Working towards an IMF position on climate change for Africa

Discussion Document towards a Climate Change Policy Framework for Africa

Introduction

This is a preliminary outline document intended to sketch a framework for discussion of African affiliates of the International Metal Workers Federation towards a position on climate change and industrial development in Africa.

The 2006 Johannesburg Declaration of the African Conference on Labour and the Environment are noted and affiliates should familiarise themselves and further investigate the adoption of actions contained therein. This should be done in the context of a more overt acknowledgement of the origins of the crisis lying in the economic transformation of nature in a particular paradigm of capitalist accumulation and the strategic framework that emerges from further climate change deliberations emergent from this draft developed at the IMF sub regional meeting of April 2010.

1. Climate Change

The Climate Crisis is an Economic Crisis

The capitalist system of linear production distribution, consumption and waste disposal based on competition and greed (accumulation) but not centred on human needs has led to the unprecedented climate crisis that confronts us already, not at some future time. Africa is likely to be the most effected area of habitation and already significant changes are visible, but given extended periods of underdevelopment and eroded social services is also the most vulnerable and least able continent to adapt to the effects of changing climate.

The fact that growing scientific consensus, as to the scope and potential impact of climate change, coincides with a global economic crisis, serves to reinforce the notion that the climate crisis is an economic crisis.

Climate Systems

The term anthropogenic is misguiding as the true cause of environmental degradation is systemic to the current mode of capital accumulation characterised as fossil capitalism. The ultimate solution therefore must lie beyond stop gap measures simply attempting to cap emissions in an attempt to limit a mean global temperature increase to less than 2 degrees C through reducing CO2 in the atmosphere to 350ppm. Although these targets are essential given the slow progress and the human costs involved in failure it is realised that a fundamental shift in the relations of production and patterns of consumption are necessary.

Given recent statements by the IPCC that issues such as polar ice melt happening faster than expected in the 4^th (2007) report it is suspected that the 2 degree target is in all likelihood too conservative. Ecological feedback mechanisms such as increasing water vapour in the atmosphere seem to be accelerating temperature changes and therefore weather patterns. Such mechanisms coupled to the downward trend of IPCC projections as to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is also noted and therefore 350ppm is seen as an absolute minimum.

Impact of Climate Change on Africa

The IPCC acknowledges that Africa will be most severely impacted by climatic changes and this impact is exacerbated by the current socioeconomic crises confronting the continent. These include, fragile states, working poverty, malnutrition, existing water scarcity, disease (particularly malaria and HIV), Gender inequalities, access to land and conflict.

IPCC notes impacts likely in;

Food security

Water stress

Spread of diseases

Flooding

Loss of biodiversity

Coastal and estuary flooding

Climate change refugee  

In developing African responses to climate change we also need to consider;

Conflicts over resources

Damage to infrastructure

Drop in Hydro capacity, predictability

An African power crisis deepened by emergency priority spending

Global responses that may suck away FDI flows

Less global consumption means slower commodity demands

Solutions in the North may well lead to deepened hardships in the south

Agricultural yields in the north are likely to increase while decreases will occur in Africa

Current trade negotiations have the potential to further marginalise African adaptation responses

2. Principles

Common but differentiated responsibilities

The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities is understood in the context that given the amount of time (200 years +) that CO2 exists in the atmosphere, cumulative contributions to the green house effect should form the basis of an historical balance sheet of what has been referred to as ecological debt

Ecological debt

Whilst it is undeniable that an ecological debt exists the concept creates a false division of environment and economy tacitly accepting the linear nature of' private production distribution and consumption and waste. Furthermore since the concept of ecological debt is accepted by Bali it is believed that complementary socio economic debts associated with colonialism and economic imperialism exist and have defined systemic planetary exploitation under fossil capitalism.

Mitigation

Developed Countries must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least

40% below 1990 levels by 2020 and at least 80% preferably 95% below 1990 levels by 2050, in order to achieve the lowest level of stabilisation assessed by the IPCC's fourth assessment report.

Mitigation actions for Africa should be voluntary and nationally appropriate within industrial plans focused around human development and needs. Development of a renewable energy economy and green and decent jobs need to be conducted as a development imperative and not a climate change trade.

Mitigation efforts in developed and developing countries should not be tradable as this renders efforts subject to market volatilities, corruption and undermines the developmental nature of building the commons through technological sharing through mechanisms such as TRIPS.

COP and Kyoto Protocol

The UNFCCC process needs to draw a more forthright link between addressing climate change and meeting the MDGs through state led non commercial socialised transformations as the basis of agreements.

Whilst attempts to remove Kyoto are not acceptable the market solutions contained in the protocol need to be fundamentally revisited if the world is to have any hope in addressing the human disaster implicit in climate change.

Common World with Common Standards

Environmental standards that differentiate North from South such as the use of autocatalytic converters for northern markets but business as usual for southern ones are unacceptable. Dumping of waste in Africa as a revenue mechanism is equally seen as a form of environmental apartheid. To overcome the latest addition to the wealth and digital divides of the growing environmental divides will require pressure on governments of both Global North and South and concerted monitoring and engagement with corporations driving these processes.

Ecological Imperialism and mitigation in the South

The intensification of the process of ecological imperialism where by clean production stays in the North and dirty production is moved to the South is seen as a probable outcome of current frameworks to address climate change. It is the correction of this imbalance that should drive the developing world to clean energy paradigms not commitments being demanded by developed countries that are motivated by issues of economic competition not equity or true acceptance of externalised debts of historical production, distribution, consumption and waste disposal.

Corporate responsibility

It is noted that MNCs have been the main driving force behind fossil capitalism and in practical terms do not have a nationality. It is also apparent that MNCs and large capital formations will resist just transition where it is not in their immediate financial interests. As such engagement and investigations need to focus on increasing the responsibility of these entities to workers and communities. Greater transparency in reporting, accountability and conformity to progressive global standards of corporate conduct are important. Regional standards and expectations should be further developed in this regard and where international framework agreements exist these should be strengthened around these components naturally including elements related to environmental impact and health in the workplace with a particular focus on the use of dangerous chemical substances.

Externalised costs of fossil capitalism

Further and in-depth investigation of the externalised costs of extraction, production and the energy economy that have characterised accumulation and transfer of wealth from south to north in the fossil economy is urgently necessary to appropriately enumerate the concept of fossil capitalist debt. Such externalised elements should include variables such as chemical contamination, pollution, loss of biodiversity, health costs, shortened life expectancy, injuries and deaths of workers etc.

Implicit in such calculations should be the principle that lives in developed and developing countries are valued equally. Concepts that cost a life in terms of lower or higher GNI are completely unacceptable.

3. Strategy

Costing the transformation of the energy economy

Proper enumeration of the costs associated with the transformation of energy economy in both North and South needs to be investigated. The exercise must take into account facilitating globally equitable access to energy by all humanity so as to address deepening current global ecological and economic apartheid.

We understand that capital accumulation always relies on net transfer of wealth in its various forms and through externalising costs and for this reason competition based markets can never develop Africa as there are no more continents to take from and externalise costs too. Unsustainable logic can not solve a problem of sustainability.

State led cooperative commons development and funding at a global level is necessary to facilitate this urgent transition. Once cost has been established, mechanisms such as corporate reparations taxes, reduced military spending and financial transaction taxes will be necessary to implement. These should be differentially implemented in developing and developed countries where reparations and financial transaction taxes should for example flow to developing economies while efficiency measures and reduced military expenditure should finance mitigation in the north. From an African perspective this seems logical as part of the problem that needs balancing is overconsumption in the North and under consumption in the South.

Given the greater impact and need for adaptation in Africa and other developing regions separate allocations will be necessary to ensure that adaptation measures are not sacrificed to profit opportunities in mitigation.

Developing a framework on CC and Industrialisation needs to be integrated

A response to climate change and strategies to industrialise the continent should take such calculations into account but more importantly need to be an integrated process. Affiliates consider it necessary to develop a strategic process to take forward this framework into an actionable document based on research and deliberations.

Unbalanced Consumption Patterns

Recognising that a core driver of the global crisis is overconsumption in the Global North, we argue that attempts to address the problem of climate degradation without altering patterns and expectations of consumption can not succeed. At the same time chronic under consumption and environmentally inappropriate consumption forced by economic marginalisation in the Global South, need to be addressed and serve as a counter balance to decreased demand which would have a negative impact on jobs in the South and North.

Economic measures that facilitate more realistic full cost accounting will serve to lower consumption levels but should be coupled to intensive re-socialisation and concepts such as planned obsolesce regulated by law. Advertising and other mechanisms that drive the psychological elements of overconsumption should be regulated and refocused to information provision. Production and more appropriate consumption in the South will serve to balance economic impacts.

Fairly produced quality products under decent labour conditions and equitable systems of trade would further serve to balance global patterns of consumption and distribution. Social ownership should become a key consideration in assessing fair production standards. Labour in the North and South could ally with activist consumer focused organisations in the North to begin to drive such an agenda.

Energy Economy Transformation (a catalyst for broad economic transformation and human development in the south)

A broad minerals energy complex (MEC) exists in Africa and the current climate crisis offers an opportunity to break the monopoly of this MEC which sustains the over reliance on a resource based economy as opposed to a diversified one.

In such a transformation process the starting point must be with the fossil fuel based energy economy. Transformation to low carbon technologies that are collectively owned can act as a catalyst for the social transformation of production. The emergent power supply crisis in Africa provides ideal timing for such a shift. Taking human needs as a starting point also dictates that solutions must go beyond the paradigm of centralised generation of power and transmission networks that bypass economically disenfranchised citizens on route to large industrial consumption. Off grid and on grid renewable technologies should enjoy more equitable R&D and investment focus as a means of responding to peoples need and also closing the rural and urban divide in access to energy on the continent.

Synergies between different elements of addressing climate change and human development through industrialisation on the continent need to be identified and subjected to strong and accountable state led development. This can not be left to the market to provide. Long term cooperation between states in the south can ensure that the transformation of the energy economy in the south is characterised by social ownership and a building of a significant pool of commons.

For example: The lack of domestic access to clean energy is a significant contributing factor to deforestation that is noted as occurring faster in Africa than elsewhere. This is a symptom of energy apartheid and a serious and growing problem in Africa. Whilst deforestation is certainly a GHG contributor the burning of wood and paraffin for heating, lighting and cooking also has serious health implications further burdening the limited fiscus based health expenditure in African countries, still struggling under the ill advised structural adjustment measures. Africa is also the only continent with a projected growth in the number of people without access to electricity (a deepening energy divide). The development of a locally based renewables on and off grid based energy economy with universal access will serve as both a mitigation and adaptation measure in this instance.

In capitalist terms Africa has a major strategic advantage in terms of solar concentrations. Climate change is likely to increase this strategic advantage and yet Africa lags the rest of the world in the development of this enormous resource. Locally manufactured solar technologies need to be integrated with construction processes and also retrofitted to existing dwellings. Such off grid technologies should also be integrated with construction methodologies and complemented by water access and addressing the need for shelter.

Such synergies catalysed by backward integrated renewables manufactured within Africa are key to addressing development on the continent that simultaneously addresses the ecological mess overconsumption and private accumulation has left in its wake. Localised manufacturing can contribute to the large scale creation of decent work and begin to address the reality of the working poor that characterises the African labour market.

Large scale use of renewables also have tremendous job creation potential however access to technology as in the case of off grid technologies needs to be supported through funds transfers and building scientific capacity. Given the emergency nature of climate change it is unacceptable that the privatisation of intellectual property through mechanisms such as TRIPS be allowed to hinder emergency development measures and should therefore be subject to intensified global campaigning. The very 'energy companies' that have driven the fossil fuel based capitalist economy are developing green technologies with the expectation that they shall profit from the crisis that they created. They should not be allowed to hide behind TRIPS to do this.

Building mutual commons in the region should be defined by technology sharing, research and development sharing and skills sharing.

Just Transition

Discussions have highlighted the potential difference of the concept as applied in a developed country context where transitions can be smoothed by stronger social security and the absence of such facilities in much of Africa. Mitigation funding should also play a social role in terms of smoothing economic hardships of job transfers. As such transition should be measured in a developing country context, to ensure that livelihoods are not simply sacrificed in the hope of conceptual green jobs. The working class can not and should not pay for such a transition. The concept of green jobs needs further interrogation and avoid green washing more neoliberal under development initiatives. There is therefore a need to more clearly define the objective of such a transition to collective ownerships and needs based production.

Whilst reliance on coal for instance will in time need to be phased out in the South careful planning and social accounting needs to be undertaken to ensure that workers are able to secure jobs in new areas of work created through state coordinated and led industrial policies underscored by social accounting and social security funded by global systems of taxation.

Just transition in Africa needs also to be accompanied by avoidance of eco protectionism by the North.

Market Mechanisms

Market Mechanisms for addressing Ecological debt and energy economy transformations will serve to deepen the hold of financial capital on the energy sector and act in opposition to the end of broad needs based economic development. It will further expose attempts at addressing the serious issue of environmental destruction to the vagarious of speculation and market instability.

Financial Capital and institutions of all kinds will need to be tackled to ensure equitable transformation, mitigation and adaptation.

4. Implementation

Strategic Levers: State utilities in Africa are key strategic levers in such a transition however it will be necessary to role back the wave of privatisation and commercialisation that has characterised these institutions over the last two decades. In their current form they can not play the role of building commons

Eskom, given its size and access to expertise needs to play a central role in such collaboration but will need to shed the culture of secrecy and competitiveness that has accompanied its commercialisation if the social goals of economic development and climate change are to be synergistically addressed.

History and more recent experiences of commercialisation on the continent have showed that state ownership is in itself no guarantee of development facilitation or conduct. Strong mechanisms of social accountability and transparency are necessary to achieve this. Having the same expectation of state companies as MNC type corporate social responsibility is simply setting the bar far too low.

Collective and localised forms of ownership and control are further key elements in developing accountability in a move to more socialised forms of production based on needs

Technology transfer and research and development need to be coordinated in this transformation. Global funding mechanisms need to be investigated in this regard but should not be market based as this will simply lead to further privatising of knowledge. Potential funding sources are discussed below.

Trade: South, South and particularly intra African trade collaboration as opposed to trade competition could further bolster the process of building a new energy economy and in turn transforming other elements of African productive capacity.

Science: The extent of research on the predicted impact and complex interactions of environmental systems at a localised level has been far less rigorous in Africa than the North. This knowledge is critical in developing adaptation and transition pathways and requires urgent financial support and capacity development. Such finance should form part of the ecological and socioeconomic debt however in the absence or inadequacy of such finance localised and south, south cooperative support should urgently bolster mobilisation of scientific engagement and knowledge transfer in the region. Given the vulnerabilities of Africa already noted by the IPCC and local scientists, of particular significance to adaptation is investigation into agriculture and food supply, water management and distribution and health impact and responses. 

Financing: It has been noted that after years of engagements around climate change in the current framework including the market mechanisms of carbon trading and the CDM has produced a woeful short fall in necessary financial flows to the developing world and most particularly to poorest countries.

At the same time the historical gap of pledged and actual ODA as well as unpredictable disbursements and flows tied to conditionalities indicates that such voluntary forms of transfer will not achieve the expected results.

The financial commitment of at least 1.5% of global GDP of developed countries (IPCC, 2007) is required, to support and enable adaptation and mitigation action in developing countries needs further attention as it is suspected that this enumeration is too conservative.

Various mechanisms need to be investigated to ensure adequate flows do in fact take place for financing adaptation addressing vulnerability to climate change and ensuring that technology leapfrogs allow for just transition to low carbon economy focused first on addressing human needs in the South.

Research and development as well as technological transfer funding needs to be adequately estimated and specific allocations determined and dispensed.

Such mechanisms could also include heavy users paying a more externalised cost reflective price for energy.

 Global and economic carbon based taxes that target intensive users and can be used to fund buffers to citizens from price volatilities that may be associated in such a move.

 A financial transaction tax at a global level is necessary to mobilise capital for adaptation and just transition from this set economic of activities that have limited benefit to the real economy and job creation.

 Progressive forces globally and particularly in the North must campaign to achieve demilitarisation further freeing up funds from such socially unnecessary forms of expenditure to support a just transition to new forms of energy and production /consumption relations.

 A reparations tax for global exploitation and degradation could act as both a source of mitigation and funding for a just transition.

 5. Way Forward

 Solidarity between labour in the North and South

Action and solidarity between North and South will be critical in advancing a climate change agenda that is premised on social justice and not narrow protectionist concerns.

Increasing government accountability to the citizenry in the North and South and less to corporate interests will be essential in attaining a global agreement based on equity and sustainable development. All progressive forces especially IMF affiliates are therefore encouraged to campaign to increase government accountability to the citizenry. This also implies improving the lives of people in the South and not simply attempting to support measures for adapting to uncertain climate impacts.

Large scale awareness raising and deepening working class discussions and participatory decision making at global, national, sector workplace and community level are essential processes in achieving such accountability and a true global consensus.

We need to expressly acknowledge the finite nature of the biosphere and champion the perspective globally that any system premised on compound and therefore geometric patterns of growth are inconsistent with the finite nature of our common home. It was also observed that research has suggested that this progression surpassed the global bio spherical balance point over three decades ago.

Timeframe

Globally we have 10-20 years to transform industrialized society. Given the long lead times associated with the development of energy infrastructure for example the urgency of action and adequate and appropriate industrial policy planning means there is effectively no room for error. To avert a further and deeper humanitarian crisis in Africa we have even less time to fundamentally transform the underdeveloped nature of African industrial development if there is to be any kind of resilience and adaptation to the impact of climate change that is already manifesting in floods, droughts and the spread of diseases such as malaria. This implies action has to commence immediately.

Despite these daunting tasks the behavioural challenges are much more daunting than the technological ones and will require concerted struggles and strong solidarity.

Follow Up

Further deliberations on climate change will be necessary and these should take place in the context of developing an industrial policy framework towards industrialisation in Africa that places needs and developments above markets and competition.