15 Actions to Topple the Fossil Fuel EmpireWhy and how to take direct action against the fossil fuel industry...
including planning tips, target locations, examples of successful actions
and more.
In this section of our website we try to provide as many resources as possible. This part of the site is always evolving and we will be updating it regularly.
To see another really great collection of resources visit the Network for Climate Action website.
The most recently added resources are highlighted below. All of the other resources available can be accessed using the left hand column.
If you have any ideas for additional resources you would like to see in this section please email us and we’ll do our best to get them up on the site.
15 Actions to Topple the Fossil Fuel Empire
Why and how to take direct action against the fossil fuel industry...
including planning tips, target locations, examples of successful actions
and more.
Climate Action Popular Education Resource Pack
Packed with tools to help you run engaging, interactive workshops on all aspects of climate change for a wide range of people.
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The underlying science behind the greenhouse effect is not hard to understand or explain. It is based on three principles:
1. In the mid 19th century scientists found in the laboratory that each gas has a different capacity to retain and hold heat. Oxygen and Nitrogen loose heat rapidly- Carbon Dioxide, however, is very good at holding heat.
2. The ability of some gases to retain heat is very important for the functioning of the atmosphere. They allow the suns rays pass through the atmosphere and warm the earth and then they prevent that heat from being radiated back into space. They function like the glass in a greenhouse- letting through the suns rays and then holding in the heat. That's why this is called the greenhouse effect.
3. The gases that have the quality of retaining heat in the atmosphere are called the greenhouse gases. The most important one is Carbon Dioxide. There are other gases in the atmosphere which are far more powerful but are present in far smaller concentrations . Methane retains 25 times as much heat as Carbon Dioxide; Nitrous Oxide 320 times.
Climate change can be summed up in two sentences:
o Different gases have different capacities to retain heat.
o When we change the gases in the atmosphere, we will change the way that it holds in the heat from the sun.
It is important to remember that the greenhouse effect is not a bad thing in itself- if we didn't have the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere the earth would be as cold as the moon. They are like a blanket that keeps us warm and make life possible.
Our whole economy is based on burning oil, gas or coal, called fossil fuels. We can't see most of these fires, but just imagine every car on the motorway as a roaring fire, every electricity powerstation as a huge inferno. We all contribute to this through our carbon intensive lifestyle, our cars, home heating, and air travel.
* Talk of the wasteful things we do. Exotic green beans in supermarkets flown by air from Africa. We spend hours every day sitting in traffic jams. We build heated conservatories that double a houses energy consumption. We fly huge distances for a week in the sun.
Every time we burn these fuels we produce more waste carbon dioxide. A lot more; 8 billion tons a year in fact. Within 50 years we will have twice as much Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere as we had before industrialisation.
Burning also produces Nitrous Oxides another powerful greenhouse gas. We are also dumping new gases in the atmosphere. CFC's (Chloroflourocarbons) are used in refridgerators and, although they are present in tiny quantities relative to carbon dioxide they are 9,000 times more powerful at retaining heat (which is what made them so good for refridgeration in the first place!)
The change in the atmosphere will mean that far more of the sun's energy is held within the climate systems, throwing all existing climate systems into chaos. Computer predictions estimate global temperature increases over the next 100 years of across the world by up to 6°C. Scientists know of no time when temperatures have risen faster and beyond 2°C increase find it hard to make reliable predictions of the actual effects in the weather. In the next fifty years we will see ever increasing extremes of weather. More storms, floods, droughts.
The natural world will not be able to adjust fast enough. By 2050 climate change will have directly led to the extinction of 30% of species, the death of 90% of coral reefs and the loss of half the Amazon rainforest.
It is absolute scientific fact that the changes we are making to the concentrations of different gases will effect the way the atmosphere behaves. The only areas of debate is how serious the impacts are likely to be. This is a huge a very dangerous experiment with something we don't understand.
Over 2,000 scientists are directly working on the United Nations to study this problem and its impacts. This is one of the largest mobilisations of scientific research ever undertaken. All the scientists agree that we have a huge problem. In 1997 3,000 scientists signed a Statement on Climatic Disruption. Also in 1977 1,500 scientists including 110 Nobel Prize winners, signed a letter to US President Clinton calling for immediate action. In 1999 the 35,000 scientists in the US Geophysical Union adopted a position calling for action. In May 2001, the national scientific academies of 17 nations including the UK Royal Society signed a statement calling for action.
Beyond 2050 we face the acceleration of the process of climate change. Carbon and methane stored in soils and oceans will start to leak into the air and the natural processes in forests and oceans that remove carbon dioxide from the air will break down.
The jargon does not reflect the seriousness of the situation.
* Climate change suggests a slow and steady predictable change. In reality we face a rapid and chaotic flip-flop between extreme weather events.
* Global warming suggests a slow steady increase in temperatures, like warming a bath. In reality it will not be steady, and local weather choas may include extremes of cold as well as heat.
* Talking of Climate suggests something scientific and outside people's concern. But the reality in people's lives will concern violent changes in weather.
* Scientists talk of the uncertainties of climate change. There are no uncertainties about the reality of change, only the exact nature those changes will take.
This is not some vague future threat. All around the world rapid changes in the weather are already happening.
The 12 months up to March 2001 were the wettest in Britain since records began in 1730. Scientists argue that it was the wettest in at least 500 years.
The US winter of 1999-2000 was the mildest since records began. The winter of 2000-2001 was the coldest since records began. This is an example of the "flip-flop in extreme weather.
Mozambique in 2000 had the worst floods in 50 years displacing 100,000 people
Northwest India had the worst dought in 100 years in 2000
* Collect cuttings from recent newspaper reports of record breaking weather
* Don't get bogged down in the atmospheric science- stress the causes and impacts.
* Don't say the Greenhouse Effect is the problem. It's the emission of greenhouse gases which is the problem.
* Don't say sea level rises are because of melting ice caps- the expansion of water as it heats up is far more important.
* Don't say Britain is all going under water- for the next 50 years sea level rises will effect only some coastal regions.
* Don't get confused with the hole in the ozone layer- there are connections between the two, but they are complex and the ozone hole does not directly lead to climate change.
Rising Tide — Speaker Training Factsheet June 2001- www.risingtide.org.uk
There are some arguments which claim climate change doesn't exist or isn't such a big problem. There is no need to raise these arguments directly in a talk, but it is good to be prepared in case they come up as you may hear these from confused (or critical) people in the audience. Answering your opponents will greatly strengthen your case.
The first thing to stress is that almost all of these arguments originate in the 20 year long public relations campaign by the oil and coal industries to fight against international attempts to control greenhouse gas emissions. In the US this counter campaign has to date cost over £20 million.
Following from this point, people should remember that companies and governments have always "created" experts to justify their arguments. Tobacco companies have "scientists" to claim that nicotine is not addictive, asbestos companies have "doctors" to claim that asbestos does no lead to asbestosis of the lungs, and confectionery companies have "dentists" to claim that sugar does not lead to tooth decay. It’s a classic ploy by vested interests.
No one argues that greenhouse gas concentrations are going up extremely rapidly. No one argues that changing this will change the way the atmosphere behaves. The debate is about whether those changes will cause global warming- and whether they are the cause of the global temperature increases.
The strongest argument is the simple weight of expert opinion. Out of 2,000 scientists involved in the United Nations processes, around 10, sometimes called "climate skeptics", argue that there is no climate change or argue that burning fossil fuels is not a problem (some even argue both!). Names to look for include Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer. All 10 of these scientists are directly funded by the fossil fuel industry. So who do you believe?!
It's true that changes in solar output and tilt have historically had a major influence on climate change. But tilt changes very slowly and solar output has not changed sufficiently recently to explain the measured changes in global temperature. Again, the UN scientists are very clear that current changes are human created. Anyway, sunspots or no sunspots, when we change the gases in the atmosphere, we will change the way that it holds in the heat from the sun.
The concerns over an ice age were always a fringe theory 30 years ago- the science has moved forward and is now is extremely strong. Climate change is not predictable and extreme cold as well as heat is entirely possible if ocean currents change significantly.
Warming is measured across global averages and that local patterns will still vary greatly. "Warming" may be a misnomer on a local level as we're talking about increasingly extreme weather events (which may include extreme cold), interspersed with periods of more normal weather.
We can be certain that this is a disastrous experiment which will lead to violent changes in the weather. The uncertainty is about how exactly this will effect local weather- we’re messing with something vital that we simply don’t understand. Scientific computer simulations are becoming far more accurate, though.
There is a 40-100 year lag time before we feel the full effects of changes in the atmosphere. Politicians have been arguing for "waiting and seeing" for 20 years and the weather is already showing dramatic changes and what we’re experiencing now is the result of emissions in the 1960’s and before. We’d be mad to wait any further with such a long lead time. We’d just be dumping our indecision onto our grandchildren.
Also remember that we invest all the time in insurance against uncertainties. The government spend tens of billions of pounds a year on the armed forces to defend ourselves against outside risks that are impossible to estimate. At the moment the risk of climate change is far better established than the risk of enemy invasion!
Britain is not going to become the Costa Del Sol- and if it did every forest, garden and hedgerow would die. Yes it may get warmer, but droughts, floods, and extreme cold may also be part of the picture. The scientists predict hotter dryer summers but also wetter greyer winters with increased flooding and storms- so not much fun there. And there will be a terrible price to pay elsewhere - so we can't afford to be selfish.
It is nothing of the kind. Margaret Thatcher, John Major, the heads of British Petroleum and Shell Oil, the Confederation of British Industry, the Insurance industry all now acknowledge the threat and make strong statements of concern. Tony Blair calls it the "most serious" challenge of the 21st Century. If you really think these people are part of a global conspiracy, you're nuts. (Of course, none of them actually do anything, but that’s another story). In fact the only government leader who has denied the problem is George W Bush whose political campaign was largely funded by oil companies.
The US is a huge burner of fossil fuels, twice as much per person as Britain and this is a serious problem. By all means we need to put pressure on the US. But we have a responsibility too to take a lead and sort out our own role. No-one ever wins a court case by arguing that there are bigger criminals about!
It's true that China and India also have rapidly increasing emissions and that within 25 years the Third World emissions will exceed those of the rich world. They will need to play a part in controlling emissions. None the less their emissions per person are still far far below ours (we emit ten times as much per person as an Indian). What is more, the greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere are the result of the rich world’s emissions over the past 100 years, so we bear a historical responsibility.
Yes, cow farts do contain methane and play some role. But this is a very minor cause- and one often seized on by people trying to marginalise the issue. A far greater source of methane is from old landfill sites and coal mines.
Tree planting is a red herring. Trees only soak up carbon dioxide whilst growing, but when they die/decay or are burnt they release it. So tree planting buys very little time. Tree planting cannot solve the scale of the problem and any effects it has are extremely temporary. What is more there are major environmental and social problems in the Third World associated with the seizure of land for exotic tree plantations — and let's face it, the Third World is where such large plantations would be planted.
There are lots of madcap "solutions" around- pumping carbon dioxide underground, setting up mirrors in space to reflect sunlight, seeding oceans with iron filings to encourage plankton. These projects are mostly funded by oil companies which have a strong interest in encouraging "business as usual". It’s very doubtful if they work, they are sticking plaster solutions at best.
There is huge investment by car and oil companies into hydrogen, electric, and fuel cell cars. The big question is: where does the electricity or hydrogen come from? Most likely from fossil fuels. What is more, huge amounts of energy would still go into the steel, plastics, and manufacture of the cars. More efficient, less polluting cars will help, of course, but we still need to control and limit car use for many other reasons.
"I do my bit- I recycle" is something people often say. But people need to know that recycling is a good thing to do for many reasons but is a very small part of the climate solution (composting food waste is the most useful component as it reduces methane production in landfill sites). People can do far more with simple measures in insulating and draught proofing their homes.
Rising Tide — Speaker Training Factsheet June 2001- www.risingtide.org.uk
The solution to climate change is simple- we have to dramatically cut our greenhouse gas emissions and move out of the fossil fuel age. Reductions come from three methods: reducing demand for energy, increasing the efficiency of the energy we do use; and replacing fossil fuels with so called renewable energy. We need to do all three of these together.
Renewable energy draws on new technologies- solar, wind and tidal/wave power- which use natural energy sources rather than burning fossil fuels. Many electricity company in Britain already offer to supply consumers with electricity from renewables. There are many pilot projects already running which show the potential of renewables:
The price of solar energy is already falling dramatically and the new wind technologies are already producing electricity at a lower price than coal generation. All that is needed is sufficient investment and an end to the huge hidden subsidies to fossil fuel generation.
Our use of energy is wasteful and highly inefficient. Increasing efficiency involves achieving the same service with less energy.
Strangely the single biggest producer of Greenhouse Gases is not heavy industry, it's our homes- using nearly half all the energy in the country. In Britain we have the oldest worst insulated housing stock in Britain and it's the poor and old people who suffer most. Every year 60,000 people die from "cold related" illnesses- half of these directly related to cold damp housing. Britain needs to totally renovate its old housing, and recognise that people have a right to warm housing that they can afford to heat.
Electricity is the first place to look for efficiencies- so much energy is wasted in generating, transmitting and then using electricity that it delivers only one quarter of the energy in the original fuel. Using electricity for heating and cooking is clearly extremely wasteful. A new domestic condensing gas boiler delivers more than three times as much heat from a unit of gas than heating using electricity generated from that same gas. Electrical appliances can be very inefficient too- new models of fridges and freezers (half the electricity use in the average home) use half as much energy as old models.
We have to think carefully about how we live and find ways of living more simply. Simple ways of reducing demand include:
We're told that we can't change the world, but of course nothing is ever going to change if people believe that and don't even try. In reality it's not that hard at all, as history shows us again and again, all it needs is a few people to believe they can make a difference. Everyone knows we have a problem and everyone's waiting for someone to do something. We can be the start.
What is more- when everyone is united in overcoming a common threat (such as happens in wars, natural disasters) anything is possible. In the Second World War, the whole economy and society changed almost overnight. Why can't we find this motivation in peace time against a threat that is even greater?
There are four stages of what people in the audience can do:
Level one is in our own lives. By accepting the scale of the problem and our own involvement in it, by setting goals for reducing our own emissions. After all we can’t ask other people to do something that we refuse to do.
Level two is acting locally. This could be as simple as talking to your friends and people at work, spreading information encouraging them to make changes. It could involve putting pressure on your employer, the local council, local organisations or companies. It could be forming a local protest group. There are any number of issues to work on: wasteful energy use, transport, information and education
Level three is acting nationally. Get political- challenge the government and national organisations and companies- demanding that they make changes. Supporting national campaigns and protests.
Level four is acting internationally. This is harder, but there are still many ways that we can put pressure on international companies, foreign governments such as the US, and demanding that our own government takes a lead in pushing for real change.
If you harass people too much and try to make them feel guilty they will simply stop listening.
You need to say that you recognise it is very hard for most people to change the way they live, and that they can start with a few simple changes at home (which will save them money anyway). You can also encourage people to focus their frustration over the need for a car on pushing for local and national changes in public transport and transport policy
The campaign for renewable technology is strong and well supported by environment groups. Its sexy and exciting and futuristic. But don't make people think this is the whole solution- it's cutting emissions that counts, which needs dramatic changes in efficiency and demand changes.
The scale of the problem is so huge and global that people will rightly feel that their personal changes are going to make a tiny contribution. They need to know that this is just a start, and that the real change comes from spreading the word, persuading other people to change and political organising.
Rising Tide – Speaker Training Factsheet June 2001- www.risingtide.org.uk
Overview
To the surprise of most observers, international climate change negotiators meeting in Bonn, Germany, reached agreement on Monday on most of the key political issues relating to implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. The decision by the Sixth Session (part two) of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, known as COP-6, covers four principal areas: operating rules for emissions trading and other market-based mechanisms established under the Protocol; how the sequestration of carbon by forests and other "sinks" will be credited toward Kyoto emission targets; funding to help developing countries combat and cope with climate change; and mechanisms to encourage and enforce compliance with the Kyoto targets.
Although the agreement resolves most of the high-profile issues, it does not address many more technical issues that will play a significant role in determining the practicability and efficiency of the emissions trading system and Kyoto's other flexibility mechanisms. The negotiation of these more detailed, technical rules will continue during the remainder of the conference and is likely to spill over to COP-7 this fall in Marrakesh. The Protocol will take effect only when ratified by at least 55 countries accounting for at least 55 percent of developed country emissions in 1990.
All countries except the United States, which has announced that it does not intend to ratify the Protocol, hailed the agreement as a major breakthrough. Many countries in their concluding statements spoke of the need to leave the door open for U.S. participation at a later date.
Key Elements
Mechanisms
The Protocol establishes three market-based mechanisms aimed at achieving emissions reductions as cost-effectively as possible. They are emissions trading (the buying and selling of emissions credits among Annex I countries, which are those with binding emission targets); joint implementation (allowing one country with a target to receive emissions credit for a specific project undertaken in another country with a target); and the Clean Development Mechanism, or CDM (allowing developed countries to receive emissions credit for financing projects that reduce emissions in developing countries). Key decisions reached this week include:
· No quantitative limits on the use of the mechanisms. Instead, the agreement provides simply that domestic action shall constitute "a significant element" of the effort made by Annex I Parties to reach their targets.
A 2% levy on CDM projects to support developing country efforts to cope with the impacts of climate change. (The agreement does not place a levy on emissions trading or joint implementation.)
Nuclear projects under joint implementation and CDM not specifically excluded, but "Annex I parties are to refrain from using" credits generated from such projects.
Sinks projects will be allowed under the CDM, but will be limited to afforestation and reforestation projects during the first target period (2008-2012). Sinks credits under CDM will be capped at 1% of a country's base-year emissions.
Simplified modalities and procedures for small-scale CDM projects (including renewable energy and energy efficiency projects).
A prompt start for CDM through nominations for the CDM Executive Board prior to COP-7, with a view to election of the Executive Board at COP-7.
To address the risk of overselling emission credits, each Annex I party must hold back from the market 90% of its allowable emissions, or five times its most recently reviewed emissions inventory, whichever is lower. The former test allows countries whose emissions are higher than their target and who will be net buyers to sell up to 10% of their allowable emissions. The latter test allows countries whose emissions are projected to be below their target to sell their excess credits, but not to sell credits they are expected to need to cover their projected emissions.
Key issues such as fungibility (allowing credits under all three mechanisms to be treated equally) and unilateral CDM (allowing developing countries to generate credits for projects undertaken on their own) are not addressed in the agreement, and will presumably be taken up in the "technical" negotiations that will resume this week.
Sinks
The Protocol establishes the principle that countries potentially may receive credit toward their emissions targets for carbon absorbed by forests, soils and other so-called "sinks." However, the Protocol left unresolved precisely what sinks activities would be recognized and how the credits would be calculated. Key decisions this week include:
Broad activities eligible for sinks credits, including forest management, cropland management and revegetation.
No overall cap on sink credits. Instead, the compromise agreement establishes specific limits on the various categories of sink activities.
For forest management, Appendix Z sets forth country-specific caps for each Annex I country. Japan's forest management cap is 13 million tons (about 4% of its base-year emissions) and Canada's is 12 million tons (about 10% of its base-year emissions). The Appendix Z caps include sinks credits generated through joint implementation.
Credits for cropland management, grazing land management and revegetation are not capped, but countries may receive credit only for increased sequestration over 1990 levels.
Finance
Under both the Convention and the Protocol, developed countries agreed to provide financial resources to developing countries to help them meet their obligations under the treaties and adapt to the adverse effects of climate change. Key elements of this week's agreement include:
Establishment of three new funds, two under the Convention and one under the Protocol. Contributions to the Convention funds are voluntary. The new funds are as follows:
A special climate change fund, to provide assistance for the full gamut of climate change purposes.
A least developed country fund to support National Adaptation Programmes of Action.
A Kyoto Protocol adaptation fund to be funded by the CDM levy as well as voluntary contributions.
An acknowledgment of the "need" for "new and additional" funding under the Convention, but no specific funding level identified and no new legal requirement on countries to provide funds.
A political pledge by the European Union and several other developed countries to contribute $410 million per year. (This figure includes contributions toward replenishment of the Global Environment Facility). Canada joined this political pledge, but not Japan or Australia.
Establishment of a new expert group on technology transfer.
Compliance
The Protocol calls for establishment of procedures and mechanisms to address non-compliance with its provisions. This was one of the most contentious issues in Bonn. While final action on a compliance regime was deferred, major elements were defined:
The legal character of the compliance regime deferred. At the earliest, a compliance agreement establishing a binding regime would be adopted at the first meeting of Kyoto Protocol parties following the treaty's entry into force.
Consequences for failing to meet an emissions target include the following: Restoration of tons at a rate of 1.3 to 1 (a country must make up its shortfall, plus 30 percent, in the next target period).
Suspension of eligibility to sell credits
A compliance action plan (CAP). Developing countries to hold majority of seats on both the enforcement and facilitative branches of the Compliance Committee. In the absence of consensus, decisions must be approved by a majority of both of developed country and developing country representatives.
The atmosphere is a shared global resource and responsibility. Whatever the response of individual countries, ultimately climate change can be prevented only if all major greenhouse gas polluters agree to make reductions. The United States produces 25% of global emissions and so US reductions are crucial. By 2020, half the new global emissions will be coming from the developing countries, so their involvement becomes ever more important.
Following increasing warning through the 1970's of the potential threats of climate change, serious scientific research started in the early 1980's. The landmark World Climate Conference in 1988 created the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This has three working groups which report on 3 yearly basis on the science of climate change (WG1), the impacts (WG2) and the possible solutions (WG3). The IPCC currently involves over 2,000 scientists and is the main source of information on the science and impacts of climate change. WG3 however has become a source of dubious and politically influenced data on the supposed "excessive" economic costs of major cuts in emissions.
An exhausting round of negotiations led to the Framework Convention on Climate Change which was signed by governments attending the 1992 Rio Conference on the Environment. US President George Bush refused to attend the conference and was only persuaded to attend once the Climate Convention had been stripped of all commitment to stabilising the concentration of greenhouse gases.
The Convention was, then, a weakly worded statement of concern and vague intent to do something about it. The Conference of Parties (COP) meetings that started in 1995 tried to reach agreement on tangible targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions amidst much horse trading and the constant agressive intervention of the Fossil Fuel Lobby, the US, and oil producing nations. This depressing tale is described in Jeremy Leggett's very readible book "Carbon Wars".
In 1997, consensus was reached at the last hour of the the COP 3 meeting in Kyoto, Japan. The resulting Kyoto Protocol contained actual tangible goals for the developed nations listed in Annex One. They pledged that by 2010 they would have reduced their Greenhouse Gas emissions by an average of 5.2% below the 1990 levels. Each country had different targets- the US pledged 7%, the UK 7%*- some (including Australia and Norway) demanded increases. The negotiations accepted the principle that the developed countries had the primary responsibility to start the process of cutting emissions and that developing countries, especially India and China, would join the process only after 2010.
However, agreement was only reached by allowing dangerous loopholes into the protocol which allowed countries to reduce their cuts:
Environmental and development/aid organisations have been extremely critical of JI and CDM. They say the proposals continue a pattern of neo-colonial exploitation of the Third World with the rich world controlling large new speculative markets in carbon credits. These carbon trading markets are therefore an extension of the north dominated control of global finance. The prospect of a new market in carbon has become one of the main motivators behind the international support for Kyoto. Since Kyoto, most discussion in the annual COP meetings has centred on how to implement the carbon trade. COP6 in The Hague in November 2000 broke down because America insisted on exploiting Article 3.3 to halve its reductions target.
Even if there were no loopholes, reductions of 5.2% are woefully inadequate in the face of the scientific data. The IPCC estimated that cuts of 60-80% on global emissions at 1990 levels were needed to stabilise the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere-which would still entail higher global temperatures. The 20 year delay in making major reductions has increased the size of the reductions that will ultimately be needed, and the level of climate change that will now be inevitable. The reductions are also feeble in the face of the immediate reductions that could be achieved simply through greater efficiency. The argument that the Kyoto reductions are economically impossible is simply untrue.
Given these two points, environmentalists are split. No one is happy with Kyoto. However, most major groups believe that we cannot afford years of delay from restarting the process and that agreeing Kyoto, however weak the results, is vital to as a foundation for major reductions after 2010. More radical groups say that Kyoto is fatally weakened by the loopholes and is neither effective in the short term nor a desirable foundation for future action. These disagreements are not a major problem in themselves- they reflect a healthy diversity in the growing climate movement.
Unless it is ratified by enough Annex One countries to account for over 55% of the 1990 emissions, the protocol does not become legally binding. In reality this means US ratification is almost vital. Although all countries agreed the text of the protocol and continue to negotiate the details, not one annex one county has yet ratified it. The implementation is therefore chaotic. The UK and many European countries have already implemented policy changes and will probably meet their reductions targets by 2010. Japan is slightly over target. The US has increased its emissions by 11% over 1990 levels and will not achieve its target of 7% reduction. In March US President George Bush declared that the US would not ratify the protocol under any circumstance.
Even if Kyoto is ratified and implemented, a new agreement will be needed after 2010. This must involve major emissions cuts and, given the rapidly increasing emissions of the developing world, must involve all countries. So far the only serious alternative to a further meaningless fudge is the Contraction and Convergence model developed by the UK based Global Commons Institute.
This model allocates national emissions targets on the basis that everyone in the world has an equal emissions allowance. This would would be socially just and offers the only realistic chance to obtain the agreement of the developing nations. Although this would require huge emissions reductions in the developed world it has achieved surprising governmental support from European government. International negotations would be concerned with timescale of convergence and any carbon trading would be subservient to this timescale.
The only proposal that begins to address issues of social equity is the "Contraction and Convergence" initiative produced by the London based Global Commons Institute. This proposes that all countries are allocated carbon rations based on an equal allocation per person (per capita). This ration would be set by scientific opinion of the level of emissions which will stabilise atmospheric concentrations. Once a date is set by which time all countries will "converge" on the same per capita emissions, negotiations can concern mechanisms for achieving the "contraction" required in the rich world.
There has been some criticism from environmentalists that these mechanisms would entail carbon trading, but the principle of equal per capita emissions is widely supported and regarded as the only equitable and politicallly viable means to bringing Third World countries into the process. The proposal has the support of several Third World governments, senior politicians and the UK Royal Commission on Pollution. But, until rich countries are prepared to accept the need for deep cuts in their emissions (75% or more in the UK, 90% in the US), the proposal will stay on the shelf.
It is wise not to dwell too long in talks on the international process. It is complex, technical, and, because it is so hard to influence, ultimately disempowering to people. You should usually aim to keep it down to no more than 10 minutes, which is best achieved by starting discussion with Kyoto. It is important to touch on the international process, though, because people may believe that the international process makes personal action is irrelevant, or that the collapse of the Kyoto protocol is a disaster.
Stress the following conclusions:
Rising Tide – Speaker Training Factsheet June 2001- www.risingtide.org.uk
You can't trade in something unless you own it. When governments and companies "trade" in carbon, they establish de facto property rights over the atmosphere; a commonly held global commons. At no point have these atmospheric property rights been discussed or negotiated - their ownership is established by stealth with every carbon trade.
Market shares in the new carbon market will be allocated on the basis of who is already the largest polluter and who is fastest to exploit the market. The new "carbocrats" will therefore be the global oil, chemical, and car corporations, and the richest nations; the very groups that created the problem of climate change in the first place. What is more, with the current absence of "supplementarity", the richest nations and corporations will be able to further increase their global share of emissions by outbidding poorer interests for carbon credits.
Many of the projects proposed within the CDM, in particular tree planting and dams, are subject to the same criticisms as other large scale development projects- they assert foreign ownership of local resources, they consolidate the power of undemocratic elites, they oust people from their land, they undermine local self sufficient economies and low carbon cultures.
Carbon absorbed by forests is only removed from the carbon cycle for as long as the tree is standing and alive. Industrial forestry will not sequester carbon. Permanent reforestation is a once only removal of carbon from the cycle and cannot offset sustained overproduction.
Because we cannot know the future, we can have no certainty that any project selling carbon credits has really reduced its emissions further than it would have done without the intervention. Profit competition and technical innovation ensures that industry consistently reduces its energy costs. A carbon market can provide an automatic cash subsidy for any investment in low energy technology. If such incentives exist they should be explicit, targeted and accountable.
Russia's economic collapse since 1990 has reduced its emissions by 30%. Russia is intending to sell this incidental windfall (often call "hot air") as international carbon credits- potentially swamping the market. If countries subsidise their emissions with these Russian credits, the final global emissions will end up being exactly the same as they would have been without a carbon market or a Kyoto protocol.
There are strong incentives for cheating and creating bogus credits that do not represent any real reduction in emissions. The vendor gets the cash without having to change anything and the buyer gets cheap credits. There are similar incentives for misdeclaration, and "leakage"- transferring polluting activities to areas that are not accounted.
The temptation for all parties to cheat requires that every transaction to be scrutinised and every sale to be certified. There is no global institution or accounting system that can manage the complexity of this market.
International legal frameworks are usually very weak. Countries that want to use carbon credits to subsidise their emissions are already arguing for penalties so weak that they will not discourage cheating. Many of the Annex 1 (Russia, Turkey, Ukraine), Romania- these are some of the most corrupt and lawless countries are corrupt or desperate for foreign currency and will happily endorse doctored carbon credits.
The main model for carbon trading is Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) emissions trading under the US 1990 Clean Air Act. This programme faced none of the problems listed above- it was small (a few hundred companies), easy to monitor (one pollutant from one source-power generation), had permanent targets, and, above all, was conducted within one country with strong enforcement mechanisms.
The only international emissions trading has been in CFCs under the Montreal Protocol. Once again, the programme was small (only 17 producer companies), easy to monitor (one pollutant from one industrial process), and within a strong legal framework.
The market assumes that carbon credits from different sources will be fully interchangeable ("fungible" in carbospeak). However, carbon sequestered in sinks is a completely different product from the carbon "saved" by a technical innovation, which is different again from the carbon "saved" by a social or lifestyle change. Add to this the complexity of trading in different greenhouse gases. Each source requires different monitoring rules, different criteria and different agencies. Forcing them to be interchangeable in one market is a recipe for corruption and fraud.
Supporters of carbon trading will argue that these are not problems- they are challenges. "Just because it is hard, does not mean that we should not take action", they say. Let's be clear that carbon trading is not being supported because it will solve climate change. In fact it will undermine even the pathetic emissions reductions already proposed. The real reasons for carbon trading are:
1. Governments want to be assured of a cheap way to buy off their failure to meet their Kyoto targets which will keep public and corporations quiescent.
2. Brokers, accountants, and financial institutions are extremely excited at the thought of the size of their cut in a new $2.3 trillion speculative market.
3. Corporations and other major polluters want pliant governments who don't punish them for their emissions and hand over public money to pay for any emissions they are forced to make.
4. Oil companies support carbon trading as a way to avoid making any cuts in oil production.
5. Academics and financial consultants see rich pickings from becoming "experts" in the new market.
Corporations, the finance industry, and their government supporters demanded the insertion of carbon trading throughout the Kyoto Protocol as a condition for their continued support for the process. The intergovernmental negotiations are now concerned almost entirely with the structure and management of this vast international carbon trading regime.
The hopelessly compromised Kyoto Protocol now allows countries to meet all their emissions reductions with carbon credits bought through three forms of carbon trading; Joint Implementation, Clean Development Mechanism, International Emissions Trade. Some countries will certainly choose to buy credits rather than make any serious attempt to reduce their underlying dependency on fossil fuels.
· Educate the public on the urgency of climate change and the need for dramatic solutions
Carbon trading is a false solution and undermines individual responsibility
· Set a schedule for cutting global fossil fuel consumption by up to 60%.
Carbon Trading is an excuse for avoiding any significant net cuts
· Recognise the moral (and political) imperative for fairness and social justice by allocating targets to every country on the basis of equal per capita emissions
Carbon Trading institutionalises existing inequalities and rewards the largest polluters
· Reduce the supply of fossil fuels with an international ban on all new oil, gas and coal development. As a first step, cut the $200 billion per year global subsidies for coal and oil power.
Carbon trading is not concerned with the supply of fossil fuels, which is why oil companies support it. As a result, government subsidies are increasing, reducing the price of energy and swamping any attempts at demand management.
· Invest heavily in renewable energy to replace all fossil fuel supplies
Although Carbon Trading promotes itself as funding renewables, this is far more expensive per ton of carbon than credits from bogus "hot air", tree planting, or outright fraud. These cheap carbon credits will set the market price and soak up the capital.
· Involve people at all levels of society in solutions
Carbon trading is an inherently elitist, corporatist, technocratic solution. It provides no role for civil society, and fails to deal with the 50% of emissions from houses and personal transport.
RisingTide UK March 2002
We all know what makes a good or a bad speaker. Think of the good speakers you know and what made them so good. Usually it was just three things: clarity of voice, being interesting and relevant, and confidence. The first two of these are easy to acquire or improve. Confidence can only increase with experience.
* Feel confident about your right to talk about climate change- it is something you care about and your commitment to the issue will immediately come over when you speak
* Don't feel inadequate or apologetic about your lack of scientific expertise- scientists all agree that there is a vital role for people like yourself to spread information about their findings. But they are often very bad communicators and you are doing what you know best- talking to other people like yourself in ways that they can understand
* Don't worry if you are not a fluent slick public speaker. People will be impressed and praise you for trying. The fact that you are doing something that is hard for you will empower them do something themselves.
* The most important thing is to speak clearly. You will almost never have a microphone and so it is vital that you speak clearly and loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear you. If you have a quiet voice, ask if people can hear you at the back and be careful to avoid situations with loud background noise, such as pubs.
* When you speak, don't sit down, playing with your notes. Stand up and hold your head up; speaking to people rather than at them. Take your time to say things clearly.
* It's very easy for nervousness to spill over into strange body language, so try not to twitch, pace up and down, jiggle your leg or jangle the keys in your pocket!
* Take your time and pause when you need to collect your thoughts.
* Find out ahead of time exactly how long you have to speak and ensure that you are not trying to say too much for the time available
* Break down the talk into distinct sections which lead people through the arguments. We suggest that you divide your time into four equal sections: the problem and its causes; the impacts; the solutions- then stop talking and allow the final quarter for a group discussion. In a one hour slot, this means you should spend no more than 15 minutes on the background science. You may need to carefully plan this section to make sure that it does not take up too much time.
* Remember that you cannot cover more than a tiny part of this vast area, so stick to a few key points. It's far better to make a few points well than to overwhelm or confuse people.
* It's a good idea to have your talk mapped out in note form - even the most experienced talkers do this-but be careful not to let the talk depend on shuffling through pages of notes. Notes are like a map to guide you, not rail tracks to determine every minute of your time. A few bullet points and figures on the back of an envelope should be all you need.
* Some people find it helps them if they write out some of their talk in full. However, if you just read to an audience from a long script, it will sound like a dull lecture. It's best to practice from your long script a few times and then write bullet notes from it for the actual talk.
* Avoid getting into too much scientific detail on the causes of climate change. What is important is for people to understand the impacts and the solutions.
* Tailor your message to your audience, using language and arguments that are appropriate for their interests, life experience and age.
* Think what message will be most motivating to each particular audience. Some audiences may be deeply concerned about the Third World Impacts, some may be more concerned on the impacts on their own lives, some may be motivated by the moral arguments, some by the economic arguments.
* Speak from the heart about what makes you angry, sad, active. Draw on your own life experience. This is what you really are an expert in, and it's this emotion is what will inspire and move people.
* Refer to recent weather, news from the tv or newspapers, things you've seen recently that make you angry.
* A good video can be a great help, especially for covering basic information on the causes of climate change. Try to keep any video short- 10 minutes or less - it's an aid not a prop. After all, people can watch documentaries on tv at home, but it's meeting face to face that really changes people.
* If using a video, make sure that you warn people ahead of time to provide a video machine, television or projector.
* Try to arrive before the start time. Bring leaflets and materials if you have them, and lay them out on a table for people to collect or look at.
* Arrange seats so that the chairs are close to the front- ideally in a slight horseshoe shape. If there are only a few people, arrange the chairs in a circle to encourage interaction.
* If there is a source of background noise, ask the hosts if they can reduce it.
* People rarely sit in the front row. If people are scattered and sitting too far back, start your talk by asking them to move to the front and bunch up.
* Things rarely start on time and often no one takes control to start it going. Often it’s best to catch the host organiser’s eye and suggest that it gets moving.
* It’s best to avoid questions during the talk and ask people to wait until the end.
* The final questions and discussions section should allow the audience the chance to speak. So try to keep your answers short. You may like to say that this is a discussion section rather than just questions, and encourage people to express their own views.
* If a real discussion starts between people in the audience don’t break it up (unless it is just between two of them and is preventing other people from speaking).
* True trouble makers are rare- the vast vast majority of people are polite and respectful.
* Trouble makers are usually people with egotistical personalities, who love the sound of their own voice. Occasionally they are people with psychological problems.
* Anyone with this kind of personality (you’ll soon spot them!) will try to interrupt early on. Be strong willed in asking them to hold off until the discussion section.
* If anyone dominates the discussion, cut them off and say that other people need to have a turn- say that you’re happy to talk further with them after the talk.
* In the very very rare occurrence that you cannot control a trouble maker, stop the talk and open it up to the audience, saying that you can’t talk with constant interruptions and asking them if they want to hear the rest of what you’ have to say. They will then intervene with the trouble maker.
* Never get into an abusive argument with a trouble maker. Keep cool- it shouldn’t be your problem.
* All good speakers constantly work on their skills to become better. Don't just depend on your own perception- many people become very self conscious and needlessly self critical. So ask a friend in the audience to give you detailed comments and criticisms after the talk and use these constructively to improve your material.
* Use the feedback sheets to collect comments.
* The worst mistake people can make is being unclear- too quiet, mumbling, disorganised, or gabbling too fast trying to say too much.
* The main danger for everyone including experienced speakers is getting too bogged down in the detailed science and technicalities.
* Avoid acronyms such as IPCC, CO2 etc. Best to use the longer form whenever possible.
Rising Tide — Speaker Training Factsheet June 2001- www.risingtide.org.uk
The aim of your talk is to move people: move in both senses of the word; to touch people's hearts and move them emotionally; and move them forwards into taking personal responsibility and action.
The starting point should always be yourself. What moves you personally, makes you angry and makes you want to do something? Is there anything in your life experience that you draw on to understand this problem and what it means? Things you've seen, places you've visited, memories from your childhood or your experiences as a parent?
We still have very little idea of what the arguments are that act as the ‘magic bullets’ that motivate people to do something.
Your experiences in talking to people can be of great help so if you find arguments that work please share them with us. Here are some ideas of arguments that we have already found can work:
People find it hard to understand why climate change can be such a huge problem when there seems to be so little said or done about it. Before they can take action they need to understand that two powerful psychological forces are at work at all levels of society, fed at every stage by the powerful lobby of corporations that want to prevent any tangible action.
* Denial: there is a mass denial of the problem and failure to engage with it. It seems so huge and so unapproachable that people prefer to pretend that it's not happening. There is outright denial in some of the media, or the partial denial we hear from politicians who use strong words to describe the problem but fail to follow through with any meaningful action.
* Diffusion of Responsibility: everyone is waiting for someone else to do something. The public often waits for direction and leadership. Governments wait for voters to demand action. Business waits for governments to regulate.
But by recognising these forces we can also break the cycle of denial and diffusion - as soon as people become active and vocal in sufficient numbers.
The destruction of the weather is the greatest crime ever committed because it is the theft of the future. In order to fund our desire for ever more things, ever more energy, ever higher consumption, we are sacrificing that future. And the failure to do anything is no less a crime. We cannot now claim ignorance. In legal terms we are all now ‘accessories before the fact’ - we know the crime is being committed and we must do everything we can to prevent it.
If we are privileged members of the rich world, then we are the cause of the problem. But those who will suffer most are the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world who already live on the edge of survival: subsistence farmers in drought areas, people killed by storms, floods droughts and famines, people who live and survive on flood plains such as in Bangladesh, who will lose their land with nowwhere to go. As climate chaos mounts, millions of people will be killed or displaced as a result of our behaviour.
It doesn't have to be like this. People spend hours every week sitting in a car, choking in traffic jams, to commute to jobs they don't enjoy, to earn the money to pay for that car, to buy unhealthy convenience food grabbed in the superstore or buy the holiday they need to recover. We are working longer hours than ever, more stressed than ever, families break up under the strain of just keeping on top of the debts - and all to buy things that don't even make us happy.
So it's not just about stopping climate change, it's about a better world where people can live more simply but better. And it's about social justice too - providing good cheap (free?) public transport, local services, good housing and safe streets for our children.
All the measures to combat climate change- better insulated homes - more public transport, supporting local products and markets - are desirable in their own right to confront social inequality in Britain. We have the oldest, most energy inefficient housing stock in Europe. Every year sixty thousand people die in Britain from cold-related causes, half of them because they can’t afford to heat their homes. A warm efficient home is a basic human right. So is mobility: a third of people have no car. They live with the pollution and danger of cars but have to use the worst public transportation in Europe. Combating climate change means providing good, well-insulated housing, cheap, efficient public transport and supporting local communities, not transnational corporations and global markets.
Confronting climate change is the key to confronting global capitalism. This can be the issue that finally persuades people that things have to change because many of the causes are structural and result from the power of corporations and the ever-expanding global markets.
We are spending our children’s inheritance. We all want the best for our children but we are bringing them into a world of increasing instability and weather chaos. They will have to deal with our failure to act and they will have every right to turn to us and say ‘How could you do this when you knew what would happen?’
If we wanted to, we could create thousands of new jobs and new industries by embracing the challenges of climate change and investing in insulation, energy efficiency, solar power, and new transport mechanisms. North Sea oil is already running out and soon we will be spending tens of billions of pounds importing oil from some of the most repressive countries in the world.
Climate change threatens to bring instability throughout the world with new wars being fought over water resources or land. The fossil fuel economy already creates global instability, forcing us to fight wars to protect the flow of oil or forcing us to support regimes that viciously repress their own people.
Already access to water is creating tensions throughout the Middle East.
Many people care deeply about the protection of the world’s environment, of endangered species or tropical rainforests. But climate change is the biggest threat they have ever faced. Vast areas of the world will turn to desert or burn down. The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) estimates that just one hundred years of climate change will drive a third of the world's species to extinction. And that’s just the start.
All the things we know, love, and remember will change and many will go forever. Snow is becoming rarer and rarer and soon many children will never experience a snowball fight. Birds like the robin will disappear. Trees will die in ever worsening droughts. Our entire countryside will change and new weeds will take over. Many of the favourite plants in our gardens no longer able to survive the new weather.
We are facing climate chaos and we are buying bigger and bigger cars and houses, flying half way around the world for a week in the sun, then eating food flown half the way round back for us. People looking back from the future will be amazed at our stupidity.
These are a few ideas on how you can move people in your talk, but if you want a 'template talk' click here: http://risingtide.org.uk/resources/factsheets/template
Rising Tide – Speaker Training Factsheet June 2001, edited March 2006- www.risingtide.org.uk
This template can be used for talking to any audience. For each section there are two categories: basic points and more detailed points . A talk composed of the basic points (with a few additional points tailored to the interests of a specific audience) should fill around one hour with a 15 minute discussion.
A key phrase in each paragraph is highlighted in bold. You can use these phrases in any notes for the talk as a reminder of the points you wish to make and how they follow from each other.
This is a short warm up to set the tone of the talk as something intimate and relevant to people- drawing from you personal connection, or recent news.
I became concerned about climate change when..... I decided that I would make a personal commitment to doing something about it.
We suggest you follow this section quite closely so you can get through it as quickly as possible. Turn it into bullet points based around the phrases in bold and memorise it:
Scientists have known for over 100 years that the different gases in our atmosphere have very different properties, in particular that some of them are able to hold onto the heat from the sun's rays and stop it from being radiated back into space. They work like the glass in the greenhouse, allowing the suns rays to pass through and then trapping the heat- that's why this is called the "greenhouse effect" and the few gases that have this property are called "greenhouse gases". The main gases present in the atmosphere which have this quality are Carbon Dioxide and Methane. They only make up a very small percentage of the atmosphere.
The greenhouse effect is not a bad thing- if we didn't have this blanket of greenhouse gases we would be as cold as the moon. They are what makes life possible on earth. So we are very dependent on these relatively tiny quantities of the greenhouse gases.
You don't have to be a scientist to realise that if we change the proportion of the greenhouse gases we change the capacity to hold the sun's energy. This is true whether we are talking of the atmosphere or a test tube- it's fundamental to the physics of these gases. You also don't have to be a scientist to realise that, because they are only a small percentage of the atmosphere, relatively small changes in the quantity of these gases can produce significant changes in the behaviour of the atmosphere.
Obviously, adding so much greenhouse gases to the atmosphere increases the amount of the sun's energy that will be retained in the atmosphere - it's like throwing another blanket on the bed, or triple glazing our greenhouse. So, one level we can expect the world to heat up dramatically. But it's also more complex than that. Weather systems transfer huge quantities of energy from one place to another as winds or currents- if we change the amount of energy in the system we can completely alter these systems. These systems are extremely complex and we have very little understanding of how they work.
The problem is that we are increasing the quantities of these gases at a HUGE rate. Every time we burn things we produce carbon dioxide- and if you stop to think about it, our whole way of life is based on burning things- coal, oil, gas- the so called "fossil fuels". We burn them for our cars and planes, our heating, our factories, for electricity. Just think of every car on a motorway as a fire, and every power station as a huge inferno, and multiply that across the world.
If you think about it, oil and coal are the product of the carbon removed by forests and plankton over millions of years. So when we burn them we release all that carbon dioxide back into atmosphere. We are literally taking our atmosphere back to the age of the dinosaurs.
Our way of life produces many other greenhouse gases too- landfill sites and old coal mines leak methane, our fridges and freezers leak CFC coolants which not only destroys the ozone layer but is also a very powerful greenhouse gas, 9,000 times stronger than carbon dioxide. The scientists say that at present rates, within 35 years we will have doubled the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere compared with 200 years ago.
There are many natural mechanisms for keeping the levels of the greenhouse gases in balance. Trees and plants soak up carbon dioxide. In the oceans plankton soak up carbon dioxide and sink to the bottom. The problem is that we are pumping out twice as much carbon dioxide as these natural systems can remove. At the same time we cutting down huge areas of the tropical rainforests which help remove that carbon dioxide, and to make things worse, we're burning them.
So it's important to be careful with our language- We think of "Climate" as something remote that scientists study and "climate change" sounds like a slow, steady and controllable process. "Global Warming" suggests a slow and steady heating - like warming up a cup of tea. But the local effects might not be warming at all- it may include sudden severe cold spells. So really the phrase which best sums it up is "weather chaos".
And it’s already happening. Scientists tell us that current global temperatures are the highest for at least 1,000 years, that the glaciers and icecaps are melting extremely rapidly and there has been a startling increase in extreme weather events. For example:
When you hear or read of extreme weather notice those phrases; "since records began", "in living memory", and "unseasonal". All these are indicators of increasing weather chaos.
And there are other natural indicators of disturbing weather changes. Plants are coming up at the wrong time of year, birds in Britain are nesting, on average, two weeks earlier than 20 years ago..
There is a long lag time before changes in the atmosphere produce their full effects on weather patterns- so the effects we’re starting to see now are the cumulative result of the greenhouse gases we emitted over the past 100 years. We have scarcely begun to feel the results of what we’re doing now.
But it follows that the actual weather changes in the future is dependent on how we respond now. Climate scientists talk of different "scenarios" based on different responses. The longer we take to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, the greater the impacts.
Even if we take immediate action tomorrow, there’s no escaping the fact that the weather will continue to change dramatically as a result of current emissions. Scientists are predicting ever more extreme weather patterns around the world-more floods, droughts, fires, storms. In Britain they predict more rain in winter, less rain in summer, milder winters and hotter summers, increased winds and storm damage.
But the most disturbing impacts relate to what they call the "business as usual scenario"- which means that we take no action and keep burning more and more. Let’s look at these business as usual predictions in detail, because they are the strongest argument for us to take action.
Over the next 100 years, average world temperatures will rise by up to 11°F (6°C). Local increases may be up to double this amount.
Water shortages-within 25 years, five billion people will live in areas with water shortages
Sea levels may rise by 40cm, threatening to displace up to 200 million people
Within 50 years these climate changes will create 150 million environmental refugees.
So many of the worst effects will be felt in the poorest countries in the world where people are already on the edge of survival. People in the USA, Europe and other rich countries have created this problem. Almost all the people who will die from drought, floods, disease and famine have played no part in creating the problem.
[note- third world greenhouse gas emissions have risen to a point where they will soon overtake the industrialised world. They will need to reduce emissions too. But we are still the main culprits because our emissions are far higher per person and because the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere are almost entirely from our industrial development]
But these predictions are still well informed guesses. Scientists do not understand the full mechanisms of world climate systems, and so it is impossible to predict with certainty the exact local impacts. But this does not mean that things might be OK. Scientists agree that there will be severe impacts and when they talk of "uncertainties", it only means that they cannot be certain of how severe.
This means that impacts may be far worse than the current predictions. Soils, forests and oceans contain hundreds of times more carbon than the atmosphere. The global increases in temperature may lead to these huge natural stores being released back into the atmosphere. If this happens- and many scientists say that it will happen if we don’t take immediate action- we could face an even greater and accelerating nightmare.
This is the section for you to speak from the heart about how you feel about this issue and why we must do something about it.
So everyone agrees there is a huge problem. There are 2,000 climate scientists studying the causes and impacts. Scientific organisations have produced repeated calls for action- one in 1997 was signed by 1,500 scientists including 110 Nobel prize winner. As recently as May 2001, the national scientific academies of 17 nations produced a joint letter of concern and call to action. And the heads of governments have been quick to follow, starting with Margaret Thatcher in 1992. There have been nearly 20 years of attempts to set international targets for reducing green house gas emissions. In 1992 all the industrialised countries signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change, declaring the need for concerted action. Five years later, in Kyoto, Japan they agreed the text of a protocol to reduce emissions by an average of 5.2% by 2010. This target is a completely inadequate. In 1992 scientists said that global reductions of over 60% were needed to hope to stabilise concentrations in the atmosphere- and even this would still lead to climate change depending on how long it took to implement the cuts. The protocol is also full of loopholes. It allows countries numerous options to avoid making domestic cuts by buying carbon credits from other countries that are not bound by the treaty. To make matters worse it then proposes new speculative markets to trade these carbon credits. In November 2000 the negotiations collapsed over arguments over a final loophole which allowed countries to increase their emissions targets if they could argue that their forests and land use were absorbing carbon. The key point is that despite all the arguing and loopholes not one developed country has yet signed the protocol. In May 2001 US President George Bush declared that the US would not sign. In the mean time, global emissions continue to rise in line with the worst "business as usual" scenario. In Britain, total emissions have fallen because electricity generation has switched from coal to gas which produces less Carbon Dioxide. However overall energy use and road transport continue to rise every year. The US was supposed to reduce emissions by 7% and has actually increased them by 11%. Huge gas guzzling sports utility vehicles getting less than 15 miles per gallon now account for the majority of cars sold. So why is nothing being done? One reason is that we are addicted to fossil fuels. Our entire economic system and way of life is based on fossil fuel and we cannot imagine life without them. We will do anything to keep the flow of these fuels, fighting wars and supporting repressive governments. As with any addiction, the first step is admitting the dependency. Another reason is that society at all levels in denial. Superficially we recognise the problem but we cannot face the enormous scale of the crisis we are creating. There is a vicious circle: because nothing appears to be happening it helps us all to believe that the problem can’t be all that serious; because we don’t accept the scale of the problem we don’t do anything. This denial is also actively fed by corporate public relations. Oil, energy and car companies have spent tens of millions of dollars fighting the Kyoto protocol. One strategy has been to support discredited fringe scientists to deny the existence of greenhouse gas influenced global warming. Another has been to argue that even small cuts in emissions will destroy the economy. Articles placed by these public relations campaigns regularly appear in the British press. But the responsibility lies with us too. For 20 years we have been hearing about this and waiting for someone else to do something. And when you have a whole world of people waiting for someone else to do something- nothing happens! This is not a hard problem. The solution to climate chaos is very simple- we have to move out of the combustion age and develop energy and transport technologies that can use natural renewable energy such as solar, wind and wave energy. The technologies already exist and work. They are not yet as cheap as conventional energy but large scale investment and production is already dramatically reducing costs. We also need to be far more efficient in how we use energy. We have the oldest, worst insulated housing stock in Europe. We can reduce our emissions, our bills and live in warmer healthier houses. But if we continue with a culture that uses ever more quantities of energy, we’ll never manage to catch up. So we need to rethink the way we live. This is hardly a bad thing. We spend ever longer periods in traffic jams, commuting ever greater distances, working long hours in jobs that many people don’t enjoy to earn money to buy things that don’t really make us happy. Our roads are congested and dangerous, we’re laden down with debt, the levels of stress and depression keep rising. Surely we can do better than this? Reducing emissions by 60% or more is completely possible if we have a combined sense of purpose. In the past in times of national crisis we’ve all come together and worked to one goal. This is a crisis and we need to treat it as an overreaching national and international goal. After 20 years of talk and no action, we must accept that this change will never happen fast enough until we demand it. We can take personal action on four levels: Level one is in our own lives. By accepting the scale of the problem and our own involvement in it, by setting goals for reducing our own emissions. After all we can’t ask other people to do something that we refuse to do. Level two is acting locally. This could be as simple as talking to your friends and people at work, spreading information encouraging them to make changes. It could involve putting pressure on your employer, the local council, local organisations or companies. It could be forming a local protest group. There are any number of issues to work on: wasteful energy use, transport, information and education Level three is acting nationally. Putting pressure on the government and national organisations and companies- demanding that they make changes. Supporting national campaigns and protests. Level four is acting internationally. This is harder, but there are still many ways that we can put pressure on international companies, foreign governments such as the US, and demanding that our own government takes a lead in pushing for real change. Any action that involves engaging with people will challenge people, make them thing and work for change. All over Britain ordinary people just like you have decided to take personal initiative to do something. I’ve brought some information about some of these campaigns- support them, or start something new. And I’ve made this step in my own life. I decided to take action; to spread the word and ask other people to do the same. Which is why I asked to come and talk to you. I don’t find it easy to talk in public, but I feel that we have to talk about this crisis. I can no longer be silent. So the first step starts in this meeting, with the challenge to you to break this cycle of denial and silence and start taking personal action. Think of all the ways you can influence things around you- all the skills that you have to share and use. Every small step multiplies the movement for change. We can overcome this crisis once we decide to do something about it. And that decision starts with you- today. We’ve got a short period for discussion. If anyone has any questions I’ll do my best to answer them- or there may be people here who can also answer them. This is the point in the meeting where you get to speak, so please feel free to share your concerns and, above all, ideas for what we can do. Rising Tide — Speaker Training Factsheet June 2001- www.risingtide.org.ukTHE CHALLENGE-5 MINUTES
DISCUSSION 15 MINUTES
SUMMARY OF POINTS FOR TALK
INTRODUCTIONS
CONNECTIONS- 3 MINUTES
WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING - 10 MINUTES
memoryIMPACTS-8 MINUTES
change as a result of current emissionsTHIS IS A MORAL ISSUE- 5 MINUTES
WHY IS NOTHING BEING DONE? 8 MINUTES
SOLUTIONS AND DOING SOMETHING-10 mins
THE CHALLENGE-4 MINUTES
Go round - ensure everyone gets a chance to speak. This can become unfocussed, so best to establish what the purpose of the go round is, what info you want from people and write this up on some flipchart beforehand. Lay out the ground rules if people are new to this - everyone goes in turn without interruption or comment from other people. Go rounds can take time, and need careful facilitation, but can ground a group and allow important ideas to come up.
Brainstorms - often fast and chaotic. Have a ‘scribe’ or two, writing key words where everyone can see them whilst anyone and everyone speaks without discussion or censorship (thinking and organising the ideas comes afterwards, if necessary). Good for getting breadth of ideas on a
subject and can sometimes free up energy when its going a bit stale.
Mapping - use large writing where everyone can see it. Arrange key words in clusters (or out on their own) connecting arrows, colours etc. Says a lot more than a simple list.
Splitting up / making up - there are times when it is best for everyone to hear the same story at the same time, and it can be empowering to be in a large group working together. Sometimes a large group is unwieldy and can be dominated by a few people/ideas, so its best to split into smaller groups to allow easier focus and everyone to speak and feel involved. Splitting into small groups can be time consuming, so think clearly what sort of groups you need - should it be a random split (eg numbering off ) or specific interest groups. Whatever you do, be confident and explain clearly what you want the groups to do. If you have specific questions/topics for the group to concentrate on, write
these on flipchart beforehand and give them to each group. If you are going to have them feedback at the end, you need to say clearly what they need to feedback.
Energisers and games - Sometimes people cannot concentrate because they have been listening too long or the subject makes them tired - use your judgement to introduce some games or energisers. These can be a simple two minute turn to your neighbour and say how you’re finding it so far/what you had for breakfast/anything, or a stretch, or get people playing a game. Be sensitive to the audience though - the aim is to get their attention focused again afterwards, not to be embarrassed rigid, feel isolated or have people behaving in insensitive or cliquey ways.
Ice breakers - People come to meetings and talks with lots in their heads. Some people will be thinking of their day at work, somebody may have had an argument, somebody may be scared and not know anyone else. Icebreakers can help get people into the present more. Used well and confidently they can ground the group and help people to concentrate on the workshop/ meeting - but also be aware that they can take up time. Some people may not want to be involved - try gentle encouragement, but not embarrassment.
Group discussion- If you are the key speaker, the meeting will go better if someone else is thinking about the group. When it comes to the discussion part, that person needs to keep an eye on the audience to see who wants to speak, and ensure that no-one dominates the group. If there are particular themes for discussion, the facilitator needs to be aware, and ask if there are more questions on this theme, or notice that there are other questions out there which need to be answered.
Depending on your audience, you may not want to talk for all the time
you have. Some small group work can be useful in getting people working
together.
Some examples:
Some examples of dividing up into smaller groups:
Rising Tide — Speaker Training Factsheet June 2001- www.risingtide.org.uk
Rising Tide Gathering Workshop notes- October 2001
This workshop defines lifestyle as "products and services consumed as part of an individual’s day to day life and over which he or she has a degree of choice regarding product, quantity and price ". Each person’s lifestyle is therefore developed by themselves in daily negotiation with the wider society and the consumer market.
By this definition. an individual’s lifestyle consumption is composed of:
A lot. Houses and personal transport alone account for half of all emissions. In 1999 UK energy consumption including electricity was 156 million tonnes of oil equivalent divided approximately three ways-
Nearly one half of non-transport energy use was domestic. The transport section broke down approximately half on cars and taxis, 5% buses, trucks 25% non-road 25%. So, in this too, personal lifestyle consumption accounts for nearly exactly half energy use. Domestic water heating alone consumes three times as much energy as the Iron and Steel industry, and 50% more than all the heavy trucks on the road
Space Heating 50% Cooking 5%
Lighting and appliance energy 20% Water Heating 25%
There is a huge difference between different houses. A draughty and badly insulated Victorian house can take five times more energy to heat than a new house. A good quality gas boiler will produce a third of the greenhouse gas emissions as water or space heating by electricity.
Manufacturing a car produces 5 tonnes of CO². After that, every litre of petrol produces 2.5 kg of CO², on average consumption that’s just under half a kilo of CO² per mile. Someone who commutes 20 miles each way to work will produce over 4 tonnes of CO² from commuting alone.
Flights are ignored in national and international climate change statistics and are therefore ignored in national accounting of greenhouse gas emissions. Jet planes drink fuel, so even though they are a form of public transport, the oil consumption per person per mile is approximately the same as a car with one person in it. However, the greenhouse impact is three times as high per mile because jet planes distribute pollution and water vapour high in the atmosphere. One long haul flight can outweigh all other personal emissions. Typical return flights:
London- Paris return 626 kg CO² London-Sydney 10.8 tonnes CO²
London-New York 4.25 tonnes CO² London-South of Spain 1.4 tonnes CO²
General consumption can be very significant- it encompasses all agricultural emissions, most industry and most transport. The general consumption of average American produces 10 tonnes of CO². The UK average is probably around half this- around 4-5 tonnes per year. The products people consume make a major statement about the kind of person they are (or want to be) and vary enormously from person to person.
Diet is also a factor- home produced vegetables are carbon neutral, average supermarket vegetables have often used up their own weight in fossil fuels. Beef is a particular problem. To produce one pound of beef, a cow has produced half a pound of methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas which is equivalent to 10.5 lbs of CO². The beef eaten by the average American in a year has produced the methane equivalent of 1.4 tons of CO².
The average UK person’s emissions are ten times higher than an Indian who is effectively subsidising our emissions. There are also enormous differences between people’s emissions within the UK depending on
income, size of house, use and size of car. Again the low consumers are subsidising the impacts of the high consumers. However, poor people can also be high consumers of energy. Britain has the worst insulated and oldest housing stock in Europe and as a result 4.5 million households in Britain are defined as "fuel poor"- they cannot buy sufficient energy with 10% of their income to have a warm healthy home. When temperatures fall to 4°C, 95% of rented homes are unable to meet healthy temperatures with all the heating on. In 1999-2000, a mild year, 55,000 people died from cold and damp related illnesses, at least half due to poor housing issues. So high energy consumption creates poverty and bad insulation kills.
In 1995 sexless ageless average UK person produced 9.6 tonnesCO² from
. His/her lifestyle emissions would be:
House and water heating 2.1 tonnes Car 1.6 tonnes
Products and food 4.0 tonnes Lighting and appliances 0.7 tonnes
TOTAL 8.4 tonnes
Mr and Mrs Average live in a 1930’s semi with the usual range of appliances, central heating etc. They have one family car which they drive 10,000 miles per year.
House heating and water 4.7 tonnes CO²
Lighting and appliance energy 3.3 tonnes CO²
Car 5 tonnes (10,000 miles@500g CO²/mile)
Food and product consumption 6 tonnes CO²
Annual flight to Spain for four 4.6 tonnes CO² (4 people @ 1.4 tonnes CO² each)
TOTAL 23.6 tonnes CO² (5.9 tonnes each)
The eco-activist, Elf Spirit, lives in a shared Victorian housing collective with 5 other people. The house has poor insulation and single glazing. Everyone shares a fridge and washing machine which are old inefficient models. She buys things second hand whenever possible buys local organic vegetarian food. She has no car, but travels extensively by train and made one trip to San Francisco stopping over in New York.
House heating and water 2 tonnes CO²
Appliance energy 0.5 tonnes CO²
Food and products 0.75 tonnes CO²
Bus and train travel 0.5 tonnes
TOTAL WITHOUT FLIGHT 3.75 tonnes CO²
London-New York-San Francisco return 7.15 tonnes CO²
TOTAL WITH FLIGHT 10.9 tonnes CO²
To avoid climate change, emissions per person need to fall to 2.45 tonnes per person. With existing technology this can only be achieved with the following national lifestyle changes:
1. a renovation of all housing stock to dramatically reduce domestic energy demand to a level which can be met entirely from renewable energy.
2. reductions in general consumption and support for local produce
3. increased public transport and the end of car dependency and commuting
4. less overall travel and commuting and an end to jet flights for international transport
1. Calculate your carbon footprint using these websites and the figures above. The best sites in English using metric measurements are:
http://www.bestfootforward.com/carbonlife.htm - Simple-though with subjective questions which are easy to cheat.
http://www.carboncalculator.org - Probably the best UK site — though a little hard to use.
http://www.chooseclimate.org/flying/mf.html - Great site for calculating the emissions of your flights.
2. Taking immediate steps to improve your emissions performance, starting with investments in insulation, draughtproofing and low energy lightbulbs (each one of which can will save up to one tonne of CO² over its lifetime). Turning down the thermostat by just 1°C will save 600 kg of CO² per year for an average house. Try to avoid all unnecessary car use and flights. Transfer your electricity to "green electricity".
3. Campaign to demand action on sub-standard housing by local and national government, improved public transport, the end to internal flights within the UK and Europe.
4. Inform and educate people about their emissions. Build and publicise local action.
George Marshall, October 2001
In May and June 2001, the Rising Tide Climate Chaos Tour visited 12 cities in Britain. Some 300 people came to the Tour. In the last session of each gig people broke into small groups and brainstormed ideas for action. This is a list taken from their ideas.
This list proves that no one can argue that there’s nothing we can do about climate change. Our only problem now is choosing what to do- and when has that ever been an excuse for not doing anything?!
1. Organise a Critical Mass with a climate chaos theme
2. Set up a climate change pirate radio station (there is a tape of material already prepared)
3. Find out the sea-level rise or flood level predictions for your area (Met Office, Environment Agency) and paint/chalk this level in blue around town, on council buildings, petrol stations, etc. Accompany with flyposters/leaflets explaining the line and forecasted impacts of extreme weather
4. Take action to reduce your own energy consumption- set yourself a target. Tell everyone about it- your family, friends, neighbours and get their support (like giving up smoking!)
5. Make an empowerment video focused on weather chaos and our responses to it and distribute it and show it.
6. Agit-crop! Planting or seed sowing to spell out a message, in council flowerbeds, railway embankments, open spaces
7. Target traffic jams with leaflets about greenhouse gas emissions
8. Produce local guide to help people buy ethical local produce
9. Declare a car share or green transport week, support with posters, leaflets, actions
10. Set up an info shop/ or a stall in a busy place
11. Produce posters, distribute them, flypost them all over town
12. Talk with your friends of neighbours about what you could do collectively, such as car share, setting personal targets, planning an action, organising school transport etc.
13. Grow at least some of your own food. Reclaim some space to do this with others, get an allotment, grow stuff in pots
14. Declare a car-free zone in your town and put up car-free road signs
15. Blockade or occupy a power station. Block plans for any new power stations.
16. Make "Wanted" posters in car parks for crimes against the biosphere with pictures of cars.
17. Find out council/local authority development plans, put in your own ideas, challenge anything that doesn’t take account of reducing emissions
18. Visit electricity/electrical goods retailers, note how much effort they put put energy efficiency. Set up an info shop outside (or inside!) for the day
19. Mobilise against incinerators, make the links about greenhouse gas emissions
20. Energy reduction - raise the issue in your workplace or school
21. Take your holidays in England.
22. Hassle everyone you know to change their lightbulbs
23. Subvertise-distort the messages on adverts for climate criminals, such as car adverts, all flights! (See www.subvertise.org.uk for some ideas)
24. React to events- when there the next unseasonal flooding, record drought, or unexpected storm, get out on the streets protesting and making the links for people. Prepare a local phone tree to pull people together at short notice to do this.
25. Guerilla Energy Reduction! Put a brick in the cistern, turn down heating, change heating timers to come on less, swap old lightbulbs for energy efficient ones
26. Get out there and start talking! We have detailed materials on how to structure talks and do speaker trainings. Better still, get on the road and do your own version of the Rising Tide Tour.
27. If it snows people with bad insulation have no snow on their roofs- put a leaflet through their doors about climate chaos and telling how much they can save with roof insulation (plus what grants are available)
28. Prepare materials for teachers, and do talks and activities in schools
29. Buy green electricity. For details on the best companies go to http://www.foe.co.uk
30. Start a solar water heating club
31. Shut down petrol stations and offer advice on how to kick the habit - offer alternatives to oil addiction, such as free bikes
32. Put up displays at events, public places (the library, public noticeboards), or flypost. Basic display packs from Rising Tide
33. Do a 90% for 90% action- leafleting the train.
34. Give out cartoon booklets everywhere! Photocopy and flypost them
35. Fix up some bikes (universities and stations good place to ask for leftovers) and set up a local free bike scheme, like they used to have in Amsterdam.
36. Nautical Critical Mass! Put cut-out fish in trees and on car windscreens with a message/website. (see fish in the resources section of this web site)
37. Talk with people in this country who have relatives abroad already being affected by weather chaos such as people from the Pakistan, Bangladeshi communities.
38. Create images of what future climate chaos could look like in your region/town and paste them up.
39. Paint cycle lanes, or Think Bike signs on the road.
40. Take infra-red photos of public buildings during winter and confront people with the picture of how much heat is going into the air (send photos to the newspapers)
41. Put up Climate Chaos Ahead road signs on all rush-hour approaches to town
42. Write a message on the top of your umbrella so everyone can see it when it rains
43. Hang banners from bridges over motoroways and busy roads during rush hours- thousands will see them (stay with the banner or the police will remove it and not give it back!)
44. Occupy the offices of companies not reducing emissions, or part of increasing emissions Organise benefit gigs to fund more Rising Tide resources, or to support people affected by extreme weather in the global south (survivors of last years Mozambique floods sent a donation to people whose homes were flooded in Malton, Yorkshire
45. Plough up a motorway and create a park!
46. Link up with other groups/campaigns with linked concerns - such as fuel poverty groups, local local refugee/asylum seekers support groups. Plan joint work around environmental refugees.
47. Campaign for not-for-profit public transport
48. Set hosepipes on offices of oil and airline companies and flood them!
49. Start a campaign against all air flights where people can take a train (eg England to Scotland, London to Paris)
AND.....
50. Get together with other people, work out what you want to achieve, plan your actions/campaign and DO IT!
START BY GOING TO THE RESOURCES PAGE, DOWNLOADING SOME OF THE MATERIALS AND GETTING THEM OUT
Rising Tide- 16th August, 2001