International Socialism 152 Autumn 2016 Food, Agriculture and Climate Change - Martin Empson

Summary

Scientific evidence of the deepening environmental crisis is growing.1 Climate change is happening faster than scientific models had predicted. At the same time, despite rhetoric at the COP21 climate conference in Paris at the end of December 2015, we are seeing little, if any, action to reduce emissions. So it is not surprising that hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated during COP21. These protests were part of a reinvigorated and growing climate movement that used the opportunity presented by COP21 to return to the streets. In Britain, as well as elsewhere, this movement has brought together wide social forces, from environmental campaigners and NGOs, to trade unions and left wing organisations. The movement is increasingly taking up wider political demands and, with the popularity of the slogan “System Change not Climate Change”, it bears a striking resemblance to the anti-capitalist movement of the early 2000s. Within the movement important debates are being raised about what needs to be done. The dominant tone of these discussions is left wing, epitomised by the popularity of Naomi Klein’s book This Changes Everything: Capitalism Versus the Climate.2 The book is in part a product of the environmental movement, ­particularly what she calls “Blockadia”, movements that have emerged out of resistance to attempts by fossil fuel corporations to build pipelines, extract shale gas and exploit tar sands. The book has also helped shape the movement itself, leading to debates among activists about the nature of capitalism and its fossil fuel imperative.