Danish police battled several thousand demonstrators in the streets outside the world climate conference in Copenhagen, while inside the delegates of the major imperialist powers, China, India and dozens of less developed countries clashed over conflicting proposals to deal with the worldwide impact of pollution caused by industrialization, deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels.
More than 260 protesters were arrested and many were teargassed, hit by pepper spray or beaten with batons as police repeatedly charged into the ranks of the demonstrators. Most of those demonstrating were in Copenhagen to demand emergency action against global warming and the climate-related deterioration in living conditions, particularly for people living in vulnerable coastal areas and island states.
The police were able to prevent any sizeable incursion into the conference, using dogs, shields, water cannon and armored vans to block access routes and push back most of the demonstrators. They also beat back a group of delegates who tried to leave the conference center and make a show of sympathy for the protests.
Inside the conference, a crisis atmosphere prevailed, with bitter exchanges between the representatives of the US, Britain and other industrialized nations, and those from Africa, Asia and Latin America. At one point Monday, delegates representing all 77 of the poorest nations staged a walkout to protest the intransigence of the rich countries, which are demanding that any climate agreement lock in their economic advantages, permitting double the per capita carbon consumption of the Third World.
Voicing a sentiment widespread among the delegates from the poor countries, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela denounced the position of the US-led bloc. He pointed to the trillions of dollars used to bail out the banks in the United States and Western Europe, telling the assembly, “If the climate was a capitalist bank, they would have already saved it.”
In the face of appeals by environmental scientists to reduce rich-country emissions of greenhouse gases by 40 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels, the EU has offered only a 20 percent cut, the US a mere 3-4 percent cut. Neither figure would be a significant contribution to averting a potential climate catastrophe. No action will be taken that impinges on the profits of the giant capitalist firms that produce and use fossil fuels, and no coordinated worldwide effort is possible given the conflicts between rival national interests.
No amount of pressure or protest around the theme of “climate justice” can persuade the capitalist billionaires and their political representatives in Copenhagen to act against their own class interests. The defense of the environment can be undertaken only by a turn to the international working class, the only social force whose interests are not tied to either capitalist profit or the nation-state system, and the building of a mass movement of working people based on socialist principles.
Source: World Socialist Web
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