International Transform Conference, Copenhagen, Saturday, 17 March 2018:

“Global and Institutional Crisis and Red-Green Alternatives”

Emissions gap, consciousness gap and ecosocialist strategy

The pressure humanity exerts on the Earth System has been growing ever more rapidly since the 1950s. At the beginning of the 21st century, it has reached an extremely alarming level, and continues to grow in almost all areas. Thresholds are already exceeded in three areas: biodiversity loss, disruption of the Nitrogen cycle and greenhouse gases concentration in the atmosphere.

Climate change is a major threat and is interconnected with most other threats. Radical action is extremely urgent. The COP 21 decided to keep the temperature rise well below 2°C and to continue the effort in order to maintain it under 1.5°C. But CO2 emissions continue to rise. Last year saw a record increase by 3.7%. At the present rhythm, the 1.5°C carbon budget will be exhausted in 2030 and the 2°C budget in 2050. According to the UNEP report 2017, the 2°C limit will most probably be exceeded if measures to fill the emissions gap are not decided before 2020. Despite these warnings by scientists, the Nationally Determined Contributions remain totally insufficient: on basis of these NDC’s, the warming will exceed 3°C by the end of the century.

The ecosocial catastrophe is on track

Obviously, the risk has been underestimated. Even a 2°C warming would be catastrophic. The coming special IPCC report on the 1.5°C objective illustrates the huge difference in impacts between a 2°C and a 1.5°C temperature rise: as an example, 780 million people will suffer severe droughts each year in the first case, 450 million in the second one. At the moment, the temperature rise is a bit more than 1°C and this modest increase already provokes worrying consequences: coral bleaching, violent hurricanes, forest fires, droughts, floodings, extreme weather events in general…

We risk experiencing a qualitative shift that could be abrupt (within a few decades) and largely irreversible. The Earth System would then enter a new dynamic equilibrium regime, characterized by very different geophysical conditions and an even more marked decrease in its biological richness. At the least, in addition to the consequences for other living creatures, the transition to this new regime would endanger the lives of hundreds of millions of poor people, especially women, children and the elderly. At the most, it cannot be excluded that it contributes to a collapse of our species.

Actually, the catastrophe is already on track. It only can be limited and contained, but at one condition: that we address its cause. Yet, this cause is not human existence in general, as some argue, but the mode of production and social reproduction of this existence (which also includes its mode of distribution, consumption and cultural values). The mode in force for about two centuries – capitalism – is unsustainable because competition for profit, its driving force, implies a blind tendency to limitless quantitative growth. The environmental destruction is an unavoidable consequence of this tendency. This is the simple and fundamental reason why green capitalism is absolutely impossible.

Absolute necessity of anticapitalism

An entirely different relationship of humankind to the environment is an urgent necessity. This new relationship depends on new relationships between humans. In a nutshell, what we need is a caring model for both humans and the environment. A model based not only on quantitative but also on qualitative criteria, on cooperation instead of competition, on respect instead of domination, on real democracy instead of profit dictatorship.Such a model will not be simply the result of individual changes in behavior. Rather it needs a structural change: the total and global eradication of capitalism as the mode of production of social existence. This total eradication is the necessary condition for a.

During the 20th century, the countries of "really existing socialism" were unable to offer an alternative to the productivist destruction of the environment. On the opposite, they contributed to this destruction in an important way. We must learn all the lessons of these failed experiences. Clearly, the eradication of capitalism is not a sufficient condition. But it is a necessary one. No rational, conscious, economical, respectful and prudent management in the exchanges of matter between us and the rest of nature will be possible as long as the human development will be alienated by the rule of abstract value and submitted to the impersonal logic of productivist accumulation. Humankind is confronted with the unprecedented obligation to control its development in all fields in order to make it compatible with the limits and the good health of the environment in which it has developed, and the production of concrete use values in place of abstract value is an absolute precondition for such a control. That’s why we need an ecosocialism.

And here we reach the heart of the problem, which is easy to summarize: there is not only an objective emissions gap but also a huge subjective gap. A consciousness gap.A gap between the urgency of a radical anticapitalist ecosocialist alternative on the one hand, and the relationship of forces and the levels of consciousness on the other hand.

What should (but cannot) be done

Basically, what we should need to stop the catastrophe is a set of deep anticapitalist measures, mainly including:

1. the socialization of the energy sector: this is the only way to break free of a fossil energy economy, stop nuclear energy, reduce radically the production/consumption of energy and realize as fast as possible the transition towards a renewable, decentralized and efficient energy system according to ecological and social imperatives;

2. the socialization of the credit sector: this is essential given the interweaving of the energy and financial sectors in heavy and long-term investments and in order to have the necessary financial resources for transition investments;

3. the abolition of private ownership of natural resources (land, water, forests, wind, solar energy, geothermal energy, marine resources, …) and intellectual knowledge;

4. the destruction of all stock of arms, the suppression of useless or harmful production (petrochemicals, nuclear energy), the production of use values decided democratically to fulfill real human needs instead of alienated needs;

5. a common and democratic management of resources at the service of these real human needs, with respect for the good functioning and the capacities for renewal by the ecosystems;

6. the abolition of all forms of inequality and discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual preferences; emancipation of all the oppressed, particularly the emancipation of women and people of color;

7. the abolition of imposed working hours for the production of commodities as an alienating category that destroys leisure time and discourages non-commodified human activities;

8. a lengthy-term socio-economic policy aiming at rebalancing urban and rural populations and overcoming the opposition between town and countryside.

There gap between this objectively necessary alternative and the present social and political situation is so obvious that it doesn’t need further explanation. The question is: what to do in order to bridge the gap?

Labor and the environmental destruction

The general methodological answer to this question is: the gap can only be closed by concrete struggles of the exploited and the oppressed in the defense of their living conditions and of the environment. By winning immediate demands, larger layers will radicalize and their struggles will converge. They will formulate transitional demands, in other words demands incompatible with the capitalist logic.

But here comes a supplementary problem: theoretically, only the exploited could lead the environmental struggle to the end because the abolition of capitalism corresponds to their class interests. Yet under the "normal" circumstances of the capitalist mode of production, daily existence of the workers depends on the functioning of the system.Commodification and destruction of the environment are the result. By selling their labor force, the workers let the capital mutilate them directly and, by mutilating their environment, indirectly. This tearing makes it both very difficult and of decisive importance to mobilize the labour movement in the ecological struggle. This difficulty increases with the mass unemployment and the deterioration in the balance of forces between labour and capital.

Progress are made. Left-wing sectors are taking part in environmental struggles. "Trade Unions for Energy Democracy", “Labor Network for Sustainability” and the “Climate Jobs Campaigns”, for instance, attribute the responsibility for getting out of the fossils economy to polluting companies and the governments who protected and subsidized them. They demand a «just transition» protecting worker’s jobs and wages.Nevertheless, it should be noted that campaigns for climate jobs are sometimes based on too optimistic projections concerning the “growth” of employment thanks to the transition. Sustainability creates the necessity of a reduction of production, and this is not always taken into account. This necessity is not at all taken into account by the pro-growth majority leadership of the ITUC, which is in favor of class collaboration with the project of so called "green capitalism». The Vancouver resolution of the ITUC, for instance, defines «just transition» not only as a protection of the workers, but also as a protection of the competitiveness of the enterprises. The fossil sector is not even excluded…

Ecosocialist strategy

How to cope with this difficult reality? The strategy ecosocialists propose is two folded:

-on the one hand, we need a programme to bridge the gap in consciousness. Because the relation of forces is bad and extremely defensive, this programme must include not only transitional (anticapitalist) demands like a redistributive fiscal reform and the reduction of the working time without wage losses, but also very immediate demands like a free public transportation, the protection of workers against occupational diseases, the abolition of industrial animal breeding or the promotion of urban agriculture, for instance. The key point is that the programme as a whole must be global, attractive and satisfy at the same time social and ecological needs. If it does that in a coherent way, it will be incompatible with a normal functioning of capitalism, thus bridge the gap.

-on the other hand, we need a practice of convergence and intersectionality in the fight for this programme. Indigenous peoples, peasants and youth are at the forefront of environmental struggles, and women play a leading role in these three sectors. They all represent potential allies for the left-wing sectors of the unions, and these left-wing sectors on their side can play a decisive role in the success of environmental struggles. The victory of the long opposition to the airport of Notre Dame des Landes, in France, offers a wonderful example of this kind of social dynamics. The starting point was the resistance of the peasants. They were supported by radical young people who occupied the area. A broad solidarity movement grew, transforming a local struggle in a national political issue. NDDL became a test case for what Naomi Klein calls «Blockadia». The peasants-youth alliance developed an intelligent approach towards the unions. A decisive step was the decision by the CGT of Vinci (the enterprise most interested in the building of the airport) to rally the struggle. In the end, the government abandoned the project.

Input of the Left

Thanks to its understanding of capitalism and the labor movement, the radical left can play a significant role in this strategy of convergence, and help gaining other victories. There are two conditions therefore: 1°) to be coherent and 2°) to integrate the practical and theoretical lessons of the other social movements.

The anticapitalist left should draw all the conclusions from the analysis of the environmental crisis as an aspect of the crisis of capitalist accumulation. This is no more a peripheral question. To put it simply: the social needs of the exploited and oppressed can no more be satisfied thanks to more growth. Even «another growth» is not a solution. Actually, another wealth should be the objective. But a global «de-growth» of the material production and transportation is a necessary condition of a successful ecological transition towards a new paradigm. As a consequence, globally, the social needs must be fulfilled by sharing the wealth, not by the creation of new wealth (of course, this does not apply to any country in particular). To radically reduce the working time without wage losses is thus a key ecological demand, because it entails sharing the wealth. Furthermore, qualitative changes are necessary in the means of production of the wealth, in order to eliminate dangerous technologies (nuclear energy, petrochemical industry based on fossil fuels…).

Women, peasants, indigenous peoples

Other speakers will develop the importance of the contribution of the women, peasants, and indigenous people. I just want to mention shortly a few points.

It’s a fact: women play a key role in environmental struggles. Non-essentialist ecofeminists propose an important explanation. They tell us that it is the product of the specific oppression of women, not their biological sex. Patriarchy imposes on women social functions directly linked to "caring" and places them at the forefront of environmental challenges. For instance, because they produce 80% of the food in the countries of the South, women are directly confronted with the effects of climate change and agribusiness. Furthermore, by fighting against the patriarchal appropriation of their bodies and against the exploitation of their free domestic work, women grow to realize that capitalism relies not only on the appropriation of nature and the exploitation of the labor force through wage labor but also on the patriarchal invisibility of the labor of care and reproduction of the labor force. Added to these three pillars of capitalism is a fourth, exploitation based on race. All have a common denominator that is the appropriation of natural resources, in which the human workforce is a part. This is why women’s struggle must be considered as an integral part of ecosocialist struggle.

Around the world peasants are the social sector most heavily involved in the fight for the environment in general and climate in particular. This vanguard role is attributable to the brutal aggression of capital, which wants to eliminate the independent peasants and replace them with agricultural workers, subcontracted workers and the unemployed ( in order to put pressure on wages). The industrial agricultural system produces cheap goods at low cost for the market rather than quality food for local populations. Peasant unions such as Via Campesina play a key role in the struggle and in the programmatic elaboration. They remind the left that agriculture is a fundamental issue, that capitalist agriculture can only be irrational and that a rational alternative, as Marx wrote in Capital, can only be developed by the individual peasants or by rural communities (which is not equal to top-down collectivisation, state-farms, etc…). This is even more the truth today because agro-ecology and rational forestry are the only means of removing carbon from the atmosphere efficiently, safely while respecting social justice.

In North, Central and South America, Africa, Asia and Oceania, indigenous peoples are on the front line. Their struggle often combines with that of peasants and rural communities, but it is specific. Indigenous populations are few, but their role is ominous. Indigenous peoples produce their social existence from a direct relationship with the environment they have shaped and which constitutes their way of life. As a result, these peoples are blocking many powerful capitalist players eager to plunder natural resources. They also have a very important ideological contribution. Through their struggle they protect and make known their cosmogony, which is a precious asset to the whole of humanity and an inspiration for ecosocialism.

Control and self-management as key issues for now and tomorrow

The profound changes in lifestyle and development prospects that ecological transition requires cannot be imposed from above. They are only feasible if the majority of the population acquires the conviction that they are indispensable and desirable. The popular education about the severity of environmental destruction and its causes is part of the solution. But the key answer in strategic terms consists in developing democratic processes of active control, taking charge of the transition, intervening in public decision-making, and even taking over production, social reproduction, and the protection of endangered ecosystems. The worker’s movement has a rich historical experience of control and self-management at the level of the workplace. The convergence strategy entails an extension of these practices at the level of territories. It is a matter of sketching in practice the invention of emancipated relationships between humans, and between humans and the rest of nature, to show that "another world is possible».

The convergence of social and environmental struggles is a dynamic process of clarification, recomposition and radicalization. Such a process involves multiple conflicts between social sectors, a.o. conflicts with sectors of the labor movement that engage in class collaboration with productivism. An example is the conflict in Germany between the climate movement and the union of the workers in the braun coal mines. In such a conflict, Ecosocialists defend the environmentalists, whilst trying to convince workers to change their point of view. In these cases, we must try to propose solid programmatic alternatives aiming improving the rights and well being of both workers and communities. They should not pay for the decisions of the corporations and governments. Of course, we also must oppose environmentalists who ignore social realities when approaching the worker’s movement.