Download Stop the Corporate Climate Change Vandals Dec 09 plus refs

Stop the Corporate Climate Vandals!
To be published in Chartist, December 2009/January2010 issue
Copenhagen has ended with the world on track for a disastrous temperature rise of at least 3C, as
revealed by a leaked United Nations assessment of the emissions cuts promised by various nations:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/17/un-leaked-report-copenhagen-3c.
The
vague
deal
between the USA, China, India, and others is inadequate. The aspiration for the developed countries to pay
$100 billion a year to developing nations by 2020 is too slow, because emissions need to peak within six
years. China’s promise to cut its emissions by nearly half per unit of output, and to allow a mechanism to
verify this, is a step forward. But much greater de-carbonisation and financial commitments from the
developed world are needed to persuade and enable the developing nations to switch to a low-carbon
pathway. As the politicians have not signed a binding treaty, global civil society will need to enforce the
emissions cuts required. The Tck Tck Tck global petition gained an amazing 15 million signatures
demanding a fair and effective treaty: http://tcktcktck.org/people/i-am-ready. We can repeat this campaigning
feat to show industry and governments that we will not tolerate them destroying our world. Below I suggest
how we can do this.
Public cynicism about politicians will be increased by their failure at Copenhagen. Therefore as we
enter an uncertain political future, with no comparable deadline, it will be difficult to sustain the momentum of
conventional campaigns aiming to pressurise governments. The head of a large environmental NGO
recently said that if there was no deal at Copenhagen, many people would give up. Moreover, as many will
perceive Copenhagen’s failure to be largely due to the United States, citizens in other countries will probably
feel particularly disempowered. Such feelings of impotence are probably also contributing to an apparent
upsurge in climate change denial. Two recent British polls found that only half of people are confident that
climate change is caused by human activity, with nearly four in ten saying this remained uncertain:
http://www.populus.co.uk/the-times-the-times-poll-november-2009-081109.html;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/6737353/Only-one-in-two-voters-accepts-man-made-climatechange-according-to-new-poll.html. A recent 23 nation poll found that well below half of people wanted their
government to play a leadership role to tackle climate change urgently, while an almost identical proportion
either wanted their government to support only gradual action, or refuse to join an international agreement.
Among Americans those favouring gradual action, or refusal, outnumbered those wanting urgent
government
leadership
by
a
clear,
albeit
modest,
margin:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/04_12_09climatepoll.pdf.
Therefore we must think creatively about our strategy to achieve substantial emissions cuts.
Politicians know that for most people, especially in the developed world, health, unemployment, crime, and
the other established issues are greater priorities than climate change. Moreover since the recession, the
money governments have to address these issues is very limited. As many people perceive politicians to be
relatively unresponsive, and few major countries have national elections soon, our post-Copenhagen
strategy should not primarily be more cajoling of politicians. While we must try to increase pressure on
governments, an effective complementary strategy may be an international campaign to boycott companies
which finance the most indefensible forms of greenhouse gas pollution. I suggest these should be
companies which invest in tar sands oil, coal, and activities causing deforestation, as described in my article
in November’s Chartist: http://www.timroot.net/?q=articles. By highlighting these companies’ greed and
irresponsibility, we can tap a strong vein of distrust of corporate power, recently strengthened by the banks’
excesses. This focus will sidestep scepticism regarding both climate science, and the feasibility of
influencing politicians. Gordon Brown recently said “the public need to be angry about the extent to which we
have not taken action [on climate change] sufficiently”. A boycott campaign could provide a better outlet for
that anger, and thus stimulate it more, than politician-focused campaigns. For most people, arousing oneself
to anger against someone perceived as unresponsive results only in frustration. Inflicting with little effort an
immediate punishment on a corporate climate criminal is much more satisfying than a politician-focused
action whose outcome is distant and unpredictable.
Boycotts can succeed with only minority support, because this is enough to hit a company’s profits
and competitiveness seriously. Within its first fourteen months, the Stop Esso campaign persuaded one
British driver in twenty to boycott Esso1. The website www.greenamericatoday lists many successful
boycotts. If a few large NGOs agreed on a few suitable targets which people could boycott without too much
effort, and grass-roots activists publicised the campaign, it could be very successful. Adding aviation to the
three targets would be a mistake, causing some people to feel the campaign was lecturing them about their
own behaviour. By instead being aroused to anger about corporate carbon pollution, people would become
more likely to recognize in due course that they also need to reduce their own carbon footprint.
The boycott campaign would also show politicians the strength of public concern. Boycotted
companies would doubtless complain to governments. However this would show governments the boycott’s
commercial impact, and therefore they would see that for the good of the economy, if nothing else, they
needed to ensure that investments in low-carbon energy were incentivised. The campaign would also
encourage businesses considering investing in low-carbon products/services to demand that government
implement a long-term economic structure to foster such investment. It could thus strengthen pressure on
governments to secure an international agreement. It would also show governments that we can take them
by surprise, and thus make them anxious to placate us. Most importantly, if it inspired more people to
become active, we might avert climate catastrophe. The president of the Maldives, islands facing early
destruction if sea level continues to rise, described governments’ stubbornness as “a recipe for collective
suicide. We don’t want a global suicide pact.”2 If you agree, please contact me to back a boycott!
References
1.
Rob Geuterbock (2004) ‘Greenpeace Campaign Case Study – Stop Esso’, Journal of Consumer
Behavior, 3, 265-271
2. Oliver Tickell, ‘The World in their Hands’, The Times (Copenhagen: Climate of Change
supplement), 24 November 2009, p. 2
Email: [email protected]
Tim Root is a Friends of the Earth activist, and author of Love, Empowerment, and Social Justice: Personal Relationships
and Citizen Action (Open Gate Press, 2005)