Tom Youngman

Occupied Times: “A Diplomatic Occupation: Reclaiming the Debate at the UN Climate Talks”

The Occupied Times is the newspaper of and for Occupy London, an incredible, independent publication that perfectly demonstrates the creative and collaborative energy behind the Occupy movement. For their latest issue (see #10, PDF), I wrote an article about my experiences at the UN Climate Talks in Durban, South Africa and how we used the principles and methods of the Occupy movement to push for change in a diplomatic setting.

The following is the opening of the full article which you can read here.

On 9 December 2011 we came, we saw, and although we didn’t conquer the United Nations, for two hours it felt as if we had.

Towards the end of last year I travelled to the United Nations climate talks in South Africa. I had received funding from people in my local community and went to push the negotiations forward, not to obstruct them. I am 18, and I joined hundreds of young people of a similar age at these negotiations, all of us looking for a political solution to climate change to match the technical and social ones that already exist.

Young people attending the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) climate talks ran an open, inclusive, consensus-based process, meeting every morning and working to actively facilitate new participation. Teams of experienced activists spent hours one-on-one with those entering, unprepared into the perplexing world of international climate politics, building in them the confidence and skills needed to enable full participation.

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Keep reading here for the exciting stuff!

Communicating the Challenge is the Challenge: Looking Back on the UN climate talks in Durban

Three weeks ago, I made this video. I was exhausted, husky and, if I’m honest, disheartened. I’d just spent two weeks at the United Nations climate talks in Durban, South Africa. They were the best weeks of my life, but that it’s taken me until now to write something about it says it all.

I applied to be on the UK Youth Climate Coalition’s delegation to the UN (pictured, right) in April. When I heard the news of my selection, that in seven months time I would be at the UN, attempting to make change on a truly daunting scale, I was staying with an exchange family in rural Spain. My immediate challenge was explaining what this meant in my second language to people with little knowledge or interest in climate change. Although they were sympathetic, I’m not sure my host family really understood what I meant - but they did let me use their computer for my first delegation Skype calls.

Returning from Durban, I’ve found myself clasping helplessly at words out of my reach when asked the question “how was South Africa?” to the extent I did when trying to explain my excitement in Spanish back in April. If I’m honest, I’ve found it hard to reconnect with my friends back home. It’s not about the people, it’s about the purpose. I’d spent two weeks with a clear aim, working with groups of peers with a shared goal and more than enough enthusiasm to make up for our lack of agency or resources. I planned my days at 8:30am and often didn’t finish work until 2:00am. It was ridiculous, but it was glorious.

I think the bizarre experiences are what convey the wonder of it best. I met the Bolivian Minister for the Environment at 3:00am, me wearing no socks and shoes, and chatted to him in Spanish. I played a rather fun game called ‘Ninja’ with a very senior British diplomat. I attempted to get on the 10 o’clock news by offering a man tinsel. I shouted the loudest I’ve ever shouted (video, rally inside conference centre pictured, left - can you spot me?) - and was echoed by hundreds of others - inside the conference centre.

But after all that, the conference did not deliver a solution. In the video I recorded three weeks ago today, I was downtrodden. That was justified. The way the decisions were made was fast, closed and undemocratic. Documents were released and agreed faster than we could get to the Documents Counter to collect them, let alone read them. This was not the open, consensus process the UNFCCC (the part of the UN that deals with climate change) likes to claim it is. This was old-fashioned, closed-door diplomacy. If that was an effective way of delivering a solution, I’d be happy, but it isn’t. It left decisions till the eleventh (if only it was that early….) hour and gave poorer nations no input whatsoever. Let’s be frank, what we have on the table now is shit. But it could be worse, we could have nothing. One day, some flowers could use this shit to grow.

I’ll take most not from the conference, but from the people I’ve met. I’ve met people of character far beyond the leaders attending the talks. Young people have spent months preparing off their own back, and most, like me, have funded themselves, running events and raffles and seeking support from their families, friends and communities. No politician did that to attend this conference. No politician can speak with the conviction of any of the young people that went to COP17.

So where am I now? I have emerged from what I can only define as a great struggle for me, and I’ve emerged stronger. It is now 2012. As I start a new year, it is not about finding a new challenge, but about finding away to continue the old one, and use the skills, connections and experience I have built. For me, this year is about action at home, using knowledge from outside in the context I know best. It’s about using that to inspire others to do the same in their communities.

So what do I think you should take from this? I don’t know. Open yourself up to all challenges. Discover what you’re passionate about and pursue it further than anyone ever imagined it could be pursued. Ultimately, don’t let me patronise you. This is my story, for now. I look forward to reading yours.

I went to Durban with the UK Youth Climate Change Coalition (UKYCC) - see our delegation’s blog here. I was kindly supported by many friends, family members, local businesses and by my local community - you can see a full list here. To see photos of the trip, visit my own Flickr page or the UKYCC flickr page.

LeftCentral: Feed-in Tariff Review

Following a request to the UK Youth Climate Coalition website, I recently wrote an article for the ‘LeftCentral’ blog regarding the government’s fast-track review of the Feed-in Tariff. An extract of the article follows:

Last Sunday I watched the first episode in the new series of ‘Dragon’s Den’. At around 9:45 came the serious proposition, the project that (we’ve all now pretty much sussed the show’s structure) will definitely get investment. As a sustainability activist, it pleased me greatly to see Chris Hopkins, MD of Ploughcroft, a solar panel installer, occupying this slot.

His appearance on the show demonstrated one thing clearly – solar power is now a solid investment. All five ‘Dragons’ were keen to invest – Deborah Meaden even declared she already had a stake in another solar installer. It’s rare to hear a piece of technical energy policy mentioned on a peak-time television show, but the entrepreneur attributed the success of his business (and the British solar industry) quite explicitly to the Feed-in Tariff.

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The fast-track review of the Feed-in Tariff for solar photovoltaic panels fundamentally conflicted with the original strengths of a highly successful policy. At the core of the policy is creating confidence on the part of the generator that their income from the subsidy is guaranteed. Price reviews were always acknowledged to be needed to keep the subsidy economic as the cost of technology decreased, but by holding a hurried review outside the regular cycle, the government severely knocked this essential confidence.

To read the full article, click here.

Corporate Carbon Reporting: boring but important.

Today BusinessGreen report about Sainsbury’s boss, Justin King’s, fierce opposition to proposals by DECC for mandatory carbon reporting.

I’m going to be honest, on the face of it this is a horrifically boring area. However, in reality it’s quite important. For a company to act effectively on it’s environmental and social impact, it has to know what it is, and forcing companies to find out is a good place to start inspiring action. Puma’s in-depth, full supply chain carbon reporting is evidence to this.

Justin King compared the proposals to food hygiene rules, which he said created “a lot of work for a lot of people without adding to the sum total of human knowledge or equipping consumers to really make choices”.

Here he’s hit the nail on the head. Consumers need to be equipped to make educated choices, and carbon reporting, if done in the right way, could be perfect for this. I imagine being in a supermarket with 5 different brands of baked beans, for example, available, each with a label indicating its carbon cost. If the price difference was marginal, would you opt for the one that had the lowest carbon? Soon it could be easily made into a selling point. 

Carbon reporting, if done in the right way, could revolutionise consumer choice. The proposals need to ensure that the carbon footprint is reported not the administrative staff in the company HQ but to the customers and shareholders that make the decisions.

American Expansionism: A Critical Barrier to Sustainability

In the 1920s - at the height of some of the fastest years of industrial expansion the United States has ever seen - the USA’s agricultural economy was suffering. Although there were many factors to this, the degradation of land (creating the infamous ‘Dust Bowl’) was certainly one of the most serious. For generations American farmers had been able to slowly move westwards, exhausting countless hectares beyond repair, simply able to roll the Western frontier onwards.

In the 1930s, this frontier reached the Western deserts - the West Coast already spoken for. The American agricultural economy was obliterated, left only accessible to a few large-scale operators. The industrialisation that then allowed the region to continue was fuelled by war.

After the second world war, America’s focus changed. An economic empire was built (expanding on that which existed in central America in the early 20th century) cementing its position as a global superpower. Exploiting its own natural resources to the full, the USA looked abroad for profit-making. 

This economic empire has been supported by the US Government, as would be expected. In more recent years this has gone to greater extremes, with oil opportunities almost certainly playing a part in the Iraq war’s initiation.

This week saw Wikileaks reveal the fatal next stage of this expansionism. Global speculation about natural resources to be revealed by melting arctic ice is high, and the cables from diplomats at the Arctic Council reveal America’s ambition in the area. America’s claim to the arctic relies on Alaska, to which its claim is tenuous, not being contiguous with the rest of the nation and itself only colonised for its gold reserves. Even if it is considered 100% America’s right to govern Alaska, it is undeniable that America’s claim to the arctic is much weaker than that of Norway, Sweden, Russia and Canada, for example.

As well as securing rights to the Arctic themselves, the USA is pushing its corporate style of expansion in the region. Capitalising on Greenland’s push for independence from Denmark, America’s ambassador to Denmark stated in one of the leaked cables: “To help the Greenlanders secure the investments needed for such exploitation, I recently introduced Home Rule Premier Enoksen and Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs Aleqa Hammond to some of our top U.S. financial institutions in New York”.

Climate change is the greatest threat facing humanity at the present time, a fact increasingly recognised by new parties, including American military generals. To exploit Arctic oil reserves, revealed due to climate change and certain to further climate change, is to enter a vicious cycle on short-sighted logic. America has demonstrated in the past its ability to exploit resources without regard to their continued use, or the wellbeing of the planet as a whole, and I do not doubt this could happen again.

American Expansionism may have taken human beings to the moon, but without regard for sustainability of resources, it may be responsible for taking human beings from the earth as well.

I’m pretty damn terrified right now.

Our future is in the balance. Leaders of countries that are already beginning to suffer hugely damaging natural disasters and humanitarian crises are desperately trying to forge a deal in Cancún, and noone is listening. The American government is now in the hands of the Republicans - the world’s only major political party who, for the most part, don’t believe in man-made climate change. We have 5 - 9 years to entirely transform the way we live our lives - this is urgent - and now this. The American government has killed its Climate Change Committee. As Treehugger elegantly puts it:

The symbolic implications of the move are hard to ignore: Our federal government is no longer going to concern itself with climate change.

Even the American military’s warnings of the threat climate change presents to global peace goes ignored. We will fight on, but everything hangs in the balance.

So you want a right to protest?

Today enjoyed a particularly peaceful tuition fees protest in my beautiful hometown of Bath - as quaint as the city itself - but have been more interested ultimately in what went on elsewhere. Here, the police were fine. Ten police officers watched 50 - 100 young people as we chanted and waved banners at the general direction of noone in particular, having been moved from outside the main council building. The police spent more time buying their tea than doing the kettling themselves.

What happened elsewhere. There have been unconfirmed reports of the use of tasers in Brighton, in Bristol police repeatedly used heavy handed tactics - if nothing particularly damaging -, and in London many were arrested merely for being in Trafalgar Square, having ‘not complied with a dispersal order’. The Met’s excuse? The ‘protesters arrived early’.

Ultimately protesters ran rings around the police - the scenes in London looked like a game of British bulldog - and all the protests had learned to avoid being kettled they had to move quickly. The game of cat and mouse goes on.

The thing that worries me most is the police’s inability to deal with larger groups of people. As soon as more than a couple of hundred people convene, the assumption is that a melee will start without intervention. In fact usually the intervention is the catalyst for the melee. The use of things such as Forward Intelligence Teams - gangs of policemen and protests that film protesters so they can be identified and targeted at a later date - are second guessing protesters, and shows the lack of trust in the British public. (n.b. check out ‘FIT Watch’ for great work countering and informing about these people, and also for to the minute updates from people actually in the protests)

The police are essential, and do a wonderful job - as they did today in Bath - but the tactics when dealing with larger groups of protests need serious revision.