Joshua Lynch

Environmental Politics III

Professor Tim Doyle

October 16, 2000

 

 

The U.S. Student Climate Summit

Turning Public Awareness into Global Action

 

 

Although too many cooks may spoil the stew, it would be tough to argue that too many activists could spoil a protest.  Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) draw strength from the collective power of many individuals working towards a common goal.  In a world filled with thousands of NGOs fighting for environmental justice and protection, collaboration between organizations as well as within them, can be very useful.  Amidst the power struggles of governments, industries, and other interest groups around the world, many Environmental NGOs use their social connections with students, media, politicians, individuals, and other organized environmental allies to amplify the political clout of each of their environmental campaigns. 

            Different individuals and institutions define NGOs with different criteria.  The World Bank says that “they include many group and institutions that are entirely or largely independent of government and that have primarily humanitarian or cooperative rather than commercial objectives.”  As an internet-based organization with the main objective of NGO promotion, the NGO Café expands on this idea of beaurocratic independence and social objectives.  They include on their web-site, definitions from a 1988 “NGO Workshop.”  One definition describes the NGO as a “social development organization assisting in the empowerment of people.”  Another key Workshop definition calls the NGO, “an organization or group of people working independent of any external control.” 

            It is highly questionable as to whether some of the more homogenous Environmental NGOs are actually “independent of external control.”  Despite being non-profit institutions, some of these NGOs make political endorsements, industrial investment of public funds, and participate in other activities, which might make them less ideologically pure than these definitions would imply.  However, there do exist a vast number of smaller, more focussed non-profit NGOs that spend most if not all of their resources on the empowerment of people and the environment.  These groups are often labeled as “public-interest” oriented, “grassroots,” or “decentralized.”  Often these groups will focus on local communities and governments, while taking on a wider, often global environmental concern.  A powerful example of this type of Environmental NGO is Ozone Action (OA).

In their constitution, Ozone Action describes itself as “a non-profit, public interest organization founded in July 1993 to work exclusively on atmospheric issues: ozone depletion and global warming.  It is vital to have a single-issue, public-interest organization educating the public and providing the media with the latest information on these dual threats.”  OA leads activists in several climate campaigns, which “combine media, grassroots, legislative, direct action, corporate, market, and public education strategies.” 

Funding for this year came from 18 different foundations, groups, and individuals who helped pay for administrative and other minimal costs. Based in Washington, DC in the United States, Ozone Action has 12 staff members and a Board of Directors consisting of the OA president and 6 other individual consultants, investors, and members of other Environmental NGOs.  Although there is some emphasis on responding to “climate skeptics,” and “answering media inquiries,” OA is predominantly apolitical as an entity.  Like other grassroots NGOs, Ozone Action is interested in the promotion of the public voice and in the climate issues themselves, rather than their own political and economic elevation. 

As a part of Ozone Action’s “Cool The Planet” (CTP) Campaign, I have been selected as one of 200 American students to attend the “U.S. Student Climate Summit” in The Hague, Netherlands this November 17th.  At The Hague, delegates from 180 countries will be attending the 6th Conference of the Parties (COP6 for short) to the United Nations Framework Convention (UNFCCC) on Climate Change.  COP6 is the third annual conference since the famous Kyoto Protocol was created in 1997.  Cool The Planet’s Student Climate Summit is designed to bring together a diverse group of student scientists, activists, law students, and others to draw attention to, participate in, and learn about the Kyoto process. 

As a “student run campaign,” Cool The Planet is more democratic and decentralized in it’s actions than Ozone Action itself.  Two full-time OA staff members and two interns run Cool The Planet, and are organizing the Student Climate Summit.  These people send out email and letter updates to the students, organize “lead-up campaigns” before the Summit, and operate the CTP web-site (http://www.cooltheplanet.org).  Although these jobs require a lot of work and time, they would be frivolous without the students’ voices, actions, and presence at The Hague.  This emphasis on student responsibility and empowerment can be seen throughout the entire three month Summit process.

In order to select 200 students for the Summit, the two full-time Ozone Action staff members, Meghan Conklin and Philip Radford used their NGO and activist group contacts to draw attention to their web-site, where students could apply to attend The Hague.  These Summit leaders use informal, activist enthusiasm and promise that students will get a chance to “ensure that American people, not just corporations, have a say in this process.” Several hundred interested University students from Vermont to California, filled out the online application.  The application asked about:

·        Personal details

·        Environmental organization affiliations

·        Leadership experience

·        Activism experience

·        A suggestion for an action that we could perform at The Hague

 

By September, 200 students had been selected by the Cool The Planet staff and the Student Climate Summit campaign had begun. 

            For an NGO like Ozone Action, a definitive student activist campaign can be very beneficial.  For one thing, organizers don’t have to worry about keeping a formal attitude, working around busy work schedules, or coping with a potential lack of enthusiasm for action, as they may with a more diverse constituency.  Meghan and Phil are constantly telling me I am a butt-kicking rock star before and after they explain how to “stop Global Warming and hit the bad guys where it hurts…”

            Cool The Planet is quick to point out that “students have led every social movement in recent history.”  Because of their lack of corporate and political ties and their scholastic base, student campaigns often gain a lot of sympathy and support from the public.  Working with a few students directly, a campaign like CTP can spread awareness quickly and extensively.  For example, each student is asked to create an email contact list of 25 non-Hague activists to “send rapid response alerts” to from the Summit.  With 200 students, this creates an activist network of 5000 people, learning about and responding to what happens at The Hague.

            The other grand bonus of having a student campaign is that those who are learning about and participating in this effort, are potential decision-makers for the future.  As a single-issue organization, Ozone Action has a lot of supporting resources to share with activists on the issue of climate change.  Through their own education sources and other media and institutional “fact sheets,” scientific studies, and publications, staff members are able to keep students up to date on the issues that they are advocating on campus and at The Hague.  The idea is that by the end of COP6, even if Ozone Action’s immediate goals aren’t met, the students of the Climate Summit and those who they influenced will be better informed and more qualified to make more climate-friendly decisions in the future. 

            In preparation for The Hague, students are encouraged to attend a “Regional Training.”  These three-day meetings include speaker presentations and announcements as well as lobbying, media, and non-violence training.  They also allot time for student participation with questions at the end, and by having students form into “affinity groups” and performing mock negotiations.  In addition to these optional trainings, CTP sends out email updates once a month, sends out information packets to students, answers a lot of student questions by email, mail, and telephone, and will run additional training sessions at The Hague.

Along with student, media, and public awareness, the Summit aims to make a strong impact on the decision-making process at The Hague.  The students’ main focus is on the U.S. and it’s effort to weaken Kyoto through “loopholes” and injustice.  However, the U.S. is a part of an “Umbrella Group” of countries, which have very similar objectives given their high levels of economic and political investment in greenhouse gas and carbon consumption.  This group includes Australia, Canada, Japan, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, New Zealand, Norway and Iceland.  All of these countries would benefit from a Protocol that allows for extensive use of carbon “sinks,” “flexible mechanisms,” and “emissions trading” as substitutes for direct greenhouse gas abatement in their own countries. 

At COP6, there is not only participation from the Parties to the UNFCCC, there is also participation from industries and NGOs as well as an inclusion of the media.  During the Conference, NGO and Industry representatives are given time to make a statement to the Convention.  In addition to their role inside the proceedings, many NGOs around the world share Cool The Planet’s objective of influencing the Umbrella Group delegations and providing a counter-voice to multi-national logging, oil, auto, and other corporations, before and during the two weeks of COP6. 

The message coming from this network of NGOs and activists is that Global Warming is real, and a strong Kyoto is necessary to stop it.  While many NGOs like Ozone Action focus on pushing for “a Kyoto Protocol with environmental integrity,” other NGOs emphasize fairness for developing countries and respecting indigenous rights.  Friends of the Earth Europe is encouraging individuals from all around Europe to come to The Hague and construct a sandbag dike encircling the conference venue, in order to “symbolize the dangers that are to come!”  Before The Hague, The Climate Action Network, which consists of over 287 environmental and social NGO members around the world, is urging people to send a message to world leaders to reduce the pollution that causes Global Warming. Ozone Action and the Student Climate Summit will be participating in efforts like these, both during and before the Conference, to go along with our own campaign efforts.  

Emily Schadler is an experienced student activist who attended the “A16” protest of the IMF and the World Bank on April 16th in Washington, DC and will be attending The Hague this summer with CTP.  When I asked about her perception of the difference between NGO affiliated activists and independent activists in social movements, Emily said that “most activists are affiliated, but the ones who aren’t have a hard time organizing and staying focused after the protesting is done.  Because it is much more difficult to get a hold of materials and keep up on all of the politics, etc if you aren’t.”  Before she attended A16, Emily went to an activist training camp called “Ruckus,” where young activists are trained in non-violent direct action tactics.  Of about 120 activists who introduced themselves at the camp, Emily said that almost every single person named an NGO they were affiliated with.  While she does say that informal groups do have a role as mainly affinity groups at protests, she says they are “on a different level,” emphasizing the point that most individuals in these affinity groups are members of an NGO.  She says that it is actually “hard not to be affiliated” with an NGO. 

The Student Climate Summit’s “Lead-Up Campaign” includes a variety of student tactics to promote public awareness and pressure the decision-makers into supporting a strong Kyoto.  Cool The Planet recently sent out a document to all Summit students entitled, “Running a Cool The Planet Campaign on Your Campus.” This document provides students with extensive background information on the issues and many suggested strategies for carrying out each facet of the Campaign using step-by-step instructions. 

The Campaign calls for Haguers to set up tables and approach students on campus, asking them to sign postcards addressed to the lead US negotiator at The Hague, Frank Loy.  Loy has unveiled plans to include nuclear power into Kyoto’s “Clean Development Mechanism,” and to meet up to 50% of Kyoto pollution reduction targets through strategies like allowing the giant US paper company, Weyerhaeuser to plant tree farms, claiming the new paper trees as carbon “sinks.”  In addition to flooding Frank Loy’s office with student postcards, the Campaign includes the “bird-dogging” of a Senator and student “phone raps” to Weyerhaeuser using donated cell phones.

These kinds of targeting strategies are often used by environmental NGOs who want to annoy their opponents until they have no choice but to address the issue, ideally in a public forum.  Earlier this year, Ozone Action used the bird-dogging strategy of following around Senator John McCain with signs that read, “What’s Your Plan? Stop Global Warming!” until finally he agreed to hold a senate hearing, addressing the issue.  This should be a major strategy for us at The Hague, as we target both Industry representatives and US delegates in an attempt to get some questions answered. 

Another major aspect of the Lead-Up Campaign and the Summit is attracting the “media buzz” wherever we go.  For non-profit NGOs with limited resources like Ozone Action, getting press is a huge effort.  Whereas government officials, celebrities, and rock stars often have trouble avoiding the paparazzi, activists and “fringe” NGOs often have to hound the media for weeks before, during, and after an event to get coverage.  Unlike corporations, Ozone Action can’t afford much advertising.  So, as a major part of our Campaign, students are asked to write a “letter to the editor” of a local newspaper, keep in contact with campus media, and invite local and campus newspaper photographers to the International Day of Action on campus with Banner drops, music, and buzzing campuses.  The key to the entire Lead-Up Campaign is to work closely with the local community and the media in order to gain a larger audience before, during, and after we expose industry leaders, sneaky delegates, and the whole Kyoto process at The Hague. 

As lobbyists for Ozone Action and representatives for all Global Warming concerned students in the United States, The Student Climate Summit has a pretty big responsibility.  Ozone Action has stressed “active participation” above all else, as the most important strategy at The Hague.  For the seven days that we will be in Holland, we will be involved in the following activities:

·        Activism- attend rallies, bird-dogging representatives, participate in vigils, street theatre, etc.

·        Negotiating- work with Ozone Action’s negotiating team inside the convention center.

·        Media work- be involved in press conferences, interviews, press releases, etc.

·        Listening- be witness to, and learn from briefings by Senators, NGOs, and other delegates

In order to make the most of this experience, it is important for each student to learn about every issue that they are promoting or rejecting before the Conference.  Listening to speakers, reading email and mail updates, and engaging in individual research are a few ways to learn how to counter arguments by industries and by delegates.  Fortunately, the many NGOs at The Hague will have some very legitimate allies.  The EU along with many scientist unions and a few economists have been arguing for restrictions on the Clean Development Mechanism, limits on emissions trading, and leniency towards developing nations.  Unfortunately, at the last meeting of the Parties in Lyon, France, the only country that warned about the ill affects of nuclear power was Libya.  The US and other countries seem to be much more interested in enhancing logging, nuclear, and other industries both in their own country and abroad, than they are in making real greenhouse gas emissions reductions. 

Beginning with protests in Seattle, Washington DC, Prague, and Melbourne, people from all over the world have pleaded for a release from “globalization.”  At The Hague, activists, NGOs, and developing nations will speak out once again about the global consequences of global exploitation.  The target continues to be on affluent countries whose economic gain has left behind a world of victims.  In both cases, the US and company have caused the majority of the damage while providing the strongest resistance to a real solution.  

Ozone Action is a single-issue; non-profit NGO committed to stopping Global Warming.  Using its connections with media, politicians, students, activists, the public, and a variety of NGOs and environmental groups, Ozone Action is able to draw maximum awareness and participation to their campaigns.  Each campaign is directed by their staff and fueled by their messengers. 

At The Hague, the Student Climate Summit represents more than Ozone Action.  Many people have been critical of the most recent generation of University students in the West.  John McCain called us an “apathetic and self-interested” bunch.  The Summit represents yet another clear example of why we are so very not a generation of degenerate narcissists.  As Haguer Emily put it, “We’re non-violently, knowledgeably, strategically active.”  Cool The Planet is Ozone Action’s non-governmental campaign designed to show our elected officials and the rest of the world what their students truly are interested in. 

 

 

Bibliography

 

Climate Action Network, 2000, http://www.climatenetwork.org

Conklin, Meghan, and Philip Radford, September 2000, Student Climate Summit information packet.

Cool The Planet, 2000, http://www.cooltheplanet.org

Doyle, Timothy and Doug McEachern (1998), Environment and Politics, Routledge, New York, NY, pgs 81-105.

Doyle, Timothy (2000), Green Power, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, Australia, pgs 74-87.

Friends of the Earth Europe, 2000, “The Dike,” http://www.foeeurope.org/dike/index.htm

NGO Café, 2000, http://www.gdrc.org/ngo  

Ozone Action, 2000, http://www.ozone.org

Schadler, Emily, 2000, online interview.

Sixth Session of the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties, 2000, http://cop6.unfccc.de/

 

 

 

 

P.S. on Sun, 5 Nov 2000 02:10:56 +1030  Subject: Climate

       It's neat that you know so much about these things Heather.   You're right that it's important for all countries to unite in the  effort to stop climate change.  However, the deal with the developing  countries in the Protocol isn't as simple as many Americans think.

      First thing: The United states contributes about 1/4 of all of the  greenhouse gas pollution in the world.  As a whole, developed  countries are far more responsible for our current global warming  situation than developing countries and therefore should, and are  being considered first.  Secondly, because of our economic affluence,  we are much more able to afford solutions.

 

      Second thing: Many people point to China as a potential booming  greenhouse gas polluter very soon.  The fact is that China and many  other developing nations have voluntarily instilled comprehensive  greenhouse gas programs in their country.  Argentina and Kahzakstan  recently made a voluntary plan to reduce their emissions.  These  kinds of steps are usually made by these countries because they have  the most to lose with global warming, and want to send a message to  industrialized countries that they're serious.

 

    Third thing:  Within the Protocol, the Clean Development Mechanism  (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) are designed to provide an  incentive for developed countries to reduce emissions from their  countries in developing countries, as well as get credit for helping  to reduce developing country emissions with implanted technology.   This has a lot of potential to help reduce emissions all over the  world, without putting an incredible burden on incredibly poor  countries.  The danger of course, is these things that I have been  screaming about.  Namely, allowing dirty solutions in these "flexible  mechanisms" that would not solve global warming, and/or would create  incredible ecological and social destruction.  We all know the  dangers of nuclear power, coal mining, hydro-powered megadams, and  inappropriate forestry practices.

 

      Finally: The Kyoto Protocol only deals with the next ten years of  greenhouse gas reductions.  After the initial period is over, the  hope is that fossil fuel substitutions will be made cheap enough  (through an intensified market) for developing countries to afford  them.  In 2005 discussion will begin on the solutions for the second  period.  The Hague is a really important event along the process.

 

      It's sometimes hard for people to look beyond their own  neighborhood, but the fact is that conditions in developing countries  are not something to be taken lightly.  For this reason, the Protocol  was developed on the premise that developed countries hold the  primary responsibility for the first 15 years of global warming  solutions at least, and need to set the example.  Germany has set an  incredible example for us by reducing their pollution (ALREADY) by  over 15% I believe.  That is in comparison to an double digit  increase by the US since 1990.

 

    sorry so long, but this is one of those passionate things for me  right now.  About the Native Americans.. I'm in complete agreement  with you and was hoping to learn more about the Aboriginal people  here than I did.  I'm certainly interested in learning more.  Respect  for nature is like respect for yourself I think.

 

  Josh

WHEW!