When in July 2001 many countries signed the Kyoto Protocol in Bonn, they were effectively creating a new commodity: air. As you read this, pollution is being bought and sold for profit on the open market.

How did we get into this situation ?
It would be hard to deny that social and economic 'development' in the industrialised world of the 'west' has taken place at the expense of the colonised world of the 'global south'. The centuries long exploitative relationship between the colonisers and the colonised continues today, but often in less obvious ways.
Industrialised nations account for only 20% of the world's population yet emit 80% of greenhouse gases from human sources, mainly from burning fossil fuels. The subsequent atmospheric pollution has led to unprecedented rapid increases in average global temperatures, which have led in turn to climate chaos.
But human-made climate disasters don't effect us all equally. So far, people living in the countries of the global south ­ Asia, Africa, and South America, have been worst hit, experiencing an almost endless series of catastrophic floods, droughts, and the famine, disease, and displacement that inevitably follow.
Such (un)natural disasters were responsible for 105,000 deaths in 1999 (Financial Times 28/04/00), and according to the British Red Cross, the creation of 25 million refugees in 1998 ­ more than the number made homeless by war that year.
This pattern is being relentlessly repeated around the world. Afghanistan, a country torn apart by two decades of war, is experiencing its worst drought on record ­ an unnatural disaster inflicted upon one of the world's poorest countries by the world's richest countries ­ an undeclared war where daily luxuries in the West mean more than people's lives in the global south. Compounding this climate injustice is the desire of multinational energy corporations to exploit Central Asian fossil fuel 'resources' ­ a hidden, yet key factor behind the current bombings.

Selling your soul.
The few seemingly genuine attempts the world's governments have taken to address climate change, have been sabotaged by lobbyists acting for the interests of multinationals who make huge profits from a society trapped in over-consumption of, and reliance upon, fossil fuels.
International treaties devised to combat our malign interference with climate have achieved the opposite. The infamous Kyoto Protocol ­ which represents the sum total of all governmental international action on climate change to date ­ is worse than useless.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ­ the world's biggest ever collaborative research project ­ has concluded that carbon emissions have to be reduced by 60 ­ 90% over the coming decades, before we make any meaningful inroads into averting a future climate nightmare. Even then, our pollution of the atmosphere so far has set unavoidable change in motion. So what targets have been set by the Kyoto Protocol for reducing carbon emissions? The answer is not enough. Industrialised countries signed up to Kyoto have to achieve reductions in their carbon emisiosns of only a few percent by 2012 against 1990 levels. In other words, they now have a license to pollute at over 90% of 1990 levels.
The Kyoto Protocol doesn't stop there. It's created a new market for 'emissions trading'. This means that carbon can be bought and sold for profit, in the belief that there is a market solution to climate change, (when it's markets that got us into this mess in the first place). This commodification of carbon ­ a key element of the air we breathe ­ makes a business opportunity out of climate change. Low emission targets mean that many countries will end up with a surplus 'carbon quota' and thus lots to sell on. Countries which can afford to buy that surplus, can add it to their reduction targets, and so won't have to stop polluting at all. Rich countries will buy the right to operate air conditioners, sports cars or jet fleets from the governments of people who will sell their right to using firewood or farming rice in methane-emitting paddies. Colonialism alive and well.
Another component of this new market is the concept of carbon sinks. It exploits the fact that plants absorb CO2. Northern countries are encouraged to set up tree plantations in the South. According to the July 2001 Bonn agreement, the North can use these plantations to compensate for 1% of their 1990 emissions above their ceiling. This seems a small percentage but bearing in mind that UK's carbon emissions are as high as the whole of Africa's, it turns out that the amount of extra carbon emissions allowed is massive, thanks only to planting trees in someone else's lands. So where is the voice of the peasant, kicked off his smallholding in Costa Rica or Indonesia by a foreign car company wanting to build a fast-growth GM forest, in all this? Lost in the 'get rich quick, never mind the science or the justice' jargon of the traders, the 'advisers' (like PricewaterhouseCoopers with their CO2e.com project), the ministers. And many green groups, anxious not to rock the (sinking) boat and knock Kyoto, are keeping quiet about the injustice at the heart of a shiny new commodity called the atmosphere.

• We can't talk about climate change without linking it to social justice.
• We need to acknowledge that a liveable planet is incompatible with endless growth and to endorse a reduction of carbon emissions by 90%, if we are to avoid an extreme environmental catastrophe that could wipe out the human race.
• And we need also to realise that a reduction of carbon emissions means a reduction in energy consumption, and that this involves a fast, far-reaching transformation of society ­ a revolution no less. Are you coming too?

Rising Tide UK and friends are planning a national climate action for April 2002., set to coincide with the launch of the UK's very own carbon trading system. Part of the action will use the 90% for 90% idea, that is, people will be encouraged to get to it by train, demanding as they go a 90% cut in emissions alongside a 90% cut in the cost of public transport and offering to pay 10% of their fare. (It's been done many times before during 2001 and has been surprisingly successful, although it's less successful when you do it alone!) You can download special tickets at www.risingtide.org.uk, where you can also receive updates about the action and find out how to get involved.

Rising Tide UK: 16b Cherwell St,
Oxford OX4 1BG;
Tel: 01865 241097
Email: info@risingtide.org.uk
www.risingtide.org.uk ­ for regular updates.
See also www.risingtide.nl and read the excellent Cornerhouse briefing Democracy or Carbocracy? Intellectual Corruption and the Future of the Climate Debate, downloadable from www.cornerhouse.icaap.org

Actions to dream

• Thin blue line - find out the sea-level rise or flood level predictions for your area (Met office, Environment agency) and paint/chalk this level in blue around town, on council buildings, petrol stations, etc.
  Accompany this with posters/leaflets explaining the line and forecasted impacts of extreme weather
• Street Theatre: a marriage between the atmosphere and big business, future news and weather report, a carbon auction or carbon casino
• Declare Anytown a car-free zone: have street parties reclaiming space normally consumed by cars, make 'wanted' posters in car parks for 'crimes against the biosphere' with pictures of cars, take over streets with masses of people on bikes Put pressure on the local branches of international accountancy firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG and Arthur Andersen
• Do a 90% for 90% action - see www.risingtide.org.uk
• Fix up some bikes (universities and stations are good places to ask for leftovers) and set up a local free bike scheme
• Paint cycle lanes or 'think bike' signs on the road
• Focus on the aviation industry ­ the fastest growing source of carbon emissions and currently exploiting the post-September 11th chill by laying off 1000's of workers
• Plough up a motorway and create a park!
• Campaign for not-for profit public transport
• Floods on the news? Set hosepipes on offices of oil and airline companies
• Create virtual reality images of climate chaos future in your region/town
• Flyer cars with 'violation' tickets explaining their environmental costs, or with fish containing messages/website addresses
• 'Climate chaos ahead' road signs on all rush-hour approaches to town