TICK TOCK: Political and corporate manoeuvring, disguised as carbon capture and emissions off-setting initiatives, are speeding the countdown to global natural catastrophe Picture: AP

Climate change is only one threat among many to global ecosystems. Our oceans are being overfished by commercial interests; species extinction is reaching levels unprecedented for 350million years; tropical and boreal forests are being destroyed in the name of development and progress; global water supplies are under threat from increased corporate control, population growth and uncertain precipitation; and food security is being eroded by industrial agricultural models that are foisted on developing nations as supposed solutions.

As in any negotiations, those who hold power have disproportionate influence on the final decisions on issues tied to climate change. By offering or withholding aid or succour to poorer nations, wealthy nations can influence outcomes.

Private capital has historically privatised our global natural commons - including the high seas and the rainforests - and exploited these commons in order to amass wealth, while expressly excluding those who have collectively and traditionally owned those resources.

Copenhagen provides further mechanisms to shift control of these resources from the many towards new feudal overlords of capital.

One example of this is the explicit linking of timber extraction from virgin, primary forests, and the consequent afforestation with man-made plantations, as a means to offset carbon emissions.

When tropical rainforests are cleared for their timber, the land is often put to other uses, such as planting palm oil or eucalyptus plantations.

In order to "green" the sale of the wild timber products, these plantations will be able to be accredited under climate-change linked sustainability programmes that, in turn, attract carbon credits under extensions to the Kyoto Climate Treaty, as well as potentially to any outcomes from the Copenhagen talks, or subsequent agreements.

Text included in the REDD (reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation) in developing countries' agreements, which specifically stated that replacing forests with plantations was not permissible, was mysteriously removed and has since been reintroduced in unacceptably diluted terms, yet to be ratified.

The Copenhagen talks could result in accelerated forest destruction by developing nations, and an opening of the door to criminal cartels who are already destroying rainforests in central African nations such as the Congo, Gabon, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, as well as in Papua New Guinea, Surinam and elsewhere.

As if this is not depressing enough, there is a concerted push by various growers to provide certified sustainable soy and palm oil, primarily to the developed world, to be used as fuel replacement for motor vehicles, aircraft and even shipping. Both soy oil and palm oil are increasingly being used as so-called biofuels, which should more correctly be termed agrofuels because they are produced in intensive monoculture agricultural processes.

It is deeply ironic that attempts to wean ourselves from our oil addiction are instead shifting us towards these greenwashed "biofuels" that are anything but sustainable and instead further threaten sensitive habitats around the world.

Barack Obama's election to the US presidency could be seen as a groundswell of support from the majority of US citizens for action on climate change. The Nobel Peace Prize award strengthened his power on the global stage.

But recently, with the complicity of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum, he rolled back the potential outcomes of the Copenhagen agreement by stating that it was unrealistic to expect a binding agreement from Copenhagen.

This belies the trust that has been vested in him.

This all suggests an underlying assumption of lawmakers that, in spite of the recent economic catastrophe, no fundamental change to the global economic order can be allowed to emerge from Copenhagen.

Whether Copenhagen challenges this assumption, or instead simply proves to be another expensive greenwashing of the supposed noble intentions of our global political leadership, remains to be seen.

The great game continues as normal, with the rich yet again denying the dispossessed majority the opportunity to decide their future. Our collective survival continues to be jeopardised by greed. - © SACSIS

• Ashton is a writer and researcher working in civil society. Some of his work can be viewed at www.ekogaia.org