Conference of the Polluters? Feminist critique of climate politics

March for Clima and Social Justice

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“Who is more committed to tackling climate change than us?”, asks Marcin Korolec, Polish minister of the environment in an interview for BusinessGreen of July 2013. To make the point he cites an example of the biggest wood biomass plantation in Europe (the project of two American corporations, International Paper and GreenWood Resources. Until now, Paper International was buying timber from Polish Forests. Not only forests are on fire. The project will lease 10 000 hectare land from local farmers. Green jobs (the flagship project of green economy) in food production will be lost to create green jobs in industrial biomass plantation, ostensibly with the goal to reduce dependence on coal and emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and replace it with renewables, and move to low emissions economy. These are the proclaimed goals of climate policies. The implementation of these policies is based on three kinds of free gifts or rewards to companies, including the biggest polluters to encourage them to reduce emissions.The first pillar of these policies are direct subsidies, non-returnable grants, and tax exemptions. In the new financial perspective 20 % of EU budget is to be allocated for ”climate mainstreaming”. Public funding to stabilize the climate will create new markets. The second type of free gifts to the biggest polluters of the atmosphere are permits to pollute up to an agreed upon cap, and credits to help them meet the cap. If the company's CO2 emissions exceed the cap, then it has to buy permits from others who have achieved reductions of emissions. So far the polluters have been getting permits to pollute for free. In addition to permits, the emitters get tradeable certificates for energy efficiency, cogeneration, and renewables.

The system is based on the faith in market equilibrium, and on the economic theory of the right to pollute which assumes that competition on pollution permits market will lead to the optimalization of the costs of dealing with pollution, and eventually will lead to reduction of discharges to the environment. It looks great in theory but so much the worse for reality.

From a legal point of view the permits to pollute and eco-certificates are corporate property rights. Effectively, they are the rights to the air we breathe. To make profits on polluting the atmosphere and also on saving the climate is the corporate dream come true. This is precisely what new climate policy, including European Emissions Trading Scheme, described above, offers to corporations since 2005.

To make it easier for states and corporations to meet the caps on pollution, Kyoto protocol (1997) introduced the system of credits, or offsets in climate jargon, such as Clean Development Mechanism, and its spin-off programs. To explain how it works: a polluter from the US or the Netherlands can acquire land for instance in Tanzania, plant eucalyptus trees, and use it as an offset against pollutions in the country of origin. This enables them to meet the caps, refrain from reducing emissions, continue business as usual and make extra profit on trading credits and permits. (On the social costs of these arrangements see Ana Isla on selling sex and oxygen in Costa Rica.). As the authors of the Carbon Watch report point out, thanks to the offset system European Union can meet 2020 emission reduction targets without taking any action in member countries.

The third type of advantages to corporations, banks and financial firms are the markets to trade in pollution permits created with the visible hand of state and international organizations. For the second ETS phase (2008-2012) Point Carbon and WWF estimated the revenue of energy corporations was in the range from 23 to 73 bn euro. The emissions permits and other eco-certification schemes open up new lucrative possibilities for material profits from virtual products.

Let's take the example of Dalkia Łódź that has recently obtained emissions permits in return for investment in the modernization of the distribution infrastructure at 6 streets in Łódź. The costs of investment, as well as the estimated costs of eco-certificates are included in the end users energy bills, while the company profits in multiple ways: reducing delivery costs, minimizing its tax base, enhancing its assets, and generating profits from creative accounting. Eventually Dalkia can also generate new sizable income from trading in permits (rights to pollute) that it has received for free.

Therefore it is not surprising that Dalkia, as well as many other companies covered under EU ETS scheme and the organizations that represent them, including Polish Confederation of Private Employers Leviathan or GreenEffort Group and similar organizations worldwide develop media campaigns and play the game of a good and a bad cop to ensure the sustainability of these arrangements.

To make the new markets in trading emissions permits possible, a huge new public-private climate change industry emerged. This includes experts in management of environmental resources, economists, lawyers, accountants, experts in financial engineering, bankers, experts in emission trading and eco-certification who calculate, valorize and verify emissions and offsets, and create, certify, account and trade new virtual products. The production and trade in permits and ecocertificates opens up new possibilities to speculate on nature. For financial markets, water, air, and biodiversity appear as a new frontier, „a nobody's land” to develop for profit, this time by way of new financial engineering. The Boell foundation report (Verolme et al, 2013) concludes that climate politics has been captured by the financial-energy complex.

The EU ETS will continue with the snow ball effect until it is melted down by the global warming - unless „a reset of climate policy” takes place. The discourse of global and Polish decision makers, including Polish environment minister Korolec, indicates that such a reset will indeed take place. However, what they have in mind is not necessarily ETS reform or its abandonment, but the globalization of emission trading.

Polish climate politics: economic nationalism and globalization of emission trading

In Poland, the decision makers would not have been bothered with environmental policy if not for the requirements to conform with the EU Directives and if not for the funding that flows from the EU budget for environmental investment. In 1992, at the Earth Summit in Rio, Polish minister for the environment explained that Poland has to get rich first and only then it will take care of the environment. This is still the position of decision makers today.

After the crisis of 2008, the inflow of foreign investment dried up and Polish government modified the national development strategy launched in 2009 with the goal for Poland to become a world leading economic power by 2030. With the change of plans, the previous rhetoric of harmonizing climate and energy policies by way of investment in new technologies for extraction and combustion of coal, in renewables, energy efficiency and in nuclear energy went into political disuse.

In the National Plan for Transition to Low Emissions Economy of 2011, protection of the environment has been framed as maximizing environmental utility. In the national development strategy modified by the government in 2013, energy security was redefined as „provision of optimal volume of energy at the lowest possible costs and diversification of sources”. ”The future of Poland and Europe depends on coal”, said prime minister Donald Tusk at his party convention this year. “We will spend on the renewable only what’s necessary to protect the environment and ensure proper energy mix, but nothing more. We will not pull wool over people's eyes that windmills and solar batteries can ensure future energy supply for Poland... Our energy sources will be Polish energy sources that will ensure Polish energy independence for many years to come”. Polish energy sources include coal, gas, shale gas (the new El Dorado) and nuclear energy with a new fad, local nuclear power plants for cogeneration of energy and heat. This statement by Donald Tusk comes in the context of revival of national security discourse in Poland that provides a common frame for different segments of the political elite which has been governing the neverending neoliberal transformation. (There is still a lot to privatize...) In the national security framework, energy security was linked with demographic security (the increase in the fertility of Polish women), as well as military and economic security.

Politicians of the governing coalition are playing a piece for two hands. In an interview of July this year, minister for the economy, Janusz Piechocinski, calls for renegotiating the Climate Pact to modify the indicators for the new EU member states. He is supported by Polish energy and heavy industry.

And the media underscore that Polish economy will pay a steep price for climate change policy. However, in the second ETS phase Poland has earned 800 million zlotys from the so called hot air (reduction of emissions which were not due to material efficiency gains, but to the downturn in economic growth and hence lower emissions). Energy firms based in Poland will be granted rights to pollute for free in big installations until 2019, while in the „old EU”, starting from 2013, free distribution of permits will be phased out and replaced with the auction system. These relative gains are not taken into account in public debate. But the interventions are useful to maximize the scope for negotiation with the Commission.

In turn, the minister for the environment is engaged in the critique of differential global allocation of responsibilities for mitigating climate change. (In Kyoto only developed countries committed themselves to reduce emission volumes by 6 %). Therefore, he is calling for a new global climate pact. But in the background of such statements are the World Bank projects that introduce new institutional arrangements that pave way for globalizing trade in pollution permits (EU ETS model).

NGOs in the market framework of climate politics

The majority of Polish NGOs is either evangelizing the climate policies forged in Kyoto and Brussels in the frame of „bad” Polish government and coal industry versus „good” EU climate policy (Climate Coalition) - or find a niche in promoting renewable energy. The NGOs such as the Green Institute or the Spaces for Dialogue Foundation engage in the production of lyrical narratives on green city, energy democracy, or depliticised new green deal. The documents occasionally refer to neoliberalism, but the way they conceptualize responses to neoliberalism always draws on the very set of concepts that they claim to criticize, such as creative capital, education referenced to Europe 2020 strategy, which entails marketization of teaching and research in the name of enhancing competitiveness. They demand flexicurity, internalize reframing of social rights as services, or advocate eco-innovation as the solution to capitalist exploitation of workers and nature in the otherwise postmodern critique of capitalism.

These reports envisage photovoltaics at every rooftop of the green city of their dreams, but they do not see people who cannot afford to install the new green gadgets. There is a call for reconciling work with family roles and to share care work in the households. But there are no women who seek cleaning jobs in other women's homes for meager remuneration. 40% of all Polish households that live from hand to mouth on income that does not allow to meet basic needs are excluded from the green city.

The same national security frames are reproduced through academic discourse on climate change which includes descriptive presentations of policy process or is evangelizing EU ETS. For instance, in the legal interpretation of Polish emission trading law, dr Leszek Karski is presenting the techno-fiscaljuridical instrument of emission trading as examplary case of global human rights law, one that serves humanity and social development, guarantees realization of human rights of current and future generations. The author finds emission trading scheme will deliver world peace, because it allocates a part of atmosphere to business in a peaceful manner, and hence prevents global wars over resources. No doubt this rhetoric will come useful to legitimate the establishment of global market for emission trading.

To conclude, Polish debate on climate follows the repertoire from Kyoto and Brussels (new technologies, renewables, cap and trade). Hardly anybody wants to see „the emperor without his clothes”. The critique of policies that privatize nature is not taken on board, and neither is the critique of neoliberalization of social policy. The questions as who profits from polluting and „saving” the atmosphere, and who pays for both, are not asked.

In all EU countries, energy providers have two price lists, one with higher prices for households, and the second one with lower prices for firms. In Poland, households pay for energy almost twice as much as firms (see www.energy.eu). This pricing arrangement is secured by the Office for Regulation of Energy which legislates that the end user should pay for the protection of the environment. Households pay for energy costs embodied in products and services, too. However, unlike any other public discourse in Poland, climate policy has generated an avalanche of reports and statements by politicians, domestic and international think tanks, and corporations, expressing concern about consequences of climate policies for low income households. This caring image is useful to disguise who benefits and who pays for marketized climate policy.

A new narrative

The Heinrich Boell Foundation report assessing the state of climate policy calls for a reset and a new narrative. This call is addressed to NGOs. In Poland, one of the conditions of the possibility for a new narrative on climate to emerge is the deconstruction of neoliberal normativity, in its many faces (left and conservative), and at different points of deployment, in social, environmental education, health, communal policies at the same time.

hat we call climate is a multiciplicity of (class based, gendered, racialized) relations between people and the air we breathe that are increasingly mediated by the relations of capital. If it is possible to delineate the visible horizon for a new emancipatory political project, then the dream should translate into the project of building new commons as the project of becoming. The bricks for such project are shared frameworks of sense, knowledge resources, as well as networks of relations among social movements engaged in struggles over workers rights, in defence of rights of human beings and nature, women's rights, tenants’ rights. The new narrative that integrates nature and care and accepts them as commons, can only come through building relations in struggle, in socialecological conflicts, within struggles related to the care economy (which includes relations with nature). Taking the perspective of reproduction of daily life, people need nature and nurture to live, and institutions that will sustain social relations of mutuality. To live people need means to reproduce their own daily life and their dependents. All means of livelihood, even those perceived as immaterial labour, are mediated through relations with nature.

In modern European cultures, the duty to care was allocated to women. Reproductive work, whether carried out at home or for the state or market, was unremunerated or low paid. Emotional and material reproductive work constitutes the foundation of state and market – as well as the foundation of the commons. Without it the state would not have its taxpayers, the firms their workers and consumers. Beginning from the 1980s., at a different pace and with local specificities, in all countries of Europe care economy was being marketized. Health care, education, pensions, housing, cities and the state have been transformed to function accordingly to the logic of the market, analogically to the climate policies described above. Likewise, the market expansion transformed the internet commons. The new narrative cannot focus on climate policy as such, it has to connect different struggles where the main political stake is our life.

Published in Feminist Think Tank insert to Green News, special issue for COP 19, November 2013
The longer version is available at www.ekologiasztuka.pl