Blog

Kate Blagojevic, used to be press officer

The PR tactic of organising a meeting with your opponents days before a protest or critical report is launched is as old as the hills. But it can still be disarming.

WDM has been working with PLATFORM and People & Planet for a year on the campaign to get RBS to stop investing our money in dirty and unethical companies and projects. During that time, we have repeatedly asked for meetings with high level reps from RBS to explain why they are the target of our campaign so that they will see that we are talking sense. They have always ignored us or offered us a meeting with their head of corporate sustainability, Andrew Cave. With no disrespect to Andrew, a meeting with the head of corporate sustainability of the bank that's got a track record of investing in the most unsustainable fossil fuel projects in the world is as useful as a chocolate teapot. We need to get in higher up, with someone who we can talk about the real issues with, rather than getting the corporate, green-washed brush off.

On Friday with just days to go before nation-wide protests, including outside the conference centre in Edinburgh, RBS has offered us a meeting with Andrew and the Chair of RBS, Sir Philip Hampton. We're happy to have this...

This morning saw the inauguration of the People’s conference on climate change and mother earth rights. A crowd of thousands massed, a mixture of people from across the five continent of the world, creating a quilt of colour between indigenous dress and flags raised high as people awaited their host, Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of (what is now called) the ‘plurinational’ state of Bolivia, in spite of having one of the largest indigenous populations in Latin America. 

The crowds gathered under the sweltering sun in a vast auditorium, to the sounds of indigenous music from around the world, from the Maoris of New Zealand to Indian American tribes from Alaska, alongside indigenous music from across Latin America. This was interspersed with the voices ‘representatives of the people’s of the world’, people from social movements from across the five contents who conveyed their messages to the crowds, all strongly echoing the concept of the rights of Mother Earth; the concept that human rights cannot be met independently from the rights of our planet, that was submitted to the UNFCCC process in Copenhagen. Alongside this, the other common theme was a...

Arriving in a new country is often a total sensory overload: sights, sounds, smells. And then, as you quickly get used to it, things that had once, not long before, seemed so different and fascinating fast become so normal you barely even notice them. With this in mind, having just arrived in Bolivia this evening, I thought I’d try to capture some of my feelings and thoughts.

Bolivia is a country that has long fascinated me, and I’m excited to be here. There’s a sense in the air of something exciting coming together, people from so many diverse backgrounds and experiences meeting to discuss where next for the global climate justice movement in a way that brings the people who should be at the heart of the discussions back into the picture. If this happens as intended, it will be quite the opposite of my experience at the flawed UN climate talks in Copenhagen when, by the end of the two week negotiations, the majority of civil society delegations were literally locked out of the proceedings, and even most southern government country delegations weren’t able to enter the room where the Copenhagen Accord was being negotiations.

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Alex Wood, used to be Campaigns and Policy Assistant

On Thursday 8 April, the World Bank Board approved a $3.75 billion loan to the South African energy giant Eskom. The loan was opposed by an international coalition of 200 civil society groups lead by 65 South African social and environmental organisations. Despite a huge amount of green spin from the World Bank the core element of this loan is $3.05 billion for the completion of the 4800 MW Medupi coal-fired power station which will be the fourth biggest coal power station in the world.

The loan comes at a time when it is imperative that the world cuts its addiction to carbon and especially coal. South African civil society is resisting the loan as it will increase South Africa’s already high level of debt by 5 per cent. This debt is especially problematic as, being in dollars, it leaves South Africa further exposed to the perils of exchange rate fluctuations.

Civil society is also protesting that the loan will further entrench Eskom’s monopoly which has allowed it to provide below cost energy to some of the biggest corporations in the world, while the poor pay around four times as much per unit of energy. There are also serious corruption allegations that the ANC will receive millions of dollars...

May Abdalla

As Gordon Brown makes his visit to Her Majesty to call a UK election, there is a parallel campaign unfolding in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana.

While we have TV debates over tax, school budgets and prison reforms, people on the streets of Kabul, Dhaka and Accra will be discussing the policies of Brown, Cameron and Clegg with respect to climate change, development, trade and war. Thousands of people directly affected by UK policies will be using votes donated by UK citizens to be part of the process deciding their futures before casting a vote in the May 6 election.

I’m part of a team of volunteers working across four countries rewiring this election to give democracy a place in our global world.

Democracy means a lot more than a vote. Democracy means that we - the people - are the ultimate leaders in our political system. Politicians are accountable to us, and we are part of the decisions that affect our lives.

Nowhere is democracy more absent than at the international level. There is no democracy when deciding issues of climate change, trade or war.

Ghana is one of Africa’s most celebrated democracies and the first to achieve independence in 1953. In Ghana the rice staple is American, local water is sold through a...

Here in the UK, the review of legislation on dangerous dogs has caught media attention – how some dogs are being bred as weapons to intimate others and at times have attacked vulnerable people like children. It’s a strange analogy, and one which I probably would not have made myself, but this morning European campaigners wanted to make a point that EU trade policy is like a dangerous dog - it’s predatory, aggressive and dangerous to the poorest people in the world.
 

The S2B group of campaigners staged a media stunt outside a trade conference on ‘EU trade policy towards developing countries’ hosted by the European trade commission. A five-metre high inflated savage dog, representing EU trade policy, was let off its lead by a giant business official, attacking victims representing small farmers, small businesses, women and indigenous people from the developing world.

The S2B network, which WDM is a member of, criticised the conference as a poor attempt to wrap a dangerous corporate trade agenda in development rhetoric. Current trade policies benefit European multinationals helping them to reap more profits but threaten the livelihoods of small farmers and...

Yesterday the Fairtrade Foundation launched the start of their annual campaigning event: ‘Fairtrade Fortnight’ with the news that the value of Fairtrade sales, was up on 2008 by 12% to an estimated retail value of over £800m. We’ve come a long way and these figures paint a welcome picture that there is a growing number of people who care about the impact of their purchases on producers in developing countries. There is no denying that Fairtrade has benefited millions in developing countries and increasing UK sales will benefit many more. But the £800m Fairtrade sales is just a tiny slice of the overall pie where the grocery market alone is estimated at £150bn.

Fairtrade still has a long way to go and even then it can only go so far. The global trading system is unjust whether it is the European Union pushing for unfair trade deals with developing countries or unfair trade rules being negotiated at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Global trade...

So far the US and Europe has managed to find $3 trillion to bail out the banks, more than $1 trillion of which has gone to the UK banking sector. The financial crisis, caused by the banks themselves, has cased significant increases in poverty and inequality in both the developed and developing world.

This is why WDM is part of a coalition pushing for a financial transaction – ‘Robin Hood’ – tax  to de-incentivise risky trading practices and reduce volatility in markets. This is an excellent opportunity to turn the crisis of the bankers into something good for the world.

A Robin Hood tax could raise an estimated $600-700 billion a year which could be used for pay for socially useful projects in the UK and abroad. The tax should be levied on all bank trades, ranging from shares to foreign exchange and derivatives. The cash generated could be spend on a range of projects, including combating poverty at home and abroad as well as fighting climate change.

The tax would also prevent speculative bubbles arising, such as the one that caused the global food crisis in 2008 and led millions more people into hunger.
Whilst we campaign for an international tax, Europe and the UK do not have to wait for the rest of the...

Earlier this week, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) announced a new programme to support teaching on trade policy and ‘WTO-related matters’ in universities in developing countries. This programme would fund teaching, research and outreach on trade issues à la WTO.

The current Doha round is in its painful ninth year and the failure to come to a conclusion has been testament to the growing resistance of civil society and developing country governments to the bullying tactics at the WTO where rich countries have sought to fiercely promote corporate interests.

The WTO has made gains in opening up markets in developing countries but they want more. They are upping their game: If you can’t always get your way with negotiators from developing countries, why not groom some instant advocates in key countries, through a programme to indoctrinate, sorry I mean influence, a generation of potential policymakers and trade experts in the ways of the WTO?

This strategy bears uncanny resemblance to the 1957 US funded programme for Chilean students to study Economics at the University of Chicago, as cited by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine, in the hope of challenging the socialist regime back home. Chicago was, of course, home to Milton Friedman and these students were...

This is a guest post by Adam Ramsay who writes for the blog brightgreenscotland.org

It was President Eisenhower, I think, who coined the phrase “The Military Industrial Complex”. West Wing geeks know why he did so: if he couldn’t dismantle the monster he had helped create, he could at least describe it.

Naomi Klein’s book “The Shock Doctrine” describes what she calls “disaster capitalism”. Klein tells us how, the day after the Asian tsunami, tourist developers sent in armed security guards to mark out and claim newly cleared land they had long coveted. Apparently some people were physically prevented from returning home to collect the bodies of their children (The Shock Doctrine, p402).

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, an aging Milton Friedman wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal describing the hurricane as an opportunity to privatise schools. When the grieving residents of New Orleans returned home, they discovered that Bush’s government had taken advantage of the crisis. It had introduced policies they would have otherwise fought tooth & nail - asset stripping their public sector,...

Tim Jones, used to be policy officer

From Copenhagen

Last night I had my first decent sleep since Sunday. Having been stuck in the Bella Centre for most of the week, yesterday was the first time I had been out in daylight since last Monday.

I am one of the lucky ones; when final negotiations were happening on Saturday morning, Ed Miliband probably hadn't slept since Wednesday night.

It was into this tiredness that President Obama cast his judgement on the fate of millions of people. Late on Friday, he announced to the world's media that a consensus deal had been struck. With reports of a 'meaningful' deal on the front pages of a major news website, the propoganda war had begun.

But it soon became apparent that the President had lied to the world. The 'deal' was between just four countries . The EU couldn't decide what it thought. Most developing countries were in complete confusion about what was happening.

I joined queues of people at photocopiers in the Bella Centre trying to get their hands on 'the deal'. I thought I was out of the loop, until I saw many country negotiators behind me trying to find out what had been agreed in their name.

Last week we...

Yesterday afternoon the Guardian published a comment piece by WDM's policy officer Tim Jones and Nick Dearden from Jubilee Debt Campaign about what's going on in Copenhagen and the repression of activists outside who are demanding climate justice. A letter by a wider group of organisations including us was also published in the print newspaper today.

Copenhagen: the sound of silence

Denmark's reputation is being destroyed by police action outside the summit and the gagging of NGOs and poor nations inside
Nick Dearden and Tim Jones

The problem the Danish government faces gets bigger by the hour. Clearly the government is desperate for the UN climate summit in Copenhagen to be seen as a success, regardless of whether the deal done is capable of slowing down climate change in a just way. But it is faced with an ever-swelling army of critics who believe this issue is too important for a stitched-up compromise, negotiated late at night between corporate lobbyists and rich-country governments in conference hotel rooms.

Read the full article on the Guardian's Comment is Free

Letter: Protest curtailed in Copenhagen

...

David Johnstone, WDM south-west London group member, writes from Copenhagen

You can't walk far in Copenhagen without being reminded that the conference is in town. Virtually every billboard makes a claim of environmental virtue.

At Norreport Station, one of the city's main transport interchanges, advertisements for Danish wind energy company Vestas plastered all over the walls proclaim them the planet's saviours. The workers laid off when they closed their factory on the Isle of Wight earlier this year may be able to give a fuller picture.

Around every corner there's a climate-themed art work of dubious merit, a rock concert, or a film crew asking you for your 'message of hope' as a citizen of 'Hopenhagen'. As a campaigning veteran of 'Make Poverty History' and Live 8, I'm suspicious of any campaign involving rock stars and you often don't have to look far to spot a corporate logo. The message about the global injustice of climate change is not always so easy to find, though.

We received our clearest picture of what's happening at the Bella Centre, not in the newspapers or public squares of Copenhagen, but 30 km out of...

Tim Jones, used to be policy officer, writes from Copenhagen

On Monday our climate debt invoice was confiscated inside the negotiations for being ‘too political’. This seemed odd; a politics Geiger counter would explode if it were in the Danish capital. We concluded it was less a case of ‘too political’ than too ‘the wrong kind of political’.

To be more in tune with those in power, we decided to get on message on Tuesday. As negotiators moved from room to room we offered them some World Development Movement carbon cake.

Our ‘carbon cake’ could only be eaten by those who had already consumed too much; rich countries. Meanwhile delegates from developing countries were turned away.

Kirsty’s voice echoed through the halls: “Roll up roll up, get your carbon cake here. The cake for those who’ve already had too much.” Delegates from North America and Europe scoffed themselves on our high-fat, high-sugar Danish treats. When they looked embarrassed at their good fortune we reassured them: “Don’t worry about the shame, give someone else the blame.”

Those from developing countries had a look of bafflement and anger when we refused to let them share in the cake treats. Telling them “If you don’t get justice inside the talks, you don’t get it outside the...

Kate Blagojevic, used to be press officer, writes from Copenhagen

There is outrage in Copenhagen over a lot of different issues that include tar sands; climate finance; the World Bank; coal; nuclear; carbon trading and the very imminent plight of the small island states. There are of course a lot of sensitivities, politics and high feeling amongst the thousands of people from all over the world who have recently descended on this small city for an intense two weeks of negotiations.

The Danish organisers have committed several faux pas already of course, with the leaked draft text that caused uproar and upset. But it appears that even in an attempt to decorate this vast, maze like conference centre, more international anger has been sparked.
 
On the giant inflatable globe in the middle of the centre, the small island states of the Cook Islands and Pacific Islands are nowhere to be seen. To be clear this is not a futuristic scenario that the globe is supposed to be highlighting. More embarrassingly, it appears that they have been forgotten. In an international meeting, to forget to include these islands which are imminently threatened by sea level rises is causing a diplomatic problem that will not be easily solved.
 
Delegates and civil...

Tim Jones, former WDM policy officer, writes from Copenhagen

Along the streets of Copenhagen there are happily parked bikes with no locks. With my locked bike stolen a few weeks ago, I am jealous of the bike safety which permeates the Danish capital.

The main news in Copenhagen is from Brussels. Gordon Brown and Nicholas Sarkozy are making the headlines with ‘€2.4 billion [£1.5 billion] a year to help poor countries tackle climate change’.

If you read...

Kirsty Wright, WDM climate justice campaigner, writes from Copenhagen

Day three of the official negotiations and things are starting to heat up. The leaking of the Danish text yesterday – which exposes the paltry deal that rich countries were hoping to put on the table – has really shifted the tone in Copenhagen. Along with the outrage, there’s also some relief that, finally, the insulting deal that the rich countries are trying to impose on the negotiations has been exposed. To many in Copenhagen, particularly campaigners from the south who’ve spent years battling rich country governments through the WTO, it’s really no surprise at all. Outrage yes, surprise, no.

By signing up to the framework of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, the rich countries have in theory accepted their historical responsibility, agreeing to lead emissions reductions, to ensure technology transfer and to provide adequate finance for the irreversible damage that is already destroying people’s lives. Of course, what's happening is far from this. Rich country governments are not only completely shirking on their...

We set off early from Lille, where we had been hosted by members of the Confederation Paysanne. We have had an incredibly warm welcome in all the places we’ve stayed, and Lille was no exception. Everyone from the caravan was put up by someone from the Confederation in their home, and we left early on Sunday morning well fed and well rested.

This was just as well, because from Lille we travelled to Brussels where we were being hosted by the Corporate Europe Observatory, an organisation campaigning against corporate lobbying and influence within EU policy. They had an action packed agenda ready for us, and we soon set of for an activist’s tour of Brussels...

Our first stop was the European Commission. The Commission is heavily influenced by corporate lobbyists who have been successful in pushing through aggressive trade agreements and flawed climate policies which favour high carbon industry, intensify the exploitation of natural resources and discriminate against developing countries. The EU’s climate policy is mainly based on carbon trading and other false solutions that benefit big business without tackling climate change.
 

We were joined there by...

This morning it's been announced that Nestle will be gaining the Fair Trade mark for its four-fingered Kit Kat.

Although the World Development Movement is pleased that some small farmers in the Cote d'Ivoire will earn a little more as a result of Nestle's four-fingered, Kit Kat's move to Fairtrade, this is a long way from achieving trade justice.

It must be put into perspective: the Fairtrade mark only applies to sales of Kit Kat's four-finger bars in the first instance - and the premium represents less than one per cent of their Kit Kat sales. We won't be satisfied until we see a deeper transformation of their business model, not just in cocoa for one product, but for all products. Nestle's current model is based on paying farmers in the developing world a pittance whilst the company rakes in hundreds of millions of pounds of profits every year.

Nestle holds a staggering amount of power in the UK confectionery market, and the use of the Fairtrade label should not distract attention from Nestle's continued lobbying against any reforms to the unfair trade rules that keep the price of cocoa low.

With Fairtrade products now firmly established in the market, all of us in the Fairtrade movement should now raise our game by pushing for...

Kirsty Wright, WDM’s climate campaigner reports back on a tour around G77 embassies on her way to Copenhagen.

I write this as the train is pulling out of Cologne station. I’m on route to the UN climate talks in Copenhagen. It’s late, and I’m tired, filled with anticipation about what’s to come, and if I’m honest, also exhausted and slightly overwhelmed by the past few weeks.

In the run up to Copenhagen WDM have been working with the Jubilee Debt Campaign and activists all around the UK to make sure the government hears our demand for climate justice. In the process of becoming wealthy through a high carbon development model, the UK along with the rest of the rich world has built up an historic responsibility for causing climate change, and has left little space for the rest of the world to develop in the same way. This means we now owe a massive climate debt to the rest of the world. Over the past few weeks, thousands of people have joined us in sending climate debt invoices to Gordon Brown, along with messages of support to the G77 countries (a group of 130 developing countries negotiating together for a fair outcome in the talks). Yesterday, we delivered these messages.

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Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali are collectively known as the ‘cotton 4’ because they are cotton producing countries in West Africa and have been trying to the get the US to reduce their cotton subsidies for almost a decade.

The US subsidises its cotton production which leads to over-supply and subsequently a low market price for cotton. Today I heard Ambassador Samuel Amehou from Benin speak at an Africa Trade Network event about the desperation that farmers are feeling and the injustice of the situation “Farmers are losing hope for their cotton. Something needs to be done urgently otherwise our cotton sector will die and many farmers will end up in a bad situation.”

Tomorrow the WTO ministerial closes and no doubt, there will be some statement that re-affirms the Doha round to be about development. There may even be a renewed commitment to conclude the round by the end of 2010. But this cotton issue clearly illustrates the WTO negotiations are not about development, they are not about poverty alleviation and not about giving farmers in the cotton 4 a fair chance to make a sustainable living. And this is just one example of how a WTO deal would hurt the poorest people in the...

I need to apologise for ‘dissing’ my badge yesterday because today it proved to be a really useful friend. It got me and 30 other trade campaigners from around the world, into the ministerial conference where we were able to stand just outside of the door to the hall where the opening plenary was held. As the delegations were entering the hall, they were greeted with us singing WTO protest songs to the tune of ‘Jingle bells’ and ‘It’s been a hard day’s night’.

There was a great atmosphere as most of the delegates found it amusing and enjoyed the commotion. The opening session is often littered with speeches about the merits of the WTO but we wanted the delegates and press to see that there is much opposition to WTO policies across the world.

I met Pabs Rosales who is a fisherman from the Philippines (they call themselves ‘fisherfolk’ so that is how I will refer to them from here on) who leads the Progressive Fisherfolk Alliance in the Philippines.

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The day started with the news that three members of the Korean delegation were being detained at the airport. Yoon Geum Sum, from the Korean Women Peasant Association, La Via Campesina told us how the three members were stripped naked and searched. She said: "This is a violation of human rights and a criminalisation of social movements." I've just heard that they have already been sent on a flight back home.

So the mood was dampened by this news but then we had to start getting ready for the mass demonstration which had been arranged by the local Swiss campaigners.

I was really looking forward to this demonstration as I had heard about it months ago and at WDM we have been encouraging our local groups to stage media stunts in their local areas in solidarity with the Geneva based protest today.

So I was spurred on knowing that many of our own activists and groups were doing likewise back home.

However, halfway through the march, I started noticing shop after shop had smashed windows,

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We've had a twitter equivalent of STOP PRESS - apparently Ed Miliband definitely doesn't think it's serious to say 'UK's credibility at Copehnahgen will be shattered by his new coal plant plans. 

Ed Miliband is of course at pains to say that we have the world's most environmentally stringent policy, so of course our credibility at Copenhagen will remain intact, pretty much what ever we do. But we, and many others, disagree strongly with that. We have got climate legislation, yes, but unfortunately within the Climate Act, there are loopholes the size of several coal power stations. And that's where our credibility will fall.

The government’s own committee on climate change has said: “there can be no role for conventional coal generation in the UK beyond the early 2020s”. But Ed Miliband’s statement yesterday allows hundreds of megawatts of new conventional coal to be built, and does nothing to ensure old conventional coal plants shut down in the early 2020s.

In our view, and the view of campaigners across the globe, it's just not serious enough to say we've got a tough climate law but we're...

Tim Jones

Funny old week. You stoically campaign on an issue of life and death for a year, and just when you wonder if anyone really takes the injustice of climate change seriously, three campaign successes come along in the space of a few days.

On Wednesday night I was in Medway at a local meeting against Kingsnorth power station. It was only towards the end of the evening we realised we should have spent the evening down the pub when word came through that E.On have put Kingsnorth on hold. After two years of fantastic campaigning, it was amazing to learn the news while standing alongside the inspiring local campaigners who live within sight of the coal megalith. Campaigners 1, carbon polluters 0.

Our WDM friends in Scotland obviously felt a bit grumpy by our cheeriness south of the border. Yes Kingsnorth was the one application for a new coal power station in the UK. But Danish company Dong have been working hard on an application for a typhoon-strengthening, drought-causing coal burner at Hunterston in Ayshire. Not anymore. Today Dong withdrew their investment, probably pulling the plug on the whole project.

With coal power stations falling quicker than a premiership striker, you might have missed the news story on Heathrow. BAA are reportedly not...