As Elly and I were standing on the Picadilly Line platform at King’s Cross yesterday evening, we were eyeing up a couple of young people sitting on a bench nearby, thinking “Are they going the same place as us…?”  Then a guy with a guitar walked past and Elly exclaimed “Theo!” just as the other girl said “Theo!”

Turned out we were all on our way to Heathrow Terminal 1.  At first thought, it doesn’t seem the most appealing place to spend your Monday night, but yesterday evening saw the place transformed.  In the main atrium there was a huge picnic.  Hundreds of people were milling around, listening to the string quartet, playing parachute games, singing songs, and having a jolly respectable evening, to demonstrate against the proposed third runway Heathrow’s managers want to build.  The crowd of people included local residents whose quality of life would go down considerably, were a third runway to be built.  There were also loads of young people and environmental campaigners, and the local Labour MP.

The enormous, high-viz police presence was slightly intimidating at first, but didn’t manage to dilute the cheerful atmosphere of the event.  The feeling of festivity was added to by people’s dress: we’d all donned Edwardian costumes.  Climate Rush, mainly-female organisers of the picnic, wanted to draw parallels between the suffragette’s struggles 100 or so years ago, and the struggles to defend the environment on which we all depend today.

The announcement over the runway is expected this Thursday, by Geoff Hoon the Cabinet’s Transport guy.  The Conservative Party have already said they would not not let it go ahead if they get elected, and neither would the Lib Dems.  And many Labour MPs are against it too.  Some are pushing for the issue to come to parliamentary vote.

Want to see more?  Go to the BBC website, where there’s a video – featuring yours truly.  There’s also a write-up on the Guardian website.

We all know that talking is one thing and doing is another thing – but it is encouraging when politicians start talking sense, because that makes it seem more likely they’ll start doing sensible things.

There’s an interview with Prime Minister Gordon Brown in today’s Observer, in which he unveils a plan to invest public money in projects that should create 100,000 jobs in the UK, to try and beat back the economic recession.  Importantly, he goes on to define what kind of jobs these will be.  According to the Observer,

“School repairs, new rail links, hospital projects and plans to usher in a new digital age by investing in superfast broadband will be used to keep unemployment down. The plans will also be used to tackle climate change, by means of investments in eco-friendly projects such as electric cars and wind and wave power that would also create jobs.”

Sounds like Gordon has caught onto the idea of creating a low-carbon economy.  Good stuff!

This kind of thing was talked about a lot while I was at the UN climate negotiations in Poznan.  Rather than letting the financial crisis push environmental concerns to one side, there’s actually an exciting opportunity presented to us.  It’s a chance to take stock of where we’re at.  Climate change is not just a problem with the physical world.  Climate change is happening because of the way our economies are structured, especially the dependence on fossil fuels.  Investing in clean technologies and renewable energy supplies is a step in the right direction if we’re going to get to grips with this problem.

So, good work, Gordon – just don’t let that huge, CO2-belching coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth get the go-ahead, will you?  Because that would suggest to us that you are, after all, just making New Year resolutions that you can’t be bothered to uphold.

Dear Ms Mount

Thank you for your email dated 23rd November 2008, addressed to Jeffrey Titford MEP.  Mr Titford has asked me to reply on his behalf.

Mr Titford has carefully noted what you have to say about climate change and your request that he support a drastic cut in carbon emissions by 2020.  However, he believes that such targets are impossible to meet and are based on what is essentially a false premise.

The idea that manmade carbon emissions are entirely responsible for global warming is highly debatable and is based on questionable and selective scientific data backed up by political dogma.  We have almost reached a point where anyone who dares challenge this orthodoxy is branded a heretic.  Moreover, a drastic cut, such as you suggest, would have a dramatic effect on quality of life and would make many of our industries and businesses uncompetitive.  This would lead to job losses and poverty.

Mr Titford strongly believes in reducing pollution and in recycling but refuses to accept the doomsday scenarios currently being propagated.  The earth is a living planet and of course climate will change.  The temperature rises and falls in phases which are often linked with sunspot activity.  Even the global warming propagandists accept that over the next few years we are going into a cooling phase but conveniently add the qualification that temperatures will begin to rise again in a few years time.  This is to get them out of a rather large hole they have dug for themselves following their alarmist predictions that temperatures were going to consistently rise and cause massive global problems.

Mr Titford is also greatly concerned that demands for emission reductions are damaging the ability of developing countries to maximise their potential.  It would be ironic if the West’s obsession with climate change were to end up inflicting greater poverty on the Third World.

You should also be aware that Mr Titford was elected on a platform of withdrawal from the European Union.  Therefore, he believes that Britain’s best interests lie outside of the EU and he opposes the principle of the European Commission, an unelected body, laying down laws which are binding on member states.  This goes against all the principles of democracy and accountability.  We already have a situation where 75% of all new legislation passing through our Parliament at Westminster originates with the Commission.  There is no proper scrutiny and our Parliament acts as a mere rubber-stamp.  This is a highly dangerous form of government by bureaucratic diktat and does not bode well for the future of our country.

Thank you again for letting us have your thoughts on this subject.

Yours sincerely

Stuart Gulleford
Political Advisor to Jeffrey Titford MEP

My response

Dear Stuart,

Thank you for outlining Mr Titford’s position.  I have a number of concerns with the points you raise in your email.

I am concerned about your interpretation of climate science.  As a an undergraduate reading Geography at Cambridge University, I have spent the past two years learning from world-class scientists about climate change.  I find the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) compelling, given the evidence I have seen and analysed.  I strongly recommend you read their 2007 Summary for Policy Makers. This is peer-reviewed science and reflects the consensus of the world’s most eminent scientists.

You mention that global temperatures rise and fall with sunspot activity.  I do not have a problem with this claim, but with the context in which you use this statement.  The global warming that concerns me is not that on a decadal timescale, as that of sunspot cycles.  The past two million years have seen a series of glacial and interglacial periods, which have come about due to the way the Earth’s climate system responds to variations in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.  The difference with the warming we are seeing today, is that it is due to anthropogenic forcing rather than natural forcing.  This graph of temperature variations since 1000AD shows the temperature variations associated with sunspot cycles to be tiny compared to the sharp rise in temperature since the Industrial Revolution in England.

The internationally-recognised Stern Review, (conducted by Lord Stern in 2005, the then Head of the Government Economic Service and former World Bank Chief Economist) reports that taking action to mitigate climate change now is the “pro growth strategy”.  I disagree that this would lead to job losses; indeed, the current financial crisis provides an opportunity to create jobs and boost the economy by investing in the clean, renewable energy infrastructure that we need if we are to live sustainably.

Emissions reductions do not damage the potential of poorer countries to develop.  Wealth generation will be greatly harmed by climate change impacts, so it makes economic sense to reduce emissions right away.  Furthermore, there is great potential for investment in sustainable development in both poorer and richer countries.  Investment in renewable energy sources, for example, will provide jobs and also ensure that people do not have to suffer the health problems that result from burning fossil fuels, such as respiratory diseases.  Poor health is a key factor that holds back economic development, as ill people are less able to participate in the economy.

The target of reducing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide to 350ppm is not impossible to meet, as you claim.  There have been numerous credible proposals put forward for achieving this target.  Oliver Tickell’s book, Kyoto2, makes one such proposal, with a reasoned analysis that takes into account the latest science and uses a combination of economic mechanisms and government regulation.

I am not saying this because I relish the thought of catastrophic climate change.  The prospect of growing up on a warming planet whose climate system is changing frightens me.  Already, the World Health Organisation reports that 160,000 people per year are dying as a result of climate change.  Water, already a scarce resource in many parts of the world, is becoming harder to come by.  Changes such as this have repercussions outside their immediate area, as people are forced to migrate in search of the resources no longer provided by their degrading local environment.

I urge you and Mr Titford to reconsider your position on this deeply important issue.  If you would like more information, do not hesitate to ask me.

Regards,
Amy Mount

We’ve seen the disaster movies. We’ve read the frightening headlines and been scared by the documentaries. Why, then, are so few people standing up and shouting out for action on climate change?

Perhaps it is because we are unclear about what we want. We know what we don’t want: no sea level rise, no drought in Sudan, no melting glaciers, no loss of biodiversity, no Hurricane Katrinas, no food shortages, no water wars, please. But where is the vision in all of that? We’re running away from climate change, but what are we running towards? And is that somewhere we positively want to be?

The second issue is that scary scenes of climate change are having less and less of an impact. Like your ears beginning to block out an irritating whine that won’t go away, people are becoming impervious to predictions of climate catastrophe. That’s kind of understandable, because they haven’t been given the tools to deal with it. When you look at your little self in the face of the huge problem that is climate change, it’s hard to see how you can possibly change anything.

Another reason for this inaction is the way people conceive of the problem. It’s difficult to relate to events taking place hundreds of miles away in a continent you’ve never visited. There’s no use trying to connect people in the UK to climate change impacts as felt by a foreign person they’ve never met: the problem must be personalised. This has two dimensions. The first dimension (to be used sensitively) is fear. I didn’t feel personally worried about climate change until I went to the UN climate change talks in Poznan. I went there, as part of the UK Youth Delegation, because I knew there was a moral imperative for getting politicians moving on climate change: it’s going to affect the world’s poorest people most of all – those who don’t have the resources to cope with its impacts, nor the historical responsibility for filling the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. My experience at Poznan – listening to different peoples’ stories, getting to grips with the policy, solidifying my knowledge of the science – meant I began to engage with the issue at a deeper, personal level. The climate changes we’re hearing so much about are going to take place during my lifetime: while I’m working, having children… do I even want to bring more people into a world whose climate system has gone haywire?

The second, and absolutely essential, way of personalising climate change is helping people to discover their agency. Each one of us here in the UK has agency. We are told we live in a democracy: well, we must exercise our democratic rights and demand action from our government. We’re victims of our own (mis)conceptions about ourselves – what we believe to be true ends up being true. If we believe ourselves to be powerless, we will never try to exercise power. Yet we are all individuals, and we can all act. All of us individuals are part of society, and society can change.

Here, then, comes the vision. I want to live my life breathing clean air unpolluted by car fumes. I want to travel to work via a swift and competent public transport system, or enjoy a stress-free bike-ride along uncongested roads. I want my home to be powered by an offshore windfarm, rather than a CO2-belching coal-fired power station. I want to live in a well-insulated house that doesn’t waste energy and saves me money. I want to get fresh air and keep fit at the weekend by doing some digging at the community allotment where I’m growing some veg. I want to visit my friends in France by catching a fast, reliable train – none of the hassle or noise of an airport (and arriving with all of my baggage!).

And I’m excited by the challenge facing us. How lucky to belong to the generation that’s going to come up with the solutions to the problems created by our parents’ generation. We’ve got the opportunity to use our brains, be creative, and innovate, to find new technologies, inventive policies, and imaginatively different lifestyles. We have everything to win!

Give coal the boot!

Amy

That’s what Al Gore said in his speech in Poznan last Friday.  I really needed to hear that, having reached a low point that very morning.  Friday was a day of extremes for me.  I got up extremely early to write an article which then didn’t get published.  Then I went to a press conference where I found out that the EU Climate and Energy Package had been announced and was looking very weak.  That was so frustrating and upsetting.  I’d not realised the emotional level at which I’d engaged with this deal, until I burst into tears in the atrium of the conference centre.  It’s just so arrogant, short-sighted and selfish for the EU not to step up and lead on sorting out climate change: we have an historical responsibility for most of the greenhouse gas emissions currently in the atmosphere, which are already having negative impacts on peoples’ lives today.  We also have the capacity to create an adaptation fund to help countries with fewer resources cope with the problems that they have not brought upon themselves.  We have the technology to help us switch to a low-carbon society.  We have a moral obligation to take action, yet we no longer seem to have the strong leadership that was so promising a year ago.

Then I filed into a huge plenary hall and listened to Al Gore’s visionary speech, which spoke the truth about the science and the need for action – so refreshing after the stifling UN negotiations.

Most excitingly, as everyone was leaving the hall, I was part of a huge group of young people who gathered together, unfurled some illicit banners that stated “Survival is not negotiable” and began to chant that phrase over and over.  We were quickly surrounded by a horde of people, aiming cameras at our faces.  One of us did an impassioned speech about the absurdity of wrangling over the survival of people and communities.  Our chanting filled the huge atrium and felt like it would send the roof up into the sky.

It didn’t last long – we had to break it up fairly quickly because it was not an approved action by the UNFCCC Secretariat.  It was a brief burst of passion that the conference so desperately needed.  It hasn’t affected this year’s outcome, but just you wait for next year.  Copenhagen in December 2009 is going to be huge.  That’s where the next global climate deal should be signed (the one they’ve been talking about since Kyoto) and it’s going to be a gathering of loads and loads of people to demand that our leaders safeguard our future.

i’m optimistic about that.  I’ve been inspired by all the young people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in Poznan.  Can’t wait to continue working with them over the next year, as part of a growing international movement.

Read it here

That’s Ed Miliband, by the way.

The UKYD managed to get a date with the Climate and Energy Minister at 10:30pm tonight in his hotel.  It meant we had to leave an international youth meeting early, and when we explained this to the group, they applauded.  This is probably because Ed did his ministerial address today in the plenary session and said some good stuff.  The UK is far from perfect, yet at a global level it is a champion for the climate change cause, and this brings hope to youth delegates struggling with tiresome governments.

So he bought us all beers (he drank orange juice) and spent more than an hour with us, chatting.  We had been at a real low point, really finding this conference emotionally difficult (for me, to a level I haven’t experienced before in my life) and the discussion we had with Ed helped to buck our spirits a bit.  He didn’t have straight answers for all our questions and I definitely think we gave him food for thought.  Isabel had even prepared a Christmas stocking containing the Climate Safety report, Zero Carbon Britain report (two pieces of work that we’ve found very useful in working out our stance on climate policy)… and a satsuma.

For me, it was uplifting to see a government minister being honest and thoughtful about climate change.  This guy really wants to do all he can about climate change – I don’t think I’m being naive here – he spoke very genuinely.  Granted, I didn’t agree with everything he said, but he’s thinking about the problem in a constructive way.

And he wants to meet us again during the next year, in the run-up to Copenhagen!

I’m sitting at the back of the main plenary hall, settling in for an afternoon of talks from various environment ministers, including our Ed Miliband, the UK’s Energy and Climate Change minister who arrived in Poznan yesterday.  Today is the beginning of the “high level segment” – the big cheeses have arrived and the conference is becoming more newsworthy.

Hard to tell what, if anything, has actually been achieved so far at this conference.  If anything comes out of it, it will emerge during this “high level segment”.

On the plus side, we were having our UKYD team meeting yesterday evening, sat cross-legged in a circle in the conference’s main atrium, when we spotted Ed Miliband and Nick Stern (of Stern Report fame – the UK government report that shows it’s far cheaper to tackle climate change now than to try and adapt in later years) standing not far away.  Casper and Guppi sidled along and started chatting to one of Ed’s aides, but couldn’t get to Ed himself, so came back and joined us.  We started to get back into the meeting, when Ed came striding up to introduce himself!  He said it was great to see us and we must meet up (hopefully tonight) and did we want a photo?  We were, like, ok, we can probably spare a minute or two…

Yesterday, the UKYD launched a 24-hour phone call campaign to get Gordon Brown to push for a strong EU deal on climate change when he meets European heads of state in Brussels today.  We made a video (see below) and spread it far and wide via email.

We coordinated this action with some youth delegates from other EU countries – on the way back from the demo in Warsaw on Tuesday, we were filming people from Sweden, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Poland and Belgium.  When we launched the campaign at 12 noon yesterday, we set up a hub in the conference centre, where the air sizzled with excitement, people plugged into their laptops, conversing through Skype, trying to get through to their respective heads of state and then phoning their friends to encourage them to do the same.

It felt amazing to be part of such a big movement!

The response from the Downing St switchboard was not great to begin with and got progressively worse, to the extent that people phoning today were promptly passed onto a pre-recorded message the second the words “EU climate package” or “leave a message for Gordon Brown” had escaped their lips.  This contrasts with the experience of the Swedes who phoned their Prime Minister, who got through to his secretary.  She offered to pass on their message and wished them luck with their campaign!

The European heads of state are due to discuss the Climate Package from 4pm til 8pm today, but word is that the talks will stretch into the night and there probably won’t be a concrete resolution until Saturday.  That’s not good news for the negotiations here in Poznan, which desperately need the EU to step up and take the lead so others will follow.