Justin Kenrick: Transition in Europe and Africa: Erasing the Global North/ South Divide?
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Transcript of Justin Kenrick: Transition in Europe and Africa: Erasing the Global North/ South Divide?
Transition in Europe and Africa:Erasing the Global North/ South Divide?
Justin Kenrick University of St Andrews + Forest Peoples Programme Pedal: Portobello Transition Town + Holyrood350.org
Transition in Europe and Africa [email protected]
Making Poverty in Africa and the World:
2005 and 2008, speculation in world food prices > huge profits, and pushed 250,000,000 people into food insecurity and starvation (> 1 billion).
2 years after 2005 G8 summit/ Make Poverty History, Geldorf said: “If this is how they keep their word to the needy, who trusts them on climate change?”
The problem is not poverty in Africa, - it is the system driving impoverishment
Transition in Europe and Africa [email protected]
Transition in Europe and Africa [email protected]
CO2 targets guarantee catastrophe:
“Even if all the current promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions are honoured, the world will still see global temperatures rise by an average of 4°C by the end of the century. . . This is hot enough to make most of the world uninhabitable.” Professor Jacqueline McGlade EU European Env Agency
UK has ‘cut’ emissions by 198 megatonnes CO2esince 1990, by outsourcing 253 mt ( & jobs)
The problem is not climate change,- it is the system driving climate change
Transition in Europe and Africa [email protected]
Transition in Europe and Africa [email protected]
Failure of Copenhagen
Climate Change Summit (Copenhagen) Dec 2009 • Failed to tackle rising emissions in industrial
countries, focused on REDD (on tackling deforestation in Global South) instead.
UNFCCC meeting (Bonn) June 2010:• All industrialised countries push for REDD
(Reducing Emissions from Deforestation) to be funded through the carbon market, allowing business as usual in the Global North.
Transition in Europe and Africa [email protected]
Transition in Europe and Africa [email protected]
Four Stages in societies response to destruction of our life support systems
1. Denial > ‘Business as usual’
2. Fantasy > ‘Techno-explosion’
3. Bargaining > ‘Sustainable consumption’
4. Accepting need for dramatic change, and that ‘Living within means’ enables abundance for all
Transition in Europe and Africa [email protected]
Transition in Europe and Africa [email protected]
Boom and Bust vs. Sufficiency
Excess > Scarcity
Economic Growth
Ecological Devastation
Resource Extraction
Sufficiency > Abundance
CommonsSufficiency
Renew Resources
Infinite Abundance
Transition in Europe and Africa [email protected]
In tackling the causes of climate change: are communities what matter most?
Communities can thrive & cut fossil fuels through:(i) Scotland: community renewables/ food growing(ii) Cameroon: owning/ managing forest, (iii) Both involve: reclaiming rights, building self-sustaining
systems, creating rolling funds. We need to develop new (or protect longstanding)
community ownership systemsCommunity material base (see system as problem) not
behaviour change (seeing people as problem)Local to local support (Global/ Regional/ Local)
Transition in Europe and Africa [email protected]
Political changes Communities need In Global North to make localisation possible
If Governments are incapable of stopping economic growth treadmill, do we need to ensure:
• Cap and Share: cap and rapidly reduce fossil fuels passing through economy into atmosphere
• Govt support for communities expanded to enable them to develop their material base> Resilient mutually supportive communities not infinite economic growth on a very finite planet
Transition in Europe and Africa [email protected]
Impact of Re-localisation on Global South?
Problem 1: Raw materials and Cheap products from Global South would be priced out of market (by tariff on all goods not internalising carbon costs)
+ Problem 2: International (un-Fair) trade maintains undemocratic elites, impoverishing majority (taking land/ paying little/ controlling politics)
= Solution: Removing this source of elite’s wealth diminishes their power; helping democracy and community land rights – South and North