Bolivia's Pablo Solon on Why the Green Economy is a wrong path to restore the equilibrium with nature and what alternatives do we have?

Pablo Solon

Twenty years after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992, the environmental crisis continues to worsen. The unsustainable development model that gained dominance in the world resulted to grave loss of biodiversity, melting of polar ice caps and mountain glaciers, alarming increase in deforestation and desertification and the looming danger of an at least 4ºC increase in temperature, which will threaten life as we know it. Science is saying that we are approaching a point of no return that will change the way our planet has behaved over 650,000 years”

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio + 20) that will take place in Rio de Janeiro this coming June is expected by many   to be a milestone opportunity to address the issue of the restoration of the equilibrium of the Earth’s system. But instead of moving the world towards a just and sustainable path, the document that is being negotiated for adoption in June is promoting new market mechanisms for the commodification and financialization of nature, life and ecosystem services under the mirage of  a “Green Economy”

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) developed the concept of “Green Economy” on the argument that the recurring energy, climate, environmental, food and financial crises are results of “gross misallocation of capital.” The UNEP analysis does not acknowledge the problems inherent in treating nature as capital, which has led to the hyper-exploitation of the Earth’s resources and further expanded the already severe inequalities between and within nations, and among societies and peoples.

Promoters of the Green Economy consider it essential (and normal) to put a price on the free services that plants, animals and ecosystems provide for the conservation of biodiversity, water purification, pollination of plants, the protection of coral reefs and regulation of the climate. For the Green Economy to work, it is necessary to identify the specific functions of ecosystems and biodiversity and assign them monetary values, evaluate their current status, set a limit after which they will cease to provide services, and put a price on the cost of their conservation in order to develop a market for each particular environmental service. The architects of Green Economy believe that the instruments of the market are powerful tools for managing the “economic invisibility of nature.”

Since the publication of “Our Common Future,” or the UN Brundtland Report in 1987, policy makers have subscribed to the idea that a healthy environment and economic growth should be mutually supportive of each other.  In practice, however, over the past two decades, governments have tended to prioritize economic growth over the environment and emphasized business interests and market mechanisms in their elaborations of sustainable development.

One example of how the Green Economy is being put in practice is the initiative known as REDD (Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and Forest Degradation), which consists of isolating and measuring the natural capacity of a living forest to capture and store carbon dioxide, and predicting that the future intentions of the forest users / forest owners are to deforest that area, in order to issue certificates for “reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from avoided deforestation”. These certificates are expected to be traded in a variety of primary and derivatives markets, largely benefiting intermediaries, and yet even now there are signs that the complexity and non-transparent nature of these transactions could eventually bring about its own carbon market crash.

Nonetheless, the scheme is designed so that these certificates can be commercialized and acquired by companies in developed countries that cannot meet their climate mitigation commitments. Rather than reduce the excess carbon in the atmosphere, therefore, this “green market mechanism” at best allows pollution to continue to be emitted elsewhere. This is the essence of carbon trading.  At worst, REDD runs risks of increasing overall carbon emissions, as accounting errors and falsehoods or relocated deforestation can be expected to release a steady stream of emissions, somewhere beyond the sight of the carbon credit buyers.

Despite the efforts of proponents to promote REDD+ as a viable forest conservation and climate change mitigation strategy, and the growing emphasis on putting safeguards and mechanisms to guarantee rights of indigenous peoples, many communities are concerned that REDD will cause further erosion of rights of indigenous peoples as well as other local communities over forest use, conservation and management.

Thus, REDD market mechanism, regardless of how inherently volatile and unstable it proves to be, will permit developed countries more time to continue polluting the world, while they are allowed to buy new forms of control over resources that rightfully should be in the custody of the peoples of the South. REDD illustrates many of the problems that are artificially created within carbon trading schemes. Other initiatives proposed under the paradigm of a Green Economy include the privatization of water, a push for agro-industrial business operations despite alarming impoverishment of small farmers channeled into these large-scale operations, the development of genetically modified organisms and geo-engineering amongst others.

A New Path for a Different, Better Future

The ideas of the first Rio conference and the false solutions adopted and strengthened over the last twenty years have not been able to abate the social-economic and environmental problems that continue to plague humanity and nature in this century. In order to stop the new offensive for the commodification and privatization of nature it is necessary to strengthen and articulate all the struggles in the world and in our region in defense of the commons.

Instead of putting a price on Nature we need to recognize that humans are part of Nature and that Nature is not a thing or mere supplier of resources. The Earth is a living system, it is our home and a community of interdependent beings and parts of one whole system. Nature has rules that govern its integrity, interrelationships, reproduction and transformation. In Rio+20 governments should recognize, respect and make sure that the rules of nature prevail.

Instead of applying the market rules to Nature what we need is to forge a new system based on the principles of:

• peace, harmony and balance among all and with all things;
• complementarity, solidarity, equality and social and environmental justice;
• collective well-being and the satisfaction of the basic necessities of all;
• recognition of human beings for what they are, not what they own;
• elimination of all forms of colonialism, imperialism and interventionism;

We cannot keep promoting such destructive model of development that does not acknowledge the planetary limits of economic growth

New technologies should not mean limitless, reckless economic growth propelled only by capitalist motives. Scientific advances, under some circumstances, can contribute to resolve certain problems of development but cannot ignore the natural limits of the Earth system.

All countries need to produce the goods and services necessary to satisfy the fundamental needs of their populations, but by no means can they continue to tread the path of development that has led the richest countries to have an ecological footprint five times bigger than what the planet is able to support. Currently, the regenerative capacity of the planet has already exceeded more than forty percent. If this pace of over-exploitation of our Mother Earth continues, we will need two planets by the year 2030.

In an interdependent system in which human beings are only one component of the whole, it is not possible to only recognize the rights of the human part without instigating an imbalance in the system. To guarantee human rights and to restore harmony with nature, it is necessary to effectively recognize and apply the rights of Nature.

We have to end the system of wasteful and luxury-oriented consumption that privileges the elite. Developed countries must change their unsustainable patterns of production and consumption through public policies, regulations, as well as conscious and active participation of society, particularly the marginalized sections, to address the grave inequities and inequalities in resource use and access within societies and between nations.

States must guarantee the human right to water, education, health, communication, transportation, energy and sanitation. The provision of these services should be essentially public and based on efficient social management, not private business. The principal goal should be common wellbeing and not merely private profit, in order to ensure that these services reach the poorest and most marginalized sectors in an equitable manner. It is necessary to ensure the right to proper nutrition by strengthening food sovereignty policies and not by promoting agri- businesses.

Under the framework of common but differentiated responsibilities established in the 1992 Rio Declaration, the so-called developed countries must assume and pay their historical ecological debt for having contributed the most to the deterioration of the Earth system. The payment of this ecological debt by developed countries to developing countries and the sectors most affected among their own populations should replace to the greatest possible degree the ecological damage done. Developed countries should transfer financial resources from public sources and also socially and ecologically appropriate technologies required by sovereign developing countries.

Rich and developed countries must not impose trade agreements on poor and developing countries that contribute to further exploitation and degradation of nature in the latter.

The enormous resources dedicated to defense, security and war budgets by developed countries should be reduced. These resources should instead be used to address the effects of climate change and the imbalance with nature. It is inexcusable that 1.5 trillion dollars in public funding are used on these activities, while just 100 billion US dollars from public, private funds and market sources are dedicated to address the impacts of climate change in developing countries.

A financial transaction tax should be created to help build a Sustainable Development Fund to attend to the sustainable development challenges faced by developing countries. This financing mechanism should generate new, stable and additional resources for developing countries and must be managed with utmost transparency and participation by citizens and not be left to international financial institutions that refuses to change their development framework and operations

Intellectual property rights over genes, microorganisms and other forms of life are a threat to food sovereignty, biodiversity, access to medicine and other elements that are essential for the survival of low-income populations. All forms of intellectual property over life should be abolished.
The collective global response that is needed to confront the crisis we face requires structural changes. We must change the capitalist system, not the Earth system.

Republished from Focus on the Global South

Bolivia nationalises power company on May Day

Federico Fuentes

Bolivian President Evo Morales once again used the opportunity of May 1, the international workers’ day, to announce his left-wing government's latest nationalisation. This time, it was the turn of Transportadora de Electridad (TDE), a subsidiary of the Spanish-owned Red Electrica de Espana (REE), which controlled Bolivia’s national electricity transmission grid.

The nationalisation was another step towards meeting the long-standing demand of the Bolivian people to return privatised companies to state hands.

It was also implemented in line with the new constitution, approved by the people in 2009. The constitution states that all Bolivians have the right to access basic services and grants the state the ability to intervene into any strategic sector of the economy in order to ensure the peoples’ quality of life.

In 1997, Bolivia’s state-owned electricity transmission company was privatised as part of the neoliberal offensive to auction off the nation’s private assets to foreign transnationals.

The Spanish-owned Union Fenosa bought the company for US$39.9 millio. But within six months it had reassessed the value of the company at $74 million dollars, despite not a single extra dollar being invested in the company.

In 2002, REE purchased the company for $88.3 million and proceeded to rake in profits while bringing little benefits to Bolivia’s population. This included the failure to incorporate one-third of Bolivia’s departments (states), which were excluded from the national electricity grid.

Despite investing as little as $2.8 million in 2010, REE generate some $60 million in revenue in 2011.
In comparison, the Morales government has invested more than $200 million into the electricity sector. This has enabled the integration of the department of Beni into the national grid, with Tarija’s incorporation soon to be completed.

This leaves Pando as the final link towards establishing a comprehensive national grid.

During the ceremony to announce the nationalisation, the Minister of Hydrocarbons and Energy Juan Jose Sosa stated that the government was committed to investing a further $200 million in transmission projects over the next two years to ensure that the national grid would incorporate all nine departments.

This latest nationalisation follows on from that of three electricity generation companies in 2010. All these previously privately owned companies are once again under the control of the state-owned Empresa Nacional de Electricidad (ENDE).

It is also in line with other nationalisations such as those carried out in the area of gas, oil and telecommunications, that have sought to return natural resources and strategic sectors of the economy into state hands.

These moves have been fundamental to explaining three key changes that have occurred in Bolivia.
Firstly, the rise in government revenue generated through state greater control has underpinned the dramatic shift of wealth towards the poor majority.

As a result, the level of poverty had fallen from 60% in 2005 to 49.6% in 2010. The gap between the richest 10% and poorest 10% shrunk from 128 times more wealth to 60 times.

Secondly, the state-owned companies have been reorientated away from pursuing profit towards ensuring Bolivians have greater access to basic services. In the electricity sector this has meant the percentage of rural households with access to electricity has jumped from 20% to 50%.

Finally, greater state control and higher revenue has allowed the government to go beyond simply meeting short-term needs and starting to implement a long-term plan that seeks to place people and the environment first.

The electricity sector is a good example. Despite sitting upon Latin America’s second-largest gas reserves, the Bolivian government has set itself the objective of meeting 75% of the populations electricity needs through alternative energy sources by 2015.

Already in place are more than 40,000 photovoltaic systems providing solar energy to small rural communities and more than 60 small-scale hydroelectric dams.

In April, Vice-Minister for Electricity and Alternative Energies Miguel Fernandez announced that a further S$40 million would be ploughed in solar, wind, geothermal, small-scale hydro and biomass electricity initiatives throughout the next three years in order to make this goal a reality.

Republished from Green Left Weekly

Why should Europeans pay attention to Bolivia?

Kepa Artaraz

Earlier this week Spain’s credit rating was downgraded yet again, reigniting fears that the Eurozone crisis that never left might in fact accentuate and force the fourth biggest economy in the Euro to go cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout. 

Ever since the Lehman Brothers bank went belly-up in 2008, signalling the beginning of the biggest global financial crisis since the collapse of Wall Street in 1929, there have been fears of a disorderly breakup of the European monetary union and of an unprecedented economic catastrophe.

Cue in, the international financial institutional architecture, mobilised, along with national banks. They have effectively ‘nationalised’ the bad debts incurred by private investors in a weakly regulated banking sector and transferred these to the balance sheets of sovereign states. As if magic, we are all now in this together and what was once private debt is now everyone’s debt.

The IMF might have changed a lot since the 1980s when it acted as the exporter of the neoliberal ‘shock doctrine’ to indebted countries like Bolivia.[1] It might even have come to realise that employment, equality and social justice lie at the heart of any project of economic recovery.[2] And yet, the austerity medicine being dished out is the same as it was then, austerity that results in falling salaries, reduced pensions, cut welfare services and unemployment for increasingly impoverished masses.

Some have argued that neoliberalism is dead precisely because the taxpayer has had to rescue the banking system.[3] In fact, the paradox is that a financial crisis created by neoliberalism is being ‘solved’ by deepening its reach and privatising the remaining bastions of the welfare state.

The current financial crisis might have different origins to the one that afflicted Latin America in the 1980s but its results in the form of sovereign debt and conditionality-driven ‘rescue’ plans look startlingly similar. As the social pain increases, what are the populations of Greece – or Spain for that matter – meant to do? Venting their anger through the ballot box offers little reassurance since all mainstream political parties are wedded to operating within the same system. Are we forever condemned to the dictatorship of the market?[4]

Not necessarily. The last four years in Europe have seen a certain democratic rebirth in the form of citizen movements that would have been unthinkable only a decade ago.  From Spain’s indignados (the indignant) to Greece’s aganaktismenoi (the outraged), to the growing numbers in the ‘occupy’ movement, spontaneous civil society movements unattached to existing political parties are starting to find their voice and demand the right to play a part in the creation of alternative societies.[5]

Given the lack of apparent grand, alternative narratives to neoliberalism, we are forced to look for the budding, small scale alternatives that are growing around us. Bolivia, where resistance to the social suffering caused by the neoliberal revolution began in the 1990s, can provide a few useful lessons and visions of what the future might hold for us. For, in the process of implementing popular responses to neoliberalism’s worst excesses, Bolivia and other Latin American countries have had a head start that is decades long. [6]

It is a well established position in the literature that, by the end of the 1980s, the levels of human suffering being dished out by neoliberalism in Bolivia led to popular discontent, effectively sowing the seeds towards grassroots mobilisation in favour of the current process of change.[7]

At the same period of time following the return to democracy, a crisis of what Bolivians have referred to as ‘partidocracy’ took hold of political institutions that, mired in corruption, were unable to represent and channel social demands. Once the masses reached the conclusion that political parties were in fact part of the problem and liberal democracy became a byword for illegitimate rule by the few, a new set of political actors stepped into the void to create new democratic spaces.[8]

Trade unions, the unquestioned political actor in their opposition to military governments had been decimated by the neoliberal revolution and by decree 21060. The political vacuum left by their loss of influence was filled the social movements. In this way, social movements became the historic agent for the refoundation of Bolivia, acting beyond simple opposition to provide alternative visions to the existing hegemonic model of politics as representative democracy; society, in the form of a society that excluded a majority of its indigenous citizens; and economy, as represented by the neoliberal order.[9]

Civil society represents the reconstitution of the collective political activity of Bolivian society and every sector of society was incorporated to become part of a process of change that began with the emancipation of indigenous peoples and their constitution as political actors. The indigenous marches of 1990 and 2002 were key milestones in this process and have been most clearly associated with the demand for a constitutional assembly.[10] This became most clearly articulated at times of national crises and popular uprisings that had common roots against the privatisation of natural resources – as was the case with water and gas in Cochabamba and El Alto during the crises of 2000 and 2003.[11]

These crises led the Bolivian population to accept indigenous demands for a constitutional assembly, a process of debate and deliberation that incorporated every sector of society, with the mandate to write a new constitution. Thus, during a process of national crisis brought to a head by the dual economic and political failings of neoliberalism, the constitutional assembly was presented as the mechanism that could deliver a resolution to this crisis by creating a roadmap for a new Bolivia on the basis of new sets of values and purpose.[12]

The story of Bolivia’s political change since then is one of miracles and frustrations in equal measure. Who in 2000 would have thought that an indigenous coca grower could become President five years later? Who could have predicted that by 2010 the traditional political parties would have all but been obliterated from the new plurinational assembly?

In spite of its limitations, Bolivia’s constitutional assembly constitutes a unique democratic experiment. The final text promises to change the country’s political sphere, by introducing a range of levels of decentralisation and a new relationship between the social movements and the state. It also redefines the relationship between the individual and the state, re-establishing the role of the state in guaranteeing social protections, integrating excluded majorities, and incorporating their traditional forms of knowledge.[13]

The constitution also proposes to regain for the state a dominant role in the country’s economic steerage whilst incorporating a plurality of forms of economic practice and property ownership that suggest the possibility of a future post-neoliberal paradigm.[14] Finally, the constitution also denounces imperialism and promises to redefine international relations, accepting the existence of interdependencies between regions and countries – just as between individuals – and building on these interdependencies through values of solidarity to deliver better futures for all. ALBA represents this collaborative experiment and a glimpse, perhaps, that better worlds are possible.

Whilst the new constitution was written and eventually approved by the Bolivian people, the political process before, during and after the production of the constitutional document provided a glimpse of the difficulties involved in renegotiating national values and power relations in a highly divided society. The 2008 political crisis following the Porvenir massacre has been followed by the current malaise that erupted with government plans to build a road through the TIPNIS national park. In between lie accusations of top level political corruption, a government that is too cosy with multinational corporations and, in spite of its anti-neoliberal and climate change rhetoric in the global stage, unable to think of development in ways that go beyond the extractivist model.

What then, is left of Bolivia as a ‘resistance movement and counter hegemonic project’ in the Latin American Region?[15] Does Bolivia in any way show European countries an image of their own future? In spite of noticeable progress in economic growth, poverty and inequality reduction and the introduction of a basic social safety net, the jury is still out on the long term potential of the current Bolivian constitution to deliver its promise in the context of long-term social cleavages. On the other hand, Bolivia’s ability to deliver political renewal and new leaderships through a healthy civil society is perhaps the best guarantee that the process of change will not become stagnant in the near future. The biggest legacy from Bolivia’s resistance to neoliberalism lies precisely in the possibilities offered by this kind of politics to give people the right to make their own decisions and commit their own mistakes.

Kepa Artaraz is lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Brighton. His book, Bolivia: Refounding the Nation, was published by Pluto in April 2012.

Notes

 

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[1] Klein, N. (2007) The shock doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism. London: Allen Lane.

[2] Stiglitz, J.(2011) The IMF’s change of heart. Al Jazeera, 7 May 2011. Available on http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115712428956842.html [Accessed 19 May 2011].

[3] Mason, P. (2009) Meltdown: The end of the age of greed. Verso: London.

[4] Younge, G. (2001) Democracy is no match for market power. Guardian Weekly, 08.07.11, pg 19.

[5] Douzinas, C. (2011) In Greece, democracy is born. Guardian Weekly, 24.06.11, pg 20. See also Carrión, M. (2011) Camp Sol: Spain’s ‘indignant’ give lessons in true democracy. Available on http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2011/06/camp-sol-spains-indignant-give-lessons-true-democracy [Accessed 4 June 2011].

[6] Arze, C. and Kruse, T. (2004) The Consequences of Neoliberal Reform. NACLA Report on the Americas 38(3): 23-28.

[7] Khol, B. and Farthing, L. (2006) Impasse in Bolivia: Neoliberal hegemony and popular resistance. London: Zed Books.

[8] Prats, J. (2005) Bolivia tras el fracaso de la democracia pactada. Corte Nacional Electoral. Revista Agora, No. 3, September 2005, pp. 4-5. 

[9] From Torrez, Y., Ayo, D., and Velásquez, J-C. (2007) Agenda de la Asamblea Constituyente. Cuadernos de Diálogo y Deliberación. La Paz: Corte Nacional Electoral.

[10] De la Fuente Jeria, J. (2010) El difícil parto de otra democracia: La asamblea constituyente de Bolivia. Latin American Research Review, special issue entitled ‘Living in Actually Existing Democracies’, pp. 5-26, pg 8.

[11] Assies, W (2001) David vs. Goliat en Cochabamba: los derechos del agua, el neoliberalismo y la renovación de la propuesta social en Bolivia. T'inkazos, 4 (8): 106-134. Olivera, O. and Lewis, T. (2004) Cochabamba! Water war in Bolivia. Cambridge: South End Press.

[12] Stefanoni, P. (2002) El nacionalismo indígena como identidad política: La emergencia del MAS-IPSP (1995-2003). Available on www.clacso.org.ar/ar/libros/becas/2002/mov/stefanoni.pdf [Accessed 15 April 2010].

[13] Asamblea Constituyente (2008) Nueva Constitución política del estado. Versión oficial. La Paz: Representación presidencial para la asamblea  constituyente (REPAC).

[14] García Linera, A. (2008) Del neoliberalismo al modelo nacional productivo: Los ciclos de la economía Boliviana.  Revista de Análisis, 22 June 2008; García Linera, A. (2008a) El nuevo modelo económico nacional productivo.  Revista de Análisis, 8 June 2008.

[15] Robinson, W. (2008) Latin America and Global Capitalism. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, chapters five and six.