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Ecosocialism from the Margins NACLA Report on the Americas ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rnac20 Ecosocialism from the Margins Sabrina Fernandes To cite this article: Sabrina Fernandes (2020) Ecosocialism from the Margins, NACLA Report on the Americas, 52:2, 137-143, DOI: 10.1080/10714839.2020.1768731 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2020.1768731 Published online: 09 Jun 2020. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rnac20 REPORT SABRINA FERNANDES Ecosocialism from the Margins Hope for revolutionary change requires urgent climate action now. The energy transition must be as radical as possible to ensure the conditions for future struggles to overcome capitalism. he 21st century is a century of crisis. continent put everyone at risk of sinking deeper Capitalist economic collapse dovetails with into climate emergency. The Bolsonaro government T dire inequality, international and civil wars is openly anti-environment—he is even intent on drive displacement and humanitarian catastrophe, allowing industrial mining in Indigenous territories. xenophobia creeps into laws, and rising biodiversity When nature is perceived only through the lens of loss imperils the planet’s equilibrium. Climate exploitable natural resources, biodiversity becomes change threatens to worsen every other aspect of easily commodified. It is no coincidence, then, that these interlocking crises, making decarbonization the largest and most impactful social movements in the most urgent task on our to-do list. It’s hard to Latin America are tied to land and territory, environ- fathom successfully tackling all other socioeconomic mental protections, food sovereignty, and a strong problems—let alone the gargantuan undertaking opposition to multinational corporations, foreign of overcoming capitalism—without coordinated investment, and their history of harmful dealings international action. with right-wing—and sometimes moderate left— A deep civilizational change, as Michael Löwy governments. These movements demonstrate that puts it, is needed to craft a truly just and free society ecosocialism must be based on praxis. Those suffer- within the ecosocialist paradigm. Such a transfor- ing the most from capitalism’s exploitation know all mation will not be possible unless we guarantee the too well that full commodification of nature means material conditions on which to build any and all private profits and socialized impacts. revolutionary prospects. Ecosocialists are well aware Political projects rooted in developmentalist and that only a revolutionary path can take us beyond the productivist ideologies are still common in socialist capitalist system. But they also understand that other circles. Many in the progressive and even socialist clusters of change and reforms must garner support Left in the countries at the periphery of capitalism, in their radical forms before a pre-revolutionary sce- or the Global South, perceive their development nario appears on the horizon. and lifting millions out of poverty as antithetical to Climate scientists agree that we must take radical a rapid, clean energy transition and climate action. action by the end of this decade to prevent global Current resources only enable one or the other, their temperatures rising over the 1.5ºC limit. Leftists logic suggests. However, even if developed countries organizing around ecological issues share a similar take the lead by zeroing out their carbon emissions consensus, but the situation changes when we con- and helping finance an energy transition in the sider the Left more broadly. As I write from Brazil, South, a true great transition depends on fostering it is evident that the far-Right’s recent gains in the and organizing peripheral countries’ will to change SUMMER 2020 | NACLA — Report on the Americas 137 © 2020 North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) — 137-143, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2020.1768731 NACLA_52-2.indd 137 6/1/20 11:43 AM as well. Those who have contributed the least to the In contrast, the ecocapitalist way, also known as crisis are most likely to suffer the deepest impacts. “green economy” solutions, proposes a false path This contradiction makes social movements, collec- for protecting the environment. It aims to reverse tives, unions, and political parties at the margins of some of the impacts of climate change while maxi- capitalism important voices in the call for change. It mizing profits through the creation of new markets is paramount that we listen. and the generalized commodification of ecological transition. Institutional spaces tasked with negoti- Building Ecosocialism in and from the South ating the terms of climate change mitigation have cosocialism, a recent development in socialist normalized ecocapitalism, including by promot- E history, first emerged to tackle modern envi- ing the market-friendly REDD+ approach to forest ronmental issues, as articulated since the 1970s. It management and carbon trading as solutions, by promoted a critique of productivist perspectives and encouraging the participation of business and experiences within socialism, proposing that the industry NGOs in UN climate change events, and socialist view of abundance prioritize quality over by supporting the idea that the private sector ought quantity. Later, in what political economist Kohei to be a crucial—if not the crucial—partner in reduc- Saito calls the second stage of ecosocialism, the ing emissions. The result has been a very slow crawl tradition incorporated the foundations of Marxist toward decarbonizing energy, amounting to less of a Ecology and Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism’s met- proper transition than a diversification of the private abolic rift. This perspective offers a Marxist analysis and public infrastructure of energy provision. of the profound way the current mode of produc- This is particularly evident in countries that tion has altered nature, explicitly identifying that it have promoted new investments—both public and is impossible to confront the ecological crisis—also a private—in renewable energy sources while con- crisis of human society—within the capitalist system. tinuing to exploit dirty fuel in the name of trade and Now, the third stage of ecosocialism is being built from praxis As the far-Right advances in Latin America, that deals with the con- it is valuable to understand how grassroots tradictions from the current system, pushing campesino, Indigenous, and ecosocialist for alternatives to begin movements have boldly denounced right away. Within this conversation, dispos- human exploitation as inseparable from the sessed peoples at the exploitation of nature. margins of the system have a lot to teach us in terms of values and organizing practices. As the economic growth. For example, in January 2020, far-Right advances in Latin America, it is valuable to Germany announced a plan to phase out coal, but understand how grassroots campesino, Indigenous, the end date is 18 years from now. China has grown and ecosocialist movements have boldly denounced its solar and wind capacity steadily for years, but human exploitation as inseparable from the exploita- investment recently dropped due to cuts to public tion of nature. Pushing for radical alternatives, these subsidies. China also has invested in hundreds of marginalized groups ought to be protagonists in new coal plants at home and abroad. Meanwhile, the constructing ecosocialist praxis. private sector is eager to market itself as the provider 138 NACLA — Report on the Americas | VOL. 52, NO. 2 NACLA_52-2.indd 138 6/1/20 11:43 AM Xingu leader Sheyla Yakarepi Juruna speaks during a protest against the Belo Monte dam in Brazil in 2011. (PEDRO BIONDI/FLICKR) of “clean” energy, a variation of what anticapitalist by fostering democratic planning of production activists have long slammed as greenwashing. Elites around the questions of why, where, what for, how are cashing in on the renewable energy market— much, and for whom. expected to hit a global value of $1.5 trillion by However, much of the theoretical develop- 2025—by selling technology to governments and ment around ecosocialism has taken place among private citizens. intellectual-activists of the North. Although there Ecosocialism criticizes market-based solutions, are ecosocialist organizations throughout the world, but it also condemns the slow pace of transition—if the majority of the Left, including the socialist any—set by governments that still prioritize tradi- Left, remains far from an ecosocialist synthesis in tional, dirty industries as sources of GDP growth. the South. Even discussions around buen vivir and This entails critiquing developmentalism and pro- Pachamama in Ecuador and Bolivia must simulta- ductivism as national ideologies. Ecosocialism neously consider these concepts’ limits and political breaks apart the meaning of development in order appropriation. Campesino and Indigenous social to rid it of its capitalist and colonial facets and movements, whose values are deeply linked to the enrich it with qualitative—rather than merely quan- metabolism of nature, are well-respected and can titative—notions of a good life. It also aims to scrap be great leaders for change. Yet, when it comes to productivism—whose influence may limit social- the economy, most of the Left in peripherical coun- ism to a change
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