Dear fossil fuel industry - it´s over

It's been a long week here in Berlin, with experts and government officials finalising urgently awaited conclusions from the United Nations climate change panel about the solutions to climate change. Now they’re done and the message is clear: climate action is an opportunity, not a burden!

 

The climate panel, which brings together the world's top energy and climate experts, says that to prevent catastrophic climate change, energy systems around the world must be urgently and fundamentally transformed. For Greenpeace, the bottom line is: we have to stop burning coal, oil and gas. And we can.

Clean, renewable energy is getting bigger, better and cheaper every day and can now provide the solutions the world needs. Renewables are the most economical solution for new power capacity in an ever increasing number of countries.

The "age of renewables" has arrived.

Clean energy is not costly, but inaction is. Costly in terms of lives, livelihoods and economies if governments and business continue to allow climate change impacts to escalate.

The problem now is the outdated dirty energy system. Old polluting power plants, for example. When we talk to people at major energy firms these days, they admit in private that they understand the need to move to clean energy. But the investments that companies such as Vattenfall or E.On have tied up in dirty energy plants, and that may soon be stranded (i.e. wasted) assets, is holding them back.

Now is the time to tell the fossil fuel industry that their time is up. The phase-out of fossil fuels must start immediately.

Greenpeace is committed to making this a just transition that respects also the rights of all workers in the dirty energy sector. We know from our Energy Revolution analyses over the past decade that renewables and energy efficiency will deliver more jobs than carrying on with dirty energy.

By implementing the Energy Revolution governments can, for example, help businesses create 3.2 million more jobs by 2030 in the global power supply sector alone. In South Africa, to pick just one country, 149,000 direct jobs could be created by 2030. That's 38,000 more than in the current government plan.

We have no time to lose. Global greenhouse gas emissions grew faster between 2000 and 2010 than in previous decades, says the UN climate panel. More than half of the recent growth in global carbon emissions was caused by China burning ever more coal.

Continuing that trend would spell global disaster. But a triple whammy of air pollution, water scarcity and climate risk is turning China around on coal. China's recently adopted clean air measures have the potential to not just let Chinese citizens breath cleaner air again, but to end the relentless rise of global climate pollution before 2020.

China´s turnaround on coal could also change the dynamics in the global climate debate. The Chinese government could end the current "you go first" mentality that has poisoned progress through the UN climate talks. Instead of fighting over who gets to pump out the most carbon pollution, governments have to face reality and agree that by 2050 no one will be polluting our common atmosphere any longer.

True, countries differ in their capacity to invest in a zero-emissions future. Countries which, in the past, have emitted little should be supported by richer nations in eliminating their old, dirty system. But the days where climate action was thought of as something painful must be over.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if China, emboldened by its domestic actions, were to lead the world to a new global climate agreement by presenting an ambitious new target with binding emission cuts? Imagine how embarrassing that would be for the US and the EU! How could the EU then continue to claim that its proposed 40% cut in emission by 2030 was "ambitious"? Would the EU feel pushed to make a fairer offer, instead - such as cutting emissions within the EU by at least 55%?

A new global climate treaty is due to be adopted in Paris next year. It must include the goal of 100% renewable energy for all and the phase-out of fossil fuels. Only then can governments claim to have understood the true implications of the UN climate report they reviewed this week.

Energiewende not to blame for rise in lignite use in Germany

Earlier this year figures came out that Germany was using more lignite. There was a lot of false reporting on this, blaming Germany´s nuclear phase out for rising emissions etc.. So my colleagues over at the excellent Energydesk of Greenpeace UK asked me to write a rebuttal. Which you can read here. 

Below is a longer version of the piece, in which I reflect a little bit more on perceptions of the UK in Germany and vice versa. After all, they are the two countries I have lived in longest in my life. 

So, let´s be honest: Not just the Sun and (the German equivalent) BILD find it difficult to move beyond simplistic stereotypes when it comes to perceptions of Germany in the UK, and vice versa. In Germany, the ignorance is illustrated simply: Even the most educated Germans refer to the UK as “England” and think that you are being pedantic when you point out that that is plain wrong (ok, they may have that in common with some Etonians …).

The inability to see nuances afflicts Left as well as Right. When I was studying politics at Edinburgh in the 1990s, Germany was idolized by many of the Left as the ideal opposite of Marquand´s “Unprincipled Society” description of the UK, for example. Like with all stereotypes, there was some truth in that: Germany´s state, to this day, remains stronger in many ways than the UK´s. And that has real impacts. Housing conditions (insulation, anyone?) are very different in the two countries, for example, reflecting much higher standards in Germany.

The Right, meanwhile, never tires of telling the tale of how overregulated Germany is. As anyone who has suffered through the Kafkaesque absurdities of German bureaucracy will know, there is also some truth in that. But that perception overlooks many areas – not least labour regulation – where Germany has quietly experienced a neoliberal revolution of its own (just witness the fact that Germany will not introduce a nationwide minimum wage until 2015 – even New Labour managed that!).

Given these projections rather than perceptions, it is not surprising that the perception of the German energy transition often lacks nuance in the UK. Every time I visit the UK, I get asked “whether I still think the nuclear phase out is a good idea as emissions are rising as a result”. And every time I have to point out that there is no connection, and that saying that there is, well, a simplistic lie.

And so, this week, here we go again. In what it is indeed bad and appalling news, Germany´s use of lignite reached a 20 year high in 2013. The Financial Times reported these figures, wrongly stating that “Ms Merkel's decision to phase out nuclear power has left a gap that only fossil fuels could fill quickly.”

That response misses not just the but indeed many points:

• renewables continue to rise and play an ever more important role (I am looking forward to the UK reaching 11,8% of primary energy or 25% of electricity consumption from renewables) 
• Coal use as a whole also is not rising and there is more energy generated per ton of coal – so emissions of the power sector as a whole may, if we are lucky, even be declining (sadly, we do not have official numbers yet).
• As no nuclear capacity was decommissioned in 2013, the nuclear phase out clearly has nothing to do with the increased use of lignite (and by the way, no nuclear capacity was decommissioned in 2012 either, nor is any planned to be taken off the grid in 2014).
• Germany has exported more electricity in 2013, so to claim that there was an energy “gap” that needed filling by fossil fuels is simply a fantasy.

All of this does not make the rise of lignite any less bad. But to blame the Energiewende or the nuclear phase out for this rise is plain wrong. The real reasons are to be found in

• the failure of the European Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the resulting ridiculously low price of carbon.
• in classic economics - as lignite is being burnt in old, “written off” plants that can, as a result, make huge profits easily. And in – equally “classic”-  
• market failure - as externalities are not reflected in energy prices (which means that the huge health costs of lignite, for example, are born by society and the tax payer, not the energy producers).

At a political level, the rise of lignite (and indeed Germany´s continued reliance on coal overall), is due to the fact that in Germany - much like the UK - a small number of huge energy firms control too much of the energy market. And hold excessive power over politicians. It´s that power dynamics across Europe, that has resulted in an ETS that fails to make lignite - the most carbon intensive of all energy sources – uneconomic, as any policy instrument trying to limit carbon emissions surely should. It is because too many German politicians are in cahoots with the coal industry, that makes them shy away from the action needed to fix that market failure or take additional regulatory measures (such as a coal phase out law).

So Germany´s Energiewende is neither Nirvana nor to blame for everything that goes wrong. It´s a contested policy arena. And yes, in Germany, too, public interest often loses out in the face of vested interested.  

But that means that we are in this together. Rather than say “look, the Energiewende is failing”, it would be great if you in the UK responded to the rise of lignite use by stepping up efforts to fix the ETS and/or thinking through with us how we can advance European-wide ways to speed up the uptake of renewables (a no brainer, given how fast installation costs are coming down). A rational response to Germany´s rising lignite use is to demand - in the UK as well as Germany – an end to the excessive power of a few all too powerful energy giants.

Next time I visit the UK, I hope we can talk in a nuanced way about our common need to make our energy policies answer to people and planet, and not be overly influenced by vested interests. Are you interested?

Delivering change – lessons for anti-corruption practitioners from Greenpeace’s environmental campaigning

The Humboldt Viadrina School of Governance in Berlin is doing some serious work on fighting corruption. The most recent output is a Handbook for Practitioners entitled: Motivating Business to Counter Corruption. In it, I have shared some thoughts on what those fighting corruption may learn from Greenpeace campaigning. May it be helpful to all who try to hold those in power to account. Corruption is one reason why the public good is being damaged and our future as humanity is at stake. Greenpeace’s vision of a sustainable society demands that power be exercised fairly and that those in power be held accountable for their actions. Corruption undermines this vision, by privileging those with power and money over others, allowing them to profit at the expense not only of the rest of us – but of the planet itself. Greenpeace is therefore honored to share some insights from our campaigning history with anti-corruption practitioners. We hope that doing so will help our collective work for a more accountable and just world. There is no question that sheer luck often makes the difference between a good - but unsuccessful – campaign plan and a winning one.  The victories Greenpeace has achieved also vary a lot (you can get an overview here. There is no ‘off the shelf’ plan one can adopt, but here are five lessons from our experience that I would like to emphasize: 1. A picture is worth more than a 1000 words It´s a cliché, but it´s true: unless there is a picture, getting attention is very hard. Abu Ghraib, for example, only became a real scandal once pictures were available. A picture isn´t everything, but without good visual material achieving impact is difficult. What pictures travel can often depend on the news day, but images that explain the demand of the campaign simply are an essential tool. Pictures of pipes blowing out dirt or of heavy air pollution simply work better than only analyses showing that there is a problem. The combination of “killer facts” with visuals illustrating them is to be strived for. 2. You need to identify the point „where it hurts” With the rise of the Internet there has been a lot of debate about the tools of campaigning, sometimes at the expense of considering the bread and butter issues of strategy. But a campaign which is not based on an accurate analysis of the strength and weaknesses of the company or government it aims to influence, will never be successful. Planning a campaign to Green Apple or a campaign to stop the commercialization of genetically engineered rice in China could not be more different in many ways. But they are the same in the sense, that you need to analyze your ´target` as accurately and effectively as you can. We sometimes spend years doing research before we find a „lever“ that we think can deliver real change. If you have not identified such a lever, it´s probably better not to start your campaign, as you will only look weak. What effective levers are depends on what you are trying to shift. In the case of Apple, for example, we realized that we needed to appeal to the Apple fan base to affect change at Apple. When we were running a campaign on toxic ship paints, on the other hand, our target audience was often a very small number of technical magazines covering ship matters. It was (negative) coverage in those magazines that toxic paint producers were worried about because they directly influenced market decisions. 3. Always provide a solution Some people believe Greenpeace to be against everything, but nothing could be further from the truth. We always do provide an alternative. We show in our Energy Revolution scenario, for example, that you can provide energy for all, cut emissions and do without coal and nuclear; we don´t JUST oppose coal and nuclear power plants. That´s why often our confrontations end in cooperation over time. A campaign on climate-killing refrigerants being used at the Sydney Olympics, for example, over time morphs into a common agenda with the likes of Coca-Cola to eliminate climate-damaging f-gases from refrigerants altogether. A (successful) campaign asking Nestlé to cut its ties with Golden Agri Resources because of their destructive palm oil practices results in us – three years later – welcoming GAR´s commitment to „no deforestation footprint“ for palm oil.  4. Integrity makes you strong Greenpeace is fiercely independent and takes no money from corporations or governments. When I talk of „cooperation“ with business in the previous paragraph, this working together never entails Greenpeace getting any money. In our experience, it is this integrity that makes us strong. If we say something is good for people or the planet, the question of corruption simply does not arise. Nobody can even dream of claiming that we only say this in order to receive corporate donations. Doing without corporate funding - and by doing so increasing your integrity - is thus certainly an approach we can recommend to other players. This seems to be particularly pertinent in the anti-corruption field. Part of integrity is of course also accuracy. Greenpeace has its own Science Unit and issue experts across the organization, because we know we are only as strong as our claims are accurate. 5. Being unpredictable makes you stronger: No permanent enemies, no permanent friends Strategy is key; it is probably the most important of all criteria for success (see 2). However, many wrongly equate strategy with a need to define `one definitive way of doing something`. But not only does one size not fit all, predictability is simply not an asset in campaigning. If you do the same thing again and again, that predictability will become your weakness (even if your execution of the campaign is excellent). The ´other´ side will be prepared for your next move, or failing that, will be able – soon after you start your campaign – to decipher an effective counter strategy based on previous experiences. How to counter “standard” campaigns is already being taught in MBA classes after all. It is therefore essential that you stay unpredictable in your choice of both targets and tools. The reason why Greenpeace is often effective is that we do both: We take bold action forcing destructive companies to change course and do first hand research on the ground uncovering scandals and proposing solutions. But we are also present where important decisions are being taken by powerful institutions and governments, often unnoticed and far from media attention – but with profound impacts. We have „No permanent friends and no permanent enemies“. We praise those against whom we have previously campaigned if they do the right thing. But we also always reserve the right to confront a corporation on an issue even if we work in cooperation with it on another. Greenpeace does from time to time directly attack corruption and corrupt practices. In doing so, we learn a lot from the anti-corruption community. I hope that these lines may help the anti-corruption community in a small way to develop effective campaign strategies to further our common cause of holding those in power accountable.

Lesson from COP 19: need to break corporate control of politics

All seasoned observers of climate talks did not expect much to come out of the Warsaw climate negotiations. But when Typhoon Hajan´s brutal devastation sent what seemed to many a signal to negotiators; when Yeb Sano articulated the need to “stop the climate madness” more eloquently than anyone before at a climate meeting. Then, it seemed, for a brief moment, like may be life could be different? May be the crying delegates from many countries would remember their children and act?

It wasn´t to be. Indeed, even to a long term observe like myself, it was simply devastating to see how quickly business as usual, jockeying for positions, dragging of feet and time wasting were the order of the day again after the extraordinary first day of COP19. Neither the rich  countries nor BASIC countries were willing to move forward in offering concrete measures to reduce their emissions, or even agree on a concrete date for doing so. Even though there is much to gain from climate action in terms of new jobs and avoided costs, the talks were once again conducted as if climate action was all about pain.

There was much talk about “equity” and “justice” in the statements. But the rich world shirked the responsibility for their historical emissions. And other countries, like Brazil, only seemed to want to talk about history in order to avoid taking action on current and future emissions. Policies that protect the poor and vulnerable, though, will need action by all who can act.

Rich countries pledged only peanuts to the Adaptation Fund and to support countries in their efforts to tackle climate change and to build up climate friendly economies and failed to provide the much needed long term certainty of support. Japan and Australia added insult to injury by tearing up their previous climate commitments right in the middle of a COP. Brazil, meanwhile, had the audacity to praise it´s new forest law (the “Forest Code”) at a COP19 event, just as a 28% jump in deforestation rates in the Amazon over the last year got confirmed. And while China is making big strides domestically in tackling pollution from its coal industry and advancing renewable energy, it is completely failing to translate this into a willingness to lead on the global negotiations stage. 

Governments, in short, seemed to only want to illustrate that they are serving the fossil fuel industries, not their people. No wonder, that all of civil society was disgusted at the lack of progress and urgency. A large section of civil society said “enough is enough” and staged a first ever walk out from a COP. While we walked, we did not move away from global effort to protect the climate or the UNFCCC. We were walking away from a poisoned COP where the bags sponsored by an oil company were the symbol of all that is rotten in the state of climate politics. The message of the walk out was simple: governments at the UNFCCC need to protect the climate and the people, not the coal and the oil industry.

Indeed, all major NGOs after COP19 seemed to have only one message: “Nothing will change, unless we mobilize for more change” (see Oxfam or WWF´s release for two examples). That unity is heartening. Because it is indeed the case, that a global treaty in Paris in 2015 won't be possible without a paradigm shift away from fossil fuels and nuclear power and towards renewable energy everywhere - and especially in the EU, the US, China, India and South Africa.

COP19 did provide some positive lessons too. In Poland, at least, we managed to mobilize for the change we need due to the meeting taking place there. Never before has the Polish government been so publicly exposed for not being in line with their own people. 89% percent of Polish citizens want more energy coming from renewable sources – but nobody used to know that. Following the many protests, not least against the insensitive

“Coal Summit” staged by the Polish government, everyone in Poland knows now – even the government. Poland, due to COP19, has a much more open and real energy debate. Will it be enough to turn the tide and stop the Polish government from preventing higher climate ambition in the EU only to serve their own coal interests? Only, if civil society can continue the pressure. Only, if international civil society keeps watching.

Greenpeace, looking, forward, will be pushing all national governments throughout 2014 so that they come to the Ban Ki-Moon summit in September with meaningful emission reduction offers and are prepared to fill the Green Climate Fund. In particular, Greenpeace is expecting concrete and ambitious proposals in 2014 for reducing climate pollution from China, the US and the European Union.

The message from COP19 is that more and more people are getting less and less patient with corporate polluters, only 90 of which are responsible for approximately 63 % of cumulative global emissions of industrial CO2 and methane (calculated as CO2  equivalents) between 1854 and 2010. A growing number of people are also prepared to take direct action against the coal, oil, gas and nuclear industries and demand a different kind of energy system. The solidarity shown to the “Arctic 30” at COP 19 - from civil society and many government delegates - was truly moving. That these activists and journalists - facing long prison sentences for trying to prevent Gazprom from drilling for Arctic oil that must stay in the ground if we are to avoid the worst of climate change – are heros to so many who attended COP 19 shows that more and more people agree that climate change is now so serious that civil disobedience is the only appropriate response. As Tomasz, the Polish Arctic 30 activist, reminded us in a quote used by the Climate Action Network in their opening statement to COP 19: “Nowadays, environmental protection demands more courageous actions … In order to protect what is valuable for us, we have to undertake further actions.” That is the lesson from COP19. We must all work together to break the stranglehold of the fossil fuel lobbies on our governments in time for meaningful deal to be agreed in Paris in 2015.

This piece appeared first in OUTREACH, a magazine by Stakeholder Forum.

From Prirazlomnaya to Warsaw: The Arctic 30, coal and the future of our children

For the last 53 days, every time one of my daughters climbed onto my lap I could not help but think about the children of the Arctic 30. About how they must be missing their parents and how my colleagues must be missing them. About the fear some feel that their small children may not remember who they are, should they really be sentenced to several years in jail. It's a cruel irony, indeed, that the Arctic 30 are not able to see their children - only because they had the guts to stand up for their future. To protest Gazprom's Prirazlomnaya oil platform because it stands for the madness of seeing the melting Arctic ice as an opportunity to drill for yet more oil. 

Every time my daughters jumped onto my lap I felt a little shiver, a little pain. And at the same time a renewed determination to help #FreeTheArctic30 and to intensify our opposition to fossil fuels. Because it is fossil fuels that will, if unchecked, turn our children's future unpleasant, dangerous and chaotic. So, I find myself in Warsaw, Poland, following the absurd, frustrating (but not irrelevant)global climate negotiations. Thinking of the Arctic 30, it´s a privilege to be able to choose to forgo kuddles and laughs with my family in order to try to end the stranglehold the fossil fuel industries have on global politics.

We couldn't be at a better place for this struggle. If the Prirazlomnaya platform is the symbol for the absurd quest of oil at all cost, Poland is the perfect place to draw attention to the other fundamental threat to our climate: coal. Poland is one of the most coal dependent countries in the world. 90.4% of Poland's electricity comes from coal. Every time I switch a light on I picture a coal plant in my mind. A particularly dirty one -- as Poland runs the dirtiest power plant fleet in the EU, causing an estimated 5,400 premature deaths from air pollution in 2010. Yesterday we exposed six of Poland's power plants as the places which cause climate change. We projected slogans such as "Arctic melt starts here!", "Air pollution starts here!", "Storms start here" onto these fossil fuel monsters, including the Bełchatów lignite power plant, the 4th biggest coal plant in the world -- the largest in Europe. 

As we were projecting "Storms start here!" we, of course, were thinking of the Philippines being ravaged by what may be the strongest typhoon ever and hoping for our colleagues there to be safe. While we can't yet say how much climate change influenced this monster typhoon, we do know that extreme weather events are becoming more extreme and frequent because of climate change. I am sure everybody following the climate negotiations today was reminded of the Philippines´ emotional intervention at last years climate summit. Then, too, a typhoon ravaged the Philippines. Please take a moment to listen here.  

Faced with such devastation (and emotions), it's infuriating that the Polish government continues to block the EU from taking ambitious climate action – one factor stalling the global negotiations. Sadly, Poland also fails to grasp the great opportunities that an energy revolution based on renewables and energy efficiency could bring to Poland. The fact is: Already by 2030 Poland could halve its coal demand, quadruple its renewable energy use and create 100,000 new jobs in the energy sector, if the right incentives are put in place. 

Instead of going for the energy revolution needed, the Polish government has given the fossil fuel industry unprecedented access to this climate summit. The wolves are running the hen house here in Warsaw and coal, the most climate damaging of all energy forms, is portrayed as part of the solution to climate change. Seriously. Poland is, for example, co-hosting a "Coal and Climate Summit" - an oxymoron if there ever was one.

So we have the work cut out for us for the next two weeks; especially when many other governments are also in cahoots with the fossil fuel industry. I would be able to tell my children that governments made progress if Warsaw agreed to commit to additional climate action and finance renewable energy in the developing world before 2020. If governments decided not to drag their feet, but say by next year by how much they will be willing to cut emissions after 2020; and spend 2015 looking at whether the numbers on the table are actually good enough to prevent dangerous climate change and are fair.

Governments plan to sign a climate agreement in Paris in 2015. That deal will only be worth spending any days of my life -- away from my daughters -- if it puts the world on the road to end fossil fuel use by 2050. Which brings me back to the Arctic 30. They risked their freedom, because they knew we need to keep the vast majority of the fossil fuels in the ground, if our children are not to live in climate hell. For us, here in Warsaw, thinking of their children (and ours´) will spur us to push as hard as we can for this climate summit to be a step forward. To keeping it from being the coal-fueled farce the Polish government seems to have in mind.

Wish us luck. Support the Arctic 30 here so that they can be back with their families soon. Join the many ordinary people doing extraordinary things in defense of our planet. Help us, in whatever you can, to take the struggle for our children's future to the fossil fuel industry. It's either them, or our children, who will live well.

First published on www.greenpeace.org