Posts by Mike G.
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The Momentum Is Building For Climate Justice
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Global Movement Demands Action on Climate Change
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Despite Mixed Signals, Time for Action Is Now
Rays of hope amidst the frustration
Published November 18, 2009 @ 09:56AM PT
It has not been an entirely encouraging week of climate news, but there are still reasons to be hopeful.
As Katherine wrote the other day, President Obama is certainly in a tight spot when it comes to global warming policy. In his inaugural address he vowed to “restore science to its rightful place,” but he has many other major policy initiatives on his plate. And given the extremely well-funded opposition, passing strong climate change legislation will require heaps of political capital.
Many folks in the environmental community became understandably frustrated with his lack of follow-through on his commitment to restore science to prominence in the climate debate when he seemed to sit back and watch a House bill get rewritten by the coal industry and their friends in Congress.
Making matters worse, it’s now official: the Senate won’t even be considering their own version of climate legislation until 2010. Of course there was also the announcement, made while Obama was meeting with (some) other world leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting this past weekend, that they would punt on establishing a legally binding climate treaty in Copenhagen this December. Some time next year, perhaps, is the new timeline for dealing with the most urgent environmental crisis of our times. The lack of a domestic policy was apparently being used to set Obama’s foreign policy, or at least used as a scapegoat for why his administration is actively stalling a global climate deal.
This is obviously unacceptable given that we are already experiencing the effects of global warming, and they’re only going to continue to get worse. The news that global emissions actually rose by 2% last year, mostly led by China, makes the need for ambitious and binding emissions targets and other measures to combat global warming painfully clear.
So it’s a tiny ray of hope that while meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao this week, President Obama apparently established a “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine” deal on emissions:
Buried in the text of Tuesday's joint declaration between President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao was a hopeful clause about climate talks: The Obama administration is likely to offer emission-reduction targets at next month's climate summit, as long as the Chinese offer a proposal of their own.
U.S. reluctance to set a short-term emissions goal has been a sticking point in the U.N.-sponsored talks for nearly a year. Almost all industrialized nations, and many developing countries, have announced plans to curb their greenhouse-gas output by 2020. Neither the United States nor China -- which is not obligated to do so under the U.N. framework, even though it ranks as the world's biggest emitter -- has done so, thereby hampering the prospects of an agreement.
So perhaps Obama has heard the criticism of him not restoring science to its proper place. Perhaps he is sensitive to the criticisms that he is letting Congress set foreign policy, and is attempting to address the issue. One thing is certainly clear: At this point, the only thing that will get results is massive popular demand for climate solutions.
That’s why I was so heartened by a recent episode in Indonesia, where Greenpeace has set up a Climate Defenders Camp in the heart of the threatened rainforest to highlight deforestation’s role in global warming. When the Indonesian authorities came to close down the camp, over 300 local Indonesians showed up to protest and the police relented. Seriously, this was just an amazing display of non-violent resistance and civic activism. It shows how desperately the people of the world want solutions to the climate crisis we’re facing.
If we keep pushing them, our leaders will have to listen.
Photo courtesy of Elsie esq. via Flickr.
Activists at Barcelona climate talks send loud message to delegates
Published November 11, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
Last week’s UN climate talks in Barcelona, Spain were the last chance for world leaders to meet before the conference in Copenhagen at the end of the year at which they are supposed to negotiate a successor climate treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. Many, many activists were there on the ground in Barcelona to remind the delegates that the world is watching — and, through creative non-violent direct communications and actions, to remind them that the world is in desperate need of a fair, ambitious, and binding climate deal if we’re to stop runaway global warming.
One of the more interesting bits of activism that went down was the “Adopt a Negotiator” project, run by the folks at the Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA), who also brought us Tcktcktck.org (which I wrote about once before here). The program sent a crew of youth activists from 13 different countries to shadow delegates at the talks not just to let negotiators know that the world is watching but also in an attempt to fundamentally change the way citizens engage in the climate treaty-making process:
Developing World Stands Up To Developed Nations
Published October 16, 2009 @ 11:00AM PT
I'm currently on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza in the South Pacific. We're on the Defending Our Pacific tour, which is a campaign to establish a global network of marine reserves, stop overfishing of Pacific fisheries, and support Pacific island nations efforts to stop Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing in their waters.
Crewman aboard the Japanese vessel Koyu Maru 3, fishing in Cook Islands waters illegally, haul a tuna onboard. Like climate change, overfishing of the world's fisheries is threatening the livelihood of developing countries who are not contributing significantly to the source of the problem. Image © Paul Hilton/Greenpeace
Last week, we caught the Japanese ship Koyu Maru 3 fishing in Cook Islands waters without a license, which is obviously illegal. When I blogged a bout it on the Greenpeace website, I made the point that this was not just illegal but also immoral. So why is it immoral?
Last week, a new study was released by The Commonwealth that underscores the drastic need for government action on overfishing and climate change in order to stave off a collapse of global fisheries. The report warns that the oceans could soon become “deserts” and goes on to say:
The study reveals that those least responsible for the state of the oceans are most likely to suffer the consequences of poor management and climate change. Small island states in particular are vulnerable to illegal and unfair fishing by foreign fleets and to migration of fish away from warming seas.
The Esperanza has been in the Pacific region since May to support Pacific Island countries on issues ranging from climate change to fisheries collapse and marine conservation. But of course Greenpeace’s history in the Pacific Ocean goes back much further than that — all the way back to the early 1970s when we were protesting the French nuclear blasts at Moruroa. The fallout from these blasts also disproportionately affected those Pacific islanders living downwind from the blast sites — another instance of those not responsible for a problem suffering the most. While there was nothing technically illegal about these blasts, the total disregard for human health and welfare is egregious.
The industrialized commercial fishing vessels that are literally stealing fish from Pacific island nations' waters is just another example of the developed world doing as they please and disregarding the well-being of the people affected by their actions. That's why it’s very encouraging that eight Pacific island nations have come together and are standing up for their rights against these invading international commercial fishing fleets.
Pacific island states are not the only developing nations that are banding together to force the developed world to live up to their other moral obligations: “Africa will demand billions of dollars in compensation from rich polluting nations at a UN climate summit for the harm caused by global warming on the continent, African officials said Sunday.”
Lest we doubt that there is any need for this stand by African nations, even the World Bank, generally no friend to the developing world, is warning of the threats those nations are facing as the climate crisis looms: “The World Bank estimates that the developing world will suffer about 80 percent of the damage of climate change despite accounting for only around one third of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
So the real question we must be asking ourselves is: Will the developed world stand up and do the right thing in regard to these moral obligations?
Cattle Industry Giants Agree to Protect the Amazon and the Climate
Published October 10, 2009 @ 10:15AM PT
A Greenpeace activist urges the President of Brazil to attend The UN climate meeting in Copenhagen. The presence of the Heads of States of the most influential countries are needed in order to secure an ambitious and legally binding agreement in Copenhagen in December, and measures to stop deforestation must absolutely be part of that agreement. ©Greenpeace/Johanna Hanno
Four giants of the cattle industry have agreed to stop supporting deforestation of the Amazon — and that’s huge news for the climate in addition to forests. Now we just need Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to get on board with the zero deforestation initiative as well, and take that pledge to Copenhagen.
I haven’t been writing my weekly guest blogs lately because I’m currently in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza as part of a campaign to stop overfishing and establish a global network of marine reserves, but I had to take a break to write about this tremendous victory.
I’ve reported here on this blog about the role tropical deforestation plays in contributing to climate change. To briefly summarize, deforestation is responsible for nearly 20% of global carbon emissions every year — more than the entire transportation sector. In other words, tackling global climate change means stopping deforestation.
I also wrote about Greenpeace’s campaign to urge major shoe manufacturers to put their foot down and tell their Brazilian suppliers that they would no longer purchase their leather until they could guarantee it wasn’t coming from destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Cattle ranchers are responsible for 80% of deforestation in the Amazon.
Ecuador v. Chevron: Oil Giant Tries Dirty Tricks to Derail $27B Trial
Published September 04, 2009 @ 07:57AM PT
With a major new documentary about Texaco's petro-pollution travesty in the Amazon on the way, Big Oil giant Chevron -- owner of Texaco -- seems increasingly desperate to evade responsibility. Evidence has emerged that Chevron has used dirty tricks to try and derail the 16-year-old lawsuit underway against it in Ecuador.
The company recently released spy camera footage of former Chevron employees trying to bait the Ecuadorian judge in the case into saying Chevron was guilty before the trial has even come to a close -- which, if true, might lead to a mistrial.
"This is a total trap on the part of Chevron," Nuñez said in an interview with Ecuadorian network Teleamazonas on Sept. 1, according to a report yesterday in Time magazine.
Chevron's attempt to derail the trial is just one more desperate move by a Big Oil titan that sees a $27 billion hammer of truth about to come down.
Astroturf Fail? Join the real grassroots climate action movement
Published August 14, 2009 @ 12:52PM PT
It’s more important than ever that we keep the pressure up for strong climate policy. As Emily wrote earlier this week, a fake-grassroots campaign is being unleashed against energy and climate policy reform.
Big Oil is eager to evade regulation of their dirty energy supplies. It's taken a cue from the health care reform protesters, who have managed to seize the media spotlight with intimidation tactics like shouting down members of Congress at their in-district town hall meetings.
Kevin Grandia recently wrote on HuffPo about an email memo, written by American Petroleum Institute (API) president Jack Gerard, that was leaked to colleagues of mine here at Greenpeace. The memo details how API, a lobbying group for Big Oil, "plans to launch a nationwide Astroturf campaign attacking climate legislation at public events scheduled throughout the final weeks of recess before the Senate returns to debate the issue in September."
The best cures for astroturf are real grassroots. So here are ways that you can get involved right now, to help keep the record straight and demand solutions on climate and energy policy:
Green the Block's national day of service on September 11:
This campaign builds off President Obama's call for citizen's to join in national recovery and renewal efforts on September 11th, 2009. Enter your event into Green the Block's online system, so that anyone looking for something to do on 9/11 will be able to find it.
This campaign is organized by green jobs group Green for All and the Hip Hop Caucus “to educate and mobilize communities of color to ensure a voice and stake in the clean-energy economy.”
Above: Green for All has put together a really great video, called "The New Sound," to help get the word out about "Green the Block" day of service on Sept. 11, 2009.
The International Day of Climate Action on October 24th:
Being co-ordinated by 350.org, which has tools online to help you plan and promote an event in your community.
The goal is to unite activists worldwide around getting the greenhouse gas pollution in the atmosphere down to 350 parts per million (right now we're at around 389 and climbing), and demand that world leaders take action to solve global warming.
As writer and 350.org activist Bill McKibben told us right here on this blog this week, there are over 1,500 or so events already scheduled around the world, from rallies in big cities to "climbers high in the Himalayas, and underwater demonstrations off the coral reefs of the Maldives, and teams of 350 bike riders, and churches ringing their bells 350 times, and an endless variety of other creative and impassioned ways to drive this most important number into the consciousness of the world!"
Maybe you don't want to wait until 9/11 or 10/24:
Well, Greenpeace has organizers around the country who’d be happy to help you plug in to your local activist community. Check out greenpeace.org/volunteer to find an organizer near you, or to sign up to get more information from one of our national organizers if you’re not near one of our field organizers.
I know I’m really stoked about the Mobilization for Climate Justice happening here in the Bay Area this weekend, to protest the expansion of a Chevron refinery in Richmond, CA.
[Other organizing / action efforts and events to consider: 1Sky's "Summer Recess Beach Party" campaign, the Alliance for Energy Education's climate assemblies, and the Energy Action Coalition youth movement. - Ed.]
The important thing is that we all get out there and make sure that corporate-backed astroturfers don’t hijack this debate. Don't let Big Oil drown our voices out! The time for real global warming solutions is now. Let’s make it happen.
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Image via Energy Action Coalition.
World Powers Play Politics While Island Nations Drown
Published August 07, 2009 @ 08:09AM PT
Portraits of climate refugees from the cyclone that hit Sunderbans are testimony to the unpredictability and dangers of global warming, which are already being felt in coastal India. They were intended to urge visiting U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, along with U.S. President Barack Obama, to take bold steps to stop global warming. © Greenpeace
UPDATE, Aug. 7: The 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum this week called for international help to protect vulnerable island states from rising sea levels and warmer temperatures.
The industrialized nations of the world are largely responsible for creating the climate crisis. But so far they're playing politics instead of making real commitments to cut their greenhouse gas pollution. So it's not surprising that small island states, which are facing almost certain doom, are discussing some drastic options for survival.
As reported on this blog in the past, these "drowning nations" are trying to cope with the looming climate crisis:
- Mohamed Nasheed, president of the lowlying archipelago nation of Maldives, has announced that he intends his homeland to become the world's first carbon-neutral nation. But given how small the country is, that will do very little to mitigate the problem. So Mr. Nasheed is also apparently prepared to move all of his countrymen to a new home – one that won’t be easily inundated by rising sea levels.
- Indonesia sought and received a dismissal of some $30 million in debt that it owed to the US. In return, the government of the Southeast Asian archipelago nation has agreed to spend the money on protecting the rainforests of Sumatra, the sixth largest island in the world. Indonesia is the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter thanks to the incredible amount of deforestation that occurs there.
- Tuvalu, the fourth smallest nation in the world, is already feeling the effects of global warming: the tiny archipelago nation has experienced much worse periodic high tides (called king tides) than normal in the past decade, causing increasingly destructive flooding. Tuvalu has vowed to totally remove fossil fuels from its energy mix by 2020, hoping to set an example that the world's major greenhouse polluters will follow.
Prospects for a strong successor to the Kyoto Protocol emissions reductions agreement, set to expire in 2012, are looking grim. Opportunities for the world’s richest nations to make some preliminary agreements, like the Obama administration-sponsored Major Economies Forum, or the preliminary UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany, have so far been squandered.
In July, the G8 group of industrialized nations failed to make real progress on agreements to slash greenhouse gas emissions. While proudly trumpeting their commitment to limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, they laid out absolutely no roadmap for how they plan to get there. (Afterwards, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as well as the chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, did not hesitate to criticize the G8 for their failure. )
In response, the leaders of seven tiny Pacific island nations recently renewed their call for the developed world to commit to greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and 85 percent by 2050. These are the targets many climate scientists say we must meet, if we're to avert the worst effects of global warming.
While the leaders of developed nations seem to feel they have the luxury of ignoring the reality of the crisis and the best recommendations on how to avert its worst effects, developing nations are not so lucky.
Another round of UN talks in Bonn are about to begin. There’s little reason to think the developed world will get as serious about climate change as the developing world, but here’s hoping...
