Nina-Bytes: Genocidal Promises on a Boiling Planet

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

The Big Lie Known as 'Net Zero' Will Lead Us to Climate Disaster

Well, it's safe to say that Greta warned us it would end this way. So it comes to pass that COP26 in Glasgow, an international climate conference hailed by its participants as our "last, best hope" to prevent climate apocalypse has drawn to a close; not with the promise of a future for humanity, but with a guttural howl of thinly-concealed violence. As I mentioned this morning over on Instagram, the summit has produced a carbon reduction agreement that neither does enough to stop millions from dying on a boiling planet, nor provides financial assistance in dealing with climate crisis for those on the front lines in the Global South. This is, to put it bluntly, a plan to commit genocide on behalf of capitalist and the ruling capitalist order; not that you should expect the bootlicking media in the Pig Empire to report it as such.

For a sense of what corporate media is not telling you, let's turn to this November 11th, 2021 report by environmental journalist Tina Gerhardt, helpfully reprinted over on Common Dreams. First up, our governments have collectively promised to undertake actions designed to keep the global temperature increase to 1.8 or 1.9 degrees Celsius; which would be fine I guess, except we already know anything over 1.5 degrees Celsius will kill millions. Not that this half a degree matters much, because as our author notes, those pledges are based on faulty data and the targets will at best keep temperature increases at a whopping 2.7 degrees Celsius. Which might be enough to kill billions all by itself; without even considering knock on effects.

Wait; it gets worse because, as it turns out almost none of the richest countries in the Pig Empire actually intend to reduce their carbon emissions to anywhere near zero. Indeed, most nations in the imperial core are promising merely to employ a number of dubiously scalable methods to "offset" their carbon emissions; a bit of creative, but wholly deceptive accounting known in wonk circles as "net zero carbon emissions." Does that have a hope in hell of working? Not even remotely, as Gerhardt notes in the article:

"There simply is not enough land and trees in the world to soak up the emissions of big polluters and northern governments. For these reasons, organizations ranging from Friends of the Earth to Indigenous Environmental Network, from Power Shift Africa to the Third World Network and many others, are calling for "Real Solutions Not 'Net Zero," and satirists like Australia's The Juice are directly mocking net zero as a fantasy."

Finally of course, there's the fact that most of the wealthy, heavy polluter nations in the Pig Empire aren't promising to cut carbon emissions now, but by 2050, or even in some cases 2060. How does that jibe with prior reports that we have until about 2030 to slash carbon emissions in half before we tip over into an unavoidable climate apocalypse? Surprise, it doesn't! These mad bastards are just hoping you forgot, and thus won't realize they're approaching climate catastrophe like schoolchildren putting off their essays until the night before they're due. And really, why shouldn't they? It's not like the media is going to call them out on it; and almost everyone at COP26 will be well into retirement by the time the clock strikes doomsday. 

In other words, it is no exaggeration at all to say that the "wisest" leaders of the Pig Empire just got together to craft an international pledge, to commit genocide, rather than surrender capitalism and fossil fuel profits. Let me know the next time you hear about that on the evening news.

nina illingworth

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

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“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”