Meeting Ed Miliband, Labour MP

On 19th November 2009, I had met Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change at the Special Ralph Miliband lecture. This was my chance to really learn what the UK government is doing to combat climate change and how they plan to lead the negotiations at COP15 this December.

Ed Miliband has been the first politician to admit that sealing a legally binding agreement to fight climate change will be postponed by at least six months despite COP15 but a global treaty will need to be signed as soon as possible.

[Below: Talyn Rahman with Ed Miliband]

The delay was said to be caused by a combination of time running out in the increasingly rancorous UN negotiations and the inability of the US – the world's biggest cumulative emitter – to commit to specific targets and timetables by passing a domestic law. The Obama administration made clear that a legal treaty was impossible in Copenhagen but pledges made at COP15 would be as difficult to escape as commitments would be made very public at the UN meeting as if it was legally binding.

Ed followed his speech by asking, “Can we do what the world has never done before by reversing the effects?” Yes – if contributions are made by all countries which will be a challenge at COP15. Gordon Brown has told 17 major economies responsible for at least 80% of global GHG, that success in Copenhagen is within reach if they themselves engage and attend COP15 to push an agenda for change. However, it is vital that agreements are implemented after COP15 in all countries despite its current political situation.

Climate change is a problem because it is an issue of “distance”, which Ed categorised as geographical distance (most vulnerable suffer the most), plausible distance (something like the movie 2012 which is the cost of inaction) and temporal distance (time lag between generations). Climate change requires long-term goals as the nature of climate change is a slow process but we urged that we must look at the positive aspects of switching to a low carbon society.

Here are key elements of the UK governments low carbon transition plan (July 2009) to be achieved by 2020.

• Cut emissions by $34 on 1990 levels by 2020
• Have more than 1.2 million people working in green jobs
• Overhaul 7 million homes and help 1.5 million households to produce their own clean energy
• Source around 40% of electricity from low-carbon sources, renewable, nuclear and clean coal
• Import half the amount of gas than the UK otherwise would
• Ensure that from 2020, the average new car emits 40% less carbon than now
  
  

There is a huge amount governments can do in order to facilitate the transition to a low carbon society, like kickstarting a national program to insulate all homes, boost public transport infrastructure and renewable energy implementation, massive educational programs, grants etc.

As Ed Miliband said, it is about finding the ‘politics of common good’ between all nations to combat this global problem.

Women Challenge Security

As part of an annual seminar hosted by Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, this year’s topic was based on our current campaign regarding women versus militarism and nuclear weapons. Speakers included Rebecca Johnson (Acronym Institute), Diane Perrons (LSE Gender Institute), Tamsin Osmond (Climate Rush) and Nicola Pratt (University of Warwick) discussing insecurities and how they impact women. The seminar was then followed by workshops with a close look at WILPF’s core campaigns: Voice of African Women, Human Security not Military Security, and Strengthening Women’s Rights.

To start, Diane Perrons introduced the affect economic insecurity has on women. At least 73% of world’s workers are affected by economic insecurity, be it the interference of climate change, the global economic crisis, food security or physical security. The financial crisis has been spread by highly paid men, and now we are seeing gender biased cuts in government expenditures. The percentage of women working in health and education sector is high, and it is these sectors that are suffering the most from budget cuts. Public sectors are in difficulty due to cutbacks as there are now shortages of staff in hospitals further burdening women to take on more responsibility for less pay.

Nicola Pratt stated that $40-70 billion is being spent towards Trident renewal, money which could have gone towards expanding and improving public services which are led and supported by women. However, a society that fought for 20 years is a society that has become militarised, and as a member of the UN Security Council member, the UK’s military position is about power, placing public services at the bottom of the list. This situation is common for many countries, both developed and developing. In civilian war-torn countries like Afghanistan, women and girls are forced to pull out of work and schools for their own protection, which results in loss of earnings and education. Of course, war and financial crisis affect men too as shown by the increasing unemployment figures but men are overrepresented in regular employment in the labour market which explains why the number of female unemployment is barely mentioned. While the expansion of wealth to women have timidly gone up, income share of labour and workers earnings have fallen, leading to a rise in inequality.

Environment insecurity is also a challenge especially to women living in developing countries. Women engage in subsistent agriculture with 60-80% who grow their own food and collect fire and water. However, Tamsin Omond stressed that climate change should be viewed as a “one Earth way” that affects everyone in spite of gender and race. Just by living in western world, we expel too much carbon, even if one tries to live holistically. Over-consumption is one of the biggest problems in the West indulging in luxuries, as well as the rate of over-population across the world. 50 million unwanted pregnancies occur due to lack of contraceptives, education and the force of war. Educating children and women is key to reducing over-population, giving them the tools to take control, however educating soldiers too may help reduce the rate of rape and violence in war-torn countries, earning respect and common solidarity.

As Rebecca Johnson stated, military-industrial complexes drive human insecurity. Global military expenditure stands at over $1.46 trillion in arrival expenditure. Since the Cold War, the UK has been involved in the Korean War, Vietnam conflict, war in Afghanistan, Persian Gulf War, Iraq War and many others. The UK is ranked 4 on military sending in 2008 with a world share of 4.5%. The UK also has the largest arms producing companies which include Boeing as the number one arms investor with BAE Systems and Cockhead Martin leading second and third. Judging by these statistics, we need to start working on our nuclear policy in the West before moving into other regions to gain solidarity for disarmament and unjustified spending. Sixth of the people do not have enough food to eat as it is a lack of priority. Race and violence against women is a function of war. War itself is a destruction of the environment, and arms production and trade fuel conflict encourages patriarchy.

Female insecurity in economy, environment and militarism is a circle that has common links. Nuclear weapons cannot be abolished without demilitarising, therefore as a first step, we must try to reach a ‘Global Zero’ level and promote alternative policies that support victims of war, conflict and oppression. Challenging religious, political fundamentalism and racism is also a step towards challenging patriarchy and securing security for women all over the world.

PRE-Road to Copenhagen

For the upcoming 15th Session of the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP15), Worldview Impact and The Environment Council arranged an informal roundtable discussion to discuss youth expectations and perspectives.

The objective of the meeting was to brainstorm expectations from COP15, discuss key issues of concern in relation to the negotiations including any critical topics that need to be addressed. This was an opportunity for young environmentalists to start thinking about a lots of joint activities to coordinate before and beyond Copenhagen.

Following informative presentations led by Bremley Lyngdoh, CEO of Worldview Impact and Winsome MacLaurin, CEO of The Environment Council, participants worked in pairs to discuss expectations from COP15. Respectively, I was paired with Winsome herself, and voiced my opinion on how corporations who do no comply with environmental regulations to meet target emissions should have financial repercussions.

The discussion was lively and open in the approach of COP15 despite the short time we had. This is the outcome in the plenary session:

• There must be stronger financial repercussions for companies’ environmental impact.
  
  
• The bigger picture should be looked at, and biodiversity, population growth and the use of resources should not be forgotten.
  
  
• Everyone has to be ambitious in regards to setting targets in order to make a significant change to the planet.
  
  
• The US must join in to make a considerable difference.
  
  
• It is the responsibility of rich/developed countries to do more, including tackling increasing consumption.
  
  
• There must be some funding for adaptation and mitigation of climate change in poorer countries.
  
  
• Rainforests must be included in the talks as they represent huge carbon sinks and it is recommended that they stay where and the way they are.
  
  
• An agreement for forestry leading to a fair and beneficial deal to communities should be ratified.
  
  
• Adequate methodologies for calculating emissions and achievements are crucial to ensure governments and organisations are given meaningful measurements that would highly impact on the priority given to climate change.
  
  
• Making a convincing case for climate change is hence crucial, supported by sound scientific methodologies as mentioned above.
  
  
• COP15 will be a place where people from all over the world will be meeting, thus raising awareness of local issues, sharing ideas and actions taken to combat climate change. Replicating successful stories to each other’s local community/country (e.g. water and temperature rise) will be a great source of inspiration.

I am scheduled to attend the COP15 negotiations in Copenhagen between 10th-15th December 2009 as an observer, therefore will be bringing news of what was discussed and whether any defining agreements have been made. To what I have speculated, no legal agreements may be made at the actual conference followed by a 6-12 month delay. Nonetheless, leadership from over-developed countries, namely the US, is required to push developing and vulnerable states in making a decision based on scientific facts of climate change.

Watch this space!

Put People First

After 35,000 people joined the March demonstration calling for decent jobs, public services for all, the end of poverty and inequality, and a green economy, Put People First held a ‘counter conference’ while the G20 met in London. The conference had a large number of speakers focusing on the banking failure, promoting the ‘Green New Deal’, and creation of jobs. The first session looked into the failure of a paradigm with links to the financial crisis and climate change. Session two focused on alternative ways of working followed by a breakout session looking into how to mobilise people. Plenaries I attended were chaired by Jesse Griffiths (Bretton Wood Project), Bhumika Muchhala (Third World Network), Sargon Nissan (New Economic Foundation), Glen Tarman (BOND) and Owen Tudor (Trade Union Congress).

The financial crisis has undoubtedly effected employment rates, green economic plans and increased inequality within society. The crisis has transformed from being a private sector disaster to a public finance catastrophe. Diane Elson (University of Essex) talked about the need to re-regulate the financial market as cutbacks made in public expenditure are being fuelled into saving the banking industry. A bail out of £35 billion has gone to banks who will continue to invest in arms trade and fossil fuel industries, with an addition £6 billion rewarded in bonuses which is unfair and unjust. Ellie Smith (People and Planet) revealed that an astounding £54 billion was invested solely by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in extracting fossil fuel. Public cutbacks are being felt mostly by women, particularly migrant women who work in health services, care homes, social services and the like. agreed that a new economic paradigm for global market is needed, where rules on deregulation is not written by corporate elitists. John Hilary (War on Want)Andrew Simms (New Economics Foundation) commented that we currently have a finance system that wrecks the “triple crunch” of climate change, food insecurity and the finance crash itself. Out of the £35 billion being given to banks, the UK government have only invested £1.4 billion to climate change projects.

To control levels of climate change, the carbon market was formed to help industries regulate their emissions by selling, buying and trading pollution rights across countries. However, Larry Lohman (Corner House) concluded that this scheme has turned into the new ‘cash cow’ particularly for energy traders and hedge funds that are losing focus on actually caring for the environment. Fund managers are said to be “obsessed” with short-term price movements which can potentially put long-term climate projects in danger. With that in mind, Catherine Howarth (Fair Pensions) believes that business investment in climate change could potentially trigger the next financial crunch if the carbon market continues to operate the ‘Cap and Trade’, and ‘Carbon Offset’ system. Owen Epsley (Friends of the Earth) pointed out that the carbon market was built by bankers for bankers, and such climate finance will one day “burst” if it continues in this current route. According to Billy Hayes (Communications Workers Union), progressive taxation is required on rich corporations to meet public expenditure demands and third world debt should be cancelled to help developing countries grow.

Lidy Nacpil (Jubilee South) said that the impact of climate change is felt more when in poverty as the lack of money creates food shortages. In a globalised world, food staples are being imported more and more whereby rice eating countries are producing staples to export to rich countries leaving them with no food. Localising food production will solve a lot of problems such as transportation that creates CO2 emissions. However, there needs to be a reorientation of consumption and production in order to create fair use and equality in funds and materials. As a great influencer of European capital markets, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (ex-Danish PM) stated that looking into countries GDP is not a good way of measuring well-being – a system which is in place by many global governing bodies. Vimbai Mushongera (Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions) agreed that GDP does little to highlight countries growth. People in poor countries like Zimbabwe are silenced by their government and cannot empower themselves to make vocal contributions. 80% have no platform to speak when undertaking economic survival and have no input to government policies that can potentially help people meet their basic needs.

With the lead up to COP15, Bronwen Smith-Thomas (WWF) reminded us that we need a legally binding treaty that sets out long-term goals for investors that can be backed by the government. Jonathan Stevenson (Climate Camp) listed a series of events that Climate Camp will engage in during the COP15 negotiations, highlighting the necessary need for active citizen participation. As a way of taking alternatives forward, Deborah Doane (World Development Movement) suggested the D-Day method: “Demonstrate, Differentiate, Democratise” as a way to make our voices heard. Also, pressure needs to put on banks to act responsibly with government monitoring.

The World of Media

On Monday, 26 October, I participated in a ‘Community Communications’ media-training organised by Media Trust. The training was part of the Learning Revolution, which enables people throughout the UK to participate in media-related activities.

The training had a great overview on how to utilise social networks and its effectiveness on marketing a campaign. Jude Habib, Creative Director of Sounddelivery, introduced a list of tools communities could use by joining Press Association, AskCharity and Third Sector Charity PR. Kate Fox from the Mersey Basin Campaign exemplified how her small organisation was able to gain widespread press coverage through blogging and podcast interviews. The afternoon workshop helped us to understand how to get the attention of journalists with a press release. The key is to use simple language incorporating quotes, pictures and careful targeting with one page.

Blog
Using my blog as an example, this is a great way to define your personality, share ideas, and introduce campaigns without too much detail. Blogs can incorporate pictures, audio, message boards, and video-sharing.

Twitter
After this training, I recently started Twitter looking out for ‘buzz words’ and gaining snippets of information in a hurry. To gain followers, you must be willing to follow others and topics must be relevant.

Local Media
This is often overlooked however is the best place to start. Considering how relevant environmental issues currently are, I used my own experiences to approach a local magazine all the while advertising my blog and the work I do at an individual level. By targeting my message from a global to a local level, I managed to secure one page on the Newham Magazine, published on Friday 13^th November 2009. Click below to see the article.