Blogs

This is going to feel like a crude comparison but bear with me. Did you ever see the first part of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy - Fellowship of the Ring? Remember how after nearly three hours of invested time and emotion, the lights suddenly came up, the credits started rolling and the audience collectively went “WTF?”. There was no satisfactory ending and you quickly realised that it would be another whole year before you could see how the story continued. Well, imagine that times a million, for that is exactly how COP 14 went for me and the UKYD this year. An unsatisfactory ending and a collective “WTF?” from us all.

But all is not lost. We may be back in Blighty, scattered all over the UK and surrounded by the comforts of our individual homes, no longer living in each other’s pockets, but something amazing came out of this last three weeks. A group that is strong, informed, talented, formidable and ready for the sequel! 

Yup, we have plans afoot. Copenhagen needs mass mobilisation, and we are going to bring it! I am making a New Year’s resolution this year, to make 2009 the bestest year I have ever seen, to bring people together and build this movement. I asked everyone else on the delegation to make it too.

And as the clock strikes midnight on 31st December, what will your resolution be? Care to join us and build the biggest, boldest, most necessary movement our generation will ever see? Forget dieting, that can wait until 2010! 

Merry Christmas,

With hope for an amazing year,

Hanna x

While we were perched on the floor of the main hall last night for our team meeting, (our usual spot with the sofas has been blocked off while the Ministers are here), I suddenly got a text.

‘Miliband and Stern are right behind you!’

So Guppi and I headed off to schmooze and ask for a meeting. He was deep in conversation, and being a well brought-up young man, I simply spoke to his ‘people’ and did not interrupt. Having got some cards, we headed back to the team.

As soon as I’d sat down - there came a striding figure, coming straight to us! It was our favourite Minister Miliband! What a charming man he is, impressed with our work - and happy to pose for a photo. (Of course)….

Currently I am sitting in the plenary hall in the high level session. This morning we’ve heard speeches from Ban Ki Moon, Yver De Boer and the polsih Prime Minister.

But now… we are listening to sweet sweet music! On the massive screens there are pictures of ducks, swans and foxes. Playing and swimming happily to the tune of a live band.

Its hilarious! We have one day left and they are wasting half an hour listening to a ensemble of movie theme songs????? As youth we though it was only appropriate that we danced at the back of the hall. Its the most media attention we’ve had all week!

I am praying so hard that at the end Ban Ki Moon bursts from his chair and announces ‘Now you’ve seen these beautiful polish animals… Think of how they’re all going to be dead! Dead from climmmaatteee chaanngggee! Now get on with the bloody negotiations and do something useful’.

That’ll be the day.

We’ve been working in Poznan for one and a half weeks now, and as you might gather from previous blog posts - it’s been an intense time!

Today, we’re all extremely excited and motivated by the prospect of having a really big impact. We’ve just launched a really bold 24-hour phone call campaign. From 12:00pm Wednesday to 12:00pm Thursday, we will join with hundreds of other young people from around Europe to urge thousands more to call their heads of state and demand strong, immediate climate action.

We were inspired by the action taken by Canadians at last year’s UN climate negotiations in Bali. When Canada was blocking negotiations, young people mobilised and, under eight hours later, thousands of Canadians back home shut down their government’s switchboard. Shortly after, Canada stopped blocking negotiations.

We feel we have to do as much as we can to push the EU, because if they don’t move first, nobody will.

Check out the video and get calling Gordon!

We’re halfway through the COP. It’s been an intense week. It’s probably pretty amazing that we’re all still friends. I think it’s going to hard to know what our successes were this week until we get home. But one thing I already know we’ve done well has been to create a really strong group, who work well together and also really look after each other. If this trip is creating leaders, then I’m looking forward to leaders who value equity, equality and fairness above everything else.

Being here has made me realise the urgency and scale of this problem. It’s brought things I knew to be true in the back of my mind to the front. Climate change is not a middle class issue, and it’s not about protecting a distant far off future. It’s affecting the poorest communities all over the world and it’s affecting them now. Undoubtedly the massive mobilisation and organisation of young people at this conference is having an impact on proceedings. But we didn’t come here just to be here. I worry that we’ll go home having not done enough.

Against the scale of this problem, individual action and lifestyle changes seem like small, insignificant solutions. But individual action is really important, not just in the knock on effect on the people around you, but also in proving to our governments that we want them to take a lead. From individuals, corporations and governments, we need more, now, please.

I’ve been trying to find a bit of time to sit on my own, put my head in order and write this blog for about a week. Now that I’ve finally written it, this uncharacteristically serious tone has emerged. Turns out it’s not all fun and games trying to save the planet.

Next week sees a double whammy for international climate change agreements - firstly the EU Climate and Energy package is to be decided in Brussels on Thursday, and secondly the wrapping up of the Poznan discussions on a post 2012 agreement around will be coming to a close on Friday. This paradigm of events can have one of two consequences - a strong and effective EU package that will positively influence a global deal, or a stalling on the EU package as a result of the stale discussions that have dominated these negotiations in Poznan.

Developments, well, backward developments, on the EU Climate and Energy Package have flooded my thoughts in last few days. Meetings have been postponed and discussions are going nowhere, and this is going to have serious implications on the strength of the package since President Sarkozy (who is currently holding the EU presidency) is keen to get it passed through by next week. But it is absolutely pointless passing a package that isn’t going to make progress on emission reductions in this crucial upcoming decade. The up to date science (quoted in Climate Safety Report) says that we need to reduce emissions by 10% in 2010 and reach peak fossil fuel use by 2012. There is no way we are going to get anywhere need this target if EU countries keep making excuses.

Currently the big losers in this game are Poland, and quite shockingly, Germany. Poland are complaining that because 95% of their power supply is generated through coal fired power stations, they should be exempt from stringent emission reduction targets. The way the new deal works is that countries are allowed to purchase emission permits and in order to assist the transition to low carbon power sectors, these permits have simply been handed out for free. This of course has meant that over the past few years there has been no progress in receiving energy from renewable sources.

Now, under increased pressure from industry lobbyists, Chancellor Merkel has crumbled. On Tuesday in Warsaw she meets Donald Tusk, Poland’s Prime Minister, to basically discuss coal. Coal! Coal is the biggest climate killer we can pollute our atmosphere with and both parties are actively pushing to keep at this. There is absolutely no way we can reach and suitable atmospheric CO2 concentration with this sort of attitude. We have less that 5 years to really start making a difference and decisions such as these are going to have massive implications on whether we get there or not.

The next week is the most crucial so far. I’ll be in Warsaw on Tuesday, along with hundreds of others hoping to bring Merkel back to her former climate champion status, and in turn give Tusk a push in the right direction. Tuesday’s meeting is going to affect the outcome of the EU package, and this will further have a knock on effect on the post-2012 deal.

Help us put pressure on the EU, public pressure works and we need that energy now more than ever. - http://www.timetolead.eu

Climate change legislation can be an effective driver for economic rehabilitation and job creation. By making bold emissions reductions at home, large numbers of practical jobs can be created at a time when unemployment is rising, and relying on the service industry to invigorate the market looks increasingly shaky. At the moment, the UK position is to allow up to half of emissions reduction commitments to be sourced abroad via the Clean Development Mechanism. This doesn’t make sense for the UK economy - installing a solar stove in Kenya doesn’t employ a builder in Essex who could be fitting cavity wall insulation.

A possible argument laid out against this approach is that developing countries rely on the CDM (and other ‘flexibility mechanisms’) for assistance with climate change mitigation and adaptation, especially to finance technology transfer. This is in effect using ‘off-setting’ to fund developing countries technology needs, and it is the only mechanism currently on the table that links developed countries emissions reduction with finance for those less well-off. There are alternatives.

By auctioning permits to pollute “upstream”, that is as close to the point of fossil fuel production as is feasible (as discussed previously), significant revenue can be generated. Oil and gas companies are incredibly profitable, and forcing them to buy permits to pollute through auction could yield significant funds for mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. These funds would exist independently of flexibility mechanisms such as the CDM and allow target-setting for national economies to be much clearer, and more directly linked to job creation.

It’s clear that significantly advanced economies such as China need to be brought into a global agreement with increasingly stringent emissions reductions targets. However, whilst off-setting prevails in global cap-and-trade markets, and clean technology wavers on the periphery of developed countries’ fossil-fuel based economies, no example for true clean development is being set.

The key phrase here is ‘technology transfer’. It is a funny one, because all discussion on the subject at the UNFCCC (where I am now) makes the assumption that developed countries have already installed the necessary technology for a massive infrastructure overhaul towards energy efficiency and renewable energy in their own economies. With new coal-fired power stations being built all over the developed world, this is clearly not the case. There are countless excellent ideas for clean technology breakthroughs that have not moved from concept to market in the developed world. Clearly this internal developed world transfer must occur in tandem with the transfer between developed and developing worlds. Nowhere is this made explicit, and subsequently most political discourse on the subject lacks credibility.

Effective knowledge-sharing and commercialisation of clean technology intellectual property must happen globally. As energy efficiency and renewables are significantly rolled-out we can pre-empt potentially protectionist economic policies from emerging. We can continue to collaborate internationally, not by the developing world buying loads of plastic crap from China, but by jointly developing and implementing a huge infrastructure shift towards a cleaner world.

The G8 are very worried about the risk of countries raising tariffs and engaging in protectionism to buffer their economies from further shocks. Taking action on climate change, and helping developed countries move away from superficial service-based economic activities, deals with this risk. For specifics on the kinds of jobs that will be created, see George Monbiot’s critique of the recent Climate Change Committee’s report. Rapidly localising economies without resorting to protectionism is the key challenge in ensuring a stable world, both economically and in terms of the climate.

The economic logic that needs to be employed during this paradigm shift is not necessarily neo-classical, but is nonetheless valid (see for example this report from the New Economics Foundation). A lot of discussion about financing action on climate change talks about hypothecation, or ‘ear-marking’ funds from one particular activity (e.g. auctioning permits to pollute) for a specific purpose (e.g. building new wind-farms). This debate takes focus away from what is really required.

The Keynesian approaches emerging in response to the collapse of the financial sector render any discussion of hypothecation largely irrelevant. Significant funds need to be mobilised, and if we follow historical precedent for financing a ‘new deal’, it doesn’t matter whether these funds come from a particular tax revenue. In essence, government spending will significantly exceed climate-related revenue because the task will be to create jobs just as much as to mitigate climate change.

Having said that, for the sake of fiscal responsibility (of which the developed world has been lacking in recent history), it would make sense to identify funds. A domestic approach to this question that has a firm grounding in current government debt-financing measures, is the idea for ‘enercgy bonds’ as proposed by Tim Helweg-Larsen. The budget deficit blow can of course be softened at the international level by an innovative market mechanism close to the point of fossil fuel production, and as part of a global deal on climate change as identified at the beginning of this article, and in great detail by Oliver Tickell in Kyoto2. All this needs more thinking about (and discussing by parties to the UN), and I welcome comments to this post.

It goes without saying that all of the above objectives will be greatly helped by policy-level engagement from the corporate sector, and in particular shareholders of multi-national companies (and here I would note initiatives such the Carbon Disclosure Project and in the UK, The Prince of Wales’ UK CLG). The economic problems facing countries around the world are very similar and interdependent. The above analysis applies to all of them and given the truly global nature of climate change, it’s clear that time is ripe for visionary and courageous action by ministers everywhere.

350 is the magic number

Would you bet your life on odds of 5:1?

This is exactly what most governments at this conference are proposing to do. At the moment the United Nations are talking about emissions cuts that give us only a 22% likelihood of staying below 2°. This means if we accept their weak targets we’ll have a 78% likelihood of descending rapidly into runaway, catastrophic climate change. As Caroline Lucas said, “unless we, the human race, act now, we risk going down in history as the species that spent all our time monitoring our own extinction rather than preventing it.”

We have been at the UN negotiations for five days now, each day of which I sit in on discussions in which the wealthiest or most fossil-fuel rich countries stall progress. It is hard to believe that the statements made in the opening ceremony of these talks were sincere – that the politicians do really understand the urgency of our situation.  For example when Japan suggested we take 15 minute showers rather than 20 minute long ones, or when Canada argued that it should be exempt from emissions targets because their country is cold and big.

On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gave a presentation in which he illustrated various possible emission trajectories (emissions reductions over time) - the most ambitious was to reach between an atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases of 445-490 parts per million CO2 equivalents (ppm CO2 eq). He openly stated this would put us in a world 2-2.4° warmer – a temperature that would inevitably perpetuate irreversible climate change. This is a side of the debate that is often neglected; instead too much emphasis is put on long-term targets, which in themselves won’t solve the problem because it depends very much on how we get there. Leo Murray, a well-known environmental campaigner, described it to me like this:

“It’s like filling up a bath; if we keep the tap running on full power for another decade we will have no more room in the bath for any more water and will just have to suddenly turn the tap straight off - or let the bath overflow. If we ease off the flow of water slowly, starting today, then we can keep pouring some water into the bath for a long time yet, albeit ending up with a trickle and a drip drip drip. The slope of the necessary emissions trajectory if we start today is already hair-raisingly steep; the further forward we advance at today’s levels of emissions, the steeper the slope to a safe ppm CO2 eq becomes, until eventually it becomes vertical, and then impossible.”

We should be aiming at an atmospheric concentration of 350 ppm CO2 eq because even with the least optimistic predictions this will keep us just below 2°, and with such great risks we should follow a very basic precautionary principle. It should not be a political choice of exactly which suicidal path to follow – the difference between 450, 550 and 650 ppm CO2 eq is likely only to affect the speed at which we descend into runaway climate change. As Andrew Simms, from the New Economics Foundation, recently said ‘politics needs to learn to dance to the tune of the biosphere,’ rather than the other way round.

Although frustrating, this conference is also inspiring: the 500 or so other young people are immensely passionate and working to build up the climate change movements back in their respective countries and communities.  However, climate change has to stop being considered a fringe environmental movement. It is not only a human rights issue, but a fight for survival of civilisation as we know it. I wonder why there is not a public outcry considering that everything we live for is at stake. Write to your MPs, get out on the streets and spread the word. Together we must create a groundswell of support for the type of urgent, tough and equitable global deal that we need.

 *To further understand these concepts watch Leo Murray’s film Wake Up, Freak Out –then Get a Grip and read Climate Safety - “You cannot overstate the importance of this report: it has opened my eyes to levels of climate risk far beyond those of which I was aware. Crisp, clear-headed and profoundly shocking, this report should be read immediately by everyone who cares.” George Monbiot, author and journalist