Greenpeace have joined forces with some of the people most affected by air pollution – children.

Inspired by the doctors who set up a health clinic outside VW’s UK headquarters this summer, a group of very junior doctors set up their own clinic outside the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) annual dinner at the Grosvenor House Hotel earlier this week.

Ten child performers from the interactive theatre company Coney were dressed as medics giving health checks to VW executives and to their friends from other car companies to teach them about the effects air pollution is having on children across the UK.

Pollution crisis 

Greenpeace collaborated with the group of ‘Young Coneys’ to develop the performance.

It included the children performing health checks on the car industry executives arriving at the dinner, a giant game of ‘Operation’ showing the causes of lung damage, and various skits and jokes. Greenpeace handled logistics and safety.

Aviv (10), one of the children performing, said: “Air pollution can cause lung damage and chest pain. It’s gotten to the point where the adults are harming the children with the diesel, so the children have to tell the adults to stop using it, I guess, so we’re going to be doctors, because normally people listen to doctors.”

Morten Thaysen, air pollution campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: “Tonight’s performance is a bit of fun with a very serious message. Diesel is an air pollution crisis that’s shortening thousands of lives, filling up emergency departments and GP surgeries and stunting the lung development of our children.

“Volkswagen is the biggest seller of diesel cars in Britain – it lied about the toxic emissions its cars produce, and those lies cost lives. Volkswagen, and the rest of the car industry, must face up to their responsibility for deadly air pollution and commit to end diesel production now.”

Significant price

Jorge Lopes Ramos, the father of one of the performers, said: “We dumped our diesel car three years ago when we found out the impact it was having on us and those around us. I understand that not all diesel drivers can afford to just switch to cleaner vehicles tomorrow, but I don’t understand why car companies keep making and selling them, or why they’re allowed to keep making the problem worse.

“This is affecting my child’s health, and the health of thousands of children. They say that, on average, each diesel car in London costs the NHS £16,000. Why are we paying out all that money when we could just stop selling diesel cars? It just doesn’t make sense.”

Dr Aarash Saleh, respiratory health researcher at Imperial College London, said: “The evidence for what the World Health Organisation rightly describes as a ‘public health emergency’ is stacking up all the time.

“Only this month, a new study again showed reduced lung growth in children breathing London’s polluted air. Children have developing lungs and are particularly vulnerable to the respiratory problems diesel fumes cause, but we’re all at risk.

“Yet the European car industry keeps trying to put more diesel cars on our roads, which would mean further decades of illegal pollution levels, and decades of paying a significant price with our health.”

This Author

Marianne Brooker is a commissioning editor for The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from Greenpeace UK. 

The activist cosmetics brand Lush will re-launch their #SOSsumatra campaign tomorrow (Friday) – working with the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS) and its local partner on the ground, the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC).

Lush aim to raise awareness about deforestation, as well as helping SOS and OIC to purchase 50 hectares of palm plantation and restore it back to native forest. 

Lush first ran a #SOSsumatra campaign in November 2017, raising £126,014. This made it possible for SOS and OIC to purchase and restore an initial 50 hectares of palm plantation. This year SOS is fundraising to buy another piece of land.

Vibrant habitat

Helen Buckland, director of SOS, said: “Last year’s sales of the Orangutan Soap enabled us to buy a 50 hectare plot of land, used as an oil palm plantation, on the edge of the Leuser Ecosystem in northern Sumatra.

“Work is well underway in re-greening this land, with the oil palms having been removed and rainforest tree seedlings being nurtured and planted. Within a few short years, this area will once again become lush, vibrant habitat for orangutans and so many other species.

“We recently learned of another opportunity to purchase a really key strip of land a little further to the south, also on the edge of the Leuser Ecosystem. This land, at a site called Cinta Raja, is currently a weak spot on the border of the national park, where human-wildlife conflict, poaching and incursions into the forest are rife.

“As before, this land is also currently managed as an oil palm plantation, and we intend to reclaim and restore it to its former natural glory. Our green-fingered restoration experts in Sumatra will turn this biological desert from a conflict hotspot to a wildlife haven.

“Removing the oil palms and replanting the forest will encourage orangutans and other wildlife to return, extending their habitat from the neighbouring national park. Sales from the Orangutan Soap this year will enable us to create a safe and secure buffer zone, which means a whole tranche of pristine forest can be protected forever.”

Limited edition 

To help raise the funds, Lush has created 14,600 Orangutan soaps to sell in their European stores and online. Shoppers can also find them online in North America. Every penny of each Orangutan soap sold for £8.25 – except the VAT – will go towards this cause and help claim back land for wild orangutans.

A spokesperson for Lush said: “With only 14,600 being made, this orange and patchouli oil soap, with Sumatran extra virgin coconut oil, is as precious as the primate it is helping protect. Make sure to get yours while you can, because once they’re gone they are gone … much like the orangutans of the Sumatran forest.”

#LushLabs is also releasing a limited edition shampoo bar: SOS (£8.50) from today (Thursday). All proceeds (minus VAT) from this palm-oil free shampoo bar will go towards the same cause. 

The spokesperson added: “If you don’t manage to get your hands on these limited edition products, don’t worry – you can still help the campaign! Simply download the Lush Labs app and share an image of our augmented reality orangutan on your social channels, using the hashtag #SOSsumatra … their forest is disappearing, so where are they supposed to go now?”

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from Lush cosmetics. 

Protesters have demanded the government treat the threats posed by climate change as a crisis and take drastic steps to cut emissions to net zero by 2025, with more than 100 people were arrested during a week of action.

Thousands of people joined a mass protest that blocked roads and bridges in central London, with some gluing themselves to government buildings to draw attention to what they see as climate breakdown.

This was the birth of Extinction Rebellion, a movement that calls for mass economic disruption using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to halt the destruction of the planet and its wildlife and prevent catastrophic climate change.

Game changer

Around the world, environmental campaign groups and activists watched the action unfold. In London, there is a growing hope that this could be the start to a new form of international mobilisation for climate action.

From the US to Ghana and New Zealand to Western Europe, campaigners have shown enthusiastic support for Extinction Rebellion’s declaration of climate emergency.

Jamie Henn, co-founder of the campaign group 350, said watching the launch of Extinction Rebellion in London from the UShad been “incredibly exciting” and embodied “a growing sense of anger and desire for radical solutions”.

Henn said he was confident Extinction Rebellion would inspire similar non-violent direct climate actions in the US over the coming months, but whether the movement was one that could endure the test of time was yet to be seen.

Margaret Klein Salamon, founder of the US grassroot group Climate Mobilization, said she believed Extinction Rebellion is “a game changer” for the climate movement.

Civil disobedience

She is part of a team of dedicated activists working on Extinction Rebellion’s international expansion, ensuring it has a robust enough infrastructure and resources to give the movement the capacity and stamina to organise in the long-term.

Salamon said Extinction Rebellion was born as the climate movement was shifting away from advocating gradual change to demanding immediate action in line with the scale of the climate crisis.

She said that for the first time, Extinction Rebellion set out the full implications of climate change on humanity and the planet’s ecosystems without shielding people from the consequences of the crisis for fear of being too alarming.

She added that Extinction Rebellion was advocating solutions that may have long been seen as impossible, but which the group believe could gather mainstream momentum.

Above all, Salamon said the use of peaceful civil disobedience as a means to engage people in  “power struggles” against governments and demand meaningful change is what made Extinction Rebellion unique.

Global emissions

“There is so much momentum around Extinction Rebellion and what is needed is to be able to escalate the disruption,” she said, adding: “This is still a very young movement but there is tremendous enthusiasm for it.”

Extinction Rebellion’s first public action was to occupy the Greenpeace headquarters in London — a move which took the climate movement in the UK by surprise and aimed to warn environmental NGOs against becoming complacent about governments’ inaction on climate change.

Learning from past grassroots movements such as Gandhi’s independence marches, the Suffragettes, the Civil Rights movement and Occupy, Extinction Rebellion claims to aim to rally support worldwide around a common sense of urgency to tackle climate breakdown.  

Robin Boardman, a coordinator with Extinction Rebellion in the UK, said the week of action that took place across the country was “a prototype for what a global resistance could look like”.

Pointing out that the UK is responsible for only one percent of current global emissions, Boardman added: “What happened in London is a drop in a pond compared to what could happen worldwide in months to come”.

State authority

Extinction Rebellion is working to establish campaign groups beyond the UK, with coordinators already working in the US, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Italy and Spain.

But much of the movement’s international expansion is focused on the US.

“Like in the Arab spring, Tunisia started the uprising but it was not until it spread to Egypt that the whole movement gripped the Middle East,” Boardman said.

Inspired by US Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, Extinction Rebellion wants to export its non-violent rebellion model and ambition of a widespread system change but allow for autonomous campaign groups to organise independently across the world.

“It is up for local groups as to whether people should be taking up action and what direction they move in. It’s about doing something different and shifting what is acceptable in the context of the climate crisis. When society is ready to lose its sense of fear in the face of state authority, then everything crumbles and change can happen,” Boardman said.

Against deforestation

A broad church, Extinction Rebellion has attracted much support from religious groups, including Christian Climate Action, which had several of its members arrested in the UK last week.  

Caroline Harmon, from the Christian Climate Action, said that her group has received messages of support from Christian communities across the world, who have been inspired by last week’s actions.

The first Extinction Rebellion action on the African continent was held earlier this month in front of a church in Accra, Ghana, where dozens of climate activists carrying Extinction Rebellion placards told churchgoers about the global climate resistance being born in the UK.

Mawuse Yao Agorkor, a grassroot social activist from Ghana and the general secretary of the West African Vazoba network, said the launch of Extinction Rebellion in London was “an exciting moment” and that he was hoping larger protests would “hit the streets of Ghana soon”.

The Vazoba network has long campaigned against deforestation, the use of toxic chemical and mining in the region and now hopes to use its organising tools and contacts across West Africa to spread Extinction Rebellion’s message.

Net zero

Agorkor said he was not afraid of using civil disobedience as a means to ramp up pressure on his government. “I have been working on the ground for six years, and getting arrested for protesting in the interest of our planet is something that my group is not afraid of,” he said.

Agorkor is well aware that if the movement is to spread through Africa, it will have to adapt in places where police brutality is common fortune and protesters could be met with open fire. But for now, Agorkor believes the organising capacity of both Vazoba and Extinction Rebellion constitute “a good starting point”.

The emergence of Extinction Rebellion also comes at a time of great change in the US climate movement.

For Henn, of 350, Sanders’ presidential campaign, which inspired Extinction Rebellion’s mobilisation strategy, gave place to a new generation of young leaders including more women and people of colour — a trend reflected in the US’ Congressional midterm elections.

Newly elected liberals, led by the 29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are demanding the Democrats back a “Green New Deal” to rapidly transform the economy to 100 percent renewable energy in a decade — a target largely in line with Extinction Rebellion’s own demand to reach net zero by 2025.

Privilege

Henn said that the only way in which the Extinction Rebellion movement would take off in the US would be by “moving away from a climate movement that is predominantly made up of older, middle-class white people”.

Instead, Henn said Extinction Rebellion had “to build a multi-racial and multi-generational movement which will include young people of colour in its leadership and tackle issues such as equity and environmental justice”.

For Henn, the movement will also have to ensure it uses a universal language that inspires urgency but respects and reflects the experiences of those living on the frontlines.

Referring to a banner that was dropped from Westminster bridge in central London last week and read “Climate Change, We Are F**d”, he added: “It is one thing to say such things from the safety of London, but it’s another if you are living on the frontline of climate impacts.

“Some people don’t have the privilege to give up”.

This Article

This article first appeared at Desmog.uk.

Scotland’s seabed ‘rainforests’ are under threat from industry dredging proposals, with potentially significant ramifications for climate change.

Kelp is the generic name for several species of large brown algae seaweed which grow in ‘kelp forests’ in Scotland’s coastal waters. Kelp forests have been widely compared to terrestrial rainforests because of the biodiversity and abundance of flora and fauna they support.

The kelp forests are due to be exploited by a company called Marine Biopolymers, from Ayr, in South West Scotland, which is benefitting from a grant from the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC) that helps microenterprises specialising in industrial biotechnology “maximise the value of seaweed”.

Armed forces

But campaigners claim the process puts the marine environment under threat from the mechanical dredging of large parts of the seabed causing a threat to fish stocks such as Atlantic Cod, Pollock and Saithe (also known as Coley), as well as lobsters, crabs and a host of sealife.

As Ailsa McLellan, an oyster farmer from Ullapool and founder of the ‘No Kelp Dredging’ campaign group, told DeSmog UK:

“Marine Biopolymers want to tow a large-toothed dredge in strips through kelp beds ripping the entire plant up by the holdfast (killing it), then throw the holdfast over the side to ‘facilitate survival’ of invertebrates. Assuming any invertebrates survive this treatment, where are they meant to go when chucked back over the side? Their habitat is gone, the other invertebrates are not going to ‘budge up’ and make room for them, that’s not how biology works.”

“Moreover, climate change is happening. Its effects, such as increasing acidity and rougher seas, are already being measured in our oceans. Kelp sequesters significant amounts of carbon, buffers acidity, and acts as a storm barrier for coasts.”

However Marine Biopolymers co-founder David Mackie insisted its plans to harvest the seaweed are “entirely sustainable” and that the product would be turned into “eco-friendly bioplastics” which are fully-biodegradebale and could be used high-strength transparent visors and shields for use by the police and armed forces.

Hand-harvesting

The company claims that a ban would “cost Scotland milllions” in unrealised potential and complained that the process was more akin to “combing” the seabed than dredging.

In a leaked exchange seen by DeSmog UK, Dr Mark Dorris at Napier University, the lead scientist on the project claimed:

“As for the amount we will harvest, at full capacity a yearly harvest represents just 0.15% of the total kelp available. To put that into some context that’s the same percentage of your hair you lose naturally every day. It’s also around 1% of the kelp that is lost naturally due to choppy seas.”

But while Marine Biopolymers stands accused by activists of greenwashing the process faces further controversy as the Scottish Government faces accusation of collusion after a Freedom of Information request revealed a senior official from Marine Scotland had told the company they were “keen to see this kind of initiative proceed.”

Representatives of the fishing industry and the existing seaweed hand-harvesting sector have now written to Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham MSP, requesting an urgent meeting ahead of a crunch vote on the future of Scotland’s kelp forests on 21 November.

A living sea

This follows an earlier letter opposing kelp dredging signed by representatives of more than 500 businesses that rely on kelp forests, after which Parliament’s Environment Committee voted to put a ban on kelp dredging into the Scottish Crown Estate Bill.

Industry leaders are concerned that this ban may be watered down on Wednesday when the whole Scottish Parliament considers the legislation for the final time.

Over the weekend a petition opposing mechanical kelp dredging, launched by Ailsa McLellan, the founder of the ‘No Kelp Dredging’ Facebook campaign, hit 20,000 signatures. The campaign is also backed by the Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust, which runs the Help The Kelp campaign, and works to protect both sustainable coastal industries and the marine environment those businesses rely upon.

Alistair Sinclair, national co-ordinator for the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation, who has written to Roseanna Cunningham MSP requesting a meeting, said:

“I implore MSPs to reject any notion of destroying our marine environment any further. If we are to commit to ensuring a living sea and indeed the opportunity to earn a living from the sea for future generations, we must stop this kelp harvesting at such cost in pursuit of personal gain. Kelp is recognised by many within the scientific community as a building block of life below the surface of the sea.”

Fishing industry

But the issue is deeper than potential environmental destruction. Kelp forests also play an important part in the mitigation of climate change.

They are an important carbon store in Scottish seas, considered one of the main pathways for carbon entering long-term storage in low-sediments (1.8 millions of tonnes of carbon per year) and have the highest carbon sequestration rate for marine habitats in Scotland (1,732,000 tonnes of carbon per year).

Scottish National Heritage’s report into Blue Carbon noted that kelp is the predominant marine plant producer of carbon entering long-term storage.  And the Scottish Government’s 2018 Climate Change Plan stated:

“Coastal marine protected areas have stored the equivalent of four years of scotland’s emissions. This research highlights that kelp forests are of particular importance.”

Guy Grieve, founder of the Ethical Shellfish Company, based on the Isle of Mull and employing 18 full-time and part-time staff, said: “Alongside others from Scotland’s fishing industry, I have this weekend written to Roseanna Cunningham, Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, to see whether we can arrange an urgent meeting ahead of Wednesday’s vote in Parliament.

Kelp forests

“We know from the Norwegian experience that dredging kelp forests disrupts a crucial nursery environment for young fish, and we do not wish to see Scotland’s fish and shellfish stocks face the same threat. The Scottish Government talks a good game about ‘Scotland the brand’, and about being a ‘good food nation’: now it’s time to see if they mean it.

“I cannot understand why hundreds of existing jobs, jobs which will exist indefinitely if we protect our kelp forests, should ever be put at risk for a few dozen short term jobs employing people to uproot those kelp forests.

“Sometimes economics and the environment appear to point in different directions, but on this issue they go hand in hand. The jobs our sector supports are typically in the coastal communities which can least afford to be put under more pressure.”

“I hope the Cabinet Secretary will take the time to meet with us this week and I hope she will decide to protect the kelp forests our sectors all rely on.”

This Article

This article first appeared at Desmog.uk.

Scotland’s seabed ‘rainforests’ are under threat from industry dredging proposals, with potentially significant ramifications for climate change.

Kelp is the generic name for several species of large brown algae seaweed which grow in ‘kelp forests’ in Scotland’s coastal waters. Kelp forests have been widely compared to terrestrial rainforests because of the biodiversity and abundance of flora and fauna they support.

The kelp forests are due to be exploited by a company called Marine Biopolymers, from Ayr, in South West Scotland, which is benefitting from a grant from the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC) that helps microenterprises specialising in industrial biotechnology “maximise the value of seaweed”.

Armed forces

But campaigners claim the process puts the marine environment under threat from the mechanical dredging of large parts of the seabed causing a threat to fish stocks such as Atlantic Cod, Pollock and Saithe (also known as Coley), as well as lobsters, crabs and a host of sealife.

As Ailsa McLellan, an oyster farmer from Ullapool and founder of the ‘No Kelp Dredging’ campaign group, told DeSmog UK:

“Marine Biopolymers want to tow a large-toothed dredge in strips through kelp beds ripping the entire plant up by the holdfast (killing it), then throw the holdfast over the side to ‘facilitate survival’ of invertebrates. Assuming any invertebrates survive this treatment, where are they meant to go when chucked back over the side? Their habitat is gone, the other invertebrates are not going to ‘budge up’ and make room for them, that’s not how biology works.”

“Moreover, climate change is happening. Its effects, such as increasing acidity and rougher seas, are already being measured in our oceans. Kelp sequesters significant amounts of carbon, buffers acidity, and acts as a storm barrier for coasts.”

However Marine Biopolymers co-founder David Mackie insisted its plans to harvest the seaweed are “entirely sustainable” and that the product would be turned into “eco-friendly bioplastics” which are fully-biodegradebale and could be used high-strength transparent visors and shields for use by the police and armed forces.

Hand-harvesting

The company claims that a ban would “cost Scotland milllions” in unrealised potential and complained that the process was more akin to “combing” the seabed than dredging.

In a leaked exchange seen by DeSmog UK, Dr Mark Dorris at Napier University, the lead scientist on the project claimed:

“As for the amount we will harvest, at full capacity a yearly harvest represents just 0.15% of the total kelp available. To put that into some context that’s the same percentage of your hair you lose naturally every day. It’s also around 1% of the kelp that is lost naturally due to choppy seas.”

But while Marine Biopolymers stands accused by activists of greenwashing the process faces further controversy as the Scottish Government faces accusation of collusion after a Freedom of Information request revealed a senior official from Marine Scotland had told the company they were “keen to see this kind of initiative proceed.”

Representatives of the fishing industry and the existing seaweed hand-harvesting sector have now written to Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham MSP, requesting an urgent meeting ahead of a crunch vote on the future of Scotland’s kelp forests on 21 November.

A living sea

This follows an earlier letter opposing kelp dredging signed by representatives of more than 500 businesses that rely on kelp forests, after which Parliament’s Environment Committee voted to put a ban on kelp dredging into the Scottish Crown Estate Bill.

Industry leaders are concerned that this ban may be watered down on Wednesday when the whole Scottish Parliament considers the legislation for the final time.

Over the weekend a petition opposing mechanical kelp dredging, launched by Ailsa McLellan, the founder of the ‘No Kelp Dredging’ Facebook campaign, hit 20,000 signatures. The campaign is also backed by the Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust, which runs the Help The Kelp campaign, and works to protect both sustainable coastal industries and the marine environment those businesses rely upon.

Alistair Sinclair, national co-ordinator for the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation, who has written to Roseanna Cunningham MSP requesting a meeting, said:

“I implore MSPs to reject any notion of destroying our marine environment any further. If we are to commit to ensuring a living sea and indeed the opportunity to earn a living from the sea for future generations, we must stop this kelp harvesting at such cost in pursuit of personal gain. Kelp is recognised by many within the scientific community as a building block of life below the surface of the sea.”

Fishing industry

But the issue is deeper than potential environmental destruction. Kelp forests also play an important part in the mitigation of climate change.

They are an important carbon store in Scottish seas, considered one of the main pathways for carbon entering long-term storage in low-sediments (1.8 millions of tonnes of carbon per year) and have the highest carbon sequestration rate for marine habitats in Scotland (1,732,000 tonnes of carbon per year).

Scottish National Heritage’s report into Blue Carbon noted that kelp is the predominant marine plant producer of carbon entering long-term storage.  And the Scottish Government’s 2018 Climate Change Plan stated:

“Coastal marine protected areas have stored the equivalent of four years of scotland’s emissions. This research highlights that kelp forests are of particular importance.”

Guy Grieve, founder of the Ethical Shellfish Company, based on the Isle of Mull and employing 18 full-time and part-time staff, said: “Alongside others from Scotland’s fishing industry, I have this weekend written to Roseanna Cunningham, Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, to see whether we can arrange an urgent meeting ahead of Wednesday’s vote in Parliament.

Kelp forests

“We know from the Norwegian experience that dredging kelp forests disrupts a crucial nursery environment for young fish, and we do not wish to see Scotland’s fish and shellfish stocks face the same threat. The Scottish Government talks a good game about ‘Scotland the brand’, and about being a ‘good food nation’: now it’s time to see if they mean it.

“I cannot understand why hundreds of existing jobs, jobs which will exist indefinitely if we protect our kelp forests, should ever be put at risk for a few dozen short term jobs employing people to uproot those kelp forests.

“Sometimes economics and the environment appear to point in different directions, but on this issue they go hand in hand. The jobs our sector supports are typically in the coastal communities which can least afford to be put under more pressure.”

“I hope the Cabinet Secretary will take the time to meet with us this week and I hope she will decide to protect the kelp forests our sectors all rely on.”

This Article

This article first appeared at Desmog.uk.

Some of the nations most vulnerable to climate change met this week, as part of the world’s first ever zero-carbon, virtual Climate Summit. The meeting was hosted by the Republic of the Marshall Islands in an effort to boost international climate action.

Fourty-seven countries were represented by government officials including more than twenty Heads of State and a raft of new measures were announced. 

These measures included an enhanced national climate action plan from the Marshall Islands – way ahead of the 2020 deadline set for all other countries under the UN Paris Agreement – and a bold initiative from Vanuatu to sue fossil fuel companies and countries failing in their duty to limit global warming.

Collective shock

As a citizen of the Marshall Islands I hope that this helps pile the pressure on big industrialised states with the capacity to do far more to tackle the climate crisis and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius.

My mother country will drown if we don’t step up the fight against major fossil fuel projects.

At our second national conference on climate change this year, projections showing the effects of water levels rising – inundating significant portions of the capital, highly populated villages and the airport – caused a collective, audible gasp in the audience.

Scientists and experts have recommended that the government begins physically elevating the existing land or building artificial islands. The situation is that dire and that urgent.

I’ve been travelling the world to share my experiences of how climate impacts are threatening the destruction of homelands and entire cultures.

Climate impacts

Some people and institutions are reacting to this reality faster, and more effectively than others.

In Japan I attended a gathering of some of the best architects, designers, artists gathered at the Innovative City Forum to consider new ways to future-proof our cities to limit their footprint on the environment and cope with unavoidable climate impacts we have already triggered.

I used this platform to share with the audience my grief with the possibility of blasting apart our reefs to protect against sea level rise and that we are being forced into doing something we would have never considered before.

As I travel I meet people standing up to take action against climate change in a variety of powerful and meaningful ways.

This September I met with poet and activist Aka Niviana high up on a melting glacier in her home country, Greenland. Here I saw for myself an entire mountainscape of rubble and rock that, according to the glaciologist we were with, was covered in ice just five years before.

Climate warriors

As we flew away in a helicopter, we witnessed a massive glacier calving into the ocean. Together, Aka and I filmed a poem, Rise, which reflects the turmoil we collectively experience as one’s homeland melts and the other’s drowns. Here is an excerpt:

“Let me show you

airports underwater

bulldozed reefs, blasted sands

and plans to build new atolls

forcing land from an ancient, rising sea,

forcing us to imagine

turning ourselves to stone”

The voices of impacted communities must be amplified and heard in the fight to keep fossil fuels in the ground. In some places, they are. 

Around this time last year, I travelled to Germany with seventeen other Pacific Climate Warriors – grassroots organisers from around fourteen other islands across Oceania – to join with climate protectors  in their ongoing opposition to Germany’s coal production and use.

In the freezing rain, we served kava in a traditional Pacific ceremony, asking for permission to enter their land. We travelled with them to an open-pit lignite mine near Cologne, singing an island classic at the top of our lungs. 

International petition

We were shocked into silence when we arrived by the chasm that opened out in front of us: a gash across land. An emptiness.

Germany has been a leader in many international climate initiatives – yet it continues to open and expand these devastating coal mines.

Germany needs to stop the production and use of coal by 2025 at the latest in order to make a fair contribution in the effort of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees.

People supporting the rights of communities impacted by climate change alongside the grassroots climate change organisation 350.org have launched an international petition demanding that the government immediately put a stop to coal expansion projects and initiate a rapid coal phase out.

Meeting national climate targets for 2020 is only possible by phasing out half of country’s coal capacity immediately but the German government is lacking the political will to do so.

Stand in solidarity

Next month, a commission formed by the German government is expected to suggest a plan for the coal phase out. According to leaked information, it is not very likely that this plan will be in line with the Paris Agreement.

Since my visit to Hambach the people of the anti-coal movement in Germany have been putting their bodies on the line to prevent glaciers melting, to stop islands drowning and to preserve their own lands.

Mass protests and a growing anti-coal movement helped save – at least for now – the pristine, ancient Hambach forest from RWE’s plans to expand an enormous lignite mine in western Germany – the largest source of CO2 in Europe.

The resistance to massive fossil fuel projects is growing all across Europe, anti-fracking in the UK, anti-coal in Germany and NoTAP in Southern Europe to name a few.

As I continue to travel the world to tell the story of the Marshall Islands, and other areas impacted by climate change, I urge others to stand in solidarity with these communities and with those who are placing their bodies on the line to stop the dirty fossil fuel projects that will devastate the rest of the world. Climate change knows no borders.

This Author

Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is a poet and climate change activist from the Marshall Islands.

Governments will meet in Katowice, Poland next month for a summit known as the COP24, three years on from the signing of the Paris Agreement.

The meeting comes at a time when the world is undergoing profound changes, with consequences for humans and the ecosystem felt now and for generations to come. 

My country, Ireland, experienced a series of flash floods this August, with a typical month’s worth of rain falling in a matter of hours. These events will unfortunately become more frequent.

Extreme weather

Extreme weather is becoming the new normal. This year, 2018, is on track to become one of the hottest, with each of the three previous years beating new records. Temperatures topped 30 degrees in the Arctic Circle last summer and Finland had the hottest July on record.

In Greece, forest fires in the Attica region killed 99 people. Meanwhile, California is still counting the death toll from the most destructive fires in its history. 

In vulnerable countries, where resources are few, climate change is intensifying existing problems.

Extreme weather patterns are a threat to food security worldwide and increase the risk of hunger. Unprecedented floods in South Asia last year claimed more than 1,200 lives and left almost two million children out of school. Efforts to eradicate poverty are being hampered by the avoidable effects of climate change.

The starkest of warnings came just last month from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which gave us a mere twelve years to limit climate change catastrophe. What is perhaps most remarkable in the report is that the upper limit of two degree warming as defined by the Paris Agreement is no longer a viable target.

Radical rethink

Governments should focus on a maximum of 1.5 degrees warming as this half-degree difference could significantly worsen the risk of floods, droughts and extreme heat. At 1.5 degrees, the proportion of the population exposed to water stress could be 50 percent lower than at 2 degrees, for example. 

All this has implications for policy, as it will require a radical rethink of commitments to date and a total transformation of our societies and the global economy.

The upcoming COP24 will be an opportunity for governments to take stock of progress and to develop a framework to deliver on their commitments. But it will also be an opportunity to renew pledges and up our ambition towards the radical turnaround that is needed.

The UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa calls this upcoming COP24 “Paris 2.0” given its importance at this historical moment. 

Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement was a huge setback for our collective efforts, opening the door for other countries to roll back on their commitments.

Growing alliance

Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro has made a mockery out of the country’s commitment to the Paris Agreement by promising to increase tree logging in the Amazon rainforest.

Bolsonaro, backed by big business, wants to replace protected forest with industry and beef farming. Trump and Bolsonaro represent a growing alliance around the world of far-right populists, business elites and climate denialists that want to tear apart multilateral cooperation and return the world to fascism.

What is at stake is not only growing militarism, inequality, and poverty, but the very future of our planet. 

This is why we cannot rely on politicians alone to drive change. To stop climate change and limit its impact, collective action is needed and appropriate finance to support countries unable to pay for the costs of adaptation.

Last month I attended the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco and I was heartened by how some of the US states adhere to Paris targets despite persistent climate change denial by the Trump Administration.

Meeting commitments 

The America’s Pledge movement has pushed cities, states, businesses and universities to reduce emissions. A new global alliance of 20 countries committed to phasing out coal for the production of energy has also emerged. Several countries have pledged to go carbon neutral by 2050.

This would not be possible without the ordinary women and men who have continued to take to the streets and organise around smart ideas, through cross-struggle alliances, pressuring those in power for an end to our addiction to fossil fuel. 

The US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement presents a challenge – and indeed an opportunity – for the EU to fill the leadership vacuum. Europe is responsible for 10 percent of global emissions and 25 percent of all historic emissions.

This year, the EU has adopted legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030 from 1990 levels. The Commission claims that it is on track to meet its commitments in the Paris Agreement.

However, according to the Climate Action Tracker, actual EU commitments are consistent with warming above 2 degrees, therefore incompatible with Paris Agreement. This is just not acceptable. 

Net-zero emissions

Already some countries are calling for the EU to be more ambitious. The European Parliament has called for a target of 55 percent below 1990 levels, which would make the EU consistent with the latest IPCC warnings to keep warming to 1.5 degrees.

At COP24, where I will be part of the European Parliament delegation, I will join civil society movements from Europe and around the world to demand true leadership from the EU.

This means a commitment in words and action for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 as the only realistic solution to stop climate change and save our planet.  

This Author

Lynn Boylan is an MEP for Sinn Féin, Ireland and part of the left-wing group in the European Parliament GUE/NGL. Boylan is representing the European Parliament in COP24, Poland. 

Governments will meet in Katowice, Poland next month for a summit known as the COP24, three years on from the signing of the Paris Agreement.

The meeting comes at a time when the world is undergoing profound changes, with consequences for humans and the ecosystem felt now and for generations to come. 

My country, Ireland, experienced a series of flash floods this August, with a typical month’s worth of rain falling in a matter of hours. These events will unfortunately become more frequent.

Extreme weather

Extreme weather is becoming the new normal. This year, 2018, is on track to become one of the hottest, with each of the three previous years beating new records. Temperatures topped 30 degrees in the Arctic Circle last summer and Finland had the hottest July on record.

In Greece, forest fires in the Attica region killed 99 people. Meanwhile, California is still counting the death toll from the most destructive fires in its history. 

In vulnerable countries, where resources are few, climate change is intensifying existing problems.

Extreme weather patterns are a threat to food security worldwide and increase the risk of hunger. Unprecedented floods in South Asia last year claimed more than 1,200 lives and left almost two million children out of school. Efforts to eradicate poverty are being hampered by the avoidable effects of climate change.

The starkest of warnings came just last month from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which gave us a mere twelve years to limit climate change catastrophe. What is perhaps most remarkable in the report is that the upper limit of two degree warming as defined by the Paris Agreement is no longer a viable target.

Radical rethink

Governments should focus on a maximum of 1.5 degrees warming as this half-degree difference could significantly worsen the risk of floods, droughts and extreme heat. At 1.5 degrees, the proportion of the population exposed to water stress could be 50 percent lower than at 2 degrees, for example. 

All this has implications for policy, as it will require a radical rethink of commitments to date and a total transformation of our societies and the global economy.

The upcoming COP24 will be an opportunity for governments to take stock of progress and to develop a framework to deliver on their commitments. But it will also be an opportunity to renew pledges and up our ambition towards the radical turnaround that is needed.

The UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa calls this upcoming COP24 “Paris 2.0” given its importance at this historical moment. 

Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement was a huge setback for our collective efforts, opening the door for other countries to roll back on their commitments.

Growing alliance

Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro has made a mockery out of the country’s commitment to the Paris Agreement by promising to increase tree logging in the Amazon rainforest.

Bolsonaro, backed by big business, wants to replace protected forest with industry and beef farming. Trump and Bolsonaro represent a growing alliance around the world of far-right populists, business elites and climate denialists that want to tear apart multilateral cooperation and return the world to fascism.

What is at stake is not only growing militarism, inequality, and poverty, but the very future of our planet. 

This is why we cannot rely on politicians alone to drive change. To stop climate change and limit its impact, collective action is needed and appropriate finance to support countries unable to pay for the costs of adaptation.

Last month I attended the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco and I was heartened by how some of the US states adhere to Paris targets despite persistent climate change denial by the Trump Administration.

Meeting commitments 

The America’s Pledge movement has pushed cities, states, businesses and universities to reduce emissions. A new global alliance of 20 countries committed to phasing out coal for the production of energy has also emerged. Several countries have pledged to go carbon neutral by 2050.

This would not be possible without the ordinary women and men who have continued to take to the streets and organise around smart ideas, through cross-struggle alliances, pressuring those in power for an end to our addiction to fossil fuel. 

The US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement presents a challenge – and indeed an opportunity – for the EU to fill the leadership vacuum. Europe is responsible for 10 percent of global emissions and 25 percent of all historic emissions.

This year, the EU has adopted legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030 from 1990 levels. The Commission claims that it is on track to meet its commitments in the Paris Agreement.

However, according to the Climate Action Tracker, actual EU commitments are consistent with warming above 2 degrees, therefore incompatible with Paris Agreement. This is just not acceptable. 

Net-zero emissions

Already some countries are calling for the EU to be more ambitious. The European Parliament has called for a target of 55 percent below 1990 levels, which would make the EU consistent with the latest IPCC warnings to keep warming to 1.5 degrees.

At COP24, where I will be part of the European Parliament delegation, I will join civil society movements from Europe and around the world to demand true leadership from the EU.

This means a commitment in words and action for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 as the only realistic solution to stop climate change and save our planet.  

This Author

Lynn Boylan is an MEP for Sinn Féin, Ireland and part of the left-wing group in the European Parliament GUE/NGL. Boylan is representing the European Parliament in COP24, Poland. 

As the transition to renewables speeds up, governments will have to seriously think about what will happen to people working in the fossil fuel industry.

When governments start planning for national renewable energy transitions, it is important that they are clear about new job creation (in renewables or any other sector) and how to rehabilitate fossil fuel workers and connected communities.

Forward planning 

Ken Smith of Unifor explained the need for governments to have a just transition plan. “Suppose there is a man living by the river in a fire zone. He has children and belongings. He doesn’t want to lose things when fire comes. What should he do?

“He should build the bridge before fire comes. That’s what is required. Similarly, countries have to plan a transition. Give training, and deploy fossil fuel workers in other industries. Create jobs before the transition.” 

Sandeep asked Ken whether he thinks oil sands workers need a transition plan. He replied, “Yes, absolutely. There are all kinds of things that can be done. There is lots for all of us in Canada. The future doesn’t have to be so gloomy. But we have to plan a transition for workers.

“I was unemployed so I had to move here. But I moved away from my family. Now Fort McMurray is my home and people here are my family members.

“It’s like a temporary community. However, it can’t just work on oil. We need to diversify, get training and develop industries like wind, solar and hydro. This will prevent a collapse.”

Just transition 

Ken is not alone. Many other Canadian trade unions are talking about the just transition, along with policy research institutes and non-profit organizations. Throughout India, let alone in Jharia, there is little discussion about it, and even scantier action.

The idea of a just transition has recently started to attract global attention and is being championed by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Just transition was an element in the Paris Agreement, which recognizes “the imperative of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationally defined development priorities.”

Since then, the ILO has set out Guidelines for a Just Transition towards Environmentally Sustainable Economies and Societies for Alland has agreed to team up with the UNFCCC to help boost global action on just transition.

A few global examples of just transition in practice are coming to the forefront. Following the decline of the coal industry in Germany, some German cities have shown examples of a way forward for former coal communities.

Cultural hubs

Essen, in western Germany, has converted old coal mine sites into cultural hubs by creating industrial heritage museums. Each year, millions of tourists visit the Zollverein Coal Mine in Essen, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001.

In this area, local coal communities have transformed and reinvented themselves with the help of government, unions and other stakeholders to ensure a sustainable future. This could be one way of helping fossil-fuel-dependent communities transition to a better future.

China and India have also taken some initiative to transform former coal mines. In Liulong, in east-central Anhui province, China has built a huge floating solar project on a lake that covers a now-abandoned coal mine, and the provincial government has plans to expand this project to at least a dozen more sites.

The project employs former coal mining workers from the region, including 57-year-old Yang Xuancheng, who described his switch in professions in an interview for a New York Times article: “This aboveground work is so much more pleasant than the hot air down in a coal mine,” he said.

In India, local governments are mulling over different options to reorient former fossil fuel workers and their communities. Although these initiatives are still at a preliminary planning stage, they are noteworthy developments.

Local initiative 

In the Ramgarh district of Jharkhand, about 130 kilometres from Jharia, the local fisheries department is trying to convert mined-out coal mines into lakes and encourage villagers, including former coal industry workers, to form cooperatives and take up fish farming as a new profession.

Ramgarh is a local initiative; there are others at the national level. In 2015, the federal government passed legislation requiring each mining district in the country to set up a District Mineral Foundation (DMF), an agency with a mandate to help communities living in mining areas by empowering them and improving their economic situation.

“It took us about seven to eight years to convince the government,” explained Chandra Bhushan of the Centre for Science and Environment. “The DMFs are responsible for collecting 10 to 30 per cent of the royalty paid by mining companies, and will also be responsible for using those funds to help the people living in those areas.

“The funds are meant to be used for educating people, improving health services and improving nutrition. A part of the money should also be kept as funds for the future. I think some of this money could be used for the just transition.”

One of the key recommendations of the Centre for Science and Environment is that DMF funds should be used “to revive the economy of the area when mining finishes, to avoid the issue of ‘ghost towns.’”

Climate leadership

Finally, there are some interesting preliminary developments in Alberta. In November 2015, the provincial government announced the introduction of a new Climate Leadership Plan. The plan introduced sweeping changes to Alberta’s electricity sector, including the phase-out of coal-generated electricity by 2030.

The plan also included the implementation of a new carbon price on greenhouse gas emissions, efforts to develop more renewable energy, a 100-megatonne cap on oil sands emissions and deep reductions in methane emissions.

Phasing out coal-generated electricity by 2030 means hastening the closure of Alberta’s coal-fired power plants and associated coal mining and processing operations, affecting over 3,000 workers. In order to help this phase-out process progress smoothly, the provincial government created an Advisory Panel on Coal Communities that met with affected communities, such as Hanna, Alberta, that face large-scale job loss because of the plan.

The panel submitted recommendations to the government with advice and options regarding how to support affected workers and communities. The government has also earmarked $998 million from the carbon levy for “large scale renewable energy, bioenergy and technology, coal community transition and other Climate Leadership Plan implementation initiatives.” The Pembina Institute calculated that the government’s plans for fostering renewable energy development and energy efficiency in Alberta could generate more jobs than those lost by retiring coal power.

As these plans are still very much in the development phase, it remains to be seen how exactly government will help affected workers and communities transition.

New skills

All stakeholders need to think about helping making this transition happen. Several of the people we interviewed are already talking about helping fossil fuel workers make a transition to the renewable energy industry.

They think that some fossil fuel industry workers could be trained to acquire new skills relevant to the renewable energy industry, which would not only sustain their families but also help the world move towards renewable energy faster.

These Authors

Sandeep Pai is an award-winning journalist and PhD student within University of British Columbia’s Department of Forest Resources Management. Savannah Carr-Wilson works in the field of environmental and Aboriginal law in British Columbia. This article is an extract of their book Total Transition: The Human Side of the Renewable Energy Revolution (RMB, 2018). 

Barclays is due to publish an updated energy policy by the end of 2018.

Mary Francis, a non-executive director of Barclays, told shareholders that the bank’s financing of ‘extreme fossil fuels’ was under review, at the 2018 AGM in May.

Barclays now has the chance to make history by pushing the boundaries of climate action in private finance – in the same year that HSBC has excluded all tar sands from its financing regimen and Standard Chartered has excluded new coal-fired power stations,

Fuel markets

Barclays could totally transcend its reputation as being dismissive of concerns regarding ethics, sustainability and justice by introducing sector-leading policy outlawing all of the most extreme fossil fuels.

So far banks have acted on fossil fuels under pressure from NGOs and campaigners – but too often they have only moved on the fuels they have least exposure to.

For example, HSBC excluded tar sands, but its main market is Asia where coal is plentiful. Hence it’s loophole allowing it to finance coal in the emerging markets of Vietnam, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

But will Barclays ascend to an unexpected position of global leader on climate action? Not likely.

Barclays’ primary market is North America where oil pipelines are big business. This was evidenced as Justin Trudeau’s liberal administration nationalised Trans Mountain to force it through, and the violence used to repress those resisting the Dakota Access Pipeline.

It would take unprecedented moral leadership from a bank historically devoid of ethics to shun tar sands pipelines from its financing portfolio.

True leadership

If their new energy policy maintains business as usual, Barclays’ current leadership – Jes Staley, John McFarlane and Mary Francis – will at best be consigned to the footnotes of history. At worst, they will be recognised as the climate criminals they would be. But there’s an alternative history.

Barclays’ leaders can demonstrate to the rest of the finance world that climate breakdown is a serious enough crisis for banks to begin thinking in the long term. Rather than leaping from crisis to crisis, with some profits in between, they can contribute to building a sustainable financial system to cultivate a sustainable ecology. 

Such a policy would exclude coal, tar sands and Arctic oil – as others have done – as a bare minimum. Anything less is criminal.

True leadership would take aim and oil and gas too. For too long institutions making divestment commitments have limited their exclusions to ‘the worst fossil fuels’.

With 12 years to avoid irreversible catastrophe, any attempt to demarcate fossil fuels by relative badness is useless. They must all stay in the ground. Banks must stop financing them all.

Civil society

If banks continue to facilitate the most recent dash for gas taking place across Europe, they will lock our economies into carbon emissions causing catastrophic breakdown. If they continue to finance oil and all of the conflict and human devastation that goes with it, there’s no going back to a liveable planet.

Barclays’ energy policy must be positive too. To remain relevant socio-economic institutions, it should play its part in financing zero-carbon technology and infrastructure to lock our economies into renewables.

Considering the widespread suffering they’ve inflicted and profited from, it’s time for banks like Barclays to defer to civil society and community organisations in these projects. We should be demanding they follow our lead when it comes to what just decarbonisation practically looks like for communities across the country and the world. 

This might sound unrealistic. Probably. Is it ambitious? Yes. Is it necessarily? Absolutely.

Those leading banks like Barclays have a choice: depart from business as usual and remake the financial system in service of people and planet, or step aside and let the people have a turn at managing our own economic lives.

Ambitious policy

We shouldn’t sit back, relax and hope that Barclays deliver. In the weeks before they announce the results of their review and in the months afterwards, we must make it crystal clear to Barclays we aren’t going away.

Using a diversity of tactics we must throw everything we have at them.

Switch bank, and let them know why. Campaign for your university, workplace, church or local businesses to boycott Barclays. Get creative disrupting your local branch or other Barclays operations.

Ambitious energy policy excluding all fossil fuels is Barclays’ last chance to stay relevant before it becomes inevitable that we exert our collective power to take back control of the financial system and repurpose it to serve people instead of profit.

Barclays may not be about to make climate history. But we can.

This author

Chris Saltmarsh is co-director of climate change campaigns at People & Planet, where he manages the Divest Barclays and university divestment campaigns. He tweets at @chris_saltmarsh.