Environmentalists, many who have zip-tied themselves to the fence of the White House, rally and call on President Barack Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline, in Washington, March 2, 2014. REUTERS/Mike TheilerEnvironmentalists have declared that global warming can’t be stopped without ending the “hegemonic capitalist system,” saying that cap-and-trade systems and conservation efforts are “false solutions.”
“The structural causes of climate change are linked to the current capitalist hegemonic system,” reads the final draft of the Margarita Declaration, presented at a conference including about 130 environmental groups.
“To combat climate change it is necessary to change the system,” the declaration adds.
Environmental activists met in the oil producing, socialist country of Venezuela as part of a United Nations-backed event to increase civil engagement in the lead up to a major climate conference.
But environmentalists surprised U.N. officials by offering up a declaration that not only seeks to end capitalism, but one that also opposes U.N.-backed efforts to fight global warming — namely, cap-and-trade and forest conservation programs.
Climate-change news analysis site RTCC reports that it’s unclear which groups signed onto the declaration, adding that it runs in the face of the “green economy” solutions to global warming backed by rich nations.
But many poor countries, like Venezuela, do not support a “green economy” solution to global warming, instead, arguing that rich countries should give poor nations cash payments and technology transfers.
Rejection of cap-and-trade and forest conservation programs also fly in the face of U.S. and European environmental groups, which back programs to limit and price carbon dioxide emissions.
In the U.S., environmentalists rallied behind the Environmental Protection Agency proposals to cut carbon dioxide emissions from new and existing power plants — a plan that would force the shutdown of coal-fired power plants.
“Climate disruption is the greatest challenge facing our generation,” Michael Brune, the director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement in June. “Until now, power plants have been allowed to dump unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into our air, driving dangerous climate disruption, and fueling severe drought, wildfires, heat waves and superstorms.”
The EPA’s plan to cut emissions from power plants has been attacked by the coal industry and Republicans who say it will harm the U.S. economy without doing much to help the climate.
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