Climate change

As campaigners focusing on climate justice, we tend to think wind energy is a good thing. And so it can be – but not when it robs indigenous people of their land. 

Last year, the World Development Movement’s climate campaigner Kirsty Wright went to the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, and met indigenous activist Bettina Cruz Velazquez. Bettina told Kirsty how wind farms run by multinational corporations are being built without the consent of the indigenous people who own the land.

In October, Bettina and others were attacked and received death threats during a protest against one of the wind farms. Amnesty is concerned that the death of a man in unclear circumstances during the protest is being used to ‘unfairly prosecute protestors and to deter future protests,’ and it is asking people to write to the Mexican authorities expressing their concern.

Incredibly, one of the other wind farms in the area, also being opposed by local people, is being part financed from the UK’s overseas aid budget. It produces enough electricity to power 160,000 homes. So at the very least, it must be providing energy for the people of Oaxaca, seven...

Scottish climate change minister, Stewart Stevenson, will be joining the UK government delegation to the UN climate talks in Durban any day now. In preparation for this we’ve been calling on him to use his influence as part of the delegation to urge the UK government to stop forcing climate loans onto already indebted countries.  

WDM supporters here in Scotland have sent him more than 100 emails over the last couple of weeks, calling for the same thing.  And today we joined forces with Jubilee Scotland outside the Scottish Parliament to illustrate our campaign and to act in solidarity with civil society organisations in South Africa holding a ‘World Bank out of climate finance’ day of action.

 Scotland has what many describe as ‘world leading’ climate legislation with targets to reduce our emissions here by 42% by 2020 and 80% by 2050....

Guest post by Murray Worthy, used to be policy officer writes from Durban

One of the key issues being debated here at the UN climate talks in Durban is the establishment of a new 'Green Climate Fund'. It is hoped that the fund could replace the role the World Bank is playing in managing climate finance at the moment, and be the main fund for managing global climate finance. At the UN talks Developing countries and international civil society groups have spoken out against proposals for a dedicated private sector arm of the proposed new fund.

Today, 163 organisations including the World Development Movement, from 39 countries released a letter exposing efforts by the UK and US to turn the Green Climate Fund into a 'Greedy Corporate Fund' at the UN talks. The proposals for a dedicated arm to directly finance the private sector would lead to public finance, often taken from overseas aid budgets, being used to subsidise multinational companies from the global north. Relying heavily on the private sector would also skew what finance is used for, with finance diverted to already profitable energy projects - rather projects aiming to reduce the...

A report launched by the World Development Movement reveals shocking bullying and bribery tactics employed by countries including the UK and the US to try to kill the Kyoto Protocol, as negotiators from the world’s governments gather today in Durban, South Africa, for the start of the 2011 UN climate talks.

Through exclusive new interviews with negotiators from developing countries, the report exposes the ‘unfair, undemocratic and deceitful’ tactics used by developed countries to skew the climate change negotiations in their favour and backtrack on their legal commitments.

The report features previously unpublished testimonies from insiders at the Copenhagen and Cancun climate summits in 2009 and 2010. They reveal how key agreements such as the Copenhagen Accord were developed, including though secret meetings and the sidelining of developing country negotiators, followed by agreements being presented to developing countries on a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ basis.

The Copenhagen Accord marked a unprecedented shift in the UN climate negotiations, away from the...

Jessica Radford, used to be campaigns and policy intern

In the run-up to climate talks in Durban the Pan-African Climate Caravan of Hope is on a two-week road-trip across Africa.

Launched on November 9th in Burundi by the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), it is intended to raise-awareness and highlights the challenges of climate change posed to Africa. Up to 200 African farmers, pastoralists and youth campaigners are travelling through 10 countries, from Burundi to South Africa, telling the story of climate change in Africa as they go. These stories are shared to help inform people of how to adapt to the impacts of climate change and to create feelings of solidarity in their battle for climate justice. Solidarity is important both among the different African countries as well as between rich and poor countries.

The journey of the caravan has been a busy one, stopping off for climate marches, petition signings and rallies along the way. The caravan was received in Kampala, Uganda by the Concert for Climate Justice, which featured some of Uganda’s top music stars. African musicians inspired activists in their goal before the caravan moved on to Kenya. Music is a great component of activism in Africa due to high illiteracy rates but also...

Guest post: Kevin Smith, Platform

In the last couple of years, art-interventionists Liberate Tate have generated a lot of debate and column inches over the issue of oil sponsorship of the arts, through a series of dramatic performances in gallery spaces, often using molasses or other ‘oil like substances’. It may seem like a relatively trivial issue, but the fact that oil companies put so much energy and attention into their cultural sponsorship programmes leads one to suspect that it plays a key role in how they construct their ‘social licence to operate.’

This term widely used in business and government circles that usually applies to the process of engendering support for a company’s activities in the communities who live close to their factories, oil wells, and so on. This term can shed light on how corporations construct public support far from the places of extraction or manufacture — for example how BP builds support in London. The construction of the social licence to operate is what links gallery-goers in London to the devastation of boreal...

UK money will be used for a ‘climate loan’ to Jamaica, increasing its already heavy debt burden, following a decision by the World Bank this week.

Campaigners have condemned the loan, which will drive the Caribbean nation deeper into poverty. Jamaica’s foreign debt stands at $2,500 per person, and the country spends $1.2 billion a year on debt repayments. The government’s foreign-owed debts are 55 per cent of national income, making it's debt burden one of the heaviest in the world.[1]

The $10 million loan agreed this week is intended to help Jamaica adapt to the effects of climate change. But campaigners say countries like the UK should give climate funds as grants rather than loans.

Jubilee Debt Campaign spokesperson Tim Jones said today:

Debt has devastated lives across the world, bringing economic collapse and diverting money from essential public services. The Jamaican government already spends $450 per person annually on debt repayments, more than on education and healthcare combined. The World Bank and UK government should be cancelling Jamaica's debt, not adding to it with new unjust climate loans."

...

Eight events in towns and cities across the UK, two amazing activists from South Africa, local speakers, and countless train journeys.... our speaker tour, ‘Africa demands climate justice’ has just come to an end.

However, we were determined when planning this speaker tour that we would avoid simply creating a series of one-off events that people attended and left, feeling better informed about climate justice but taking little else away.

We aimed to galvanize people into planning actions between now and the UN climate talks in Durban, starting on 28 November. We’ve seen some really exciting discussions taking place and it’s incredible how much energy can be created in a room, when a number of like-minded people come together, fired up by the very real stories of injustice faced by poor communities in South Africa.

We know that it’s vital that WDM’s work with our allies in the global south incorporates the opportunity for UK campaigners to hear directly from southern activists. As one WDM group member said: “It's personal stories and experiences like Bongani's that keep me inspired.”

Actions discussed have included the idea of a...

The UN climate talks, COP17, begin at the end of November. This could be the last chance to save the current international climate deal. The first period of the Kyoto protocol ends in 2012 and rich industrialised countries are pushing to replace it with a system that is based on voluntary reductions in carbon emissions instead.

In the run up to the negotiations, we have produced a new briefing, Durban, a tipping point for the international climate talks which sets out what we see as the key issues facing us. There will be attempts to reach agreements on issues such as climate finance, technology adaptations and forests but it is possible that there will be no deal at all. There are three issues that we are particularly concerned about.

 The role of the World Bank

At last years’ negotiations in Cancun, there was an agreement to set up a new green climate fund to provide funding to countries affected by climate change. But none of the key details were agreed – other than handing a central role to the World Bank

The widely discredited World Bank is attempting to reinvent itself as the...

WDM campaigned to clean up the bailed-out banks between 2009 and 2011.

Background

Following the financial crisis of 2008, the UK government used a staggering £45.5 billion of UK taxpayers’ money – the GDP of Kenya and Tanzania combined – to prop up the Royal Bank of Scotland.

RBS used that public money to finance projects and companies that threaten the climate and human rights, such as tar sands extraction in Madagascar and Canada.

Introduction

The Scottish Climate Change Act came into being in 2009, and since then the Scottish Government has done a great deal to promote its world-leading legislation, which includes a 42% reduction in Scotland’s own emissions by 2020, and 80% by 2050. More recently, the Scottish Government has produced an action plan called the ‘Report on Proposals and Policies’ which sets out which policies will be needed for Scotland to be able to achieve these targets.

This next Scottish Budget must reflect Scotland’s climate change ambitions. The Scottish Government is currently putting together the 2012-13 budget as well as a four-year spending review. The Scottish Parliament will then scrutinise the Budget and it will be agreed in February 2012. But this autumn is the key time to influence it, while it’s still in its early stages.

Why it matters

Recently, in its advice to Scottish Ministers, the UK Climate Change Committee stated that: ‘Scottish emissions reduction targets can be met at manageable economic cost... and should be accepted given the costs and consequences of not acting’.

Action in Scotland to reduce our emissions is a vital part of a just response to climate change. Whilst rich countries are responsible for most of the emissions...

Kirsty Wright, climate justice campaigner.

This June, we launched our Climate Loan Sharks report to coincide with a meeting of one of the World Bank’s climate funds, the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR). The fund was set up by rich donor countries such as the UK to provide finance to developing countries to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change. However the fund actually locks these countries into deeper debt by giving out finance as loans, rather than grants, in the name of tackling the impacts of climate change these countries did nothing to cause.

Meeting outcomes

The meeting of the PPCR, which took place in South Africa, was set to decide new climate loans for Cambodia, Mozambique, Nepal, St Lucia and Zambia. At the meeting the proposals for all five countries were approved; meaning that in total over $400m of new debt will be created. These countries are all already debt burdened, with two having already qualified for partial debt cancellation, highlighting the absurdity of building up this debt once again. In total, for the 11 countries that have had funding approved by the PPCR so far, over $1...

The World Bank has a long history of funding projects that are destructive to the environment and undermine human rights, investing in projects regardless of their devastating impacts both on local populations and on our planet. 

The case studies selected here demonstrate the range of projects (both geographically, and by type) that the Bank invests in, but they are by no means a definitive list. 

The World Bank has provided more than $6.7 billion in financing for these projects alone. The Bank has to be held to account for the crucial role it has played in fuelling climate change and human rights violations.

Click on the thumbnail images on the map to read about the destructive projects.

Emma Rubach. This article originally appeared in The Big Issue

There’s been a lot in the press recently about the fact Britain’s aid budget is one of the few areas of public spending not facing cuts. Despite detractors wondering how we can spend money overseas when we don’t seem to have much to spend at home, the government has been vocally proud of its commitment to helping poor countries out of poverty and to reaching the Millennium Development Goals.
 

Unfortunately, a recent report by campaign group World Development Movement (WDM) suggests that while we’re giving with one hand, we could be taking away with the other, thanks to the decision to offer climate adaption loans to poor countries through the World Bank. Much like the payday loan companies who target vulnerable people in need, desperate countries on the frontline of climate change will be offered cash to help adapt to the problems climate shifts create. The World Bank appears to be offering a kindly leg-up in a time of need – but as we cash strapped folk well know, all loans have to someday be paid back.
 

As WDM points out, it’s unfair to expect developing countries whose emissions could fit into a thimble to pay for the...

This Monday WDM campaigners came to the office with big smiles on their faces. Over the weekend, we’d heard that French Oil giant Total, subject to one of our latest online actions, had apparently cancelled its plans to mine tar sands in Madagascar.

High fives all around. Or?

As the story only seemed to have appeared on a mining industry website, we decided we needed to do some proper digging around. The first thing we did was get in touch with one of our allies in Madagascar. It can be just as hard for campaigners in Madagascar to get information as it is for us here, but their understanding is that Total isn’t going to pull out completely, but instead will extend its license to explore rather than moving on to full scale exploitation. 

This was also confirmed by Total’s business partner, ‘Madagascar Oil’ (based in Houston, not Madagascar), which announced last week that the two companies would not start full-scale mining, but will continue to test for the viability of both conventional oil and tar sands extraction.  

Basically, this means mining has been...