As avid followers of our blog will know, Otesha, People & Planet and Magnificent Revolution sent a joint open letter about the questionable corporate sponsorship of Climate Week.
- the organisers of Climate Week (who did not reply)
- the celebrities who have put their name to it (who also did not reply, although apparently it was forwarded on to Vivian Westwood’s PA)
- the sponsors (Tesco, RBS, Aviva, EDF and Kellogs, as yet no reply from any of them either)
- all of the voluntary sector organisations who’ve signed up to support Climate Week
We didn’t have many responses from the voluntary sector, but those we did have were pretty interesting. One organisation were adamant that they were not affiliated in any way with Climate Week (Climate Week’s website thinks otherwise). Another group thanked us “for speaking out”. Another asked us to consider our position on the ground that “it’s probably best to welcome even small, maybe token, steps like this (RBS’ involvement)… after all, somebody in RBS probably argued their heads off to get even this agreed”. Someone else we contacted shared how they had thought long and hard about supporting Climate Week, “in my personal life, I encourage everyone I know to bank with alternatives to the main high street banks (they are all bad) and I don’t shop at Tescos and encourage friends and family to shop locally. However, in my professional life I need to try to reach beyond the converted and I think Climate Week is a way of doing so”. Others thanked us for simply sharing our thoughts and concerns.
UKYCC, after accepting an award for Most Inspirational Young Person, issued a statement which outlined their concerns about RBSs sponsoring Climate Week whilst still being heavily involved in the destructive tar sands development project in Canada.
Then to top it all off, the Guardian revealed that Climate Week is a for-profit organisation! And that last one left me speechless. Ok, it didn’t, of course I have plenty to say about profiting from Climate Week, but it’s all so obvious that I’m not even going to bother. We all know what I would say anyway.
Dear Climate Week Supporters, Sponsors, Organisers and Judges,
We are writing to you because of your involvement with March 2011 Climate Week. This signifies a clear commitment to taking strong action on climate change, and we applaud you for this. Whilst we are completely behind the aims of Climate Week, we have concerns about Climate Week’s corporate sponsors, the Royal Bank of Scotland in particular. Some organisations who were invited to enter the Climate Week awards, including the Otesha Project and Magnificent Revolution, have been unable to do so because they feel that the association of RBS with Climate Week constitutes ‘greenwash’.
We support Climate Week’s intention to ‘shine a spotlight on the many positive steps already being taken in workplaces and communities across Britain’ and use these examples to inspire others. However we do not agree that RBS is ‘supporting the transition to a low carbon economy’.
Unfortunately any positive steps taken by RBS in their business operations and in their investment in the renewable energy sector are far outweighed by RBS’ continued investment in carbon intensive industries. Whilst sponsorship of Climate Week could constitute a welcome first step on a journey to more sustainable practice for a bank which self-identifies as ‘The Oil and Gas Bank’, there is currently no evidence to suggest that this sponsorship represents anything more significant than ‘greenwash’. Perhaps this rebranding is a response to continued criticism from numerous NGOs and grassroots campaigns, which has led to more widespread negative publicity for the bank. However it is concrete action, not rebranding, which is required.
RBS cites its high ranking by the Carbon Disclosure Project as testimony to its environmental credentials. Unfortunately the CDP ranking does not appear to have sufficient scope to capture the entirety of carbon emissions for which a company such as RBS is responsible: only the energy usage within bank branches and offices is taken into account. Whilst every action taken to reduce carbon emissions is important, it is vital that we do not allow the championing of RBS’ weak energy saving measures to obscure the far more damaging practices financed by RBS, such as the coal, oil and gas industries. We are particularly concerned with RBS’ financing of the Canadian Tar Sands, the exploitation of this resource is trampling indigenous rights, destroying vast areas of ancient boreal forest, and has the potential to cause runaway climate change (for more information see ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/canadian-oil-sands/kunzig-text).
Sponsorship from companies with such weak green credentials lends legitimacy to the flawed concept that one small action is a sufficient reaction to climate change and that changing the light bulbs allows us to continue ‘business as usual’.
We urge you to reconsider your involvement with Climate Week and to raise these concerns with others involved in Climate Week.
If you would like to discuss any of the points raised in this letter further, please contact Jo Clarke (jo@otesha.org.uk).
Watch this video. No really, it’s less than a minute long. Watch it. Laugh. Send it to all your friends. Then watch it again.
Although the haters will persist in spreading lies, the science is on our side, and a recent survey shows that despite all the climate skepticism we’ve been having recently, most people still view climate change as a huge threat. In an opinion poll many said that the last two unusually cold winters had actually made them worry more about ‘global warming’. Maybe they saw the video and don’t want to go to prison.
According to the Guardian (in an article about a Guardian/ICM opinion poll), the public’s belief in global warming as a man-made danger has weathered the storm of climate controversies and cold weather intact.
The UK suffered two unusually cold winters in 2009 and 2010. But three times more people said the freezing weather had actually made them worry more about global warming than those who were less worried. The finding runs counter to the idea that people are influenced more by local conditions than by reports of globally rising temperatures. It may also indicate an understanding of how warming is projected to increase extreme weather events and that people distinguish between changes in short-term weather and long-term climate.
While climate sceptics remain a vocal presence in some parts of the climate change debate, the new poll shows them to represent a fringe position.
I’m sadly prone to moaning about stuff and not getting off my behind and doing anything about it. So this month I encourage you, in fact I challenge you, to make a fuss.
You don’t necessarily have to superglue yourself to a bank to make a difference. Fuss may also be easy, fun and polite.
Sign an online petition, or, now and again, reply to a consultation and send an email to your MP. Get to know your MP, (mine is currently asking calm informed questions about carbon emissions from coal fired power stations – and getting real answers for the minister for Climate Change Charles Hendry* – get free alerts from this wonderful website ). Pat him/her on the head when s/he gets something right. Who’s a good elected representative? You are! Yes you are! Get out of your comfort zone.
When you are boycotting something, send a short note explaining you are doing so (otherwise, trust me, they won’t have a clue). Boycotts do work and they have a long history of contributing to social change. In 1791 following Parliament’s refusal to abolish slavery, a boycott led to a 30-50% drop in the sales of sugar. Shops responded by selling sugar guaranteed to have been produced by ‘free men’. Learn more here.
Or write to a company of a product or service you do use to ask them about their ethical policy – you’ll have a lot of sway as a proper consumer what gives them money and everything.
If you made a fuss and it didn’t work? Well maybe it did in an intangible way, maybe you inspired someone else to make a fuss and they did get something done, maybe you helped to create a backdrop for a more fuss-making society. As a person who I can’t remember once said; democracy is only as good as we make it.
*His mum was in our shop (at CAT) yesterday. Oh my, we did get excited. Yeah, we get all the stars here.
A fascinating snapshot showing where the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are coming from and where they’re going to (click to link to a larger version).
The data’s from 2000 so it needs an update, but I’d wager that things haven’t changed that dramatically in the past ten years. Source: World Resources Institute.
Last week we had a phone call inviting us to enter the Climate Week Awards. Climate Week is a new national event to get individuals, schools and businesses taking action on climate change. So far, so good. But closer inspection reveals that Climate Week is sponsored by RBS, the infamous publicly owned bank sometimes also known as the ‘Oil Bank of Scotland’ (see Platform’s report on RBS’s financing of oil and gas industries). So it would appear that while RBS are funding Climate Week, they’re also funding climate change.
Other dubious sponsors of Climate Week include Tesco and EDF Energy. Tesco now controls over 30% of the grocery market in the UK. In 2010, the supermarket chain announced profits of £3.4bn. Growing evidence indicates that Tesco’s success is partly based on trading practices that are having serious consequences for suppliers, farmers and workers worldwide, local shops and the environment.
EDF Energy produce almost one-quarter of the nation’s electricity from nuclear, coal and gas power stations, as well as combined heat and power plants and wind farms. 25% of their electricity is produced through burning coal and only 7% comes renewables (less than the UK’s target to get 10% of all electricity generation from renewable sources by 2010).
So what to do? We are taking a multi-pronged approach:
Otesha will not be entering any Climate Week Awards. We have a corporate screening policy that prevents us from accepting donations from ‘corporations whose practices or reputation might, in the opinion of staff or management committee, diminish the credibility of Otesha UK; corporations that actively promote environmental citizenship without actively adjusting corporate practices to respond to those needs; corporations that through advertising methods actively participate in green washing‘. Although any Award we might receive would not be financial, we consider an ‘in kind’ donation of publicity or any other support to also be subject to the same criteria.
We are writing an open letter to Climate Week, Climate Week’s judges, sponsors and supporting organisations explaining our decision and our concerns.
Whilst we have concerns about the funding of Climate Week we are completely supportive of the aims of Climate Week. We are inviting schools to partner with Otesha to mark Climate Week with hands-on sustainability workshops on Fairtrade, bike maintenance, recycled fashion, the media and consumerism, growing food and energy use in the school.
We know that lots of other organisations have been considering the same Climate Week condundrum, and we’d be interested to know what other people think.
I was very excited when Sarah Corbett of crafty activist group The Craftivist Collective got in touch to ask if I would help her make a video about their Valentines project, and even more excited when I heard that Joise Long, Otesha’s very own patron, was getting involved…
For the last few years the Craftivist Collective have been attempting to ‘hijack’ valentines day by asking people to “show some love” for their global neighbours, as well as their BFs, GFs, BFFs etc. This year they have teamed up with the cult jewellery designer Tatty Devine and on February 14th will be taking to the streets all over the UK to plant alternative love letters, complete with beautiful handmade keyrings, so that they can be stumbled across and make someone’s day whilst raising awareness about climate change. The idea is that whoever finds the letters will not only have the instant impact and mind stirrings from reading the letter (extract below), but will have a beautiful keyring to keep, which will remind them of the project and hopefully spur other actions and conversations.
To my Valentine,
Every year February 14th comes around and provides us with a beautiful opportunity to show someone we care about them: most of the time we direct that love at just one person. This year I want to encourage you not to limit that extraordinary capacity we have to just one person, but to love the world. In the name of love, brighten up someone’s day and remind them of our global community and inspire them to get stirred up to think about how the poorest people in the world are being affected by climate change, despite having contributed the least to the problem.
The best thing about the project is that anyone can get involved – there are already groups doing the project in London, Leeds, Bristol, Bangor and Newcastle. I really recommend it – even just making one, it’s brilliant hiding the letters and then watching people find them and the intrigued bemusement and fat smiles that ensue, all whilst raising awareness on a day which has become so ridiculously commercialised.
In April 2010, 13 people literally put their necks on the line blockading the railway at Ffos y Fran and halting the coal train on its way to Aberthaw power station. Ffos y Fran, in Merthyr Tydfil is the largest opencast coal mine in the UK. There has been a long campaign opposing Ffos y Fran mine by local residents and climate activists alike.
A spokesperson for the Rising Tide activists said, “Opencast mining trashes the landscape, contributes massively to climate change and threatens the health of local people. We need to leave coal in the ground, and that’s why we put our necks on the line to stop a coal train.”
“With their hands in the pockets of corporations, it’s not surprising that governments failed us at the Copenhagen climate summit. We can’t rely on their false solutions anymore. It’s up to ordinary people taking direct action to stop climate chaos. Fossil fuel extraction devastates communities and is being resisted around the world, from opencast mining in Merthyr to tar sands oil in Alberta, Canada.”
The industrial-age old debate goes on and on, although the proposed expansion of Heathrow Airport has been withdrawn (and the village of Sipson saved with it) train travel in the UK is the most expensive in Europe, while airlines continue to fly on tax free fuel. Luckily the Campaign for Better Transport are on hand to explode a few common myths about flying.
Myth No.1: Passenger jets are just 2% of global CO2 emissions.
In the late 1990s aviation accounted for 2% of global CO2 emissions, since then there has been a huge expansion of airports and short-haul flights. CO2 isn’t the only greenhouse gas emitted by flying and those effects are magnified at high altitude (to work out the full greenhouse impact of a flight multiply its CO2 emissions by around 2.7). It’s also worth remembering that most of the world isn’t flying. The British population, on the other hand, takes more flights per capita than any other country in the world (and aviation makes up 13% of the UK’s climate impact).
Myth No.2: Cheap flights are helping poorer people to fly for the first time
Low-skilled people and those on benefits take 6% of flights (despite making up 25% of the population), meanwhile the wealthiest 25% of the population take almost half of all flights. While air travel has been getting progressively cheaper over the last decade, the cost of bus travel (the most common mode of public transport for the poorest 25% of the population) has increased by 24% in real terms.
Myth No.3: We can expand airports and tackle climate change
Not according to the UK’s top climate scientists we can’t. The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research predicts that the UK’s aviation emissions alone could exceed the government’s target for the country’s entire output of greenhouse gases in 2050 by up to 134%.
For all the fair weather cyclists out there 10:10 have some tips for surviving winter cycling: wear the biggest gloves you can find (ski gloves are good), invest in some waterproofs, get visible, get some mudguards, take care of your bike (keep it clean and oiled) and charge your lights. There aren’t many good things to be said about hills, but pedalling up one will get you warm.
For those of you waiting for buses and trains in the cold, we recommend star jumps (the warm glow will last longer than the stares from your fellow passengers). Dancing will also do the trick.
