Climate Change Action

Global Climate Campaign conference call 23rd of April

On the call:

Fiona Dear Campaign against Climate Change (UK)
John Ackers Campaign against Climate Change (UK)
Diana Vogtel Campaign against Climate Change (UK)
Ben Margolis GCAP (Global Call against Poverty) (UK)
Dylan Penner Act for the Earth (Canada)
Felix Nieto Globalizate (Spain)
Will Bates 350.org (US)
Christina Hering Klima Allianz (Germany)
Mareike Britten Greenpeace International
Susann Scherbarth FOE Europe

Reports from countries around the world on prospects for the Global Day of Action 2008 and other campaigning activities:

Felix reports from Spain: on 20th April over 40 organisations including Greenpeace Spain and FOE Spain organised a rally through Madrid. There was a turnout of 3000, which was smaller than expected due to bad rain, but at the protest they started leafleting for the GDA demonstration, which will be on 29th November as 6th December is a bank holiday. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth Spain will also be involved in the Spanish GDA protest this year.

Dylan reports from Canada: they are starting a tour on biotechnology and biofuels, and are also planning a climate camp this summer at Parliament Hill. This event can be used to spread the word about the next GDA mobilisation. There is one obstacle in Canada for the next GDA as the 6th of December is the Day against violence against women (remembering a massacre 20 years ago). However, Act for the Earth is trying to make as many links as possible to women’s groups and the gender aspect of climate change to turn this obstacle into an advantage. As an aftermath of the protests last year 6 people who got arrested will face trial this May. Act for the Earth will try to use these trials as an opportunity to put the national climate policies “on trial”. Another focus for Canadian organisations will be the G8 that will be back in Canada in 2010.

Will reports from the US: in the US a team of campaigners (including former campaigners from Step it Up) are concentrating on a campaign called 350 to push the international community to adopt CO2 emissions reduction targets that will keep CO2 gases under 350ppm. The webpage will be ready end of May/beginning of June. The idea is to organise days of action around the number and to find people supporting this campaign in their countries.

Mareike reports from Greenpeace International: For the build up to the Poznan talks GI are organising a boat tour with the first ship having already left from New Zealand to reach Poland later in the year passing China, India and Spain. In Poland itself Greenpeace will organise a climate camp next to an open coalmine. For the Poznan talks the Solar Generation Network (the global youth network of Greenpeace) is planning to get involved with actions.

Susann reports from FOE Europe: FOE Europe supports the GDA 2008. They are focusing more on the talks in Copenhagen in 2009 rather than the Poznan talks. However, FOE youth groups will organise a meeting in Poland with about 50 delegates from around Europe and collecting messages from all around the world to display at the Poznan talks. Other FOE groups will get involved in actions in their own countries and it is also planned to use the ESF in Sweden for promotion.

Christina reports from Germany: the Klima Allianz will organise local actions all around Germany for the GDA and they will also mobilise people from the eastern part of Germany to go to Poznan. Beforehand there will be two big demonstrations at coal plants on September the 13th.

Diana reports from Australia: the organisers of the Walks against Warming (climate demonstrations all over Australia that saw over 100.000 people out in the streets at the last two events) have reported that they will join in on the GDA this year (last year the Walks against Warming happened two weeks before their national elections to push climate change up the election agenda and get rid of a climate unfriendly government –successfully!) and will start preparations for this event soon. At the moment they are getting their thinking caps on for how to make the Walks against Warming even bigger and more appealing this year.

Fiona reports back from the UK: the three main campaign issues for groups in the UK are at the moment (1) Biofuels (CCC has just organised a public protest against the introduction of the RTFO -Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation - in the UK – working together with BiofuelWatch), (2) Aviation (together with Greenpeace UK, Hacan, NOTRAG and the 2M group CCC is organising a big rally against the plans for a third runaway at Heathrow Airport on 31st May) and (3) the building of new coal fired power plants (there is a proposal pending to build the first new coal plant in the UK for 30 years in Kingsnorth, Kent) For the GDA 2008 there are plans to bring all three of these issues together in a huge rally in London..

Ben reports from GCAP: the Global Call against Poverty (GCAP) just recently started to work on climate change (they have focused more on development and poverty issues in the past) and make the connection between these two issues. They sent a small team to Bali and are now figuring out how to get involved and build alliances.

Report back from Warsaw and Brussels meeting:

Diana reports back from the Brussels meeting: on the 8th of March representatives from European groups from Belgium, France, Denmark, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Italy as well as representatives from Greenpeace International, FOE Europe and the European Green Party met to discuss their plans for the GDA 2008 and plans for the Copenhagen talks. It has been decided to meet again in Copenhagen this year in September before the ESF to discuss how the GDA can be expanded in Europe and the mobilisation in 2008 can build up to the next GDA in 2009 to ensure a huge mobilisation at the critical Copenhagen talks.
Information about the upcoming meeting in Copenhagen will be distributed around the Global Climate e-mail list.

The meeting in Warsaw initiated by Greenpeace Poland and CCC saw lots of energy coming from the Polish groups that attended the meeting to mobilise for this year’s GDA. The idea of a big rally followed by a concert was raised and the Polish climate alliance will follow up on that idea. The Polish groups will meet soon, both in Poznan and Warsaw, to build a steering group and discuss further details.
Information about the mobilisation process in Poland will be distributed around the Global Climate e-mail list.

Global Climate Campaign meetings in the build-up to the GDA 2008:
Copenhagen meeting – see report back from the Brussels meeting above

Events we can use to promote the GDA 2008:

Global Greens meeting (1st-4th May): Fiona from CCC will attend and give a workshop about the Global Climate Campaign in cooperation with GCC colleagues from Nepal
Mini COP in Bonn (2nd-13th June): Christina and Mareike will be there; Greenpeace and FOE will have actions there.
G8 (5th-9th July): someone from CCC will probably attend, GCAP will be there and Greenpeace and FOE have local offices there that could be contacted to find out what Greenpeace Japan and FOE Japan are planning around climate and the G8

Major Emitters meeting (in July):

Mini COP Ghana (in August): Ghana National CSO Youth Coalition just launched – Dylan will send out more information on the Global Campaign e-mail list

ESF (17th-21st September): Global Climate Campaign meeting in Copenhagen shortly before the ESF. CCC will organise workshops there and are looking for other organisations to work together to push the climate issue at the ESF

GCC newsletter and collation of reports, photos, videos from GDA 2008:

One idea at the Brussels meeting was to start a platform for exchanging news and ideas from different climate campaigns in Europe and around the world – Diana offered to start by using the news section of the Global Climate campaign webpage to put up news bits etc. and to develop this into a regular short e-mail update later in the year (depending on time capacity in the CCC office). So all climate campaigns are invited to send their recent updates, news etc… to info@globalclimatecampaign.org and Diana will put the info up on the GCC webpage. John mentioned that the GCC webpage gets 400-500 hits per day during the year and 4000-5000 hits per day in the run up for the GDA in November/December.

Dylan reported from their plans in Canada to produce a YouTube video to promote the GDA 2008. They had a good experiences with this last year and he reckons that we could use also the video outside Canada and translate it into other languages. He asks for help with translation as well as video footage from the last GDA from around the world. Mareike mentions that GI is working with volunteer translators who may help with that.

AOB:

Ben points out that the 10th of December is the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights and suggests building up good links to human rights groups in the run-up to the GDA 2008.

Next call:

The next conference call will be on the 21st of May at 12 noon, GMT.