P&Pers create a real-life version of the new Action card
Mika Minio-Paluello
Spring into action
Get your DDD campaign going this term with these three top actions:
- Lobby your MP to write to Gareth Thomas at DFID.
- Pass a Students’ Union motion on RBS-NatWest and their oil and gas funding.
- Take action at a local branch of RBS-NatWest.
There’s a new mini-action guide on RBS-NatWest which we’ll be sending to you if you’ve already got the Ditch Dirty Development campaign pack. If you don’t have a campaign pack, order yours today!
Main News Stories
International Action on Financing Climate Change
Last week, climate change campaigners and activists around the world held demonstrations against the financial support propping up the fossil fuel industry. Mock trials, banner drops and a barrage of questions disrupted events put on by those involved in financing oil, coal and gas.
Summer wouldn't be summer without The Gathering
Don't forget to bag your place at P&P's much talked about networking, training and planning event...
Royal Bank Found Guilty of Environmental Crimes
At a mock trial preceding the Royal Bank of Scotland's AGM today, the bank was found guilty of environmental and climate crimes by students and given a suspended sentence to clean up its investments by 2009 or face a boycott.
RBS & Climate Change: Making it Happen!
The Royal Bank of Scotland's AGM is on 23 April in Edinburgh, so come along to hold them to account for their environmental crimes.
Monbiot piqued by peak oil planning
In the last of his series of events as Visiting Professor at Oxford Brookes University, journalist, activist and People & Planet patron George Monbiot last night declared the impending climate chaos as catastrophic.
YouPEC 2008
Do you want to work this summer on a sustainable future? Then join 150 young people from 30 European countries at the YouPEC.
Leeds Students' Union passes a motion against RBS-NatWest
Leeds P&P passed a motion through their Students' Union to mandate them to lobby RBS-NatWest on their financing of oil and gas projects. To celebrate they marched an oil pipeline through the city to a NatWest branch to highlight the issue.
Minister says oil can be viewed as a blessing to developing countries
Minister Gillian Merron claimed today that oil has a tremendous potential to contribute to development, despite a history of negative impacts, and the role of oil exploration in climate change. She was speaking as the Ditch Dirty Development campaign was debated in Parliament.
Pirates amass in Edinburgh to Ceilidh dance and tackle climate change - Yarr!
A gale strong enough to blow ye' ship to Davy Jones's locker were a-blowin' across the Scottish main...luckily all the nearby pirates were safely moored that night in Edinburgh. With the decks swabbed for Ceilidh dancing and armed only with their green credentials, they raised £1,000 in golden ducets for People & Planet
NUS joins boycott threat against RBS-Natwest
NUS have joined the campaign to get RBS-Natwest to cut their climate impact
Campaign Summary
Oil fire in the Niger Delta
Stakeholder Democracy Network
In the UK, we are addicted to fossil fuels, the main cause of climate change. By working to reduce our own carbon footprint we can lessen the impact of climate change but until funding for fossil fuel extraction is switched to developing renewable energy this progress is constantly undermined.
Public and private investment in fossil fuels, particularly oil and gas, still massively outweighs investment in renewable energy. Loans to fossil fuel projects that run for decades will lock us into massive future emissions. To avoid a situation where devastating climate change becomes unstoppable, we must end our addiction to fossil fuels, end financial support for oil and gas extraction, and increase spending on renewable energy.
Campaign Strategy
The Ditch Dirty Development campaign aims to end financial support for fossil fuel extraction and exploration projects and massively increase support for renewable energy.
Financial support for fossil fuel extraction and exploration comes from both public and private sources, that’s why the campaign has two main targets, the Department for International Development (DFID) and The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
Target 1: UK Government
DFID is the government body responsible for the UK’s international development aid. It is the link between the Government and international financial institutions which support fossil fuel extraction, like the World Bank.
There is a direct contradiction between government statements on the importance of tackling climate change, and their action in supporting fossil fuel development through the World Bank. The Ditch Dirty Development campaign aims to bring this dirty little secret out into the open and put pressure on DFID to act positively to tackle climate change.
Target 2: High Street Banks
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which owns NatWest, is the second largest bank in Europe and a hugely significant private funder of fossil fuel projects. Actively promoting themselves as the ‘Oil and Gas Bank’, they play a crucial role in making some of the most controversial oil and gas extraction projects a reality, from the Niger Delta to the Caucasus, from Angola to Qatar.
RBS refuse to acknowledge responsibility for the climate impacts of their lending to fossil fuel projects. As a major UK financial body RBS has influence within the sector, but by acting as a laggard when it comes to climate change there is a danger that they will hold back progress by other banks.
Solutions to climate change exist. Industrialised countries like the UK must drastically cut carbon emissions. This means ending our addiction to fossil fuels — which can’t be done without ending our support for the fossil fuel industry. Technologies which harness unlimited and non polluting renewable energy need far more support to be able to compete with and overtake fossil fuels. In the developing world, renewable energy could both provide access to energy for millions of people and help developing countries on the path to a low carbon economy.
If all the People & Planet groups in the country take action together we can put enough pressure on DFID and RBS to convince them to Ditch Dirty Development!