In a letter to German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, seen by Climate Home but not made public, several coalitions of climate activists say that visa barriers exclude many participants from the Global South from the “climate negotiations that will determine the future of their countries and communities”.

Ugandan campaigner Hamira Kobusingye from Fridays for Future Africa, one of those behind the letter, told Climate Home: “This is an example of systemic and climate racism, as most of the affected delegations were primarily from Africa and Asia. This issue is rooted in the lingering effects of colonialism.”

Government negotiators also sounded the alarm, collectively agreeing in formal conclusions at the talks that they “noted with concern the difficulties experienced by some delegates in obtaining visas to enable them to attend sessions” in Bonn and urging “timely issuance of visas”.

Bonn talks on climate finance goal end in stalemate on numbers

Delegates from Europe and most of the Americas do not need visas for short stays in Germany while those from Africa and most of Asia do.

The German Federal Foreign Office told Climate Home it was “important” to them that all accredited UN conference participants were able to attend.

A spokesperson said they were “in close contact with the UNFCCC Secretariat months before the conference, including on the visa issue, and sensitised the missions abroad at an early stage to the upcoming conference and the potential increase in demand for visas”.

They added that UN accreditation for the Bonn talks “cannot replace the actual examination of the visa application” and there are legal requirements for getting a visa for the EU’s Schengen zone of free movement.

Climate Home has seen seven letters issued by the German government denying visas to African campaigners and negotiators. One other rejection letter was issued on Germany’s behalf by another European Union government, as some EU countries share responsibility for issuing visas in certain nations.

The letters say that the visas were not issued because the delegates had not proved they had the funds to cover their stay or that they planned to leave before their visa expired or that the information or documents provided were not reliable.

Not welcome?

The organisers of the letter to the German government said they have found seven other cases where delegates only had their visas approved after the start of the two weeks of talks, meaning many had to rebook flights.

Bonn makes only lukewarm progress to tackle a red-hot climate crisis

Others reported being unable to get an appointment with visa officials of the German embassy in their country.

One delegate from an African country, who did not want to be named, told Climate Home that they went to the German consulate three times before they received information on how to get a visa.

They were told they weren’t going to get a visa appointment in time and only received one after getting contacts in their own government to help. “Not everyone has those advantages though, so I was pretty lucky”, the delegate said.

Proscovier Nnanyonjo Vikman from Climate Action Network Uganda said she only received her visa five days after the start of the talks and had to change her flight. She said many delegates feel “they are being harassed to enter a country that obviously doesn’t like them”.

No shortage of public money to pay for a just energy transition

As well as limiting access, the visa issues delayed the talks. In the opening session, the Russian government blocked the adoption of the agenda because, they said, several of their negotiators had not received visas. They relented after receiving assurances the visas would be granted quickly.

The German government spokesperson told Climate Home that the foreign office liaises closely with the UNFCCC to find solutions for “queries or discrepancies” including “for visa applications submitted too late during the conference”.

Call to move mid-year talks

Similar issues have plagued previous European climate summits. In 2022, two campaigners from Sierra Leone were left stranded in Nigeria after the Swedish government sent their passports to be processed in Kenya as they applied, unsuccessfully, for visas to attend the Stockholm+50 environment summit.

The UN talks are held in Bonn every June as it is the home of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), whose secretariat organises the meeting and is permanently based in a riverside tower a short walk from the conference centre.

The mid-year conference is supposed to help negotiators discuss issues in advance of the COP climate summit, a more high-profile event held every November, and to share experiences on how to tackle climate change.

Vikman, who went to Bonn to promote methods of adapting farming to the effects of climate change, said that the talks should be moved from Germany to a place everyone can access.

“We don’t need to die coming to Bonn – let’s move, she said.

Developing countries suggest rich nations tax arms, fashion and tech firms for climate

Kobusingye echoed her call. “It is crucial to remember that the role of the UN is to unite nations. If Global North countries cannot facilitate this process, Germany and the UN should consider moving the conference to a more receptive country that is visa-free for delegates from the Global South,” she said.

She contrasted the German government’s hosting with the UAE’s arrangements for COP28 last November and December when, she said, “every accredited delegate received their visa promptly, demonstrating that it is possible to accommodate all participants efficiently”.

(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Megan Rowling)

This story was updated on June 14 to add comment from the German government received after publication.

The post Visa chaos for developing-country delegates mars Bonn climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

Imagine losing your home to catastrophic floods, your loved ones to unprecedented hurricanes, your livelihood to raging wildfires, or your ancestors’ graves to rising sea levels.  

Then, to add insult to injury, imagine losing your voice and rights in the very UN institution mandated to alleviate the costs of these climate-related harms for the hardest hit in communities such as yours.  

Technocrats talking about you, without you; decisions made – including, ironically, on participation and stakeholder engagement – while you have no meaningful say. Justice denied from the outset.   

This could be the dire reality when the new board of the Loss and Damage Fund (LDF) convenes for the first time in Abu Dhabi (UAE) next week (April 30 – May 2). Designed to provide long-awaited justice for those suffering the most from climate impacts, the fund risks failing right from the start by limiting access for those it claims to support. 

Expectations mount as loss and damage fund staggers to its feet

Those most affected by the climate crisis know all too well the losses and damages they are suffering and how to repair these harms. Their involvement in the LDF is essential not only for its effectiveness but for its legitimacy and for justice. Even more than any other, this fund needs to be driven by people, to respect their rights, and hear their voices. 

Let’s start with the basics: public participation and access to information are human rights. Accountability, transparency and participation in decision-making are the hallmarks of democratic governance – and their importance for the LDF’s ability to meet local needs and priorities cannot be overstated.  

These fundamental rights are rooted in the understanding that people should hold power over decisions that concern their lives and communities. Science and experience show that such participation also leads to more effective and sustainable outcomes. Getting participation right from the start is essential to the LDF’s legitimacy, equity, effectiveness and potential for transformative change.  

Sidelined in planning 

The LDF would not exist if it were not for the decades-long relentless calls for justice and affirmative action by communities, civil society and Indigenous Peoples, which escalated to an impossible-to-ignore volume over the last few years.  

Despite these loud calls, rightsholders’ representatives were sidelined during the fund’s planning stages last year. While a small group of countries in a Transitional Committee debated the fund’s scope and aims, civil society consistently had to put up a fight merely to be let into the room. 

And history is repeating itself. The LDF’s Governing Instrument (adopted at COP28) reinforces the need to support local communities and recognition of their participation. Yet the first board meeting limits participation to two people per UNFCCC stakeholder group – some of which represent millions, even billions, of people – such as Indigenous Peoples, youth, and women and girls.  

Such overly restrictive numbers do not allow for the representation of the diversity of voices, groups and organisations under the umbrellas of these groups, and will lead to the exclusion of critical voices. 

As donors dither, Indigenous funds seek to decolonise green finance

These limitations are in stark contrast with participation at another UN fund, the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which – while it still has a long way to go to enable effective participation – does not limit board meeting observer attendance either in number or by stakeholder groups. The GCF had a significantly higher attendance than the LDF at its first meetings.  

Restricted seating in the actual room will further limit direct interaction with LDF board members making the decisions. The claimed ‘space constraints’ behind the restrictions are particularly unconvincing, coming from a country that organised the biggest climate talks in history just a few months ago.  

Climate justice requires inclusion  

The LDF has the potential to set a new precedent for climate finance – one that values human dignity and amplifies the voices of its beneficiaries. This requires more than a token dialogue with a handful of stakeholders in the first meeting; it necessitates a broad, inclusive consultation process that genuinely influences the fund’s policies.  

By explicitly endorsing the principles of inclusion, non-discrimination, transparency, access to information, empowerment, collaboration, and accountability, and proactively enabling active participation at all stages – from designing board policies and assessing community-level needs to implementation and decision-making – the LDF could live up to expectations and deliver climate justice.  

Tensions rise over who will contribute to new climate finance goal

If the Board does not explicitly and meaningfully include the diverse voices of the rightsholders who are meant to be the LDF’s main beneficiaries, the fund risks becoming another bureaucratic relic, preserving the status quo of climate injustice.  

During its first meeting next week, the board has a chance to overcome business-as-usual, as decision-makers will discuss procedures for the participation of observers and stakeholders. It must radically choose to enable and support meaningful participation by the diverse range of groups involved.  

The time to act is now. At its inaugural meeting, the board must choose to champion transformative change and genuine justice, setting a course that will define the fund’s legacy. The lives and livelihoods of far too many are on the line.

The post Limiting frontline voices in the Loss and Damage Fund is a recipe for disaster appeared first on Climate Home News.

Earlier this week, the factory – which employs around 12,500 people and produces 1,000 EVs per day – was reconnected to the electricity grid after a costly power outage caused by a March 5 arson attack on a nearby pylon, claimed by far-left activists. 

 Now it faces protests from around 80 climate campaigners belonging to the “Tesla Stoppen” (Stop Tesla) initiative who set up a camp in late February inside 100 hectares of state-owned forest land that Tesla wants to buy and clear for its expansion.  

Annika Fuchs, a mobility expert with German climate justice group Robin Wood, told Climate Home she and others occupying the Grünheide forest – who could face eviction from Friday onwards – support local residents’ rejection of the factory expansion in a February referendum.  

“We want to make sure that we reduce the amount of cars that we have here in Germany, and really focus on public transport as the solution for the future,” she added.  

Both Tesla Stoppen and Grünheide inhabitants issued statements condemning the sabotage of the pylon by the leftist “Volcano Group”, but the incident caught the attention of the German media and has fuelled debate around the potential for EVs to fight climate change.   

On the day of the pylon attack, Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns: “Stopping production of electric vehicles, rather than fossil fuel vehicles, ist extrem dumm” [is extremely stupid]. 

This week, Musk visited the factory after operations had resumed there, wearing a black T-shirt that read “We are (Giga) the future”, and shouting “Hey, Deutschland rocks! Dig in Berlin for the win!” as he headed back to his car.  

Tesla did not respond to a request from Climate Home for comment on opposition to its factory expansion plans. 

Water and mineral wars  

Tesla’s German gigafactory has been a controversial project even before it began operations in early 2022. Key political figures, eager to bring jobs and tax revenue to the area, have supported the company but local people and climate activists are more sceptical. 

Arguments on both sides highlight the contested nature of “green capitalism”. Backers of EVs see them as the best way to cut emissions from fossil fuel-driven transport, while critics decry their energy-intensive production process and the negative environmental and social impacts of battery supply chains for minerals and metals like lithium.  

The factory is located five kilometres south of Grünheide, a small town about an hour southeast of Berlin by train. Concerned about its impacts, residents formed a citizen’s initiative that monitors Tesla’s actions in the region. 

A general view shows the new Tesla Gigafactory for electric cars in Gruenheide, Germany, March 20, 2022. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

German newspaper Stern reported last month that local water authority officials warned Tesla repeatedly that phosphorus and nitrogen levels in the wastewater from its factory released into the nearby River Spree, which flows through Berlin, were found to be six times higher than permitted limits. 

Tesla has suggested that concentrations of pollutants in its wastewater are higher because the company reuses water. Tesla’s VP of public policy and business development, Rohan Patel, responded to the claims on X by pointing out that Tesla recycles “up to 100%” of its industrial water, and that the gigafactory uses 33% less water per vehicle than the industry average. 

Locals in Grünheide also fear that their drinking water sources may become contaminated if groundwater levels drop too low.   

Grünheide is surrounded by lakes and waterways, but as in large swathes of Central Europe, droughts in recent years have left groundwater levels at record lows. Tesla, meanwhile, has become one of the region’s biggest water users. According to German newspaper Tagesspiegel, Tesla used just over 450,000 cubic metres of fresh water last year – although this is less than a third of the amount it was allotted in an agreement with the local water board.   

Opponents of the proposed gigafactory expansion note that it would extend the factory into in a water protection area.   

At the entrance to the Tesla Stoppen camp, a tall banner hanging from the trees reads “Water is a human right”. Activists at the site told Climate Home that securing the region’s water resources is a key concern – one that also applies further afield. 

Photos of South American lithium salt flats hang in the Tesla Stoppen protest camp in the Grünheide forest, Germany, March 10, 2024 (Photo: Paul Krantz)

Photographs of South America’s lithium salt flats are hung around the camp, flagging how lithium mining drains water resources from arid regions in Chile, Bolivia and Argentina.  

“We see that water injustice and climate injustice are caused by the same reasons. It’s big companies exploiting resources,” said protestor Lamin Chukwugozie.  

Stephen Musarurwa, a climate justice advocate from Botswana, said in a speech delivered at a Tesla Stoppen demonstration on Sunday that conflict and environmental damage in the Democratic Republic of Congo is being exacerbated by mining for EV battery components.   

“We have communities that don’t own a single electric car, but the amount of destruction is beyond humanity,” he said.  

Climate activist Lamin Chukwugozie plays piano at in the Tesla Stoppen protest camp in the Grünheide forest, Germany, March 10, 2024 (Photo: Paul Krantz)

Climate protesters ‘repressed’  

The protest camp at Grünheide was initially given permission to remain until March 15, after which local police could move in to evict its occupants.  

A police spokesman told the German Press Agency (DPA) it was considering how to deal with the camp but did not say when a decision was expected. Tesla Stoppen is organising workshops to prepare activists on how to respond to an eviction should it happen. 

Many of the camp’s members have also been involved in other environmental direct-action movements in Germany, such as the occupation of the site of a lignite coal mine in Lützerath, which attracted Greta Thunberg and other high-profile youth activists in early 2023 and ended in clashes as the site was cleared by riot police and bulldozers. 

Here, and before that at the Hambach Forest, campaigners living in tents and treehouses spent years resisting police evictions to stall the expansion of brown coal mines in west Germany – winning a commitment in early 2020 that the Hambach Forest site would not be developed.

In both Lützerath and Hambach, activists reported widespread and brutal police violence used against them. According to a report released this week by global civil society alliance CIVICUS, climate activists face growing restrictions in Germany – as in many other industrialised nations.   

“Germany has a reputation of being a country with high protest freedoms, but what we’ve noticed is that not all protests are being treated the same,” Andrew Firmin, who leads climate activism research for CIVICUS, told Climate Home. “Climate protests in particular are being targeted and repressed with excessive force.”  

Resistance growing   

In Grünheide, as the sun set over the forest after Sunday’s demonstration, Sulti, a Kurdish refugee who did not want to give their full name, admired a wooden platform they and other activists had suspended in a tree about six metres off the ground. Sulti planned to sleep up on the platform, which would be given walls and a roof in the coming days. 

Sulti said protestors had come to Grünheide aiming to abolish companies that exploit natural resources and defend shared commons like the forest. “We are trying to build a utopia, and to show people that it’s possible to live in a collective, and to not let the capitalist system push us all into individualism,” the activist said.  

Kurdish refugee and protest camp participant Sulti poses in front of a banner at the Tesla Stoppen protest camp in the Grünheide forest, Germany, March 10, 2024 (Photo: Paul Krantz)

Sulti is not afraid of potential confrontation with the authorities, saying: “We are the seed, we are the soil, we are the land, and we will keep growing and growing.”   

Chukwugozie pointed to how the climate justice movement has shown it can learn and rebuild after struggles like Lützerath, in which he also participated. “We come back in different places and continue to fight from the ground up,” he said. 

Editor’s note: On March 19, an administrative court in Germany rejected a police application to end the camp’s right to legal assembly which had asserted the tree-houses built by protesters were dangerous. After the court decision, the activists said they plan to remain in the forest until at least May 20, DPA reported.

The post Tesla EV gigafactory drives Germany’s latest climate justice struggle  appeared first on Climate Home News.

Representatives of countries from an array of different regions, including Africa, Asia, Latin America and small island states, pushed to be singled out as particularly vulnerable.

Tanzania and Timor-Leste asked that the world’s poorest countries, known as least developed countries (LDCs), be added to a list of impacted communities, according to a report of the meeting by think-tank IISD.

Africa and small island developing states (Sids) were nearly cut out of one section on vulnerabilities, the IISD report says, and replaced by a reference to “developing and least developed countries”.

UN tells governments to ‘fast forward’ net zero targets

But there was a strong push from many delegates to retain them, particularly as most of those regions’ representatives had already left the talks to approve the report, as they had to catch flights home from Switzerland.

Mexico and Chile wanted to add Latin America to the list of regions that are particularly vulnerable while India wanted Asia included, according to IISD’s report.

The final document lists Africa, Sids, LDCs, Central and South America, Asia and the Arctic as particularly vulnerable.

The benefits of vulnerability

What makes some communities more vulnerable than others is not just physical factors like sea level rise but also social factors like poverty, governance, building standards and infrastructure.

This makes naming specific parts of the world as vulnerable a politically sensitive topic.

The inclusion of the Arctic as one of the most climate vulnerable places in the world, for example, was significant because it came just days after the US approved the hugely controversial Willow oil drilling project on Alaska’s north slope.

There are various reasons for wanting to be named as vulnerable, including global recognition and better access to climate finance.

Last year’s Cop27 climate talks agreed that a new fund for climate victims should be targeted at countries who are “particularly vulnerable” to climate change.

Loss and damage committee ready to start talks following Asian nominations

Samoan ambassador Fatumanava-o-Upolu III Dr. Pa’olelei Luteru, who chairs the alliance of small island states (Aosis), said making specific note of the risks to these islands was “imperative in the context of climate justice”.

“The fact is that we are already facing devastating losses and damages of great magnitude, and funds we should be investing into sustainable development initiatives must be diverted to help us cope with climate change impacts,” he said.

IPCC highlights rich nations’ failure to help developing world adapt to climate change

But recognising growing impacts also gives states the responsibility of acting on them.

Jörn Birkmann researches climate vulnerability at the University of Stuttgart in Germany and was coordinating lead author of one of the underlying IPCC reports.

He told Climate Home: “It seems like governments fear that if their country is not mentioned, they could receive less support (e.g. global adaptation funds),”

He added: “Or vice versa; if they are mentioned it might lead to a stigmatisation or might raise questions about the role of governance.”

Measuring vulnerability

Birkmann said studies on human vulnerability all point to the same global hotspots, particularly Africa.

But even though many governments acknowledge this, there are significant tensions when measuring and mapping human vulnerability.

“It is still difficult in [a summary for policymakers report] to name specific global regions that are more vulnerable than others,” he said.

“The synthesis report is mentioning some regions, but it seems to be much easier for governments to agree on general sentences, rather than pointing to areas or countries where such deficits are evident.”

Green Climate Fund credibility hangs over response to violence in Nicaragua project

Although it misses a lot of nuance about who is vulnerable, Birkmann welcomes the fact that the report recognises global hotspots, “since the success of adaptation and resilience building also depends on the starting point communities and countries have”.

He believes adaptation strategies should not just focus on physical phenomena and climatic hazards such as storms, but also on structures and interventions that reduce human vulnerability, such as poverty reduction, education or fighting corruption – the latter being “a very controversial topic in the political arena”.

Furthermore, when new financial mechanisms for loss and damage agreed at Cop27 are being put into practice, he said it would be helpful to define adaptation goals, not just those on emission reduction.

“These goals should also take into account the very different starting points of regions/countries/communities to build resilience,” he said.” The level of human vulnerability might be such a benchmark of the different starting points.”

The post Nations fight to be called climate vulnerable in IPCC report appeared first on Climate Home News.

Sofanit is a gender specialist working as the regional gender and social inclusion coordinator at Ripple Effect, formerly known as ‘Send A Cow’.

Ripple Effect works with smallholder farmers to equip them with knowledge and skills enabling them to improve their livelihoods and thrive.

Farmers working alongside Ripple Effect learn more, grow more and sell more. They can feed their families nutritious food, and by having a surplus to sell can invest in their farms, send their children to school and build sustainable agri-businesses.

In this episode, Sofanit takes us through her journey working with women farmers in different African countries to deliver training programs that help them adapt to a changing climate.

She explains how and why women and children are  disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change, and what Ripple Effect is doing to ease the burden on women, children and their households.

Sofanit also explains how other stakeholders can come on board to support this kind of work, ensuring that more and more communities get support to build resilience and
secure a healthy future for themselves and their children.

Sofanit signs off the show by sharing what she wants the upcoming COP27 climate conference in Egypt to deliver in November. Enjoy the show!

Learn more about Ripple Effect on LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube and on their website.

The post Hali Hewa episode 5: Female farmers appeared first on Climate Home News.

They included Fikile Ntshangase, a South African grandmother murdered at home in front of her grandson, following opposition to the expansion of a neighbouring coal mine.

Defenders like Fikile are on the frontline of the climate crisis and are most at risk from attacks and violent reprisals. The consequences for women – both from climate impacts and the reprisals faced after speaking out – are grounded in historic gender inequalities.

Women often lack land and legal rights, making them vulnerable to exploitation. As climate breakdown takes hold, the gap in social inequality looks set to widen – and many more women will be confronted with the need to speak out to protect their homes and livelihoods. This can be a life and death decision – but women also face additional threats, as it is not just their activism that makes them a target, but their gender too.

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Those working on land and environmental protection are often surrounded by a culture of silence. Fear of public disapproval and suspicion of authorities can prevent women defenders from coming forward to report attacks. Between 2015 and 2016 alone, there were 609 instances of aggression against Central American and Mexican women working to protect the environment.

While sexual violence and harassment can be perpetrated against any rights activist, gender-specific risks tend to be reported by women defenders. “When they threaten me, they say they will kill me, but before they kill me, they will rape me. They don’t say that to my male colleagues,” says Lolita Chavez, a Maya K’iche indigenous defender from Guatemala.

Away from protests, women defenders also face more elusive forms of violence. Smear campaigns undermine their reputations and social standing, dampening wider public support for their cause. These slurs are often gendered, with many women defenders bombarded with insults like “whore” or “slut”.

While violence against women is a widespread global phenomenon prevalent in all walks of life and across all sectors, there is some evidence that the extractive sectors – particularly industries like large-scale mining – pose a significant violent risk for women. Nearly 30% of women defenders killed since the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015 were campaigning against extractive industry projects.

Colombia: Anti-fracking activist tells why she fled the country

Research shows that where there are extractive industries, cultures of violence exist. Women working in the extractive sector are at an increased risk of attack including sexual assault. Similarly, domestic violence against women also appears to increase in proximity to large-scale extractive activity. This is the result of many factors, including disruption of traditional property ownership, the increase in male migration to towns close to extractive projects, and economic uplifts which tend to benefit men.

Not all women face the same vulnerability. Our data shows a higher number of reported killings of women belonging to indigenous or Afro-descendant communities in Colombia. Experiences of violence against women differs depending on a range of intersecting factors from race to socio-economic status.

So, what can be done? Environmentally damaging projects trigger shifts in social fabrics, affecting entire communities, with unique impacts on women. Corporate behaviour is at the heart of so much of this damage, and companies must be required to evaluate their impact with rigorous human rights and environmental due diligence designed to identity the acute impacts of their projects across all facets of a community. Governments must hold companies who fail to do that legally liable.

Gender inequity is intimately tied to the climate crisis – conversely, we won’t solve the climate crisis while gender inequity persists. Solving both requires a paradigm shift.

Rachel Cox is a campaigner with Global Witness, a climate advocacy group

The post Around the world, women are putting their lives on the line to defend the climate appeared first on Climate Home News.

Mounir grows date palms, just like the majority of Tozeur’s inhabitants. This oasis – over 4,000 years old – is the largest in Tunisia. Located at the edge of the Sahara Desert, in the southwest of the country, this city now wants to be ‘top of the class’ for environmental management, and aspires to energy autonomy.

Approximately 97% of Tunisia’s electricity is currently  , mainly natural gas. In 2020, nearly 57% of the country’s natural gas needs were met through imports, mainly from Algeria.

For now, only 3% of Tunisia’s electricity is generated from renewables, including hydroelectric, solar, and wind energy. However, the country aims to produce 30% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2030, according to its

To help it achieve its renewables target, Tunisia is installing two public solar plants in Tozeur in March, each with an output of 10 MW. The project was financed by loans from the German Development Bank (KfW). In total, €23 million in loans rallocated to technical assistance and staff training. The solar panels were supplied by two European manufacturers: TerniEnergia from Italy and GenSun from France.

“Nearly 17,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions will be avoided each year compared to before the installation of the solar plant, helping the country to reach its goals in terms of renewable electricity generation”, said Abderrazek Al Ouja, the project manager of the solar farm. The electricity produced by our two plants represents of the region of Tozeur, he told Climate Home News.

The farming community of the oasis takes a sceptical view of this new installation.In the last two years, the farmers have accumulated  17 million dinars (£4,372,026) in debt, for extracting groundwater, and the Tunisian Electricity and Gas Company (STEG) is now threatening to cut off their electricity.

With working conditions increasingly difficult, the Tozeur farming community is highly vulnerable. One of the main challenges it is facing is soaring electricity bills, linked to water drilling, which they have more and more trouble paying.

and access to water is the number one issue for farmers in Tozeur, where water resources are quickly depleting. “We now need electricity to pump our water. And it doesn’t seem like this new central will help us with our electricity problems, as no one has consulted us until now”, said Mohamed Jhimi, farmer and president of an agricultural development group in Tozeur.

“They’ve got some nerve to implement a solar power plant, without it being planned to benefit those who suffer the most here,” Jhimi said.

For Hamza Hamouchene, a just transition expert and researcher at the Transnational Institute (TNI) in the Netherlands, “this kind of project usually exacerbates already existing problems, as it is in the case of the huge complex Noor-Ouarzazate in Morocco, the world’s largest concentrated solar power plant (580 MW).”

“The local communities already suffered from huge water poverty, as the water levels are very low. Since the installation of this mega solar plant, a huge one compared to the Tozeur’s central, some of the water has been diverted to go to this solar farm,” he told Climate Home News.

The entire process is centralised and financed through development banks, he said. “They do the so-called social assessments but in reality, they are just ticking boxes.”

According to project manager Al Ouja, the new electricity production would benefit almost 40,000 homes in Tozeur’s region, although a STEG engineer refuted this claim. “All the electricity produced in Tozeur is injected into the national grid and then redistributed centrally. It does not benefit to the local inhabitants per se,” he told Climate Home News.

Tunisia emits only 0.07% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet the country is among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. “In Tozeur, all we see are mitigation programmes when what we need most is to adapt,” said Salem Ben Slama, a member of the . “Our farmers need help to cope with the threats that endanger the life of the oasis.”

Mounting climate threats

In Tozeur, the reception to this solar plant is far from unanimous. “With the creation of this solar park, the Tunisian state misses the opportunity to address the climate issue as it unfolds here,” said Ben Slama. “We have invested millions of dinars in a mitigation programme, that is the solar farm, but those who suffer the full force of climate change here, the farmers, are ignored,” he told Climate Home News.

This imbalance is reflected in the figures. In its climate plan, Tunisia outlines its plan to spend 74% of its climate budget, $14.3 billion, on mitigation, compared to just $4,3 billion on adaptation. For the energy sector, the country mainly aims to focus on the development of solar energy, multiplying its production capacity by 10 by 2030, compared to 2020.

“What we need is a national programme to protect and value our fragile ecosystems, as well as our indigenous and local knowledge”, said Salem Ben Slama. With their worsening working conditions, more and more farmers are forced to leave their land and knowledge behind.

To help communities adapt to climate impacts, the assembly of Maghrebi citizens for the oasis of Tozeur has “the promotion of technology transfer and the strengthening of knowledge in the field of adaptation.” They also stressed the importance of improving scientific knowledge around how climate impacts affect oases.

Oases are among the most fragile ecosystems on the planet. In Tozeur, the

past two years were the worst ever recorded for farmers, who rely almost entirely on date production. In Tozeur, almost 50% of the population works in date production, according to Karem Dessy, president of the Associationto Safeguard the Medina of Tozeur.

“Most of our current problems are of climate change,” said Karim Kadri, an engineer and researcher in oasis agriculture in Tozeur. Over the past two years, temperatures have reached record

The drought has had multiple consequences on the fragile oasis ecosystem: a devastating disease called “boufaroua” has attacked the palm trees. “These are mites that grow around the fruit and suffocate them,” explained Kadri. The dates turn white and the whole crop goes up in smoke. “Usually, it only takes one or two rains to wash our trees and naturally rid them of these invaders,” he said.

Oasis is synonymous with water. In addition to the rainwater, the groundwater is also drying up. Previously, a single source, that of Ras El Ain, was used to irrigate the entire oasis of Tozeur. The water was perfectly distributed among farmers, with the help of an irrigation system dating back to the 13th Century.

“But in the 1990s, these water tables began to be depleted when the state expanded the oasis with farms established, as well as with the development of the hotel zone. It was the beginning of irrigated areas and drilling practices to extract water in larger quantities,” said Chaker Bardoula, a farmer and former president of the regional federation of agriculture.

Water battle

Today the naturally available water resources no longer exist. Faced with the disappearance of this “mother-source”, the Tunisian state has implanted boreholes in order to maintain the irrigation of the ancient oasis. But this water is far from sufficient to meet the needs of farmers, who have been forced to install their own drilling pumps.

“It is these pumps that are very expensive for electricity,” said Ben Slama. “It is a huge problem.” Since the 1970s, the cost of electricity has increased four to six times, he said. In addition to the rising cost of electricity, farmers have been receiving pressure from middlemen. “They are taking advantage of the Covid pandemic to force farmers to lower their selling prices. They smash prices and no one is monitoring”, said Chaker Bardoula. This year, farmers who were lucky enough to sell their crops sold them for three times less than in previous years, he said.

All these pressures mean that farmers have been unable to pay their electricity bills for the past two years. “We are suffocating: on the one hand because of climate change, on the other because of our debt to the STEG,” said Jhimi.

Ben Slama said that as long as no system of subsidising electricity to farmers has been found, it is impossible to speak of social responsibility.

“This plant does not address local communities. We have been excluded from this project, no one has come to consult us,” he said.

According to him, it would be enough to allocate a produced by this solar power plant, to the farmers, for climate justice to be given. When questioned on this matter by Climate Home News, neither of the two project managers of the solar farm said they were aware of this matter.

Taha Sendid, Tozeur’s STEG district manager, said the company has been helping the farmers by setting up payments by instalments, to resolve the long-standing debt issue. “However, the electricity produced by the solar central is not specifically, it addresses the entire population of Tozeur. If they have specific issues, they should address [them to] the State,” he said.

For Hamouchene, “one way of making this transition just, would be to cancel these farmers’ debts, and provide them with cheap electricity.”  State subsidies could also put a brake on individual drilling initiatives, he said. Many farmers, because of a lack of assistance, dig wells that are much too deep, weakening the water table even more.

To protect what is left of the oasis, Dessy said the government must urgently invest in adaptation solutions such , which is being done elsewhere across the country. “At this pace, we only have a hundred years before the water resources completely vanish, according to local hydrogeologists. We need to act fast,” said Dessy.

The post Debt-stricken Tunisian farmers ‘ignored’ as government rolls out solar megaproject appeared first on Climate Home News.

Vilches, who grew up next to the river, is an activist for Mujeres Modatima, a Chilean organisation that fights to protect the water for local communities and exposes its illegal extraction by businesses and politicians.

“Here it is,” she said, as she stopped by a messy pile of dry branches. Underneath it lies an illegal well.   “Be careful,” she warned, looking in the direction of a nearby house, where people are watching. A hose can be seen going out in direction to the hills, which are covered in avocado plantations. Vilches knows these installations very well; agricultural companies use them to steal water from the river’s groundwater course.

She has reported water theft in Petorca to the authorities for years and has received death threats as a result. “People have followed me to my house to intimidate me, and painted death threats in the place where I work. They can paint over every wall they want because they’ll never paint over my dignity!” she told Climate Home News.

Dry wells

Vilches’ home province of Petorca, which is located 200 kilometres north of the Chilean capital Santiago, is facing a severe water crisis due to the explosive growth of large-scale avocado farming. This water-intensive production has dried up local rivers and forced many smallholder farmers to leave the area.

“Here I used to have all sorts of fruit trees. And we traded them for cheese or milk from our neighbours who had goats. When we were sick, we didn’t go to the pharmacy. We strolled down to the riverside to pick up medicinal herbs. Now we have to buy everything from the stores,” said Vilches.

In the midst of a 10-year drought, the longest ever to hit the country, most of the available water in the rural areas of Petorca goes towards avocado production [source?], while the provincial government has to buy and deliver water to more than 6.000 people in rural communities by truck, 20% of the province’s population. The quality of this water is not guaranteed. Petorca residents have reported an increase in diseases such as gastritis or urinary infections, which they attribute to the lack of water and its unreliable quality. [Source? Can you include some links to studies that highlight a link between these diseases and inadequate water supply]

The root of this distribution problem lies in Chile’s Constitution and Water Code, both written in 1981 under a military dictatorship. Under this legislation, water was privatised and tradeable water rights were granted for free and in perpetuity.

This system distributed water without taking into account future hydrologic scenarios and climate challenges. Chile is on a clear desertification path, with dry weather advancing south every year.

“The decrease of rain and snowfall is a clear trend in this part of Chile. But if we combine it with the unplanned overuse of water for agricultural exports, we are accelerating a process of desertification that advances south, and Petorca is starting to show signs of a semi-arid climate,” Ariel Muñoz, investigator in the Centre for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2), told Climate Home News.

“If we keep extracting water, the reserves will end, and similar scenarios are developing in other parts of the country,” said Muñoz. “Petorca is an example of how critical it can get if we don’t redistribute water and plan with every need and scenario in mind.”

Currently in Petorca, big agricultural companies control more water rights, than what is currently available. When avocado producers require more than their current water allotment, they take it illegally [source].

A new constitution

Communities are hopeful that a new constitution will dismantle water privatisation in Chile and ensure fair distribution.

4 July 2021 will be remembered as a historic day in Chile. An indigenous woman, Elisa Loncon, assumed the presidency of a convention to write Chile’s new constitution. 155 citizens were elected to the constitutional convention earlier this year, following massive protests demanding structural changes.

While Loncon gave her inaugural speech, water rights activist Carolina Vilches, one of the elected citizens, watched in the audience. “Water for everyone! Justice for Petorca!” she shouted as her name was called.

Carolina Vilches works along with Verónica at Mujeres Modatima. She, and representatives from other communities facing water rights challenges, managed to secure a seat in the convention, which started work immediately. They hope that the new foundational text will help abolish the current model of water privatisation, and establish access to water as a human right under the Chilean constitution.

“It’s important that voices which have never been listened to, have a space in the construction of a new country. I will give my all to convey the voice of my community in the convention,” she told Climate Home News.

She said she will work to ensure that no private water scenarios remain in the new constitution, and that the right to water and the rights of nature are recognised.

“In this constitutional convention, we see a new opportunity to trigger other necessary changes in the way that water is managed, and to establish the access to water as a human rights issue. Our colleague Carolina Vilches is representing us in that space, while we keep our work on the ground which is where we set the foundations for our demands,” Lorena Donaire, another Mujeres Modatima activist, told Climate Home News.

The case for 100 litres

Rural communities in Petorca were already facing severe water shortages when the coronavirus pandemic hit. While the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a minimum of between 50 and 100 litres of water per day per person, people in Petorca received just 20 litres of water a day, according to a report by the National Human Rights Institute.

Communities and human rights institutions started taking legal action in May 2020, to demand the 100 litres recommended by the WHO.

One of the lawsuits got as far as the Supreme Court, which, in March 2021, ordered the government to meet the requirement. The ruling was seen to set an important legal precedent, but not as a permanent solution.

“In Chile, it’s difficult to enforce a ruling as there is no established mechanism, or organism in charge of following up”, said Pilar Moraga, deputy director at the Centre for Environmental Law at the University of Chile. In a similar case regarding contamination and health issues in the same region, the government is yet to obey a two-year-old Supreme Court ruling.

“In addition, delivering water by truck is not a sustainable way to provide water to the community, and there is no mention of the required quality of the water delivered,” said Moraga.

For many, the Constitution has to change, in order for there to be real transformation.

On the ground in Petorca, activists fight on, despite experiencing death threats and intimidation. Modatima women continue reporting water theft, and planning actions to seek climate justice abroad [where and how?], as many people still get less than 100 litres of water a day despite the Supreme Court ruling.

Verónica Vilches and her colleagues created a distribution network during the pandemic, to bring water to those who live in isolated regions. Other localities have raised funds and organised collaborative initiatives to finance temporary water solutions.

“We help each other out and invent what we can to survive. But there is no support, everything comes from our own willpower, and every day is a struggle. We need real change. This is no drought. The water has been stolen from us and we need it to be returned to the land and to the people,” she said.

The post Chileans look to new constitution to return water to communities appeared first on Climate Home News.

The case was brought by nine youth climate activists who argued that the law in its current form violates their right to a humane future, as it does not go far enough to reduce emissions and limit global temperature rise to 1.5C.

German energy minister Peter Altmaier described the ruling as “big and meaningful” and said it was “epochal” for the rights of young people and climate protection.

Top court rules German climate law falls short, in ‘historic’ victory for youth

Climate litigation is a maturing field. Over the past decade, lawyers have tested several strategies for challenging climate harm or inaction through the courts.

Here Climate Home News explores which legal avenues have been successful and which approaches have failed.

Human rights

Lawsuits that argue that governments have a human rights obligation to avoid dangerous levels of global warming are becoming increasingly widespread and successful, said Joana Setzer, a research fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London.

The most pivotal climate lawsuit in the past decade, the landmark Urgenda case in the Netherlands, centred on human rights. 

In 2019, the Dutch Supreme Court ordered the government to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by the end of 2020, compared to 1990 levels, as its minimum fair share to tackle climate change. 

The case was brought by the Urgenda Foundation, a climate group representing the interests of 900 Dutch citizens who argued that the government was putting them in “unacceptable  danger”, by setting an insufficient emissions reduction goal of 14-17% by 2020, from 1990 levels. 

The court ruled that the government had failed to protect the human rights of its citizens by violating Articles 2 (right to life) and 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). 

Climate campaigners cheered and hugged each other as the verdict was read out at a district court in the Hague on 24 June 2015 (Photo: Urgenda)

The Urgenda verdict sparked a wave of human rights lawsuits around the world, from New Zealand to Ireland. 

Climate group Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) used similar arguments when it brought a case against the Irish government for failing to take adequate action to curb emissions and protect its citizens’ right to life. The Irish Supreme Court ordered the government to draw up a new emissions mitigation plan, but did not tackle the human rights arguments invoked by FIE.

The right to life has also formed the backbone of high-profile climate displacement cases. 

The most famous relates to Ioane Teitiota, a man from Kiribati living in New Zealand, who fought numerous legal battles to stop him being deported back to the Pacific island nation. Teitiota argued that returning to a nation threatened by rising sea levels and other climate impacts posed a serious risk to his life.

UK aid cuts hit developing cities’ plans to protect against floods and fires

After New Zealand’s Supreme Court rejected Teitiota’s asylum claim as a climate change refugee, he took his case to the UN Human Rights Committee. 

While the committee denied Teitiota’s claim on the grounds that he did not face imminent danger, it did rule in January 2020 that countries may not deport people who face climate-related risks that violate their right to life.

The committee stated that “given the risk of an entire country becoming submerged under water is such an extreme risk, the conditions of life in such a country may become incompatible with the right to life with dignity before the risk is realised.”

“That recognition is significant; at some point countries could have an obligation to accept climate refugees,” Hillary Aidun, climate law fellow at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Law, told Climate Home News. 

Youth plaintiffs 

Another major theme is intergenerational inequity. “We see a trend of youth plaintiffs seeking to vindicate their rights as well as the rights of future generations,” said Aidun. 

Youth activists who are unable to vote have found a powerful way to make their voices heard: by organising climate strikes and filing lawsuits, said Kate McKenzie, a legal researcher at the Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law and Governance.

One of the most pivotal cases is a lawsuit filed by six Portuguese young people at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. They have filed a legal action accusing 33 countries of violating their right life by not doing their fair share to tackle the climate crisis. 

This case highlights the urgency needed to tackle the climate crisis, McKenzie told Climate Home News. “With youth activism there is a sense of ‘we are running out of time.’ Governments don’t get to keep doing things slowly like they are used to doing,” said McKenzie.

The six Portuguese young people who filed the first climate case at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. From left to right and top to bottom: André Oliveira, Catarina Mota, Cláudia Agostinho, Mariana Agostinho, Martim Agostinho and Sofia Oliveira (Photos: Global Legal Action Network)

Young activists make powerful plaintiffs as they represent current and future generations who will suffer the worst impacts of climate change, Setzer told Climate Home News. 

“Often you cannot get the courts to protect generations that do not yet exist. Children are going to live another 80 years. They can force governments to make decisions about 2050 targets and change behaviours now in order to achieve those ambitious targets,” said Setzer. 

Young people successfully used the future generations argument in a case brought before Colombia’s Supreme Court. 25 young people argued that the government’s failure to curb deforestation of the Amazon rainforest threatened their rights and those of future generations.

Putin sounds methane alarm, under satellite surveillance and EU pressure

The court agreed with their arguments and ordered the government to come up with a plan to reduce deforestation. 

What made this case unique was that it recognised the Amazon rainforest as an entity with its own rights.

“Most countries don’t protect the environment as an entity. It’s all about humans,” said Setzer, noting that just 13 countries reference protecting the environment in their constitutions. 

Polluter accountability

Despite their clear contribution to global carbon emissions, it is difficult to hold big polluters accountable in court.

The tobacco litigation strategy, which directly linked smoking to disease, hasn’t worked for climate activists, said Setzer.

“One of the complicating factors is attribution: how much climate change can you attribute to a particular company?” said Aidun. “We have yet to see to what extent corporations can be held accountable for climate change.”

Shell faces Dutch court in case testing how Paris climate goals apply to businesses

An ongoing case involving Royal Dutch Shell may change this. The case, which is  being heard by the high court in the Netherlands, is testing whether the Paris Agreement applies to corporations and oil companies can be held liable for their CO2 emissions. 

Seven environmental groups are demanding that Shell cut its CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030 and to zero by 2050, compared to 2019 levels, in line with the toughest 1.5C temperature limit in the Paris pact.

Campaigners have built their case on the Urgenda precedent and argue that the duty of care law applies to companies as well as governments. A verdict is expected in May. 

Climate campaigners are demanding Shell cut its CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030 and to zero by 2050 (Pic: Wikimedia Commons/Lommer)

A victory for the campaigners would force one of the world’s largest energy companies to quickly phase down production of oil and gas and invest in clean energy sources instead.

Experts say it is a landmark case for corporate responsibility which could spark a wave of litigation cases against other big polluters, if campaigners win. 

“It forces behaviours to change in the future and that is very important,” said Setzer.

Most liability cases focus on claiming damages for past harm caused by climate change, whereas the Shell case looks into the future, she added. 

Greenwashing claims which accuse companies of misleading advertising campaigns are also on the rise. “People relate easily to greenwashing,” said Setzer. “No one likes being cheated.”

In 2018, environmental law charity ClientEarth lodged a complaint against BP, accusing the oil company of misleading the public by focusing on its low-carbon products, when over 96% of its annual spending is on oil and gas. ClientEarth argued that this type of advertising was in breach of guidelines for multinational firms issued by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

UK faces legal action over public finance for Mozambique gas project

The legal complaint led to BP withdrawing the adverts. Lawyers said it set an important precedent that greenwashing cases can be challenged under international standards.

“It set a precedent for people to use the OECD guidelines to hold companies to account for their greenwashing on the basis of consumer interests,” ClientEarth lawyer Johnny White told Climate Home News.

“Fossil fuel companies using advertising to mislead the public over their climate impact were essentially put on notice,” White added.

“[Greenwashing cases] won’t change climate change, but they will change consumer and corporate behaviour,” Setzer said.

The post How youth climate court cases became a global trend appeared first on Climate Home News.

This is the second year we have partnered with the Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF) to support original reporting that focuses on communities, mainly in developing nations, who are suffering the worst impacts of climate change even though they have contributed very little to rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The coronavirus pandemic has in many cases exacerbated inequality and vulnerability to climate extremes. With mounting debts amid Covid restrictions, many governments are struggling to meet basic needs, let alone build back better.

Articles will spotlight CJRF’s priority of “communities first hit, first to respond, and first to adapt to climate change”. We will highlight the stories of women, youth and indigenous people who are creating and sharing their own solutions for resilience.

Our climate justice reporting programme previously shone a light on Kenyan women who are claiming land rights to feed their families, indigenous women running a WhatsApp food exchange in Costa Rica and how Bangladesh’s Munda minority face extra barriers to climate adaptation.

We plan to publish 12 articles under the project, running until February 2022. We welcome stories from all around the world and will give priority to journalists from developing nations or marginalised communities.

The ideal story for us will capture the attention of our international audience with colourful or surprising details. Perhaps it contributes to an international initiative or represents a global trend. Perhaps it is financed by multinational corporations or public institutions from other countries.

Your story should combine on-the-ground reporting from affected communities, scientific evidence, innovative and rights-based solutions, and political tension or controversy. 

If you are a journalist with at least three years’ experience, please send us your pitches. You must have fluent spoken and written English. It helps if you have worked with international media before and have some awareness of climate change themes.

Your pitch should explain the top line of the story and essential context in no more than 150 words. If we like the idea, we will ask for more detail. Briefly explain what sources you would interview and any travel required. All stories should include photos of the communities you are profiling and we encourage partnerships between journalists and photographers. 

When pitching for the first time, tell us a bit about your journalism experience and background. Include links to one or two recent stories you are proud of. 

Throughout the reporting process, editors will work closely with you to provide feedback and advice.

For transparency to our readers, each piece will note that it was produced with support from CJRF along with a link to our editorial guidelines that outline how we interact with grant makers while ensuring independence.

The budget range for each story is £1,000-1,400, to cover all reporting, photos and travel expenses. Travel costs will be negotiated in advance and reimbursed subject to valid receipts.

Please send your pitches to reporter Isabelle Gerretsen (ig@climatehomenews.com), who will be overseeing the programme. We will review the first pitches in late March and subsequent ideas in coming months and will publish stories until February 2022.

The post Climate Home News seeks pitches for climate justice reporting programme appeared first on Climate Home News.

Many activists held virtual protests, but in some of the hardest hit countries, such as the Philippines and Kenya, they took to the streets to demand climate action and justice from their governments.

The theme of this year’s global climate strike is supporting communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

Climate Home News spoke to three activists from the global south about their personal fears and the change they are fighting for.

Mitzi Tan, the Philippines 

Mitzi Tan says a new anti-terror law could endanger environmental defenders in the Philippines (Photo: 350org)

Two years ago, Mitzi Tan’s world view “shattered” when she first spoke to an indigenous leader from the Lumad tribe about how his people faced constant harassment, attacks and arrests in their fight to protect their land, rivers and forests from environmental destruction. 

“In the Philippines, we are already experiencing the worst impacts of the climate crisis. We have no choice but to defend the planet,” 22-year-old Tan told Climate Home News. 

Bolsonaro shifts blame for unprecedented Brazilian wetland fires

The Philippines is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including rising sea levels, more intense typhoons and flooding.

“We would spend days in the dark with candles just listening to the battery powered radio for any updates on storms, always afraid that a tree would fall or that the flood would enter our house,” Tan said. 

On Friday, youth activists gathered in groups of ten to protest, bearing banners which read “protect climate protectors” and “there is no planet b”.

“Activists are being silenced here in the Philippines. I worry that people are starting to get desensitised to the number of deaths. We have names, we have lives, we are people, we’re not just statistics,” she said. 

The Philippines is the world’s deadliest country for environmental defenders, according to Global Witness. Last year 43 environmental defenders were killed and campaigners fear that a new anti-terror law could be used to validate their arrests and murders.

“A lot of people see this law as very dangerous. It could endanger all of us and our right to defend the planet,” said Tan.

The pandemic has fostered an even greater sense of solidarity among young people around the world, said Tan. “In a way the pandemic has brought everyone closer together.”

Kevin Mtai, Kenya

The climate crisis is constantly on 24-year-old Kevin Mtai’s mind. He is witnessing the impacts of climate change first-hand. 

“I personally have been affected mentally and physically… with floods destroying our home and crops and causing water-borne diseases like typhoid and cholera [among] my family,” Mtai told Climate Home.

He gathered with other climate activists in Nairobi on Friday to protest a controversial deal which would expand the plastics industry in Kenya.

#AfricaIsNotADumpster @KevinKevinmtai giving a talk at Uhuru Park, Nairobi about how plastic waste is a problem in Kenya.

We say no to dumping of plastics in Africa by the US @USEmbassyKenya #FightClimateInjustice #FridaysForFuture @Fridays4future @GretaThunberg @disharavii pic.twitter.com/qkdnVdgpgJ

— Oneup Action Kenya (@KenyaOneup) September 25, 2020

The oil industry is lobbying the US government to use a trade deal with Kenya as an opportunity to export more plastic to the country, a move which campaigners warn would turn Kenya into a dumping site for plastic waste. Kenya has the world’s toughest ban on plastic bags. Anyone caught producing, selling or carrying plastic bags faces up to four years imprisonment or fines of $40,000.

“We don’t want the government to sign that deal. They want to force us to take that plastic but our country is not the one using [it], the USA is. Africa is not a dump site. This is an injustice for us as Kenyans and for us as climate activists,” Mtai said. 

It is a global injustice that countries in the global south emit the least carbon dioxide in the world, but are the worst affected by climate change, Mtai said. 

“People in the global south do not have anything to protect their lives… they are facing water [shortages] and diseases,” he said. 

Marina Guia, Brazil 

Marina Guia and other Brazilian climate activists take part in a virtual strike on 25 September 2020 (Photo: Marina Guia)

16-year-old Marina Guia has become accustomed to thick smoke from wildfires enveloping her city, Volta Redonda, in Brazil.  “The city is dark because of the smoke. It is something that I see day-to-day,” Guia told Climate Home. 

“The indigenous people in the forests are the ones really suffering because of the fires. The fires attack the environmental defenders directly,” she said, adding that the pandemic has made it more difficult to protect indigenous communities. “We are trying to take care to not contaminate them.”

Together with other Brazilian activists, Guia has launched the SOS Amazonia campaign to support indigenous communities protecting the Amazon rainforest. 

“We are giving a voice to indigenous people. They are on the frontlines [of climate change] and are really in danger. They are attacked by Covid-19, deforestation and murders,” said Guia. 

In a message to the UN on Tuesday, Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro denied responsibility for the worst fires on record in the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland.

The fires have led to respiratory problems for people living in the region, exacerbating coronavirus outcomes. 

“The climate crisis will affect the poorest first and those that don’t have capacity to deal with it. Climate justice is something that the whole world will need to fight for. If we don’t have the environmental defenders, we don’t have the Amazon,” Guia said.

The post Three youth activists explain why they are striking for climate justice  appeared first on Climate Home News.

Mary Robinson on a visit to Somalia in 2011 (Pic: Flickr/Jennifer O’Gorman)

By Megan Darby

When she was UN high commissioner for human rights (1997-2002), Mary Robinson admits, climate change was “not at the forefront” of her mind.

It was not until later, visiting African countries under her Ethical Globalization Initiative and as honorary president of Oxfam, the link became apparent.

People would tell her about the rainy seasons not coming on time and the impact that had on their livelihoods.

“When I read up the science, I really was faced with something that was so much more urgent and significant than even the everyday human rights crises I was dealing with as commissioner,” she tells RTCC.

Now, as a special envoy on climate change for UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, she deals with people steeped in science and environmental concern but less aware of human rights.

With the Mary Robinson Foundation, she aims to bring the two together under the banner of “climate justice”.

And she helped to broker last month’s Geneva Pledge, signed by 19 countries, to bring human rights into the global climate deal due this December in Paris.

Led by Costa Rica, the pledge is backed by Latin American, European and small island developing states, Uganda and the Philippines.

Comment: As sea levels rise, climate change threatens entire Pacific cultures

“We cannot overlook the injustice faced by the poorest and most vulnerable people who are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change,” it reads.

“In a transition to a low carbon economy we want to ensure that no one is left behind.”

That means prioritising access to clean energy for the 1.3 billion people worldwide who have no electricity and the 2.7 billion dependent on dirty stoves for cooking.

“For poor countries, the most important thing is development, but development does not have to be linked to fossil fuels,” says Robinson.

She hopes solar panels can do for energy what mobile phones have done for communications across Africa – “leapfrog” the giant, centralised (and in this case dirty) infrastructure phase of development.

Report: Solar closing in on cost of coal-fired power – Deutsche Bank

Human rights and climate action do not always rub along smoothly. Some major hydropower and forest carbon projects, for example, bring big emissions savings, but come into conflict with indigenous claims on the land.

Robinson does not recognise a trade-off: “Having a good sense of respecting human rights is much better for good and effective climate policy. Mistakes are made if you don’t have regard to human rights in climate action.

“If you get into corn ethanol and drive up food prices, that is a bad policy.”

Nor does she accept that the climate justice argument, which implicitly puts the onus on developed countries to act, provides cover for emerging economies like China to resist greenhouse gas emission cuts.

“If you come to the issues from a perspective of equity and justice, the impacts of climate are on the poorest countries,” she says.

While the developed world generated most historic emissions, emerging economies have a “major responsibility now”.

As for the suggestion that human rights risks overloading an already politically fraught deal, she says that Paris will set the framework for decades to come.

“I believe that as time goes on, we will increasingly be aware of the immediate and long term negative impacts on human rights.”

Analysis: From Kalimantan to Lima, where do women stand in climate?

Robinson, who as president of Ireland advocated for access to contraception – a controversial issue in the deeply Catholic country – is also adamant the Paris deal must speak up for women.

“Climate change does have very strong impacts on the ground, particularly in African and South Asian contexts.

“If you undermine livelihoods because of drought and flooding, who picks up the pieces? Who walks further to find water that isn’t contaminated?

“Because of the differential roles, it has a very strong gender impact. We need to promote gender equality in the climate context just as we need to promote it in the sustainable development context.”

Saudi Arabia has resisted such language, she notes, but it is already embedded in the sustainable development goals to be agreed in September. “They need to think it through.”

Robinson’s five grandchildren will be in their forties in 2050, a long range milestone for many climate plans.

She hopes Paris can set emissions on a path so they have “a reasonable world, that will be more affected than our world but will be liveable”.

The post Mary Robinson: Climate deal must respect human rights appeared first on Climate Home News.

Eleven-year-old April lost her home when floods hit the Philippines in December 2012 (Source: © UNICEF/NYHQ2012-1691/Caton)

By Chukwumerije Okereke 

If the recent UN climate talks in Lima taught us anything, it is that humanity badly needs a dose of respect between nations if we are to avoid climate chaos.

Once again we have seen the familiar battle ground between the developed and developing world and the re-emergence of a key concept: climate justice.

“If equity is in, we are out”. Those were the words of Todd Stern, the Chief climate negotiator of the United States, back in 2011, on the eve of the last day of the UN Climate conference in Durban, when the foundations for a new global agreement were laid.

He was reacting to the clamour from developing countries that rich, developed countries  should take the lead in making emission cuts, under the principle of ”common but differentiated responsibility and capability (CBDR)”  –  given their historical responsibility for climate change and their enhanced technological capabilities.

While some observers were alarmed by Mr Stern’s position, his words were a fair, if vulgar, rendition of the mind-set that is quite pervasive among many developed countries.

Analysis: Is the UN’s climate change body still fit for purpose? 

Rich nations tend to prefer to wave aside or at least make light their moral responsibility in tackling climate change, while appealing for concerted action by ‘all parties’.

“Pragmatism”, “realism’, and “we are in this together” are some of the other phrases used by developed countries as they try to duck their responsibility and cajole developing countries to instead step up their own climate actions.

It was to this effect that many Western countries lined up behind the US in Durban.  Eventually all references to equity, justice and common but differentiated responsibility were expunged from the text.

It has been a short-lived victory.

Events in the UN climate talks in Lima over the last two weeks have overwhelming demonstrated the utter futility of developed countries’ schemes to diminish issues of equity and justice, let alone sidestep them altogether.

In virtually all the key issues and categories under discussion – countries’ mitigation contributions, states’ adaptation commitments, the remit of the loss and damage, and climate finance, among others – equity and differentiation have stood out as sticking points.

Comment: Russia should ally with China and India on carbon rules 

Attempts, led by Russia, to amend the original UNFCCC Convention which groups states into developed and developing countries, with the latter largely exempted from quantified legally binding emission reduction obligations, were sternly rebuffed by China.

The G77 (developing country) group took a principled stance in all their submissions that the principle of equity must guide all negotiations and long-term actions.

Showing their heightened distrust in the progress, developing countries even requested that texts should be displayed on the big screen in real time while negotiating to enhance transparency.

The harshest word for developed countries, however, came from the President of Bolivia, who referred to industrialized nations that have appropriated more than their own fair share of global atmospheric space as ‘thieves’ that must be made to pay back what they have stolen.

Of course, none of this implies that developing countries should be given an easy ride in negotiating the 2015 climate agreement, or that there are easy approaches to a finding a ‘just’ climate agreement.

Climate change is indeed an urgent problem which requires the most extensive and ambitious co-operation from states to bring it under control.

Climate justice is a deeply contested concept open to multiple interpretations recommending diverse, sometimes conflicting, policy.

But it appears that the Stern approach to international climate politics, seemingly without morality, is beginning to lose ground.

Morality might be a dirty word in some states’ foreign policy handbooks. But call it what you like, the world needs to find its guiding principles quickly, and developing countries want rich nations to pay for what they’ve broken.

Dr Chukwumerije Okereke is a global climate policy specialist and jointly leads the new Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships Programme on Climate Justice: Ethics, Politics, Law at the University of Reading.

The post Can rich nations dodge the bill for historic carbon emissions? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Naomi Klein is calling for global movement to tackle climate change
(Pic: Flickr/Truthout.org)

By Megan Darby

When the official headcount for the People’s Climate March in New York last month reached 400,000, the organisers were thrilled.

But as satirical news site the Onion reported, 7.1 billion people showed their support for dangerously escalating temperatures by going about their business as usual.

Naomi Klein was on the march. She tells RTCC it showed a glimpse of the “urgent, motivated climate justice movement” needed to confront global warming – and those most responsible for causing it.

Her latest book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate is a call to the barricades.

It warns readers they cannot count on businesses, diplomats or even the green movement to protect them from catastrophic climate change.

New York

Accordingly, Klein was less than impressed by the UN climate summit that followed a few days after the march.

That summit, hosted by UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, was a chance for world leaders to pledge bold climate action.

But as it became clear there would be few new announcements from that quarter, attention shifted to parallel meetings of business and civic leaders.

If one document could be said to set the tone for the meeting it was the New Climate Economy report.

Funded by governments to the tune of US$ 8.9 million and led by former Mexico president Felipe Calderon, it assured people they didn’t have to choose between getting richer and greener.

‘Intellectually dishonest’

This analysis is “intellectually dishonest,” says Klein, because it does not address the need to shrink the parts of the economy most responsible for emissions – dirty energy  companies.

“The question is not whether you can have growth overall, the question is what do we do in the short term and how do we manage our economy.”

And it “failed to wrestle with the hard numbers,” she says.

Klein adopts UK climate scientist Kevin Anderson’s assessment that western countries need to cut emissions 8-10% a year in the short term.

That gives the world a “likely” chance of limiting temperature rise to 2C and represents a fair split of the burden between rich and poor, he says – but it goes far deeper than any measures currently on the table.

The People’s Climate March gave “a glimpse of a far more urgent, motivated climate justice movement”
(Pic: Flickr/South Bend Voice)

The New York summit was well-attended by oil and gas companies, many of which backed a price on carbon pollution.

This suits them in the short term, as it will drive a shift away from more-polluting coal for power generation.

But the same companies reject analysis showing that most fossil fuels must stay in the ground to avert catastrophic global warming. They do not expect strong political action to curb demand.

Saudi Aramco’s chief executive got a round of applause, Klein recalls, eyes wide with disbelief.

That illustrates why businesses can be part of the solution but not lead it, says Klein.

“There is a difference between doing something and doing what needs to be done.

“In New York, they were all doing something, but none of it was grounded in science, none of it was grounded in our emissions budget.”

Free market

In line with her previous books, No Logo and The Shock Doctrine, Klein blames our climate predicament on the free-market agenda that has dominated politics since the 1980s.

Negotiators have spent more than two decades trying to galvanise joint action on climate change, while emissions kept rising – 61% between 1990 and 2013.

It is too late for a softly-softly approach, Klein argues in her book, and it is no use waiting for a technology breakthrough to save us.

There are scathing chapters on the role of the environmental movement and self-styled “green billionaires”.

Green groups are accused of endorsing weak environmental policies in order to stay in with a pro-business elite.

The Nature Conservancy is singled out as the worst offender, having gone so far as to allow oil drilling in one of its conservation zones.

Richard Branson, the mega-rich founder of Virgin, made headlines in 2006 with a promise to invest US$3 billion of airline profits in low carbon technology.

Since then, Klein finds, he has spent less than a tenth of that amount on green initiatives, while aggressively expanding his aviation business.

‘Plan and ban’

Her answer lies in planning and banning: government-led spending on green infrastructure coupled with direct action against polluting industries.

If that sounds like a left-wing prescription, that’s because it is.

Climate change contrarians have long accused greens of seeking to smuggle in a socialist agenda of regulations and central control.

This is the watermelon theory – environmentalists are green on the outside and red on the inside.

Disarmingly, in her first chapter Klein tells the climate deniers they are right.

Well, not on all the details – she has no desire to follow a Soviet model, which was highly destructive to the environment.

She doesn’t want to take developed countries back to the Stone Age – the 1970s would do, in terms of a fair share of emissions cuts.

And of course she is not accepting their version of the climate science.

Disengaged middle

But if they fear tackling climate change will involve a radical upheaval in the economy, Klein argues, that shows they’ve been paying attention.

The political trend has been to make climate action more palatable to right wingers by promoting market-based solutions such as emissions trading.

Klein rejects that approach and is upfront about wanting to embrace a more collective, community-based response.

“They [climate deniers] admit they got interested in climate change because they got interested in the political implications,” says Klein.

“I don’t think we should spend any time worrying about what they think. There are a huge number of people who know that climate change is real but are disengaged, for a wide variety of reasons and it is much more important to have a conversation with that disengaged middle.”

For that to happen, she is reaching beyond environmentalists to trade unions, indigenous groups and social justice campaigners.

“We don’t just need to respond to climate change, we need to respond to it justly. That creates the potential for a movement that would be fighting for badly needed bread and butter issues. That’s what I saw in New York.”

Blockadia

Klein calls this movement “Blockadia”. She devotes three chapters to communities blocking fossil fuel extraction and forest destruction around the world.

Far from the pragmatic inclusiveness of New York, these protestors take a simple moral position: no more dirty energy.

This absolutist stance extends to one of the largest scale low carbon energy sources: nuclear.

“Nuclear in its current form I think brings unacceptable levels of risk,” says Klein.

Nor is she keen on big hydro, which is “intimately connected with land grabs and violations of people’s rights”.

“What you need more than anything is technologies that communities are going to embrace. I don’t think it is efficient to be shoving technologies down people’s throat that they are afraid of.

“I think there is evidence we can roll out renewables very quickly without that risk.”

Activists against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline for oil from Canada’s tar sands
(Pic: Flickr/cranberries)

This is where Klein’s analysis is short on detail.

There is much praise for the indigenous people, with their low carbon lifestyles, fighting to save their traditional territories.

There is less on the implications for the vast and growing majority of people who live in cities and depend on denser forms of energy.

And she plays down the role of population growth. The world’s population grew more than a third over the period 1990 to 2013, admittedly less steeply than emissions.

“I don’t think population has been what is driving this emissions boom,” says Klein.

“I am not saying it doesn’t matter, but I think we have a bad tendency in Western countries to defray our responsibility by blaming population growth – blaming black and brown poor people in other parts of the world.

“We need to talk about the major source of emissions growth, which is Western-style consumption.”

Ideological shift

Aside from plugs for dense urban design and public transport, Klein is somewhat vague on the lifestyle changes needed to achieve rapid emissions cuts.

But this is consistent with her framing of the subject as a moral challenge, rather than an economic cost-benefit analysis.

In her book, Klein draws parallels with the abolition of slavery in the US, at the time a major pillar of the economy.

Some abolitionists advanced pragmatic arguments for liberating slaves, she notes, but it was the moral case that ultimately won the day.

If enough people clamour for climate action, an economic shift on a similar scale becomes possible.

It involves ending the culture of “shopping as lifestyle”, says Klein.

“This is why I think it is really important we talk about how we rebuild community in our response. I think there is a relationship between how much we feel the need to shop and that sense of lack our culture has created in us.

“We are going to get nowhere unless we have an ideological shift.”

The post Naomi Klein: New York showed glimpse of climate justice movement appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Flickr/Symphony Of Love)

By Alex Lenferna

“Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great, you can be that generation” 

As the life of one of the world’s great heroes draws to a close it provides an important opportunity to reflect back on Nelson Mandela’s long and courageous life in order to draw inspiration from one of the world’s moral stalwarts who weathered the storms of oppression, racism, injustice and inequality & not only managed to come out of the other side a smiling, compassionate & forgiving leader, but in doing so navigated a path through those storms which has helped to inspire generations of leaders to come.

While climate change was not the issue that defined Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, a reflection on Mandela’s philosophy and life reveals a profound overlap with the principles and commitments of the climate justice movement, and therein lies many important lessons not only for the climate community but for humanity as a whole to learn from.

One prominent example is Mandela’s commitment to a cosmopolitan ethic of Ubuntu. Contrary to a strong individualism which permeates the Western world, the ethic of Ubuntu when combined with Mandela’s cosmopolitan valuing of all humanity, says that our own identity and well-being is tied into that of our community, the global community of humanity.

If we accept such a philosophy then given our knowledge of anthropogenic climate change, our drive to enrich ourselves through the use of greenhouse gas intensive modes of development at the expense of our climate, our planet and the well-being of current and future generations, should not be seen as true development but something that violates Ubuntu, diminishes our humanity and makes us as individuals, nations, and as a global community, less than we could otherwise be.

Flexible strategist

Another important lesson comes from Nelson Mandela’s ‘idealistic pragmatism’. For although Mandela is indeed a man of great principle, he is also a pragmatist who is willing to compromise in order to attain the ends underpinned by his principles – part of which involved being willing to swallow his pride, and realise when a strategy is no longer working.

The most prominent example of this is Mandela’s move away from a Gandhian commitment to non-violent struggle to co-founding the armed wing of the African National Congress in 1961. The decision followed the growing recognition that non-violent struggle was not sufficient to bring about the changes needed in the fight against Apartheid.

Similarly with regards to the climate change movement our many failed attempts at more conventional engagement on climate issues and the attending ever increasing level of greenhouse gases (Cf. 400ppm) should lead us to question the appropriateness of our strategies.

When even conservative organizations like the International Energy Agency proclaim that nothing short of an energy revolution will be needed to keep global warming below two degrees, perhaps it is time that we as climate activists and citizens of the world stopped just tinkering around the edges and making polite requests within stale UN spaces and  include more radical means to achieve the ends of creating a safe planet to live on.

Now I am not calling for an armed wing of the climate movement, for [insert religious figure] only knows what that would look like and who they would fight, but it seems clear that given our current climate predicament it is time that we too upped the ante.

As we figure out how to respond to this crazy climate predicament we are in, reflecting on the life and struggles of Nelson Mandela can provide many important lessons as to how we make the seemingly impossible possible and become Mandela’s great generation, remembering , in the words of Mandela, that “it always seems impossible until it’s done”.

For a full version of this article please visit the Adopt a Negotiator website.

VIDEO: Joyce Mabudafhasi, South Africa Deputy Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs and longtime ANC activist talks of her struggle for climate justice and gender empowerment

The post Nelson Mandela’s legacy to climate change activists appeared first on Climate Home News.

By Nilima Choudhury

An independent Scotland would make climate justice a central pillar in its policymaking process, Alex Salmond told an audience in Edinburgh yesterday.

And speaking at an international Climate Justice Conference hosted by the Scottish Government, the First Minister said he was determined to push for a global climate agreement.

Salmond also revealed Scotland was doubling its Climate Justice Fund to £6 million. They money will go to increasing community resilience in developing countries to the impacts of global warming.

“The Scottish Government has been at the forefront of the fight against climate change, such as our ambitious emissions reduction and renewables targets,” he said.

“By doubling the Climate Justice Fund we can provide genuine life-saving and life-changing help to those communities.”

The move was welcomed by former Ireland President Mary Robinson, together with delegates from the UN and Clinton Foundation.

“This is a good practical example of what developed countries can do,” said Robinson.

“With 2015 set as the deadline for both a new climate agreement and the post-2015 development agenda, we are at the point in human development when we need to act urgently to protect people and to create opportunities for all.”

Climate justice

The £6 million fund is tiny compared to the UK’s International Climate Fund commitments of £3.87 billion up to 2015, but supporters say it is impressive, given its primary aim is to help resilience measures in vulnerable countries.

Established in 2011, it is supported by the country’s water budget, and has already directed nearly £3m towards projects in Malawi and Zambia.

It taps into a growing awareness of why climate justice is important. In essence, it stands for a recognition of the ethical and social impacts rising sea levels and extreme weather events could have.

“There is a huge opportunity for businesses that embrace a new model of responsible capitalism,” Robinson said.

“This goes well beyond Corporate Social Responsibility. It’s about a licence to lead, where the focus is on the long term, not on quarterly earnings and profit maximisation.”

Indentity

Robinson’s call for ‘leadership’ evidently resonates with the Scottish government.

Paul Wheelhouse, minister for climate change, says Scotland hopes to “bridge the gap between developed and developing countries”.

He told RTCC that climate justice is “a fundamental issue which links human rights to climate change and so the impact of climate change is helping [to improve] the quality of the lives of people who are least responsible for creating the problem in the first place.”

The fund and summit could be seen as part of a wider push by Scotland to differentiate itself from the rest of the UK as a vote on independence approaches.

According to the BBC, 33% will vote for a split, 50% will oppose it and 17% do not know or are unsure.

Wheelhouse argues independence will not hinder Scotland’s climate justice plans, and its ambition to offer a neutral voice at UN climate change negotiations.

“We have a small budget in absolute terms, we’re not a huge financial player in the global economy but we can show leadership in terms of policy and give people practical examples [like] legislation [about our] approach to climate justice.”

Private sector

UN talks on the design of a Green Climate Fund (GCF) are taking place in Paris this week, with a recurring theme the need to drive more funding from business into climate-related projects.

What makes Scotland’s CJF initiative so appealing to some campaign groups is the potential for private sector involvement, highlighted in two papers published this week by the IIED’s Simon Anderson.

Leveraging public money with private finances is a controversial topic with many development agencies, who believe business will ultimately seek to maximise profits in any transaction.

But Craig MacKenzie, Head of Sustainability at pension fund Scottish Widows told RTCC business is keen to play a “substantial role”, provided governments take a firm lead.

“There isn’t the money there to do the investment in adaptation and mitigation that we need,” he said, pointing to the business case of helping poor countries make a transition to more resilient economic models.

Robinson added: “It’s about a licence to lead, where the focus is on the long term, not on quarterly earnings and profit maximisation.

“The needs of citizens and communities should carry the same weight as those of shareholders. This is the social compact that exists between business and citizens”.

The post Salmond doubles Scottish climate justice fund to £6m appeared first on Climate Home News.

Alex Salmond is keen to push for ambitious climate targets while relying on North Sea gas and oil for funding (Pic: Scottish Govt)

By Ed King

Climate justice is a theme that Scotland’s increasingly bold government appears keen to embrace.

Today Edinburgh hosts a summit focused on the issue, featuring First Minister Alex Salmond, former Ireland President Mary Robinson together with delegates from the UN and Clinton Foundation.

Robinson’s foundation defines climate justice as linking “human rights and development to achieve a human-centred approach, safeguarding the rights of the most vulnerable and sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change and its resolution equitably and fairly.”

At the heart of the event’s agenda lies the troubling ethical question at the centre of the climate challenge: how can countries make the transition to a low carbon economy in a fair and sustainable way?

It’s sensitive when you consider that total emissions from the 100 poorest and vulnerable countries account for less than 5% of global emissions, leaving the other 68 countries in the negotiations responsible for the remaining 95%.

Scotland’s government says it is doing its bit in terms of mitigation, highlighting the disparity between its goal of 42% emissions reductions by 2020 and the current impasse at UK level over the state’s wider low carbon strategy.

And in contrast to Prime Minister David Cameron’s virtual silence on climate change, Salmond has gone out of his way to champion the issue, saying it should be “at the very heart of the decisions we make on energy policy and economic and social development”.

Last November the country’s £3 million Climate Justice Fund announce its first investments in five projects based in Malawi and Zambia.

It is tiny compared to the UK’s International Climate Fund commitments of £3.87bn up to 2015, but some analysts say the design of Scotland’s CJF makes it particularly impressive, given its primary aim is to facilitate resilience measures in vulnerable countries.

“Scotland is ahead of any other country in seeking ways to achieve this by linking international development programming with management of the Climate Justice Fund,” says the IIED’s Simon Anderson.

“To tackle climate change on a global scale, we need genuinely ‘just’ funds whose private sector contributions dwarf those from government budgets,” he adds.

An IIED briefing paper Anderson has produced ahead of Wednesday’s summit indicates a well-run Scottish fund benefitting from private finance would give the country a higher profile, and recognition that it ‘punches above its weight’ on the international scene.

“If the fund is well designed, effectively implemented and its impact well documented it will be recognised as a pioneering precedent,” he writes.

Further grants of between £400-500k are expected to be released by the CJF over the next two years, and last week the government also announced plans to offer an extra £10.3 million to help communities across Scotland cut their carbon footprint.

The fund offers a backdrop of a genuinely positive low carbon picture in Scotland, embellished by the recent news that energy from the country’s renewables sector displaced almost all emissions from its road and rail network in 2012.

The Scottish Government’s target is to meet the equivalent of 100% of gross annual electricity demand from renewables by 2020.

Yet it remains unclear how a country that relies heavily on oil and gas extraction can declare itself a green pioneer.

The relentless pursuit of fossil fuels from the North Sea shows no signs of dimming, described by one Scottish campaigner as a “jarring contradiction”.

A 2012 Guardian analysis revealed Scottish energy policies could release up to 10 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

That’s a significant figure, given last week’s IPCC report warned 840 billion tonnes can be burned if the world is to have a 50% chance of staying within the 2C warming target agreed by countries in 2009.

In the past Alex Salmond has spoken of oil-rich countries having a “moral obligation” to invest in green energy, but the former oil economist is also on record as wanting to follow Norway in establishing a ‘sovereign wealth fund’ from North Sea revenues.

At some point the First Minister will have to decide where he stands.

The post Scots set to push climate justice agenda at landmark summit appeared first on Climate Home News.

Recent reports from China and the USA indicate the production of staple foods including rice, wheat and soya are likely to be hit in the coming decades due to increasing incidences of extreme weather.

Experts warn that as the world’s population and temperatures rise, so added stress will be placed on regions such as the Lower Mekong Basin, which millions rely on for their supply of rice.

Speaking ahead of the Hunger, Nutrition and Climate Justice conference organised by the Mary Robinson Foundation, Frank Rijsberman from the CGIAR crop research centre warned the issue urgently needed to be addressed by governments.

“This meeting is an opportunity to put food security through climate smart agriculture at the top of the political agenda,” he said.

“And while doing so, let’s make sure our research agendas continue the G8’s commitment to the world’s poor, by focusing on the needs of smallholder farmers – they have the least capacity to adapt and will be the most affected by climate change.”

VIDEO: “Urgency” needed from world leaders on climate

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) predicts demand for food will grow by 60% up to 2050, catering for a population that could hit 9 billion.

While agricultural techniques were revolutionised in the last century, allowing millions to escape starvation, the FAO says current trends indicate rising prices and more frequent price spikes.

Fragile soils, inadequate supplies of water and competing demands for land are blamed, together with climate change and increased demand for biofuels.

Organisers hope the summit will generate a number of ‘recommendations’ on steps needed to be taken while governments review the UN Millennium Development Goals.

“This meeting presents us with a golden opportunity to influence and enrich the process of drawing a roadmap for what comes after the UN’s Millennium Development Goals,” said WFP Executive Director, Ertharin Cousin.

“Ensuring that people everywhere have access to nutritious food is a foundation for future prosperity particularly when it underpins our approach to communities that are feeling the impact of climate change.”

The post Climate justice and hunger top agenda for Dublin summit appeared first on Climate Home News.

I spent the recent U.N. climate negotiations in Doha trying to reconcile two injustices. The first is captured by Nicholas Stern’s “brutal arithmetic.”

This is the simple, unavoidable fact that bold greenhouse gas emissions reductions will be needed from all countries to hold global temperature increase to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, thus preventing climate change’s most dangerous impacts.

Developing nations, many of which are battling crippling poverty and inequality at home, are being told that the traditional, high-carbon pathway to prosperity is off-limits, and that they, too, will need to embrace aggressive mitigation actions.

This is a glaring injustice – the product of two decades of missed opportunities in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), inadequate domestic action in industrialized countries, and substantial geopolitical changes in major emerging economies.

But the second injustice is even greater – one that is manifest and which must be avoided. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has illustrated, breaching the 2°C threshold would seriously degrade vital ecosystems and the communities who depend on them.

This, itself, is an issue of justice, as climate change undermines the realization of human rights, including the right to food, health, an adequate standard of living, and even the right to life.

Timor-Leste farmer Domingo Ximenes packing rice bundles destroyed after torrential rains fell in the area of Manatuto

Those same developing countries who are home to the poorest and most vulnerable members of our global community—and who are now compelled to act on reducing emissions—will be hit first and hardest by climate change’s impacts.

It didn’t need to be this way. Despite important steps over the past two years and considerable efforts by some countries domestically, there is a significant a gap between where we are today and where we need to be by the end of this decade to limit temperature rise to no more than 2°C.

Rethinking Equity

Closing that gap may remain beyond reach unless we succeed in rethinking and operationalizing Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC), the principle at the heart of the UNFCCC.

CBDR-RC aims to generate enough ambition to close the emissions gap while recognizing that capacity to act is often determined by countries’ varying stages of development. CBDR-RC was coined at a time when ambition and equity could coexist.

That time is closing fast. As the scientific case hardens and the need for urgent action by all becomes clearer, the scope for CBDR-RC begins to narrow. This, in turn, forces countries into defensive positions and short-sighted posturing. Now is the time to rescue CBDR-RC as a valuable and effective part of this regime.

This will require dialogue and leadership.

The recent U.N. negotiations in Durban and Doha have provided the platform for this dialogue. In Durban, governments agreed to launch a new round of negotiations that will culminate in 2015 with the adoption of a new, international climate agreement.

In Doha, negotiators agreed to undertake a one-year work program to think through the application of equity, and how it relates to the scope, structure, and design of the new agreement.

The U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change, Todd Stern, welcomed a discussion on equity, noting that unless we can find common ground on CBDR-RC, we will not succeed in producing a deal in 2015.

In private sessions, some major emerging economies also acknowledged that they would need to assume more responsibilities in the decades to come. This year, governments and civil society organizations will be able to join the dialogue with their own proposals on the principles that should guide equity and ambition.

Submissions on the principles of the Convention—including equity—should be sent to the UNFCCC Secretariat by March 1, 2013. Now is the moment to put forth sound principles of climate justice.

Compelling leaders to lead

And what of leadership? Many people continue to depend on negotiators, looking to them to guide us to greater equity and ambition. But we cannot expect them to lead in the COP process before we shift their mandate at home. We need to apply domestic pressure to compel them to act.

There are numerous examples of this strategy working throughout history. In the 1930s, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with a group of activists who sought his support for New Deal legislation.

He listened to their arguments for some time, and then said, “You’ve convinced me. Now go out and make me do it.” At the height of the civil rights movement, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson listened intently as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about daily humiliations, intimidation, and violations of basic rights.

As Bill Moyers noted in an essay, the President’s response was “OK. You go out there, Dr. King, and keep doing what you’re doing, and make it possible for me to do the right thing.” Both FDR and LBJ knew that domestic constituencies, equipped with powerful and compelling narratives, could move the political process.

The climate community will need to force our leaders to lead.

The new social movements that have emerged over the past five years have taken this message to heart. We can learn lessons from the revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, and Iran; the indignado protests in Europe; the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon; the Tea Party; and throughout the Middle East and North Africa on the tide of the Arab Spring.

These movements are all very different, but have one important commonality: They each used justice as a core narrative to push for change. They mobilized people around notions of rights, freedom, and justice. And with differing degrees of success, they captured a prevailing zeitgeist.

There is an opportunity for the climate community to learn from this example. This “justice narrative” could serve as an additional pressure point on the road to 2015.

If governments can be persuaded to do more by the volume of demand domestically, their negotiators will come to the COPs with a mandate to push for a more effective, ambitious, and equitable agreement through the UNFCCC.

Addressing the British Parliament in 1940, Winston Churchill said, “Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.” In the new climate agreement, equity cannot be about sharing failure.

It must become a means to share both the opportunities and challenges of the transition to climate-compatible development. In addition, equity cannot remain a quarrel about the past. It must be our opportunity to secure a fair future for all, with equitable access to sustainable development and respect for planetary boundaries.

This analysis is part of the World Resources Institute’s review of the COP18 UN climate talks in Doha, and can be examined in full on their website.

The post Climate justice set to dominate UNFCCC talks in 2013 appeared first on Climate Home News.

By Sophia McNab

On the day the negotiations were supposed to finish, most of us in YOUNGO stayed the night in the convention centre. Friday and Saturday blurred into one exhausting and ultimately desperately sad day.

As a delegation, we have been supporting each other as we deal with a sense of loss and the end of this chapter. We had a debrief follow the talks in the courtyard of our hostel, but in general decided not to talk too much about the UN during our final days here.

Yet here I am, trying to write this blog. It’s not easy to stop thinking about something that you’ve been obsessing over for the past few months.

The ‘Doha Gateway’, as the agreement is named, contains no new targets to reduce emissions, no finance commitments and a weak compromise on loss and damage.

After 12 hours waiting on Saturday, the President gaveled through the five texts that make up the Doha work plan. The plenary erupted into clapping and whooping. At the back of the room, young people looked at each other in disbelief.

A youth action in Doha pre-empting a low ambition deal. (Source: Flickr/Adopt a Negotiator)

In the space of one minute, the business of COP18 had been concluded. Backroom negotiating dominated the proceedings and left no room for transparent and inclusive debate. Furthermore, the deal was a betrayal of young people and developing countries.

How could these negotiators celebrate such a meaningless deal? How had could they have lost perspective so completely?

It is this self-congratulatory rhetoric which is particularly difficult to swallow. In the words of the Nauru negotiator – this was process for the sake of process. For many of us in YOUNGO, no text would have been preferable to a weak text.

This empty and meaningless agreement allows politicians across the world to claim that COP18 was a successful transition to a ‘new global climate regime’. It avoids any confrontation with the failures of the process and diffuses a lot of media attention. As it is, I fear COP18 will drift quietly into COP19.

An hour of speeches followed the President’s gaveling, in which countries expressed their reactions to the text.

YOUNGO-ers were now exhausted and thin on the ground as many had gone to catch their flights home. Nonetheless, we rallied around one last action to catch the negotiators as they were leaving. We shouted in unison for half an hour, but most of the negotiators had already slipped out of the building. It was more an act of catharsis – venting our anger, sadness, frustration, exhaustion…

‘Climate justice. Not here. Not now. Shame on you. We reject this text. We condemn this deal.’

Video: UKYCC member Camilla Born gives her take on the Doha Gateway

The UK youth delegation had low expectations for this conference but, for me at least, I couldn’t prepare myself for the moment when narrow self-interest prevailed above decency and common compassion. How could the collective energy of all these people, all this time, all this money lead to nothing? How could the impacts of Typhoon Bopha have been ignored?

Do the developed country negotiators feel shame? I doubt it. Ed Davey, Secretary for Energy and Climate Change, refuted [UKYCC members] Camilla and Fatima’s claim that he had betrayed future generations when they confronted him outside the plenary. I hope I never get wrapped up in the language ‘political feasibility’ or lose sight of the difference between what is ‘realistic’ and what is morally right.

As a team, the UK youth delegation has scheduled more skype calls (of course) and a weekend gathering in January. Some of us are more ready to think about the next step than others. I hope I can share my sadness and frustration at the UNFCCC with my friends and family at home in a way that makes them ask new questions.

I will continue to think about Yeb Sano’s emotional intervention and what it means to fight for those on the front-line of climate change.

‘I am making an urgent appeal… please, no more delays, no more excuses. Please let Doha be remembered as the place where we found the political will to turn things around. Please let 2012 be remembered as the year when the world found the courage to take responsibility for the future we want. I ask all of us here; if not us, then WHO? If not now, then WHEN? If not here, then WHERE?’

Yeb Sano, 6 December 2012.

This blog first appeared on the UKYCC website.

The post UK youth group laments “meaningless” Doha deal appeared first on Climate Home News.

It has been another eventful week for climate change news, with stories ranging from biodiversity to fossil fuel subsidies. As RTCC takes a look back over the week’s stories the biggest question in the newsroom is, who is set to take the lead on climate action?

1) Tackling biodiversity is vital but expensive

Greenpeace activists get their message across in Gladstone Harbour. (©Greenpeace Australia Pacific)

Saving biodiversity will cost $330 billion a year for the next eight years, according to UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Chief Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias. This should not be a reason to shy away from the challenge though, as he warned that ignoring the problem would cost even more.

And on the ground, campaign groups including Greenpeace stepped up their fight to protect the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, as a UNESCO environmental team begun their assessment on impacts to the reef from coal and gas expansion in the region.

The reef is rich in biodiversity including 1500 fish species, 4000 mollusc species and 400 different types of coral.

2) Young people have key role to play in climate action

This week Daisy Haywood from the Cambridge Climate and Sustainability Forum and Energise Cambridge wrote for RTCC about the role the young have in building a sustainable future.

“Climate change is the ultimate challenge of the 1.8 billion young people living in the world today. It will not only shape our lives and the choices we have available to us, but will also determine our place in history,” she wrote.

She also wrote about the work still needed to engage the wider youth in the country. With this in mind, this week RTCC launched its own Student Project aimed at showcasing some of the brilliant work by youth groups up and down the country.

3) London could go green – with the right candidate

This week, our website has been host to the candidates standing in the London Elections in May, as they each argue why they would make the greenest choice for Londoners.

Whether drastic emissions or waste reduction targets for 2030, more open and green spaces, making the city safer for cyclists, or creating an energy co-op, each of the candidates has big ideas about the Capital’s environmental credentials.

Who will triumph in the election and what they will deliver is yet to be seen, but the proposals do open our eyes up to the potential for the city, and for many other cities worldwide.

Leadership comes in unlikely shapes

One of the things the fund will aid is the intorduction of drought resistance crops and agricultural techniques for commnunities which depend upon them (© UN Photo/Milton Grant)

Chris Hegarty, a Senior Policy Advisor at Christian Aid wrote for RTCC this week, highlighting an unlikely climate leader; Scotland.

Following the first ever parliamentary debate on Climate Justice held in the country last week, the Scottish Parliament announced a new Climate Justice Fund, for the world’s most vulnerable communities.

Although small, Hegarty said the fund made an important point. “They underline the fact that climate change IS an issue of justice – historical, international, and inter-generational,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, ahead of Climate Week next week, RTCC caught up with CEO of the event, Kevin Steele  who said leadership was the ‘single most important concept’ for the campaign.

Ending fossil fuel subsidies will not be an easy task

Fossil fuel subsidies are once again taking the spot light. Last week, President Obama followed the likes of EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard and IEA Economist Fatih Birol, to call for an end to subsidies for fossil fuel companies.

Taking a look at the US’s figures on subsidies this week, however, RTCC’s John Parnell found a complex situation shrouded with ambiguity. For example, he asked, where should biofuels fall on the spectrum, hailed as a sustainable fuel, subsidies for biofuels still fall with big companies like Exxon Mobil, Valero Energy and BP.

And while cuts in the US could stimulate new technology in the developing world could they mean catastrophe.

The post The week in climate change: Five things we learnt appeared first on Climate Home News.

During the debate, Scotland’s Environment and Climate Change Minister Stewart Stevenson announced a new climate justice fund to be launched in spring 2012, to aid some of the world’s poorest communities.

The move has been warmly received – with former Ireland President Mary Robinson, founder of the Mary Robinson Climate Justice Foundation, praising Scotland for what she called an “enviable record” on climate change.

Others were less convinced – Scottish Labour environment and climate change spokeswoman Claudia Beamish warned the country was still a long way from reaching its own climate change targets.

In an article for RTCC, Chris Hegarty, Christian Aid’s Senior Policy Advisor for Scotland explains why this decision was significant, and says it is vital the Scottish government continues to lead from the front on this issue.

One of the things the fund will aid is the intorduction of drought resistance crops and agricultural techniques for commnunities which depend upon them (© UN Photo/Milton Grant)

The sheer injustice of the situation is inescapable. Countries where the impact of climate change is most pronounced are those with the least responsibility for causing the problem in the first place.

With New York State generating as much electricity as the entire sub-Saharan African continent, without South Africa, greenhouse gas emissions from the developing world have had a minimal role to play in global warming.

Industrialised countries that have grown rich through polluting with impunity have recently paid lip service to helping developing countries deal with rising temperatures and attendant problems such as drought, rising sea levels and melting glaciers.

Hillary Clinton at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen even dangled the prospect of a $100bn climate fund under the noses of journalists, but no firm detail ever emerged.

Despite that figure now receiving broad acceptance when the issue was discussed at the most recent such gathering, delegates got no further than agreeing to staff an office to run the venture when it does finally emerge.

As of last week, however, at least one industrialised nation has shown it is prepared to strike a blow to help make communities in poorer countries more resilient to the impacts of climate change.

Vital finance for developing states

The Scottish Government announced that it was to set up a Climate Justice Fund after what was said to be ‘the first ever parliamentary debate on the concept world-wide.’

Innovative and based on the priorities of the communities whose interests it is being established to serve, the fund will finance measures such as early-warning weather systems and the introduction of drought resistance crops and agricultural techniques.

Although relatively small, its very existence, and even the fund’s name, makes an important point. They underline the fact that climate change IS an issue of justice – historical, international, and inter-generational.

Scotland’s recognition of this, and willingness to take steps to put it right, is in keeping with its widespread acceptance of the need to do something urgent about climate change.

Three years ago every single MSP, all 129 of them drawn from five different political parties, voted in favour of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, thereby binding the country to 42 per cent cuts in greenhouse gases by 2020 (from 1990 levels).

Although no more than the bare minimum suggested by UN scientists for a developed nation like Scotland, it remains the most ambitious such target of any nation on earth – one that was voted through without dissent.

Environment or economy?

Of course there are still opposing voices (most recently Donald Trump who last month declared war on Scotland’s wind farms, saying that their installation could do ‘more damage to Scotland than virtually any event in Scotland’s history’).

And Scottish politicians are still capable of counter-intuitive decision-making, for example the prevalence of new roads and road bridges in Scottish Government spending plans.

In general, however, it seems that Scotland’s civil society, media and business lobbies are sufficiently supportive to give the politicians the required breathing space to take – broadly – the right decisions on climate change.

An important factor in their acquiescence has been the way Scotland seems to have avoided the ‘either/or trap’: the sense that it has to deal either with climate change OR with the economy and jobs – a trap in which George Osborne decided to ensnare himself, and to some extent his government, at the last Conservative Party conference.

New roads and bridges notwithstanding, Scotland sees plenty of economic and job-creating opportunities in greening its own, and the world’s, economies.

Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, who now runs a climate justice foundation, praised the consensus in a letter this week to the Herald newspaper.

Scotland’s commitment to climate justice and the practical actions it is taking to reach that goal, she said, ‘show the way for all countries.’

Chris Hegarty is Christian Aid’s Senior Policy Advisor for Scotland.

RELATED VIDEO: Mary Robinson spoke to RTCC in Durban about the importance of climate justice, partiuclarly when looking at climate change effects on women…

The post Comment: World can learn from Scotland’s approach to Climate Justice appeared first on Climate Home News.

Since September 2011, the Occupy Movement has been pitched outside London’s iconic St Paul’s Catherdral.

Positioned right alongside London’s Stock Exchange, the camp – one of many that has sprung up across the world in the last five months – aims to highlight the ‘corporate greed’ which they believe still domiantes despite increading unemployment an austerity.

What does this have to do with climate change? I went to spend a snowy afternoon with Peter Coville from the movement’s energy, equity and environment group to find out…

RTCC: What is the link between the Occupy Movement and climate change?

PC: Climate change is being driven by the economy that we have. An economy which is based purely on growth, exploiting nature resources – and people for that matter – and with the growing world population this is something which we have to start looking at straight away and change.

RTCC: What are the major issues you see when it comes to climate change?

PC: We know that we are going to run out of fossil fuels at sometime over the next few decades but it won’t be enough to prevent climate change so we have to rein back very seriously right now on fossil fuel use.

And countries have been part of an international process for cutting back their emissions but it is not nearly enough for what the science says we need to do.

We are still heading for a rise in global temperature on average of about four degrees – which really means catastrophic levels of climate change.

But we still have time to change it and that is why we need to act now.

RTCC: And what in your eyes needs to happen in the future?

PC: We need to have a massive move towards renewables now, we also need to reign back on consumption and looking at the way that things are designed for obsolescence and move towards a more sustainable production as well as consumption.

RTCC: How do we go about doing this? Where do we start?

PC: It is everybody’s responsibility to do this, governments have got to take the lead because they are the ones who make the laws but it is also up to companies and it is up to individuals as well.

It is up to individuals because often we think we can do nothing but it is up to us to put pressure on our representatives to make the changes that are necessary and not just to stand back and be passive and think that we have got know power over any of this.

RTCC: Do you think the Occupy Movement is putting the right pressure on the right people?

PC: We have already seen that this movement – this global movement – occupy has already had an impact on the discourse of the decision makers in government and they have started talking about finance and inequality – even at Davos they thought that inequality was the most important issue that has got to be addressed – so these messages are getting through.

And there is a large number of us who are in the occupy movement who are also concerned about climate change and we hope that the occupy movement will be a vehicle for putting this message across very strongly that we have also got to act on climate change.

We have got the advantage that we are not only people who are writing letters to newspapers or to your MP or whatever, that’s great, but we are people who decided that we have got to now take action ourselves and we have got to stand up and get the governments to act but taking direct action by things which will get us into the media and into the public eye and so on – we think this is the way to go.

RTCC: You’re talking about fundamental changes in the way we live our lives. How do we event begin to do this?

PC: I really think we have to. There are a whole number of converging crises right now in terms of not only the financial system that we have got and that way of doing business but also in terms of environmental crises, climate change is the biggest and most obvious one, but we have also got huge crises with water all over the world water supplies are running out, aquifers are being drained with won’t be repleated in time and soil erosion is another major issue and the state of the oceans as well and forests.

So there are a whole range of issues which we are really coming up to a crunch point on and I really don’t think we have the choice – the choice really is either being passive victims of this or getting ahead of the game and trying to sort out these problems before they actually hit us.

RTCC: The changes we need – both in terms of investment in renewables and in terms of climate adaptation are going to involve vast amounts of finance. Isn’t working with the private sector and the major companies the best hope for accessing this money?

PC: Where did the money come from for bailing out the banks? Did that come from the private sector – no it came from the public sector and we have all got into huge amounts of debt for that.

And it has been shown very clearly that the money which was put into bailing out the banks – which was found within the space of a few days – would have been more than enough to solve the climate problem once and for all.

This is just incredible that we can find the money to bail out the banks but we can’t find the money to save the planet. It tells us something about the priorities of the current system that we have got.

RTCC: So do you think the priority should be mobilising governments?

PC: I think in the sort term we have to engage the governments because the institutions are not going to change rapidly enough to solve some of the very urgent problems like the climate change issue and the International Energy Agency has said that we have got five years to solve this problem now to prevent dangerous levels of climate change in a way that is not being done by the UN process so that is something which has got to be done very quickly.

A little bit beyond that I think we need to start looking at systemic change. This is not the ill recipes of the social left this is just a fact of life that our financial system is not working anymore and we are running up against all of these natural limits which are set by the planet so we are going to have to address that pretty soon as well.

So both really the governments in the short term but just a little beyond that we are going to have to go a bit deeper in our demands for change.

RTCC: Do you think that being here has helped you engage with the wider public about the problems we are facing?

PC: I think that is why we are here really. The whole point is that this is not just another afternoon process and then we go home.

Some people said near the beginning of the time we were here you’ve made your point now clear off but the point is that we are being persistent about this and we are a bunch of determined people and we are going to go one and we are prepared to go on for years if necessary, until significant changes are made in the way the economy is run and politics as well because a big part of this is about democracy.

People feel that they have lost power or lost control over their lives whether it is at work or in terms of influencing government or whatever they feel there is no real choice anymore so democracy is a big part of it too.

Contact the author on ts@rtcc.org or @rtcc_tierney.

The post Video: Occupy activists outline clean energy strategy appeared first on Climate Home News.

As crunch point approaches – both for our economy and our environment – the two issues must be considered together to make lasting, equitable change.

This was the message of Occupy London Stock Exchange this weekend, as Peter Coville from the energy, equity and environment working group met with RTCC in a snowy St Paul’s Churchyard.

Set in front of London's iconic St Paul's Cathedral, the Occupy LSX camp aims to highlight 'corporate greed'.

The movement has been camped out next to St Pauls for five months, and 100 or so tents strong – including a kitchen, a library and a information tent. The occupiers are joined by both those interested to know more about the protest, and more than a few tourists taking photographs.

The camp – one of many that has sprung up in cities across the world – aims to highlight the ‘corporate greed’ which they say continues despite rising unemployment, privatisation and austerity.

“There is a whole number of converging crises right now in terms of not only the finance system that we have got and our way of doing business but also in terms of environmental crises, climate change being the biggest and most obvious one,” Coville told RTCC.

“There are a whole range of issues which are really coming to a crunch point and I really don’t think we have a choice – the choice really is either being passive victims of this or getting ahead of the game and trying to sort these problems.”

The Occupy movement is now part of the landscape around St Pauls and while many thought the cold winter would see the group leave, they are defying the odds, battling freezing temperatures and icy conditions to continue their protest.

The ramshackle array of tents belies considerable organisation. A series of working groups have been set up to push policy proposals – with the energy, equity and environment group taking centre stage on Sunday.

Around 100 or so tents deep, the occupiers say they are in it for the long haul

Their event at ‘Tent City University’ saw leading British environmental writer George Monbiot, the Green Party’s Shahrar Ali and Friends of the Earth’s Asad Rehman deliver lectures focussing on sustainability and low-carbon policy making.

With only body heat to keep everyone in the canvas-lined lecture-theatre warm, George Monbiot begins his talk by commenting on the novelty of

speaking in his coat and socks. In this University shoes must be taken off as you enter, keeping the rugs spread over the floor clean – but sadly not dry.

No-one complained. With people spilling out of the tent’s flaps,  a few layers were enough to keep everyone at least mildly comfortable for the two hour event.

While the environmental voice of the movement may not have been instantly recognisable to many, Coville explains that for them, fixing the environment and fixing the economy are ultimately two sides of the same coin.

“Climate Change is being driven by the economy that we have, an economy which is based purely on growth, exploiting nature resources, and people for that matter,” he explained.

“And with a growing world population this is something we have to start looking at straight away.

“We need to have a massive move towards renewables now, we also need to reign back on consumption and looking at the way things are designed for obsolescence and move towards a more sustainable production as well as consumption.”

But with such a massive shift to take place, where does the responsibility lie?

Coville argues it lies with us all. He says it is up to individuals to put pressure on their representatives, but it is up to the institutions to change, and the governments – the lawmakers – to take the lead.

While times are tight, the economic argument against climate action doesn’t stand up at Occupy. As Coville asked, where did the money to bail out the banks come from?

Economist Nicholas Stern has estimated that climate action would costs around 1% of global GDP – that’s £630 billion at the end of 2011. In the US, by March 2009, the Federal Reserve had committed $7.77 trillion to the banks – with similar bailouts taking place in many other countries.

According to the Move Your Money campaign in the UK, taxpayers have given up to $500 billion to the banks in the form of bailouts and guarantee schemes.

Coville, however, says that engaging with government will not be enough, and that for Occupy, the demands will have to go deeper.

“In the short term we have to engage government because the institutions are not going to change rapidly enough to solve the very urgent problems like the climate change issue.

As well as interest from passers-by, the camp has become a stop for tourists and their cameras

“The International Energy Agency has said that we have got five years to solve this problem now to prevent dangerous levels of climate change in a way that is not being done by the UN process so that is something which has got to be done quickly.”

“A little beyond that we need to start looking at systematic change. This is not the ill recipes of the socialist left. This is just a fact that our financial systems are not working anymore and on top of this we are running up against all of these natural limits which are set by the planet which we are going to have to address.”

EU Commissioner for Climate Change Connie Hedegaard echoed these sentiments in an interview with the Guardian today.

Ahead of Rio +20 in June she called for the economic and environmental crisis to be treated as one, and argued our concept of growth needed revisiting.

She said: “We’re trying to make it clear that the climate change crisis is an economic crisis, a social and a job crisis – it should be seen as a whole. If we do not tackle these, we will be in crisis mode for many, many years.

“The 21st century must have a more intelligent growth model, or else it’s really difficult to see how we feed 7 billion people now and 9 billion people [by 2050]”.

The challenge now is for politicians and legislators to translate these sentiments into effective policy.

Contact the author at ts@rtcc.org or @rtcc_tierney.

RTCC VIDEO: Peter Coville spoke to RTCC about how the Occupy Movement links to climate change, mobilising climate finance, and the movement’s overall objectives.

The post Occupy LSX: Crunch time for economy and environment appeared first on Climate Home News.

Downtown Durban came to a stand-still on Saturday morning, while the streets were awash with colour as thousands of activists, environmentalists and community members joined together to march for climate justice.

Made up of people from across the world attending COP17, and South African groups the crowds included civil society, youth movements, faith groups, union members, women’s rights activists, artists and community voices.

The aim of the march was for the groups to join together and take their memorandums to UNFCCC Chief Christiana Figueres and COP17 President Maite Nkoana-Mashabane.

When faced with the crowds Mashabane, an African minister spoke to the crowd about her understanding of the impacts of climate change on Africa and her personal desire to see a strong outcome from the conference, while an emotional Figueres referred to the crowd as her brothers and sisters and re-spoke a message she said she was given earlier in the week by the ‘One World’ musical children, “Do more, do more, and when you have done that, do more.”

Groups had gathered as early as 8:30 this morning in Durban to assemble themselves for the procession which would take them through the city of Durban, past the ICC and continue down to the beach front for a rally, and despite the early start and several delays the atmosphere in the city remained friendly and upbeat.

While the COP17 local volunteers came – a sea of green – in their uniforms, giant white balloons highlighted the ActionAid group

And more groups joined the crowd, all turning up with their brightly colour banners, matching t-shirts and their own songs and slogans ringing out, they joined together to make a stand for climate justice.

The Taiwan Youth Movement

Ilana Soloman for ActionAid – one of the many NGO’s present at the march – said: “We are standing with the worlds poor and demanding a just global outcome. Climate change is deeply impacting the poorest people in the world who have done the least to create the climate crisis and we’re here marching with 20,000 people showing our support for poor communities all over the world.”

“The solutions to the climate crisis are all out there. We know how to reduce emissions. We know how to generate the finance needed to help the poorest communities. There is absolutely no excuse to leave Durban without a truly ambitious and just outcome and we are not going to accept anything else.”

Movements from around the world were joined with those with a more local story to tell and aim to achieve. Betty Legodi from the African Rural Women’s assembly said she had come to Durban with the aim of getting help for her community against climate change that had “ruined the earth and ruined the air”.

And Daniel Skhosana from Friends of the Earth South Africa said his biggest aim was to put an end to the pollution which was destroying local communities across South Africa.

But he was positive about the effect hosting COP17 in Durban was having on the region. He said; “We are joining the march so we can speak up about climate change because it is affecting us a lot. Having the COP here has made a huge impact because people are taking notice and are aware of climate change and how much it is affecting the community at large – the whole of South Africa.”

As the crowds moved off – towards what many have now termed the ‘Conference of Polluters’ the high spirits continued. At every point along the crowd music was played, songs were sung and slogans were shouted at top volume, as the groups aimed at getting their voices heard.

Crowds as far as the eye could see

Nothing could dampen the spirits of the crowds – not the heat or the rain – and while the police presence was very noticeable and the security tight, the organisation of the event was successful at keeping the order and the atmosphere remained good throughout.

And as the crowds turned into Bram Fischer Road, running alongside the ICC, where they would be handing their memorandums to  Figueres and Mashabane both the security and the excitement amongst the crowd intensified.

Groups sung, played music and danced on route

Both women spoke of their ambition and said that hope was not lost yet, and the conference could succeed at getting a just outcome.

Next week heads of state and key ministers will be joining the countries delegations as they spend the final week of the conference trying to hash out the details towards a final outcome from the conference.

And the protesters and marchers today gave their own warning that they would  not be giving up and would be putting pressure on the conference over the next week to succeed where previous ones have failed.

The post Thousands march on Durban for climate justice appeared first on Climate Home News.

Groups discuss their own solutions for climate justice

Occupy movement spread to Durban for the start of COP17, protesting at the perceived lack of access to the Conference Centre for members of the public.

The Occupy COP17 General Assembly, meeting at a designated spot just outside of the conference centre boundaries, was aimed at providing a forum for those who wanted to find new solutions to the climate change problem and discuss climate justice.

Durban has a proud history of peaceful protest. This is the city where Nelson Mandela cast his first vote and Mahatma Gandhi held his first Natal Indian Congress reception.

Speaking to the group, former Bolivian Ambassador to the UN Pablo Solon said: “The only way to bring balance is to have the rights of nature and the rights of human beings. I have been a negotiator for two and a half years. We opposed the Cancun Agreement one year ago. Why? Because it is going to cook the world and it is going to cook Africa.”

“Last year more than 350 thousand people died from natural disasters related to climate change. We cannot be part of this genocide and this ecocide. The only way we can stop this is if we are able to organise in the whole world like we are doing here.”

With Africa predicted to experience the worst of the climate impacts, the Occupy Movement called for more voices to be involved in the COP17 process from the African continent, saying it is unfair that so many ‘ordinary’ people are excluded from the talks.

While not a large protest, those who did attend had a lot to say on the issue of climate change, and using a human microphone (you say something and everyone repeats it), aimed to make themselves heard beyond their gathering.

After speeches to open the talks, the groups split off to discuss their own ideas for solutions, all against the backdrop of a ‘Conference of the People’ banner.

The Occupy Movement moves to Durban

One group said they wanted to “overcome the corporate interests who are trying to promote false solutions and take control of those false solutions”.

They also said they felt frustrated that some parties of the conference tried to put off the idea of what transformation can be achieved, saying that in the end transformation can and must be achieved.

Meanwhile another group spoke about what the term climate justice means, saying that ultimately a new deal needs to be enforced that will lower emissions and be fair to the developing world.

The  Occupy COP17 general assembly will take place every day during the summit, starting at 1pm at Speakers Corner, junction of  Walnut Rd and Bram Fischer Rd across from the Durban ICC.

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