Facing up to the truth

We're lucky in Wales to have the likes of Kevin Anderson advising the Climate Change Committe, the cross-party group of Assembly Members and key organisations who advise the Welsh Assembly on action. Kevin has never been one to pull hs punches, and for that he's respected by many people this side of the border, even if the action he calls for is a tough ask, as highlighted by a recent article in Guardian, in which he says:

"Too many models use an extrapolation of old data and this gives results that are too optimistic," said Anderson. "When I present my findings I am often pulled apart for taking away people's hope. But what these models are giving us is false hope. Surely that is worse?"

For the full article, click here

Why 10:10:10

Bill McKibben explains is clear to David Letterman

Out-lobby the lobbyists

There was an interesting article in today's Guardian.co.uk quoting Rajendra Pachauri's prediction that 2010 would see an increase in climate scepticism. Following hard on the heels of the largely failed COP15 talks in Copenhagen, this might seem strange, but is less so armed with these facts:

Last year the Centre for Public Integrity found that 770 companies and interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence US policies on climate change, while America's oil, gas and coal industry increased its lobbying budget by 50%.

Most of the companies that are paying lobbyists are doing so to increase returns for their shareholders - the yous and mes of the world represented by our pension funds (if we have one) and insurance companies (almost everyone has some). Most of the time, we take no time to get our voices heard by those companies or their representatives. There may have been 2340 lobbyists hired to influence policies on climate change, but that's a small number compared to the 300m or so population of the US. It's about 1/100,000th of the size. Sure, they may have knowledge and more time, and get paid for it, but that doesn't make them omnipotent.

Here's a little Do for your first week back at work: commit to writing 10 letters this year to people who provide you with products or services (Tesco, Walmart, AXA insurance etc) and ask them for information on the actions that they are taking on climate.

It's time to out-lobby the lobbyists. There are more of us.

We still have choice

With the COP15 Copenhagen climate talks starting in a few days, there may not yet be much of a feeling of optimism in the crisp autumn air, and there is widespread recognition that the liklihood of a binding, realistic and strong set of emissions targets is small. We do however, have many choices still in front of us.

• Regardless of the COP15 outputs, we'd still be smart, at some stage soon, to make some choices about:
• When to start creating a robust plan for food resilience
• When to implement planning restrictions on low level coastal land
• When to integrate potential responses to peak oil and energy security into our strategies.

George Monbiot put it neatly in the Guardian the other day:

In its new World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency (IEA) maintains that, to meet new demand and replace old equipment and exhausted reserves, the world will have to invest $25.6tn in energy supply infrastructure between now and 2030. The industrialised nations would also need to pay a fortune to the Opec countries to maintain their oil and gas supplies: the IEA predicts that the oil producers' income will rise fivefold in this period, to $30tn. These costs will be much higher if oil supplies peak.If moving to a low-carbon economy looks implausible, so does maintaining the high-carbon economy. Whichever route is taken, staggering amounts of money need to be spent. As resources become harder to extract and concentrated in fewer countries, it shouldn't be too difficult to persuade world leaders that the money might as well be spent on exploiting ambient energy, which will neither run out nor allow us to be held to ransom.

Effective Lobbying

Julian Rosser – Campaigns Manager, Oxfam Cymru gave a useful quick insight into tips and techniques for effective lobbying as part of an energetic and well received Community Climate Change event organised by the Welsh Assembly Government in Aberystwyth, mid Wales, earlier today. Here are Julian’s tips:

Step 1

Get very clear about what it is that you are trying to achieve.

E.g. objective – getting the ‘Size of Wales Rainforest Project’ up to speed.  Success could involve getting the Welsh Assembly Government to spend a big proportion of their Wales for Africa funding on tree planting. An alternative goal for this could be to get Ed Miliband to oppose the planting oil palm plantations as ‘tree subsitututes”.

E.g. Build an ‘Ely Trail’ to serve the same cycling purpose at the Taff Trail. Who would I need to talk to about potential compulsory purchase of land to enable a path to be built?

Working on the cycle path example: Let’s pick Cardiff City Council as a target, and identify one person who has something to benefit from it who has power and money. In lobbying you need to know who has the power – let’s assume in this case that it’s the Head of Transportation. Work out who or what is going to influence this person?  Councillors? WAG? Money? Pressure from other local people? Things that in that mgrs’ Key Performance Targets? His or her career prospects? How far they from retirement? Are they a cyclist or not? Personal prejudices?

Next stage is to identify allies and adversaries for the particular project. In this case, allies could be local climate campaigners, Sustrans, local health groups, ROSPA, image-conscious politicians, other departments in council, heart charities, NHS, taxi drivers, consulting group. Think at the start about all of the people you could want in. Adversaries here though, could be: landowners, people whose money is being poached by others, tax payers, maintenance budgets, old school hacks, the other village’s cycle group?

Work through the strengths and opportunities for allies, and ways around the negatives / adversaries. One approach is to have enough people jumping up and down shouting about campaigns – the anti-road user charging petition on the Number 10 website had something like 2 million people signed up in 48 hours. One of the more entertaining campaigns that Julian was involved with was the anti GM crop campaign – it only took 9 months to get a unanimous decision against GM through the assembly – work was involved afterwards in finding out what was possible from a legal perspective. Getting  the Farmer’s Union of Wales and Women’s Institute on board early made a lot of difference – the assembly may not listen to Friends of the Earth, but they will listen to Farmers and the WI

Clarity of goals, influence and understanding how to maximise leverage are key.