we should have a low carbon strategy, and if my memory is correct, such a discourse has not taken place. There was no electoral mandate, no referendum and no extensive discussion on the fundamental issue of whether or not Guyana should commit its entire forest to such a strategy! This omission, which is not an isolated one, tells us much about the nature of our society and the kind of governance it permits.
That said, my position is that: “Achieving a good life for more than 6 billion people, without further threatening the ecological systems on which we all depend, is the greatest challenge of our age” (Simms and Smith). Mr David Cameron, the new British Prime Minister, has argued that instead of focusing on GDP (Gross Domestic Product) we should put our faith in GWB (General Well-Being) measured by indicators such as the Happy Planet Index of the NEF (New Economics Foundation). “It goes to show,” he observed, “what most of us instinctively feel: that the pursuit of wealth is no longer – if it ever was – enough to meet people’s hopes and aspirations; that over-consumption of the world’s resources cannot satisfy our most inborn desires; and yes, that quality of life means more that quantity of money.”
As if to enhance this conclusion, the environmentalist, Alan Durning found that, compared to 1950, GDP per capita in the USA has tripled since 1950 and that the average American family has twice as many cars, uses twenty-one times as much plastic, and travels twenty-five times further by air, but that life satisfaction has fallen. “More Americans say their marriages are unhappy, their jobs are unfulfilling, and they don’t like the place where they live. In the UK, per capita GDP grew 66 per cent between 1973 and 2001, but has failed to translate into higher satisfaction levels. Suicide rates have increased markedly, as have levels of violence, alcoholism, drug addiction and substance abuse.” Using recent conservative estimates, in a typical calendar year, the United Kingdom stops living off its own natural resources and starts to ‘live off’ the rest of the world from about April 15. No wonder Secretary of State Benn, noted: “A good life in the twenty-first century will have to be one that is lived within the earth’s means, consuming the resources of just one planet, and not the three that the WWF estimates we are currently using.”
Notwithstanding this general recognition of global overconsumption, MEP (Member of the European Parliament) Caroline Lucas, observed that politicians do not advocate the kind of policies that will genuinely avert climate change because they are chasing ever-rising levels of economic growth. She proceeded to chide Sir Nicholas Stern (of the Stern Report) and others for a position which, “…comes down to this: we can’t ‘afford’ to carry on as we are, because the cost of environmental collapse will be too much. And yet we can’t afford the most effective action to prevent this, apparently, because the economic cost will be too much.”
It is said that the link between income and life satisfaction breaks down once the basics of life are met: at about US$15,000 per year in rich countries. Of course, even at this level, Guyana, at about US$1,400 per year, has a long way to go and all agree that economic growth and development is essential in the poor world but that the current neo-liberal attempts at poverty reduction are absurd. Comparing the 1980s with the 1990s, in the earlier decade it took about $45 worth of global economic growth to generate $1 worth of poverty reduction to people living on under $1 a day. But in the 1990s it took $166 worth to do the same. Therefore, Simms and Smith observed: “Perversely, with the system we have, the rich have to get very much richer for the poor to get slightly less poor. But in doing so, the levels of consumption of the rich are driving environmental crises which hit the poorest people first and worst… On current trends just to lift everyone in the world up to the level of earning at least $3 per day would take the natural resources from in excess of fifteen planets like Earth.”
Our Low Carbon Development Strategy is located firmly in the neo-liberal growth framework. Only a few weeks ago, President Jagdeo stated that the government is working towards giving all Guyanese a standard of living equal to that of the developed world. Imagine the impact upon the world’s resources should the leaders of China and India plot a similar course! Some believe that technology holds the answer, but while technology might increase productivity, more and more units are being consumed. Andrea Ross puts it this way: “Technology is used to justify our erosion of the earth’s capital instead of simply living off the interest. As more and more pressure is placed on the ecosystem through the increased consumption of resources by an ever-growing population, there must come a stage where the ecosystem cannot meet all the demand.” The answer to the problem of climate change goes far beyond the creation of a low carbon economy. Success depends on a long-term view that addresses global consumption but locked as it is at present within the neo-liberal economic model with its emphasis on growth and consumption, a low carbon future is unpromising. I believe with Robert Costanza and RV O’Neill that, “What we need now is economic and social development (qualitative improvement without growth in consumption) and a direct and explicit recognition of the interrelatedness and interdependence of all aspects of life on the planet.”
To develop policies to deal with the very tricky issues of wealth distribution, population control, global warming, international trade and energy supply requires a “…repudiation of current neo-liberal economics with its dependence on endless profit and growth, which actually leads to a reduction in the overall welfare of people and planet and the adoption of ecological sustainability, not growth, as the principal economic objective.” (P Elkins)
Yours faithfully,
Henry B Jeffrey
