The assumption is that mandatory cuts–reductions of at least 150-200 percent on the part of the global North– must be market-based, that is, on the trading of emission permits.
The subtext is: Techno-fixes and the carbon market will make the transition relatively painless and—why not?—profitable, too.
The central problem, it is becoming increasingly clear, is a mode of production whose main dynamic is the transformation of living nature into dead commodities, creating tremendous waste in the process. The driver of this process is consumption—or more appropriately, overconsumption—and the motivation is profit or capital accumulation: capitalism, in short.
There will be a break with the high-growth, high-consumption model in favor of another model of achieving the common welfare. The North and the South must reduce growth and energy use while raising the quality of life of the broad masses of people.
Among other things, this will mean placing economic justice and equality at the center of the new paradigm.
The end-goal must be adoption of a low-consumption, low-growth, high-equity development model that results in an improvement in people’s welfare, a better quality of life for all, and greater democratic control of production.
It is unlikely that the elites of the North and the South will agree to such a comprehensive response. The farthest they are likely to go is for techno-fixes and a market-based cap-and-trade system. Growth will be sacrosanct, as will the system of global capitalism.
However it is achieved, a thorough reorganization of production, consumption and distribution will be the end result of humanity’s response to the climate emergency and the broader environmental crisis.
In this regard, climate change is both a threat and an opportunity to bring about the long-postponed social and economic reforms that had been derailed or sabotaged in previous eras by the elite seeking to preserve or increase their privileges.
The difference is that today the very existence of humanity and the planet depend on the institutionalization of economic systems based not on feudal rent extraction or capital accumulation or class exploitation, but on justice and equality.
Will capitalism as a system of production, consumption and distribution survive the challenge of coming up with an effective solution to the climate crisis?
A mixed economy will have to dominate over the current market economy. Our future reality might be defined by eco-socialism, but certainly aspects of both Socialism and Communism.
