Climate change is one of the most significant issues of our times. It must get very high priority. Both climate change mitigation and adaptation are highly important issues. On the one hand the world must very significantly reduce climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand the preparations, particularly of the more vulnerable countries and communities, to face more adverse weather conditions and the resulting more severe disasters must improve significantly. Their adaptation capacity must improve significantly. This can only happen in conditions of more cooperation among communities and countries, and with vulnerable people having more access to resources. Hence conditions of peace and higher levels of justice and equality (international justice as well as more equality within various countries) are very important for progress in climate change mitigation and adaptation.
The overwhelming evidence from recent decades is that despite some promising initiatives climate change mitigation and adaptation have not achieved the kind of progress that was essential for timely solutions to avoid potential tipping points of near future. While there are several reasons for this one important reason is that big business interests and leading multinational companies have already succeeded in occupying a dominant position in the world-level climate change response.
It is always a dangerous situation if those who have caused a huge problem are placed in charge of solving that problem, and this can be seen quite clearly in the context of climate change as highly suspect ‘solutions’ are being promoted. What often gets promoted is not what is really needed on the basis of evidence, but what big business interests, including fossil fuel interests, find to be in keeping with their interests. Hence the most obvious solutions, the ones likely to have more direct and clear impact, are pushed back while dubious, suspect ‘solutions’ are pushed to the forefront. What is most worrying, even disgusting, is that this is often promoted by government and multilateral, even UN agencies who are expected to be more responsible and have greater accountability. In the process some of the worst polluters have emerged as the champions of climate change ‘solutions’ while simple folk, people not responsible for pollution and climate change, are being asked to change their ways.
This is very clearly seen in the context of agriculture and food. The most essential human need of healthy, nourishing food can be met, in fact is best met, by following ecologically protective methods. Traditional farming is mostly based on this. However intrusions of big business interests during the last century have steadily led to ecologically destructive and disruptive methods. These have also been very harmful for farming communities, increasing their costs and harming their basic resource base of soil and water. These big business intrusions have also harmed biodiversity and saving of seeds of diverse crops and varieties by farming communities, replacing this with commercial seeds controlled by big business interests.
However increasing costs and debts as well as ecological harm and climate change has again made many farmers more aware of ecologically protective methods. It has been a very happy discovery that if the farmers go back to their traditional practices, to time-honored rotations and mixed farming ( including many more indigenous trees integrated with farming), to saving seeds of diverse traditional varieties, to preparing organic fertility enhancing materials and pest-repellants on the basis of local freely available resources, if they use smaller implements and tools rather than heavy tractors, if they practice traditional water-conservation and rainfall harvesting methods that evolved over centuries in keeping with local conditions, then they can do away with much of fossil fuel presence in farming and at the same time they can reduce their costs in a big way, while obtaining reasonably good yields of healthy, nourishing food crops. At the same time they improve soil quality, protect biodiversity and maintain the groundwater table as well as surface water sources in good conditions, creating the base of sustainability. In climate change language, they contribute to mitigation with increasing organic content of soil, more trees, more cover crops, less intrusive tilling and in other ways, and at the same time they contribute to adaptation by reducing costs and avoiding debts, by increasing their self-reliance and resilience, by planting many mixed crops in suitable rotations, by achieving better water and moisture conservation.
This is an integrated system—this integrates welfare of farmers and effective climate change response, this integrates mitigation and adaptation, this integrates production of healthy food with environment protection, protection of biodiversity with better health of human beings.
However when big business interests intrude, they are not thinking of all this, of health and environment; they are instead thinking of increasing their profits, power and control. They pick up one or two aspects of what they consider to be mitigation, and then they somehow integrate their products and technology, their poisonous agro-chemicals and expensive technologies, their expensive seeds and high hazard GM crops with this, to sell a package which has highly suspect claims of mitigation and then also seek to earn carbon credits on this basis. Their highly paid scientists and consultants use false research and corrupt practices to get the support of powerful collaborators and it is their harmful agenda that spreads fast instead of what really needs to be done in terms of climate change response in keeping with the wider objectives of justice, peace and environment protection.
Hence it is very important to bring forth a people-centered agenda of climate response, which is in keeping with the path of justice and peace, and chase away the very harmful, damaging agenda promoted by big business interests which is based not on finding real solutions but instead mainly on further increasing the power, profits and control of big business interests.
Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, Man over Machine and A Day in 2071.
