Tag Archives: cop17

Photo of the Month – November 2011

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By: bmeyers

This image by Shayne Robinson, taken at dawn on the beach in Durban, South Africa, as representatives gathered for the UN climate talks, is the November 2011 Photo of the Month.

Raising A Windmill

I like the crisp silhouettes of people raising a wind turbine set against the drama of turbulent sky and the full power of the rising sun. It captures the concept that by working together, the people of the world can step out of the fossil fuel powered night, and use new technologies to meet our energy needs. If we embrace a clean, renewable future, the clouds of smoke will dissipate and the sun’s abundant energy will shine on a healthy, sustainable world.

So far the news from Durban is not good. Just as previous talks failed to produce any binding commitments to do what real peer-reviewed science tells us is urgent and necessary to limit the impacts of climate change, there is no sign of progress this year. In the United States, with an economy and government completely dominated by dirty energy companies, well-funded lobbyists and their political allies howl at every mention of global warming. The constant drumbeat of misinformation and false promise of drilling in the fragile ecology of the Arctic, distract us from the need to make any changes in policies or even to stop giving millions of dollars in tax subsidies to the richest corporations on earth, even while borrowing trillions to fund government.

Without leadership, vision and the plain truth, we will not join together in this dark hour and do the heavy lifting it will take to build a sustainable future.

The Dirty Dozen

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By: Caroline Chisholm

dozen

After demanding that governments listen to the people and not the polluters at the entrance to Durban Protea Hotel, our Kumi and co-head of the Climate campaign, Tzeporah Berman entered the WBCSD conference to meet and greet with the barons of industry including the Dirty Dozen. Seated three rows back at the start of the conference they were welcomed by the CEO, who said it was nice to have them “inside participating rather than outside protesting” never one to miss a trick, Kumi flashed the audience a peace sign declaring “both are necessary” earning a smile and a thumbs up from Christina Figueres.

Tired of the co-opted politics of the first week of climate negotiations at COP 17, activists converged on the Global Business Day conference to name and shame The Dirty Dozen – a group of carbon intensive industries who are helping stifle progress on agreeing a global deal to combat climate change. Kumi was there to join the activists and bear witness to the backroom deals being made outside of the negotiations. Here is what he had to say:

“Meeting in the shadow of the vital UN talks these dirty dozen companies should be ashamed of their role in undermining global talks to tackle climate change, to save lives, economies and habitats. Putting short-term private profit before public protection is morally repugnant.Our political leaders need to close the door on dirty corporations who would celebrate failure in Durban, they must listen to the people and not the polluters. Our children and their children deserve nothing less.”

During the protest, climbers peacefully occupied the World Business Council on Sustainable Developmentconference to hang a banner demanding, “Listen to the people, not the polluters”. The 6 7 activists were arrested shortly after rappelling over the side of the building to display their message.

Life size puppets representing corporations, including Shell, Koch Industries and Eskom, which are pulling the strings of key world leaders, joined the protest. This bit of street theater highlights the links these corporations have to the US Congress, European Union President Barroso and Canadian Prime Minister Harper.

The peaceful protest follows the launch of our global report, ‘Who’s holding us back?’  which details how carbon intensive industry is preventing effective climate legislation. We’ve followed that report up with a list of the Dirty Dozen corporations that are here at the climate negotiations to make sure government negotiators are doing their bidding. With governments already covering these companies interests inside the COP, the Dirty Dozen found time to share tactics at their own meeting, called the World Business Council on Sustainable Development.

You might know ‘The Dirty Dozen’ as a classic war film, where a group of life-term prisoners, are given the opportunity to rehabilitate themselves by taking part in a covert mission during WWII. Make no mistake, this is no Hollywood movie. The protagonists don’t have the same celebrity name check as Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson. But there are some similarities with the movie. The heads of these polluting corporations share the same mission: to hold back political progress on the climate. And they are proving to be incredibly successful to date. There is a revolving door when it comes to influencing the political process, and it seems to spin only one way. Polluting corporations, such as Shell, Koch Industries and company not only have a majority stake on the boards of sustainable business forums, but priveleged access to occupy the agenda and decision making of our leaders.

Sweat, EU vs. US on Science, and a Movie – Durban

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By: Kumi Naidoo

Of the many things I’d forgotten about my home town of Durban, the one I’m reminded of most often is the humidity. When we were kids here we’d go to discos and be dripping with sweat after a few minutes of dancing. It’s the same thirty years later as we race from our solar tent on the beach to a speaking appointment to the conference centre where the talks are taking place. A huge storm on Sunday night cleared the air for a while (tragically eight people died in the city in landslides) but now once again the air was thick with moisture, with hope, with occasional despair and always with UN acronyms.

The GCF (Green Climate Fund) is a body set up to administer the pot of money to pay for developing countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change and to support them in protecting their forests and in moving towards a low carbon economy based on clean renewable energy.

One of the essential things Durban should achieve is for this Fund to be made operational – that means agreeing how the Fund works based on the recommendations of a committee of experts that’s been working all year on developing the architecture of the Fund.

Although there are things in the recommendations that are far from perfect – including the absence of a specific stream of funding for forest protection – the most important thing for us is that the Fund gets up and running. The South African presidency was attempting to take those expert recommendations (things like the composition of the board, the Fund’s relationship to the UN process and so on) to ministers next week for final approval.

Instead, yesterday a number of different groups joined the US and Saudi Arabia and attempted to reopen negotiations on what the recommendations are – negotiations we hoped had been concluded. That means the ministers may not now be able to sign off on the Green Climate Fund when they arrive next week. That would mean yet more delay in money flowing to people who need it on the ground while leaving in place a roadblock to a new comprehensive climate deal.

In short, many of the nations trying to block the Fund are in fact trying to slow down the whole process.

What else? Well, twice yesterday the European Union challenged the United States over its refusal to even consider an increase in ambition between now and 2020 (Washington has said there is no need or appetite for tougher emissions reduction targets, and have challenged the conclusions of the world’s leading climate scientists who say that unless we see substantial cuts by 2020 we stand little chance of keeping temperature rises below 2 degrees).

The EU has repeatedly been accused in recent days of accepting the US line, which is a position seemingly adopted by other major emitters including India.

In essence the US has been saying that we can do all the heavy lifting after 2020 and still beat climate change.

An interesting move and moment was when during the negotiations and in their press conference the EU challenged the credibility of the US position and its understanding of the science. At the same time the EU stressed that the treaty it wants to see signed in 2015 should have tougher cuts in it than those currently being put on the table by major emitters.

Greenpeace likes the fact that the EU has clarified its position and that it’s put ambition and science right at the centre of its plan. We’re behind the EU when it says we need a comprehensive and binding treaty by 2015. But – and you knew there was a but coming – but the EU is going to undermine its position fairly fundamentally if it argues that it should lock in its own weak target for another eight years.

That is to say, it wants the next round of Kyoto commitments to run from 2013 to 2020. That would send a signal from the EU saying they’re happy with the 2010s being a dead decade, which isn’t that different from the US position.

Meanwhile the COP President hasn’t yet managed to agree the agenda for the conference (they’re currently working on a provisional agenda) meaning that in official terms the real negotiations haven’t even started yet.

In other news a row is also brewing about the EU’s inclusion of aviation in its Emissions Trading Scheme. In the next couple of days we can expect to see proposal and counter-proposal on the form and deadlines for any new treaty.

My day ended with a strong and emotional reminder of the impacts of
climate change in Africa; Greenpeace last night premiered a new documentary titled ” The Weather Gods” showcasing the devastation climate chance is causing in many parts of the continent. You can watch it yourselves online on the Greenpeace Africa website.

Tomorrow is Carbon War Room… I bet you don’t know what that is! I’ll tell you all about it..

Read the original post on Kumi’s Huffington Post blog