COP30, IN BELÉM, BRAZIL - 10 NOVEMBER 2025
What remains of the Paris Agreements?
ACCELERATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION*
Alejandro Teitelbaum
I. The explanation for environmental degradation, which is progressively accelerating, is complex, as it is due to several factors. But the root causes lie, on the one hand, in the systematic plundering and destruction of nature—particularly deforestation—practised on a global scale by colonial powers for centuries and, on the other hand, in the superfluous and uncontrolled production and consumption of all kinds of objects and products, some necessary and others not. This is the result of what is known in economics as expanded reproduction.
Expanded reproduction is inherent in the capitalist system. It is essential to understand how it works in order to comprehend and explain the ecological catastrophe.
Sweezy wrote: "It is inevitable to conclude that simple reproduction implies the abstraction of what is most essential to the capitalist: his interest in increasing his capital. To this end, he converts part—often most—of his surplus value into additional capital. His increased capital allows him to appropriate even more surplus value, which he in turn converts into additional capital, and so on. This process, known as capital accumulation, is the driving force of capitalist development."[1]
Neurobiologists may be able to locate this compulsive need for accumulation somewhere in the brains of many large company executives, but Marx had already studied it in his own way: 'The capitalist is only respectable insofar as he is the personification of capital. As such, he shares with the hoarder the absolute desire to get rich. But in addition, the immanent laws of the capitalist mode of production, which impose competition on each capitalist individual as an external coercive law, compel him to continually increase his capital in order to preserve it‘[2]. Already in the Communist Manifesto of 1848 we can read:
.... ’Driven by the need for ever new markets, the bourgeoisie invades the whole world. It needs to penetrate everywhere, to implant itself everywhere, to create means of communication everywhere. By exploiting the universal market, the bourgeoisie gives a cosmopolitan character to the production of all countries. Much to the chagrin of the reactionaries, it has stripped industry of its national character. The old national industries are destroyed or on the verge of destruction. They have been replaced by new industries, the introduction of which raises a vital question for all civilised nations: industries that do not use indigenous raw materials, but raw materials from the most distant regions, and whose products are consumed not only in their own country, but in all parts of the world. Instead of the old needs, satisfied by domestic products, new needs arise which, in order to be satisfied, require products from the most remote places and the most diverse climates.
Very schematically, simple reproduction consists of the capitalist keeping the same machines at the end of the production cycle, replacing those that are broken or worn out, paying wages and spending the profits for himself without increasing the capital of his enterprise.
In reality, capitalism does not work this way: to be competitive in the market, the capitalist must improve his production through new investments and, in addition, satisfy his desire to earn more and more.
But to achieve this goal, the capitalist must sell what he produces, including surpluses. Some of these surpluses (food, textiles, electrical appliances) are not sold and, in rich countries, are destroyed or recycled. In France, more than €650 million worth of new, unsold non-food products are thrown away every year (see: France considers banning the destruction of unsold non-food products. https://www.france24.com/fr/20190604-gaspillage-destruction-produits -non-alimentaires-invendus-interdite-luxe-dons-recyclage).
And worldwide, 1.3 billion tonnes of food products are thrown away every year, from production and processing to consumption. This represents half a kilo per day for every human being alive (see: https://www.lemonde.fr/ les-decodeurs/article/2018/06/07/le-gaspillage-alimentaire-en-france-en-chiffres_5311079_4355770.html).
More and more products are being manufactured with real or supposed innovations to attract consumers. Incentive advertising is used to target potential consumers with the most sophisticated marketing tools available.
Advertising expenditure worldwide is enormous and increases year after year. In 2019, it exceeded $550 billion. (https://es.statista.com/estadisticas/600808/gasto-publicitario-a-nivel-mundial/).
Financial capital contributes to excessive consumerism by facilitating credit. Consumers go into debt until their purchasing power is drastically reduced or exhausted and crises erupt, leading to the closure of less competitive companies and the progressive concentration of production in the hands of a few (oligopolies and monopolies).
The reasons for the existence of expanded reproduction persist despite oligopolistic/monopolistic concentration, and capitalists encourage demand for superfluous and/or unnecessary goods or produce goods (e.g., household appliances) with planned obsolescence: a device that used to last 20 years is now programmed to last five. The same is true for cars.
II. This frenetic production of superfluous and/or useless objects requires enormous consumption of energy and raw materials to extract, and a gigantic accumulation of waste with the consequent environmental pollution.
Mobile phones and cars are examples of this.
Currently, 130 million mobile phones are sold worldwide every month, or 1.56 billion per year (in 2009, 179 million were sold, and in 2012, 720 million). There are around 7.7 billion active mobile phones in service and 720 million are thrown away every year. New models with real or supposed innovations, useful or not, are constantly coming onto the market, and people are buying them at a frenetic pace (see: https://www.planetoscope.com/electronique/728-ventes-mondiales-de-smartphones.html).
In 2017, 93 million cars were manufactured and there are around one billion in circulation worldwide, with all that this entails in terms of the energy and raw materials used in their manufacture, environmental pollution due to the gases emitted and the materials from the scrapping of cars declared at the end of their useful life, etc.
In France alone, 1.5 million vehicles are dismantled each year, generating many tonnes of waste (liquid and solid) considered hazardous to the environment.
See: https://www.notre-planete.info/ecologie/transport/placeauto.php and
https://www.planetoscope.com/automobile/76-production-mondiale-de-voitures.html and
https://www.planetoscope.com/automobile/87-recyclage-de-voitures-hors-d-usage-en-france-vhu-.html.
III. Deforestation is one of the main causes of environmental degradation. In addition to the well-known case of the Amazon, there are many other examples. In Central America, for example, forest areas, which in 1960 covered 60% of the total land area, covered only 30% in 1972. It is estimated that 350,000 hectares of forest are currently disappearing each year in this region, representing an annual deforestation rate of 1.5%, one of the highest in the world, with serious ecological consequences, such as water shortages for irrigation and consumption by the population. This is the result, on the one hand, of a process called modernisation and, on the other, of survival strategies. Modernisation has consisted of indiscriminate logging to sell timber, the expansion of pastures to produce meat for export (the “hamburger connection”), the production of bananas[3], coffee and cotton, also for export, mining, etc.
The social consequences were the displacement of people from their lands and the destruction of their livelihoods, the displacement of poor peasants and indigenous populations from their lands, who, when occupying new, more distant lands, practised survival strategies, cutting down trees to use the wood as fuel and also to sell it. When poor peasants and indigenous populations resisted the dispossession of their lands, repression and killings were swift. The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank financed these “modernisation” processes, which have resulted in the concentration of land ownership in a few hands, the enrichment of local elites, enormous profits for transnational corporations, and the impoverishment and degradation of the living conditions of large sectors of the population, in a context of rapid environmental deterioration [4].
At first glance, famines can be attributed to climatic conditions and wars, but closer examination reveals the disastrous role played by European colonisation and recolonisation, which devastated vast areas of forest to appropriate timber and promote export crops such as coffee, cocoa and peanuts, which have particularly negative effects on soil moisture conservation. Subsistence crops were marginalised and the agricultural practices of African peoples, such as shifting cultivation, crop rotation and the establishment of reserves, all designed to prevent famine during periods of drought, were altered. In Africa, forests were cleared to supply exotic timber to the markets of so-called civilised countries. Between 1930 and 1970, an estimated 25% to 30% of Africa's tropical forests were destroyed. Especially in recent decades, this high rate of deforestation, with catastrophic ecological consequences (drought and erosion), is largely due to the conversion of forests into land for export crops, in a desperate attempt to obtain foreign currency to service debt. In Asia, the situation is no different, and Nepal, for example, whose forests contain highly prized timber, also has the sad distinction of having the highest rate of deforestation in the world, at 4% per year[5].
Deforestation, in addition to local consequences such as drought, erosion and temperature changes, can have climatic effects on neighbouring or more distant regions due to various factors: changes in the direction of prevailing winds, the transformation of humid atmospheric currents into dry currents, the transformation of entire regions covered with vegetation into deserts, etc. The disappearance of vast areas of forest reduces evapotranspiration and, therefore, rainfall patterns.
Deforestation also causes physical and chemical alterations to the soil, resulting in erosion and accelerated rainwater runoff.
Photosynthesis is a process that consists of transforming inorganic matter into organic matter using energy provided by sunlight. Life on our planet is sustained mainly by photosynthesis: in the aquatic environment, through algae and other plant and animal organisms, and in the terrestrial environment, through plants, which have the ability to synthesise organic matter (biomass) from sunlight and inorganic matter.
Epidemics and pandemics of zoonotic origin are becoming increasingly frequent, partly because wild animals carrying viruses are losing their natural habitat and coming into contact with humans who are vulnerable to these viruses. See: Ministry of Ecological Transition, Attacks on ecosystems and biodiversity: how are they related to the emergence of zoonotic infectious diseases? https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/thema_essentiel_10_atteintes_ecosystemes_zoonoses_septembre2021.pdf
During photosynthesis, trees and other plants absorb carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, thereby helping to decontaminate the atmosphere. Large-scale deforestation therefore has a considerable direct impact on the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide pollution and, as a result, on the greenhouse effect.
Thus, the dominant economic system, on the one hand, produces a huge excess of CO2 and, on the other, prevents its natural absorption by devastating the vegetation cover.
The international fragmentation of production is called value chains. Global value chains mean that the stages of production, from the design of a product to its delivery to the final consumer, are carried out in different countries. This organisation has been driven by companies in advanced economies, spurred on by global competition to optimise their production processes through outsourcing and offshoring certain production operations.
Various studies indicate that the average distance travelled by the components of a yoghurt (milk, strawberries, plastics) before reaching the end consumer is 9,000 km. (http://www.linternaute.com/actualite/savoir/07/petrole-yaourt/6.shtml; www.walmartwatch.org; https://bbcom21.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/9000-km-pour-un-yaourt-a-la-fraise/; https://www.lemonde.fr/le-rechauffement-climatique/article/2009/12/10/l-objet-du-jour-le-yaourt-par-terra-eco_1278944_1270066.html).
This illustrates the explosion in road, air and sea transport. With the consequent exponential growth in greenhouse gas emissions. An irrational production system that seeks to optimise costs, exclusively for the benefit of transnational companies.
IV. Many workers around the world suffer the consequences of non-compliance with occupational health and safety standards. Among other things, this is due to the use of highly dangerous products and materials. See note 3 on banana plantations in Central America.
But violations of occupational health and safety standards also occur in central countries: the transnational company IBM and its subcontractors used glycol ethers (which are carcinogenic substances and cause malformations in the offspring of those who have been exposed to them) in companies in France (IBM in Corbeil-Essones) and the United States (Fishkill, near New York), despite the fact that the Curie Institute had warned IBM as early as 1988. These products have been banned in France for domestic use since 1998, but not in industry, where their ‘controlled use’ is permitted. Some victims have taken legal action against the companies responsible[6]. The same is true of other products whose use is hazardous to health and whose domestic use is banned, but whose use is authorised in industry [7].
V. John Bellamy Foster, in his book Marx Ecologist, conducts an in-depth study of Marx's ideas on the concept of metabolic rift, which Marx focused on the (antagonistic) relationship between the city and the countryside. Within each country and between industrialised countries and agro-exporting countries.
Foster relates it to the introduction of capitalist forms of production in the countryside, from the progressive extension of enclosures, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries, to the mechanisation of agricultural work and the massive use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers for intensive cultivation, with the consequent depopulation of the countryside and urban population explosion.
The metabolic rift occurs because, with the development of industry and the rapid growth of the urban population, the demand for agricultural products (food for the urban population and raw materials for industry) grows exponentially. Meeting this demand led to the depletion of nutrients in agricultural land, which became urban waste that polluted urban areas and was not returned to agricultural land. As Marx pointed out in Volume III of Capital (Exploitation of Production Waste), in relation to the pollution of the city of London: "The former are the waste products of industry and agriculture, the latter are, on the one hand, the waste products resulting from the natural physiological changes of human beings and, on the other hand, the form in which useful objects remain after use. Production waste is therefore, in the chemical industry, the by-products that are discarded at an earlier stage of production; the metal shavings that are discarded in the mechanical engineering industry and then used as raw material in iron production, etc. Consumption waste is organic matter eliminated by humans in the process of assimilation, such as clothing scraps in the form of rags, etc. This consumption waste is the most important for agriculture. The capitalist economy is a gigantic waste in its use. In London, for example, no better use has been found for the manure of four and a half million people than to use it, at enormous cost, to turn the Thames into a pestilent focus.
This process, which was initially only internal, has become internationalised and the metabolic rift has occurred not only within each country, but also between the large industrial countries and the peripheral agricultural countries.
When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492 on the island he called Hispaniola (Haiti and Santo Domingo), he found a veritable orchard occupied by a large indigenous population living peacefully. At the beginning of the 16th century, the Spanish began to devastate the island and decimate its inhabitants through forced labour and repression when they rebelled, to such an extent that, in the middle of the 16th century, they had to begin replacing them with Africans reduced to slavery, whom they also exploited savagely and who soon rebelled as well. In the mid-17th century, the Spanish abandoned part of the island, which was occupied by the French, who continued the genocidal and devastating work of their predecessors, with good results for themselves: in 1700, Haiti was the world's leading producer of sugar cane.
At the time of the Spanish conquest, 80% of the island was covered with forests of various species: coconut palms, mangoes, papayas, mahogany, ceiba, tamarind, etc. In the 18th century, sugar cane, spice, coffee and indigo growers carried out massive deforestation to make way for their crops, and during World War II, the Americans accelerated deforestation to plant sisal and rubber[8].
A current example of international metabolic rupture.
Argentina only replenishes 37% of the nutrients in the soil. For every shipment of 40,000 tonnes of soybeans exported, around 4,000 tonnes of nutrients are lost. For specialists, this is the ‘hidden cost’ of Argentine agriculture. A study by INTA (National Institute of Agricultural Technology) in Casilda, Santa Fe, has shown that for every cargo ship that transports soybeans abroad, thousands of tonnes of nutrients are lost from Argentine soils, and these nutrients are not replenished. According to Fernando Martínez, head of the INTA unit, ‘for every 40,000 tonnes of soybeans, up to 8,700 tonnes of fertilisers are exported, of which only 37% are replaced’. Specialist Graciela Cordone, also from INTA Casilda, explained that a ship loaded with 40,000 tonnes of soybeans exports 3,576 tonnes of nutrients. If the cargo is wheat, the nutrients amount to 1,176 tonnes, and in the case of maize, 966 tonnes. Experts agree that the 3,576 tonnes of extracted nutrients — nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur, potassium and magnesium — correspond to 8,735 tonnes of fertilisers — urea, single superphosphate, potassium chloride and magnesium sulphate. One tonne of fertiliser has an average cost of around $450, which would generate a decapitalisation of at least $3 million per ship. Graciela Cordone has produced a graph illustrating this loss: “It would take 300 lorries to carry the fertilisers containing the nutrients exported in each ship: for every three units of nutrients, only one is replaced”. (http://intainforma.inta.gov.ar/?p=12116).
Marx already referred to the imperialist exploitation of the soil nutrients of entire countries, resulting from the fracture of the metabolism between man and the earth. ‘England,’ he writes in Capital, ‘indirectly exports the soil of Ireland without giving its farmers even the means to replace its elements’ (Capital, Chapter XXIII, The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation, quoted in John Bellamy Foster's article in Le Monde Diplomatique, June 2018: Karl Marx and the Exploitation of Nature. https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2018/06/BELLAMY_FOSTER/58734, and in Marx Écologiste, by the same author, Éditions Amsterdam, Paris 2011).
When Irish soil became depleted and English soil began to be depleted, England began importing guano from Peru to use as fertiliser.
Clark and Foster write: ‘The international trade in guano in the 19th century highlights the emergence of a global metabolic rift, as guano and nitrates were transferred from Peru and Chile to Britain (and other nations) in order to enrich their depleted soils’ (Ecological imperialism and global metabolic failure, unequal exchange and the guano/nitrate trade) [9].
Between 1820 and 1860, guano was extracted from the Chincha Islands in Peru. It was mainly exported to the United States, France and the United Kingdom. In 1863, Spain attempted to seize the Chincha Islands. Peru and Chile joined forces and repelled the Spanish Navy during the Spanish-South American War, also known as the Guano War. Production on the Chincha Islands reached 600,000 tonnes per year by the end of the 1860s. By the time the deposits were exhausted, around 12.5 million tonnes had been extracted.
Between 1840 and 1879, guano from Peru generated enormous wealth, as the country, the sole owner of the guano deposits, had a global monopoly on this fertiliser. The state granted farmers the right to exploit the guano, but retained control of the trade. Many entrepreneurs amassed enormous fortunes by exploiting these riches. This was particularly true of the Frenchman Auguste Dreyfus, who became one of the richest men in the world thanks to guano.
In 1856, the United States Congress passed the Guano Islands Act, still in force in the 21st century, which allows any US citizen to claim, on behalf of the United States, any uninhabited island that may contain guano. In this way, the island becomes part of US territory. In this way, the United States incorporated numerous small islands and cays containing guano into its territory.
Between June 1862 and August 1863, some twenty ships took around 1,400 indigenous people from Easter Island to work as slaves in the guano reserves of Peru. Under pressure from France, Chile and the United Kingdom, the Peruvian authorities repatriated around a hundred inhabitants of Easter Island, but only about fifteen of them reached the end of the journey, as the others succumbed to tuberculosis and smallpox. These diseases were transmitted by the survivors to the inhabitants of the island who had escaped from the slave traders. In 1877, Easter Island, which before the events described above had a population of around 15,000, had only 111 inhabitants (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano).
The previous paragraph, based on a particular case related to the subject of this article, is an exemplary summary of how the capitalist system works: wars, slavery, genocide, appropriation of territories by the great powers and, on this basis, the accumulation of enormous fortunes.
Added to this “ecological imperialism”, as Clark and Foster call it, is the massive export of toxic waste and the relocation of polluting industries from the most industrialised countries to the most vulnerable periphery[10].
VI. In Marx the Ecologist, Foster first demonstrates the relevance of Marx's thinking, particularly his method of analysis, and offers a pertinent critique of the current dominant trends in environmental movements.
In conclusion: the capitalist system and a healthy environment are incompatible.
That is why Foster, Clark and York are right when they write in the last part of their article The Ecology of Consumption:
‘A true ecology of consumption—the creation of a new system of sustainable needs and the satisfaction of those needs—is only possible if it is integrated into a new ecology of production that requires, for its emergence, the destruction of the capitalist system’...
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General. Inaugural speech at COP 15, 6/12/2022:
"Multinational companies line their pockets by emptying our world of nature's gifts. Ecosystems have become toys of profit. Because of our insatiable appetite for unbridled and unequal economic growth, humanity has become a weapon of mass destruction. We are flushing nature down the drain. And, in the end, we are committing suicide for power." https://press.un.org/fr/2022/sgsm21619.doc.htm.
Unfortunately, this approach is in the minority in environmentalist movements and literature, including among eco-socialists.
The close relationship between environmental disaster and the capitalist system explains the repeated failure in practice of international agreements aimed at curbing climate change and limiting the use of pollutants and genetically modified products, concluded by governments that are nothing more than agents and guardians of the dominant system. The few measures that are implemented are mostly intended to reassure (and hold accountable) ordinary people and are like aspirin to cure advanced cancer.
The worsening environmental disaster affects the vast majority of the population.
Until these majorities understand that ecological catastrophe is inherent in capitalism, environmentalism cannot have a solid foundation.
To reach this understanding, there is a long and difficult road ahead, which consists, in particular, of overcoming the shortcomings of current environmentalism. ----------------------- ------------------------
*Chapter 6 of the book Maison Terre, États des Lieux, Dunken Publishing, 2024. https://www.amazon.fr/Maison-Terre-Mirta-Libertad-Teitelbaum-ebook/dp/B0DVQCGWQT
NOTES
[1] Sweezy, Theory of Capitalist Development, 1942. In Spanish: Teoría del desarrollo capitalista, Fondo de cultura económica, Mexico. 1945. Apparently, there is no French edition of this classic work of Marxist economics.
[2] Marx, Capital, Chapter XXIV of Book I, Section VII, ‘Transformation of Surplus Value into Capital.’ III - Theory of Abstinence." See also Marx, Third Manuscript of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts.
[3] In the 1970s and 1980s, banana companies in Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica (and in many other parts of the world) used a pesticide (nemagon) containing 1,2-dibromo-3-chloropropane, which caused reproductive sterility in some 1,500 workers in these Central American countries. In the 1990s, lawyers from the region, in coordination with lawyers from the United States, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the victims in the 212th District Court of Galveston County, Texas, against the manufacturers and users of the product: Shell Oil Company, Dow Chemical Company, Occidental Chemical Corporation, Standard Fruit Company, Standard Fruit and Steamship Co, Dole Food Company, Inc, Dole Fresh Fruit Company, Chiquita Brands Inc and Chiquita Brands International. They were accused of using an extremely harmful product, deliberately concealing its dangers and failing to inform workers about the appropriate protective measures and means when they were exposed to it. The December 2002 ruling in Nicaragua, which found against the companies, was pursued through legal channels in the United States. In October 2003, the Nicaraguan ruling was dismissed by the judge of the Central District Court of California. She argued that Dole Food Company Inc. had not been sued correctly, as it did not technically exist, since it was called Dole Food Company Inc. in the United States and not Corporation, as indicated in the lawsuit. The judge argued that US legal procedures had also been violated and that the Nicaraguan court's decision was flawed.
[4] Peter Utting, The Social Origins and Impact of Deforestation in Central America. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), 1991.
[5] Solon Barraclough and Krishna Guimire, The social dynamics of deforestation in developing countries: Principal Issues and Research Priorities, Discussion Paper No. 16. UNRISD, 1990.
[6] https://www.leparisien.fr/essonne-91/ethers-de-glycol-deux-anciens-salaries-attaquent-ibm-28-04-2006-2006942398.php
[7]In 2018, the French government eliminated four of the ten factors of arduousness. For the first six factors of arduousness (night work, shift work, work in hyperbaric environments, repetitive movements, work in extreme temperatures, noise), employees will continue to accumulate points as before. As for the other four factors (manual handling of loads, arduous postures, mechanical vibrations and chemical risks), which are too complex to measure, employees will no longer accumulate points, but from 2018 onwards they will be able to undergo a medical examination a few years before retirement. (https://www.gouvernement.fr/argumentaire/simplifier-la-prise-en-compte-de-la-penibilite-pour-garantir-les-droits-des-salaries).
In this way, the French government has evaded its international obligations: ILO Convention No. 187 on the promotional framework for occupational safety and health, in force since 2009 and ratified by France on 29/10/2014, and other ILO conventions and recommendations on the same subject.
[8] See Haiti: military occupation, several centuries of plunder and overexploitation, and a few weeks of humanitarian crumbs). History of a genocide and an ecocide. Alejandro Teitelbaum https://www.nodo50.org/ceprid/spip.php?article732).
[9] See Vertigo, electronic journal on environmental sciences. Special issue 26. September 2016. https://journals.openedition.org/vertigo/17522
[10] Lawrence Summers, who was President Clinton's Treasury Secretary, gained notoriety when, as chief economist at the World Bank, he stated in an internal memo that the Bank should encourage the export of polluting industries to the Third World, adding that dumping toxic waste in low-income countries made perfect economic sense, since the life of a third world inhabitant, in terms of life expectancy and per capita income, was worth much less than that of an inhabitant of a developed country (The Economist, 15/21 February 1992).