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Ecological problems are interwoven with the workings of capitalism and have been exacerbated by the dominance of neo-liberalism. The current economic crisis has to some extent weakened the political prominence of ongoing environmental crises. Possible concerted “green Keynesian” responses to the twin challenges of environment and economy appear set to remain in the political wilderness.
At the same time, alternative views on how to develop and maintain sustainable economies and societies continue to abound, ranging from specific local protagonism to sectoral proposals to systemic critiques. Papers presented in the Environment panels present a selection of these views, investigating various aspects of the current interface of environment and political economy in the areas of forests, agriculture, water, energy and climate change. They offer a variety of non-mainstream perspectives on the development of a progressive social transformation and ecological sustainability.
| AUTHOR(s) | TITLE & ABSTRACT |
| George Liodakis, Technical University of Crete | Considering Economic and Ecological Crisis from a Communist Perspective |
| Taking a Marxist methodological approach, this paper starts by arguing that the currently exacerbating economic and ecological crisis indicates a failure of both conventional approaches to sustainable development and all attempts (policies) aiming at eco-regulation and sustainability. Subsequently, and after a critical evaluation of O’Connor’s conception of ‘two contradictions’, an attempt will be made to articulate an ecologically informed interpretation of crisis. On these grounds, we will explore capital’s strategic response to crisis within the emerging new stage of capitalism, stressing in particular the significance of an expanding primitive accumulation of capital and arguing that this strategic response cannot actually ensure ecological and social sustainability, and more importantly the requirements of a socially acceptable human development. In an attempt to draw the ‘broad contours’ of an alternative, communist outlook in overcoming the (twin) crisis, we will more specifically examine the relation between tactical or partial reforms and a strategic transformation of society. It will be argued that such a strategy cannot but be based on a working class struggle aiming at a smashing of state power and capitalist sovereignty, combined with a revolutionary, even if occasionally stepwise, transformation of education, science, technology and production organization, advancing a new socialization of production and new forms of association in production and society at large. | |
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| Andriana Vlachou, Athens University of Economics and Business | Climate policy in times of economic crisis: the case of EU ETS |
| Emissions trading was successfully forged ahead by the USA during the Kyoto Protocol negotiations. Although the USA did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, emissions trading turned out to be the major instrument for global climate change policy. Indeed, the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), which is a “cap-and-trade” system, has become the pillar of the EU’s strategy for fighting climate change. The EU ETS was launched on 1 January 2005 and currently covers over 11,000 installations in the power sector and in energy-intensive industries which account for more than 40% of the EU’s total greenhouse gas emissions. The EU ETS constitutes a market approach to climate sustainability and is embedded in the workings of global capitalism. As global capitalism has entered into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the EU carbon market is also caught in the economic turmoil. From the standpoint of political economy, the paper investigates into the workings of the EU ETS scheme during the first trading period (2005-7) and into the adjustments made for the second trading period (2008-12), which coincides with the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. It also explores the current turmoil in the EU carbon market resulted from the present economic crisis. In particular, the EU ETS is assessed for its environmental effectiveness and justice. It is also inspected whether it can create incentives for investments in green energy technologies which are considered as a major developmental strategy for exiting the crisis and securing, at the same time, ecological sustainability. | |
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| AUTHOR(s) | TITLE & ABSTRACT |
| Charalampos Konstantinidis, Department of Economics - University of Massachusetts, Amherst | Rethinking Sustainability: Organic Farming and Rural Transformations in the EU |
| Since the 1992 MacSharry reforms, the European Union has modified its agricultural policy so as to include payments to farmers for the provision of environmental services and the preservation of nature. Among agri-environmental measures, payments to the farmers producing under organic methods constitute a major component of the Second Pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy, which explicitly focuses on Rural Development and has been increasing in significance over the last years. Organic production fulfils environmental demands by creating less pressure on the ecosystems because of its less intensive methods. It also satisfies consumer concerns around the quality of food and the implications for health, whereas it also suggests a positive development on the issue of animal welfare. This paper discusses the structural changes that are currently taking place due to these policies in the countrysides of various European countries. The question is being posed whether support for environment-friendly methods of production, such as organic farming, can counteract trends of urbanization and allow rural dwellers to make a sustainable living. Examining the ways communities have been affected by the policies points to the institutional forms, particularly with respect to farmers' associations, that exist in certain regions, as a crucial factor for the success or the failure of the stated policies. Furthermore, the distributional impact of these policies is being analyzed, as they signify transfers of surplus with significant consequences for different types of consumers and producers. Since in the present conjecture of economic crisis, the voices calling for a “Green Keynesianism” abound, this paper contributes to the discussion by illustrating the limitations and the potentially unjust implications of current policies that might serve as blueprints for future models of “green growth”. Additionally, it directs attention to the changes in social organization that would serve as necessary preconditions for a transition to a truly ecologically sustainable society. | |
| Sirisha C. Naidu, Wright State University | Fighting for Forests and the Environment: Contesting a Neoliberal Agenda in India |
| Forests and access to forests are extremely important to the livelihood security of some of the most marginalized people in India. In light of this, the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, which not only recognizes individual land rights, but also recognizes community rights to use, manage, and protect forest resources and stipulates conditions for relocation and rehabilitation from “critical wildlife habitations” may be viewed as a significant victory. This Act (henceforth referred to as the FRA), however, is not the result of the policies of a benevolent state but a manifestation of the struggles waged by forest dwellers through colonial and post-colonial periods; the promulgation of the FRA has, however, not signified the end of this struggle. This is evident from the efforts to undermine the legislation and silence FRA activities through coercion and violent force. Further, the FRA itself is open to a neoliberal interpretation and the implementation of an agenda beneficial for the ruling classes. In this paper, I argue that far from being a common phenomenon that has universally lost ground, neoliberalism has multiple and contradictory aspects. In the context of forest policies in India and especially the FRA, I investigate the spatially differentiated politico-economic phenomenon of neoliberalization, which has coopted the language of collective action and ‘community’ on the one hand, while on the other is strengthened by the morphing of a Nehruvian developmental state into a police state. Such neoliberal policies provide the fix required for a capitalism in crisis and without sufficient resistance, we are likely to witness not only dispossession but also pauperization of the working and peasant classes. | |
| Robin de la Motte, University of Manchester | El Proceso: the political ecology of the (peri)urban water sector in Venezuela |
| Local water committees in Venezuela’s urban and peri-urban areas are a key part of “El Proceso”. El Proceso (The Process) is the participatorily democratic process of political, social and economic transformation which constitutes both the ultimate aim of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, and its everyday implementation. This contradiction creates a dialectic in which El Proceso is constituted socially and politically through the everyday actions of ordinary Venezuelans, and in which it creates the conditions for its reproduction and expansion through those actions, not least by acting through and transforming the state. Thus a new political, social and economic reality emerges from the everyday practices of socio-political power, which are grounded in the historically and geographically situated social capital processes of Venezuela’s poorer communities. | |