Campaign against Climate Change

BALI and the GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION

Predictably the Bali Climate talks were all about the degree to which the US was able to sabotage real progress towards an effective international emissions reductions agreement. We are involved in a race against time to get a replacement treaty in place before the Kyoto treaty runs out - but at the same time this new agreement needs to be a lot stronger than Kyoto, preserving the principal of mandatory cuts for developed nations but involving much deeper cuts. At the same time this new treaty needs to include all major developed countries with significant emissions in a way which the Kyoto treaty does not - specifically due to the non-participation of the United States, and their refusal to accept mandatory cuts.

The only constraint on US obstructionism was the embarrasment of total isolation in the international community in its resistance to real progress and meaningful binding cuts for developed countries. Consequently the US tactic has been all about trying to find allies for its stance and to attempt to detatch the weakest countries from the international consensus and thereby dilute and undermine it. This was essentially what the US-inspired Washington Climate Conference in September was all about - an attempt by the Bush administration to win converts to its agenda for an agreement based on 'voluntary measures' and 'intensity targets' in place of absolute targets - therefore an agreement lacking any substance, which would pre-empt, and derail any progress towards, any really meaningful agreement at Bali. In the event the US was largely cold-shouldered in September and its attempt to win over China and India, the big developing country emitters, at Bali soon foundered. This was perhaps unsurprising since a key tactic of the US has been to lever open the divisions between rich/developed and poor/developing countries by championing an extreme and sectarian position that shamelessly advances the interests of the former. As a result it was Japan and Canada which the US had most success in attracting to its obstructionist cause. It had lost its old ally, Australia, when John Howard was defeated in the Australian elections in November to be replaced by Kevin Rudd who gave us Australian ratification of Kyoto, at last - leaving the US as the only major developed country not to have ratfied Kyoto.

Demonstrators at Climate Protest in Bali, December 8th 2007

In the final extra day of the drawn out negotiations it was the unwillingness of Canada and Japan to bear the brunt of international opprobrium alongside the US which left the latter sufficiently isolated and vulnerable to be forced into some sort of agreement, which leaves the road to a meaningful post-Kyoto agreement open at least - even if it makes little progress down that road. It is true that given the gravity and urgency of the situation then what has been achieved through the negotiations under the auspices of United Nations Framework Convention looks paltry indeed, and the pace of progress agonisingly slow - in the first instance due to the brake applied by the United States. Yet the degree to which the United States has been forced into accepting more than it wanted to, both here at Bali and previously in 2005 at Montreal, at least points the way in which progress might be made in the future. A lever for progress has been revealed to be the shaming of obstructionist parties in the international arena : there is evolving at least within the context of the UNFCCC Talks an international moral consensus by which countries with a negative, destructive agenda can be identified, judged and shamed - if not exactly held to account. This is done most effectively through their isolation and a key component of this has been the pressure of that international moral consensus - combined, importantly, with the pressure of public opinion at home - on those governmemnts tempted to accrete to an obstructionist stance, so that they are in the final reckoning peeled away to leave the prime miscreant without any 'cover' and as it were 'naked' in the court of international opinion.

In this context the value, actual and potential, of our 'Global Day of Action' on Climate right in the middle of the UNFCCC climate talks becomes very apparent. It is about creating an atmosphere which is conducive to the formation of the strongest possible sense of international moral consensus, of overrarching global will to act decisively in the face of the climate crisis - just at the moment when decisions are being taken and pressure needs to be applied. How much more effective is it when that 'international moral consensus' is seen to be expressed by the peoples of the world, all around the globe, rather than just by a bunch of NGOs, with their frankly rather predictable stunts, at whatever location the Climate Talks end up at that particular year ? The Global day of Action this year involved an estimated (reports are still coming in) 70 countries and there has been a marked increase in the degree of recognition it has gained worldwide. The Global climate Campaign's orange logo has been reproduced at actions in every inhabited continent and has been an empowering symbol for the valiant efforts of especially the many tiny, underresourced environmental groups in countries of low climate awareness fighting against a tide of apathy and ignorance about the topic. So far many of these myriad actions have been very small, but an increasing number are quite substantial and the potential is huge for a really significant number of conspicuous mass demonstrations to have a massively increased impact on the moral atmosphere within which the international negotiations are conducted. It is instructive that a key nation this time round at Bali was Canada, and Canada was one of the places where the Global Day of Action this year really took off with events in more than 30 locations around the country (and this was not like 2005 when the presence of the UN Climate Talks actually in the country at Montreal was a huge incentive for mass mobilisation). The natural inclination of Canadian leader Robin Harper to fall in line with his conservative ideological soulmate George Bush was at least partially offset by Canadian public opinion and the GDA demonstrations were a part of the effective mobilisation of that, alongside the efforts of some provincial governors, the opposition leader, and other factors.

Climate Protestors in Toronto, December 8th 2007

Of course given the huge distance we still need to cover we cannot disguise to ourselves the fact that the UNFCCC negotiations do not look at this moment remotely on track to produce the necessary radical action fast enough to prevent catastrophe. Clearly we need a step-change in awareness, sense of urgency and the political will to act and this is likely to take place - if at all - through the generation of powerful socio-political movements at the national level, and to take place within the socio-political circumstances of each country, one by one. Right now that needs to happpen most of all in the USA and there are some hopeful signs that indeed it is - at least just beginning - to do so. But ultimately these advances at the national level will be useless unless they feed effectively into the international arena the only place, ultimately, where really meaningful decisions can be taken - for a problem for which the only solution is a 'global' one. The Global Day of Action is a way of channeling these advances at the national level into the international arena'. Indeed it has an 'educational' role in the uphill battle to emphasise the huge significance of those seemingly remote and abstract international negotiations to the mass of people for whom politics at the national level is generally more comprehensible and meaningful. Most of all there is a huge potential for productive cross fertilisation, and knock-on effect, between the international and national climate movements. In Australia, uniquely, Climate change has already become a sisgnificant election issue with John Howard being voted out this November in no small part due to his opposition to Kyoto and appalling record on the climate issue. The huge mobilisation of maybe 120,000 demonstrators all around Australia in the 'Walks against Warming' a fornight before the elections clearly played a role in making climate an issue of the election and in displacing John Howard. But these "Walks aganst Warming" brilliantly promoted and organised by some fantastically talented and energetic campaigners were built on the success achieved last year when the 'Walks' were part of the Global Day of Action - and indeed the evolution of the 'Walks', and of the hugely succesful Australian climate movement, has been very closely bound up with the Global Day of Action and the international movement, going back to the early success of December 3rd 2005 when the first mobilisaton of thousands on climate in Australia occurred as part of the first GDA.

Demonstrators at a GDA action in Newcastle, Australia 8th December 2007

Looking forward we face the gigantic task of achieving a post-Kyoto agreement in the next two years - which will actually include sufficiently radical cuts, a workable enforcement mechanism, and the inclusion of all major emitting countries in the process (to achieve the latter of which a demonstrably fair and socially just way of apportioning emission cuts will necessarily have to be found). This is a near-impossible task which we have no choice but to attempt since the alternative is unthinkable. The Global Day of Action, we beleive, can play an important role in the achievment of this near-impossible task and offers us one way of increasing our slender chances of success. Given that, quite frankly, the odds are stacked mightily against us then we can hardly afford not to make best use of every weapon we can find in the arsenal and we need to push the GDA for all its worth and to wring from it every last ounce of effective impact that we can. Full steam forward to GDA 2008 in December!

The Campaign against Climate Change is playing the leading role in pushing forward and coordinating the Global Climate Campaign and the Global Day of Action. It is playing this crucial role on very slender resources. You can help make the Global Day of Action bigger and more effective by contributing to our resource base. If you would like to donate please click here. Thankyou for anything you are able to give.

Main UK Climate Campaigns:

Heathrow & Aviation
KIngsnorth and New Coal
The Climate Bill
Biofuels

Get your Union to support the Campaign

Main UK Climate Campaigns: Heathrow & Aviation KIngsnorth and New Coal The Climate Bill Biofuels

Get your Union to support the Campaign

Main UK Climate Campaigns:

Heathrow & Aviation
KIngsnorth and New Coal
The Climate Bill
Biofuels