(1)

The Group of Eight Summit at Lake Toya in Hokkaido, to be attended not only by the power holders of the G8 member states but also by China and other economically emerging countries, is being propagandized as an 'environmental summit'.

But can it be really a step forward to preventing 'accelerated global warming'? Definitely not! No matter how hard those rulers may repeat the mantra of 'international cooperation', no matter how hypocritically they wear the veil of 'saviours of humankind', this summit will merely be an opportunity for the imperialist rulers of the US, Japan and Europe, together with the rulers of China, Russia and other emerging and developing states, to impose the 'reduction of greenhouse gas emissions' upon each other with unreserved state egoism. In other words, it will be a new starting point for their interactive acceleration of environmental destruction. Or rather, it will be an arena not only for relentless struggles over 'CO2 emissions trading' and newly developed eco-business, but also for a scramble to acquire grain and mineral resources (including oil, gas and uranium) between the three blocs of (1) the US and Japan, (2) the EU led by France, Germany and Britain, and (3) economically emerging countries. This 'environmental summit' will be, without a doubt, the beginning of an environmental = economic war (i.e. economic war connected with conflicts over environmental issues) in a new phase between the three blocs.

(2)

'An increase in greenhouse gas emissions cannot be helped for the time being' are the words that show the shameless attitude of US President George W. Bush, despite the fact that global warming is causing abnormal changes in climate and destruction of eco-systems all over the world, and more seriously than ever. Arrogantly enough, his administration is maintaining its stance of rejecting the EU-initiated scheme for net reduction targets, featuring in particular a new agreement on a 'midterm target' (after the Kyoto Protocol).

On this government of the US as well as those of Japan and emerging economies, power holders in Germany, France and Britain are pressing the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS), which they have enforced since 2005. They are threatening American, Japanese, Chinese and other foreign companies that fail to meet their 'EU standards' with the introduction of an 'environmental tariff', i.e. a curb on their exports of products to the EU. This scheme is obviously based on their ambition to consolidate the status of the euro as a key currency and to expand the 'euro sphere'.

The rulers of emerging economies are raising vehement objections against these imperialist power holders, who lay bare their disagreements yet are trying on the whole to press emerging economies to accept a net reduction in CO2 emissions. Indian Prime Minster Manmoham Singh, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and others maintain that the major responsibility for curbing emissions rests with developed countries, which have accumulated emissions over a long period of time. They are supported in this claim by Hu Jingtao's China and Vladimir Putin's Russia.

Chinese rulers are bent on strengthening ties between emerging and developing countries, to build up a global network against US imperialism in alliance with Russian rulers. At the same time, they are making a tiny 'concession' to the EU over 'measures against global warming' in order to deflect worldwide criticism over the extensive environmental destruction associated with their rapid economic growth.

As for Vladimir Putin, this self-styled latter-day Ivan the Terrible is even gloating at the melting of ice over the Arctic Ocean as a result of global warming, regarding it as a godsend, a chance for Russia to develop submarine oil and gas fields.

The power holders of the world are thus displaying their state egoism ever more prominently in their attempts to promote their respective national and economic interests, despite the fact that disastrous conditions that could cause the destruction of the human race as well as the world' ecosystems, as a result of global warming, have been worsening day by day.

This is not all. Monopoly capitalists in imperialist states have embarked on the development of 'eco-friendly technologies' (e.g. 'alternative energies' and 'energy-saving technologies') in search of new profitable ventures. They are engaged in fierce struggles among themselves to export these technologies and their products in the name of emissions trading. Moreover, financial institutions and hedge funds in the US, Europe and Japan, which have been driven into a tight corner due to the global financial crisis triggered by a sharp increase in subprime loan deficits, are now finding a fresh chance for profitable speculation. They are rushing to invent new financial derivative products from 'CO2 emissions quotas' and to trade them on the market.

(3)

Comrades all over the world!

We resolutely oppose this hypocritical G8 summit that promotes the environmental destruction of the earth. Never let the rulers of the US / Japan, the EU and emerging economies interactively accelerate the destruction of the global environment.

At this very moment, monopoly capitalists in the US, Japan and Europe are intensifying their neo-colonialist invasion of developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Central/Eastern Europe. They do so in pursuit of 'emissions quotas' by taking full advantage of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), as authorized in the Kyoto Protocol. In developing countries, for instance, these corporations are pushing on with their plunder of natural resources by levelling forests and driving out indigenous people, making use of the 'emissions trading' system. Some of them are vastly expanding their plantation acreage of palm trees with a view to producing bio-diesel.

The EU-initiated expansion of the market for emissions trading, as well as imperialist powers' economic inroads into emerging / developing countries under the cover of the CDM, are nothing but acts that force environmental destruction on these countries. They stand for the plunder of natural resources, the devastation of farmlands and the intensification of exploitation. This is a new form of neo-colonialist invasion of emerging / developing countries by American, Japanese and European imperialists. We must resolutely bring this to light and create a struggle to oppose it.

Furthermore, the US, Japanese, French and other governments, together with nuclear-related monopolies in these states under their patronage, have started intense competition with each other for the export of nuclear power plants and nuclear-related technologies to China, India, Brazil, South Africa and oil-rich Arab countries, under the cover of CO2 emission controls. It seems more and more likely that another nuclear disaster may break out - like the reactor meltdown on Three Mile Island in 1979 or the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in 1986. We must also firmly object to these schemes to export and construct nuclear power plants on a massive scale.

(4)

Workers and toiling people all over the world!

Another ill that disfigures our world today, besides environmental destruction promoted by the power holders, is the bottomless pit of hunger that threatens the poor.

Driven to a crushing defeat in the causeless war of aggression against Iraq, the Bush administration in the militarist empire of America, the 'world's sole superpower', has been obliged to call for a move away from oil dependency. Because the plot to seize oil resources in the Middle East went bankrupt, the administration has barked out orders for 'bio-ethanol conversion' of auto fuel. In response to Bush's decree, US agribusiness monopolies have rushed towards a massive increase in their production of corn, the main ingredient of ethanol, thereby cutting their production of wheat and soybeans. This has caused a steep rise in international grain prices, combined with a worldwide slump in agricultural production due to global warming and its consequences, i.e. serious climate change. These price rises are being accelerated even further as droves of multinational funds (including hedge funds) swarm in speculation on the futures of grain and other food besides oil. They have been looking for an opportunity to use their plentiful surplus funds now that the decay of Yankee-style 'casino capitalism' has come to light since the start of the uncollectible subprime loan debacle. Thus a great many people are dying of hunger at this very moment in developing countries. This is especially true in some of the world's 'poorest' countries (such as Haiti, Cameroon and Ethiopia), which depend on the US for grains not only because their local agriculture (including both livestock and dairy farming) and fishing industries have suffered immense devastation, but also because US imperialism has been forcing the governments of these countries to 'liberalize imports' of agricultural products.

Oppose the imperialists' neo-colonialist invasion of developing countries that drives people to starvation! Never let American imperialism 'export' hunger! Oppose speculation in grain and oil by financial monopoly capitalists in imperialist states! Never let them destroy the environment, nor impose hunger on the poor by expanding their production of bio-fuels!

(5)

Workers and toiling masses all over the world!

We are witnessing a new chapter in the environmental = economic war between the three poles of the US-Japan, the EU, and China-Russia. Fierce rivalries are growing between these three poles for economic domination over emerging/developing countries, as well as a larger share of their resources, under the pretext of 'environmental protection'. The newly created antagonism is not only driving people all over the world to poverty and hunger, but is also sowing the seeds of a new World War. In every sense, war, poverty and environmental destruction are combined inseparably with each other. The emergence of this cruel 21st century world results from the miserable bankruptcy of 'Bush's war', a failure of the militarist empire of America, the 'world's sole superpower'. At the same time it lays bare the loss of energy of contemporary imperialism, which has only narrowly prolonged its life owing to the self-destruction of pseudo-Marxism, i.e. Stalinism.

In the first place, the present situation known as 'global warming' has been caused by nothing but contemporary imperialist-type production based on mass consumption of fossil fuel - namely 'mass production and mass consumption (or dissipation of resources)' - along with imperialist states' neo-colonialist economic invasion of emerging / developing countries (unbridled development of natural resources including forests). Moreover, the governments of China and other rising economies are carrying out environmentally destructive development based on their policies for 'transformation to capitalism from above', as if imitating the methods of dead-end capitalism. This is further accelerating global warming and environmental destruction. A grave crisis that is unprecedented in the history of our precious earth and humankind is deepening minute by minute. What is most crucial now is that we should lay bare the bourgeois class nature of contemporary material civilization, i.e. present-day technological civilization, that has brought about the destruction of our earth's environment.

Irrelevant arguments that distract us from the main issue, such as 'Let the voice of the citizens be carried to the G8 Summit by means of an alternative summit' or 'Replace our society of mass production and mass consumption with a sustainable one based on local community recycling', are tantamount to willingly becoming involved in the Japanese government's (and the monopoly bourgeoisie's) propaganda campaign under the slogans of 'energy-saving life' and 'eco-friendly consumption'. These are merely sweeteners designed to conciliate workers and the toiling masses. Nothing but Marx's Marxism can show us the way to truly overcome the crisis of the present-day world.

We, anti-Stalinist revolutionary Marxists in Japan, call on all the oppressed workers and toiling masses in the world. Now is the time to revive Marxism!

Here in Japan, we must resolutely create a struggle against the G8 Summit by denouncing and overcoming the labour aristocrats of Rengo (the Japan Trade Union Confederation), who would not raise one iota of objection against the G8 summit because they are aiding and abetting the profit-making of monopoly capitalists in each industry. We must also fight by overcoming the leadership of the Japanese Communist Party, a party of converted Stalinists, who are merely appealing to the government for the introduction of a cap-and-trade system (which EU governments are imposing on their companies) by saying that it will 'contribute to increased in corporate profits'. We, the JRCL, are determined to fight with all our might to create a struggle against the G8 summit, by integrating it with our politico-economic struggles to oppose the planned raise in taxes and neo-liberal changes in the social security system, and with our antiwar struggles against the deployment of missile defences and the strengthening of the new US-Japan military alliance. By uniting the power of workers, students and toiling people, we stand firm to overthrow the 'brain-dead' Fukuda government, which is now stranded between American and European power holders and is unable to do anything but mill around aimlessly.

We call on workers and toiling people all over the world!

Rise in unity to break through the worst ever crisis in our 21st century world, caused by the triple disaster of war, absolute impoverishment and global environmental destruction! Workers of all countries, unite!

(Published in weekly Kaihoh No. 2025, June 30th, 2008)

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