The Kyoto Protocol calls on industrialised countries to reduce annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 5.2% over the 1990 levels. The target date for achieving this reduction is 2010.
The protocol also caries provisions, such as the "clean development mechanism", designed to help developing countries reduce their own emissions. While this mechanism is deeply flawed - amongst other problems, it considers hydroelectricity to be "carbon neutral" when it is not - it at least tries to be consistent with the aim of achieving reductions.
The G8 communiqué on climate change, on the other hand, hides behind a myth of "scientific uncertainty" to not even call for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, instead suggesting a slowing of their growth, followed and then - "if the science justifies it" - a halt and possibly a reduction.
This pussyfooting contrasts with the statement of the academies of sciences of all the G8 countries, plus those of Brazil, India and China:
"There is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring. The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems."
So much for the words, but the "action" tells a very different story. You would expect that the European Union's support for Kyoto would mean that their member countries were well on their way to meeting their emissions reduction targets. In fact, they have just issued a report which shows that the combined EU target of an 8% reduction is very unlikely to be met, and that in 2004, only two countries -Ireland and Portugal - emitted less GHGs than the previous yedl.
Britain may still meet it's Kyoto target, relying mainly on the closure of many coal-fired power stations ands their replacement by gas-fired ones ("the dash to gas"), an approach that has now run its course. However, its emissions rose last year by three times the average of the last 50 years.
Furthermore, a report in New Scientist in March stated that all 14 advanced gas-cooled reactors, supplying 20% of Britain's electricity, are likely to have cracks in their cores. This could bring their closures forward from the scheduled start date of 2010.
There will be increasing demands from industry for a new nuclear power programme, despite the fact that recent reports have suggested that the cost have been underestimated by a factor of three and that sea level rises - themselves caused by climate change - could threaten some of the UK's planned nuclear waste repositories.
We should remember that capitalist pressure to increase use of fossil fuels are not confined to rich and powerful countries. Thus, China, following a ruthless path of capitalist development, is opening 25 coalfired power stations every year.
There is no chance of GHG emissions reductions worldwide in the near future. The world capitalist economy is utterly dependent of plentiful supplies of cheap, fossil-fuel-based energy and international agreement on serious reductions of GHG emissions is therefore almost impossible.
Kyoto is not the same as the Montreal Protocol, which used curbs on emissions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to reduce damage to the ozone hole. CFCs are not central to the running of the capitalist economy. (The ozone hole is still under threat and there is now an international fight over the US's insistence on using the pesticide methyl bromide).
It is also a moot point as to
whether the capitalist system can implement the appropriate measures if a real climate emergency occurs, such as widespread famine, including in the imperialist countries, or major devastation caused by bursting lakes of glacier melt water. After all, capitalism has presided over such disasters before and is quite capable of bringing about the destruction of humanity.
This means that, while socialists may support calls on the imperialist powers to take serious action on climate change, we should have no illusions that the actions will be strong or quick enough, especially if they are dependent on international agreements.
We need to understand that the issue of climate change is now an emergency. As well as long-term plans for a low carbon economy, short-term emergency measures are necessary.
Such measures could include curtailment on mobility by car, cuts in meat consumption, lower temperatures in homes, curtailment of air travel etc. Of course, green groups and environmentalists call for these kinds of things already. However, they can be imposed under conditions of capitalist inequality - using taxes or regulation - with the corruption of black markets and excluding some people but not others, or they could result from acts of workers and community control.
So the issue is, are we to resolve the climate change crisis by handing the capitalists a big stick to beat us with -either through their ignoring the crisis, or through belated and repressive application of emergency measures - or will the crisis be resolved as part of the struggle for socialism?