The Wrath of Capital

Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics

Adrian Parr

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780231530941
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Although climate change has become the dominant concern of the twenty-first century, global powers refuse to implement the changes necessary to reverse these trends. Instead, they have neoliberalized nature and climate change politics and discourse, and there are indications of a more virulent strain of capital accumulation on the horizon. Adrian Parr calls attention to the problematic socioeconomic conditions of neoliberal capitalism underpinning the world's environmental challenges, and she argues that, until we grasp the implications of neoliberalism's interference in climate change talks and policy, humanity is on track to an irreversible crisis.

Parr not only exposes the global failure to produce equitable political options for environmental regulation, but she also breaks down the dominant political paradigms hindering the discovery of viable alternatives. She highlights the neoliberalization of nature in the development of green technologies, land use, dietary habits, reproductive practices, consumption patterns, design strategies, and media. She dismisses the notion that the free market can solve debilitating environmental degradation and climate change as nothing more than a political ghost emptied of its collective aspirations.

Decrying what she perceives as a failure of the human imagination and an impoverishment of political institutions, Parr ruminates on the nature of change and existence in the absence of a future. The sustainability movement, she contends, must engage more aggressively with the logic and cultural manifestations of consumer economics to take hold of a more transformative politics. If the economically powerful continue to monopolize the meaning of environmental change, she warns, new and more promising collective solutions will fail to take root.

1

CLIMATE CAPITALISM

It is now widely accepted, apart from by a few conservative fundamentalists and conspiracy theorists such as Lord Monckton, that the average global climate is warming and that one of the primary causes for this situation is human activities, which are producing more GHGs than the earth’s carbon sinks can absorb. Industrialization and a rampant culture of consumption have resulted in the warming of the earth’s atmosphere and oceans.¹ And it is no longer just the scientists who are worried; the general public has started to sit up and take note of climate warming. So why all this concern over a few changes in degrees?

A few snippets clearly bring the climate situation into focus. If the Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheets collapse, the sea level will rise several meters, causing entire islands and coastline communities to disappear. The IPCC has estimated that the global average sea-level rise might be anywhere from 0.18 to 0.59 meters.² In 2009, at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change, it was reported that “the upper range of sea level rise by 2100 could be in the range of about one meter.”³ In addition, desertification and drought may cause agriculture yields to drop. And, as noted in the Stern Review, the food crisis alone may very well lead to a rise in conflict.⁴ In addition, there will be ongoing species extinction, and the incidence of extreme weather events will increase.

In an effort to stave off the catastrophic effects climate change will have for life on earth, one proposed and rather popular solution has been to try to keep the increase in global temperatures to 2°C above late preindustrial levels. Meanwhile, small island states have been demanding this target be revised to an increase that does not exceed 1.5°C.⁵ Small island states insist that GHG emissions need to be reduced by more than 85 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.⁶ As the science of climate change continues to influence the spheres of law, policy, economic development, and cultural production, a new debate over how to lower global GHG emissions ethically is gathering momentum. For many, when it comes to answering the difficult question concerning who should bear the burdens associated with lowering GHG emissions and the subsequent problem of how to reconcile the conflicting ethical issues this topic raises, the principle of socioeconomic justice is often invoked: the solutions need to be fair and equitable.

The issue of socioeconomic inequality has come to animate recent discussions concerning the ethics of climate change. First, the socioeconomic disparity thesis appears in arguments used against global compliance for constraints on emissions. The position of nonglobal compliance on emissions argues that because some countries—namely, high-income ones such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and other European Union (EU) countries—are better positioned in terms of economic wealth, economic strength, and technological know-how, they will incur far less hardship if they cut back on their emissions than will low- or middle-income countries.⁷ This view is called the “ability-to-pay principle,” and it claims that the privileged position that high-income countries enjoy constitutes a moral responsibility to support nonglobal compliance. As the argument goes, poorer countries would incur a disproportionate hardship if they slowed their economies.

Henry Shue maintains that not reducing GHG emissions amounts to a violation of a duty to not harm future generations.⁸ He supports a ratio system of measurement for how much GHGs a country ought to be allowed to emit. We ought, he says, consider a country’s available resources when deciding who should pay what. The principle of equity espoused by Shue is also one that appears in the Kyoto agreement. It basically responds to the problem of responsibility by invoking a concept of redistribution. Egalitarian redistribution in the context of climate change ethics both demands that wealthier nations foot more of the bill because they have the resources to do so and appeals to the principle of historical responsibility.

Another line of reasoning that is structured by the principle of historical responsibility is the call to make polluters pay. Advocates of this approach argue that those who produce pollution are responsible for the costs incurred by the damage. As a follow-on from the “polluter pays” principle is the argument that because the poverty encountered by many middle- and low-income countries is largely a by-product of past wrongs inflicted on them by high-income countries, such as the United States and former colonial powers including the United Kingdom, which have been profiting from years of industrial activity, this history alleviates poor countries’ moral responsibility to comply with global constraints on emissions and places the ball of responsibility squarely in the court of wealthy countries. In particular, it is strongly argued that the United States should take on more of the burdens associated with climate change.⁹

Peter Singer has suggested that the developing world turn a blind eye to the developed world’s historical responsibility. He recognizes that there is a limit to the amount of GHGs that the planet can absorb and suggests that one way to solve the problem of GHG buildup is to reach a consensus over what subsistence levels of emissions are. From this consensus, we would be able to allocate the amount of carbon each individual can safely emit. Using 2002 as his benchmark, he proposes that every person can emit one metric ton of carbon per year.¹⁰ However, Singer’s dismissal of historical contingency is grounded in his analytic approach to problem solving, a way of reasoning that frames problems in isolation from the vicissitudes of economic, social, political, and cultural life. His position is basically contradictory. Normative arguments of justice aside, it is inconsistent to argue in favor of erasing historical responsibility in order to achieve historical responsibility—the responsibility for future lives. This is like having your cake and eating it too.

Another version of the “polluter pays” principle is the position advanced by Robin Attfield and George Monbiot. They maintain that we need to introduce a system of carbon rationing calculated by using population figures.¹¹ This system would enable a fairer distribution of the economic burdens incurred. For instance, the United States and the United Kingdom would have to reduce their carbon emissions dramatically, but lower-income countries would not. According to Monbiot, the target for 2030 would entail that high-income countries cut their GHG emissions by 90 percent.¹²

Similar to Singer’s stabilization thesis and also in support of those who advocate emissions-trading schemes, the Global Commons Institute advances a contraction-and-convergence approach to the problem of global climate change. It, too, leans upon a historically constituted principle of social equity insofar as it aspires to narrow the gap between the wealthy and the poor. The theory aims to produce equal per capita emissions and favors emissions trading to get there. First, a figure for a safe level of global GHG emissions needs to be set. Second, these emissions would converge to form the basis of per capita quotas. The principle of socioeconomic distribution would come into effect in that wealthy countries would need to contract their emissions more than poorer countries. In addition, poor countries might initially be allowed to increase their emissions. From here, total global emissions would begin to contract.¹³

These arguments might not be perfect, but they do offer up a road map to cutting carbon emissions across the globe. Why, then, cannot the leaders of the world reach a consensus? The question is almost a naive one to ask because the answer is so obvious. Cutting carbon emissions will hurt the economy—that is, unless the economy can be tweaked in such a way that it capitalizes from climate change. Interestingly enough, the latter argument is gaining traction in the form of “climate capitalism.” My use of the term climate capitalism is intended to be tongue in cheek. I am fully aware of how it is gaining popularity among scholars and policymakers who hope to put the mechanisms of capitalism to work in the service of decarbonizing the economy,¹⁴ but I disagree with them. As I say often in this book, capitalism appropriates limits to capital by placing them in the service of capital; in the process, it obscures the inequities, socioeconomic distortions, and violence that these limits expose, thereby continuing the cycle of endless economic growth that is achieved at the expense of more vulnerable entities and groups.

On December 1, 2008, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri explained the connection between environmental well-being and human well-being, outlining the ways in which the current global economic system is implicated in furthering climate change. Preempting his critics, who exclaim that serious reductions would cripple the global economy, Pachauri has argued that the costs associated with reducing GHG emissions will be less than 3 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2030. However, this estimate does not factor into the equation savings incurred as a result of stabilizing the earth’s global temperature. If we consider these savings, we may be surprised to find that economic output and welfare increase overall.¹⁵ Pachauri argues that we can slow or even perhaps reverse climate change through green technologies and by the transformation of dirty industries into green ones. In turn, these changes can provide the basis for new wealth production.

Other leading figures from the sustainability movement also view climate change as a terrific opportunity to open up the market to new sources of growth by using the climate crisis as another instrument through which neoliberal economic policies can be bolstered. William McDonough and Michael Braungart offer a new design framework that the corporate sector can adopt to produce commodities that are biological nutrients and that are manufactured without the use of toxic materials.¹⁶ They provide practical ways to achieve this goal, and the model they describe is rich with possibilities to transform the life cycle of everyday commodities. Their vision of industry in the future is one that is smart, effective, harmless, and inspiring. They provide a hopeful picture of a new green production process that no longer produces waste and instead produces nutrients for life on earth. However, the fundamental principles of neoliberal economics—privatization, competition, deregulation—remain intact.

As strong supporters of climate capitalism, L. Hunter Lovins and Boyd Cohen advocate that market mechanisms be put to use to solve the climate crisis. In support of their idea, they cite evidence from the British Carbon Disclosure Project, which in 2007 reported that the world’s “major companies are increasingly focused on climate change and … see it as an opportunity for profit.” They cover a wide range of very helpful practical options to respond to the climate crisis, such as producing clean technologies, sustainable manufacturing processes, energy-efficient buildings, a carbon-offset market that individuals can voluntarily participate in—all of which they stipulate can be promoted under the rubric of an “honest free market” that has learned the hard lesson of market humility. Much like Alan Greenspan was forced to concede during the peak of the global financial crisis that markets need some regulation, so, too, Lovins and Cohen explain that “markets make very good servants, but they’re not good masters, and they’re a lousy religion.”¹⁷ Despite this admission, they keep the neoliberal emphasis on the privatization and entrepreneurial self-interest that characterize capitalism and that have also produced widespread inequity the world over. As such, their notion of climate capitalism leaves unchallenged the violence embedded in capital accumulation.

If we broach the myriad problems associated with climate and environmental change through the lens of capitalism and market growth, aren’t we coming at the problem from the wrong vantage point? If economic prosperity is viewed in terms of geopolitical power and within the neoliberal economic paradigm of privatization, competitive markets, and deregulation in the way advocated by Thomas Friedman, whom Lovins and Cohen lean on extensively to help make their point, then there is really nothing new being proposed. The problem of climate change, GHG emissions, fossil fuel energy, pollution, deforestation, species extinction, and ecosystem degradation is being situated in a capitalist context, leaving the axiomatic of capital unchallenged and along with it the inequities that such a system produces. Climate change and environmental degradation, however, are ultimately problems of equality. All people (including future generations), other-than-human species, and ecosystems share a common future.

To argue that climate change offers opportunities for new markets and wealth production ironically reproduces the normative neoliberal value in commodity culture. For this reason, detaching inequitable socioeconomic arrangements from an analysis of how power dynamically operates throughout the domain of commodity culture and the consumer credit economy is misleading. Regardless of how robust the new “green free market” is, changes in climate will cause serious societal disruption, and it will be the poor (regardless of what country they live in) who will bear the greater burden in this regard.¹⁸

We must recognize that global heating will not affect everyone equally. It will irreversibly change environments, which will also threaten people’s livelihoods. As a consequence, conflict will almost certainly increase. Some glaciers, such as those in the Andean region, are now under threat if current rates of warming persist. This situation may result in decreased river flows that will affect 500 million people in South Asia and around 250 million in China.¹⁹ As I argued in Hijacking Sustainability,²⁰ all in all, the poor of the world are especially vulnerable in the face of these changes. Global heating is not indiscriminate; its effects will more severely impact already marginalized and exploited groups. The point in all this is that the average change in global climate concerns the material conditions of life, which in turn cannot be understood without consideration of how the political economy shapes climate change politics; in other words, the production of green technologies, green energy, green jobs, and social arrangements are intertwined phenomena.

What is missing in the analyses outlined thus far is a return to Marx’s Capital and the simple idea that the so-called opportunities in question are not isolated empirical incidents; their very existence has come into being by virtue of the political economy. How the value of these new opportunities in the context of climate change is assessed is not just in terms of their having a use-value (through the redistribution of wealth), but also in terms of their surplus-value (the production of profit). The surplus-value of the opportunities in question cannot be defined in isolation from other opportunities (green jobs, a growing consumer market in natural and green products, and new green technologies). The value of a surplus emerges through a system of exchange, and it is the comparative aspect of this Marxist idea of exchange that demands a more critical evaluation of how the political economy in the era of climate change operates.²¹

In 2004, the twenty-five countries with the largest GHG emissions accounted for 83 percent of global emissions, the United States producing 20.6 percent of those emissions. At that time, the United States, along with the twenty-five-member state body of the EU, also enjoyed generating 21.9 percent of global GDP. Although in 2005 China’s emissions were 2 percent lower than those of the United States, by 2006 China surpassed the United States by 8 percent, and in 2007 two-thirds of the world’s 3.1 percent increase in CO₂ was a result of China’s emissions.²² China’s increasing GHG emissions obviously pose a serious problem for the goal of reducing global GHG emissions.

U.S. carbon emissions are largely the result of the energy (combustion of fossil fuels) required to power the world’s largest economy, and the production processes attributed to a great deal of these energy-related CO₂ emissions have been outsourced to China, so there is good reason to suggest that the figures describing China’s increase in emissions unfairly point the finger of blame at China and divert attention away from the United States (as well as from other countries such as Australia, Japan, and the wealthy Arab nations). In other words, the increase in China’s emissions are most likely the result of high-income countries such as the United States outsourcing their own dirty manufacturin...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents 
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction: Business as Usual
• 1. Climate Capitalism
• 2. Green Angels or Carbon Cowboys?
• 3. Population
• 4. To Be or Not to Be Thirsty
• 5. Sounding the Alarm on Hunger
• 6. Animal Pharm
• 7. Modern Feeling and the Green City
• 8. Spill, Baby, Spill
• Afterword: In the Danger Zone
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index