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.

UKYCC Blog: What the FCCC!? Annex-tra thing to remember

Rather less exciting than my last publication, this time it’s a little piece explaining what the phrases ‘Annex 1’, ‘Annex 2’ and ‘Non-Annex 1’ mean when mentioned (as they often are) at UN climate change negotiations. Covers more interesting issue than it sounds like from that - historic emissions and responsibility for climate change, trade-offs between carbon cuts and development and the changing role of ‘BRIC’ nations such as India and China.

Extract:

One of the trickiest areas of climate change negotiation in the United Nations is differentiating between ‘developed’ and ‘less developed’ countries. The ‘historic emissions‘ of greenhouse gases by countries such as the UK, USA and Germany allowed them to reach the high level of development and wealth that they now enjoy. Less developed countries are unsurprisingly reluctant to pass up opportunities for development and improvements in well-being in the name of carbon emission reduction, especially when the historic emitters are still the largest per person polluters.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) made sure this was accounted for when it came into force in 1994, dividing countries into two sections: Annex I and Annex II. The Annexes divide countries into groups based on how responsible they are for climate change and how able they are to reduce global emissions. The forty Annex I countries are ‘developed’ economies and economies ‘in transition’; Annex II is a subgroup made up of twenty-three developed economies.

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Click here to read the full article.

My article in The Ecologist

I wrote an article a couple of months ago for The Ecologist on environmental activism, when it’s most effective and the direction I think it should take. The strapline given to it is pretty apt: “constructive engagement, optimism and campaigns that benefit local residents are the best tactics to move eco-activism forward”.

After Copenhagen, I sat down with the twenty or so pupils in the ‘Environmental Action Group’ at my school. I thought I’d get the Copenhagen Accord up on the projector and try to make sense of what comes out of two weeks of negotiations by the leaders of the free world. The only thing worse than a bad response is no response at all. There was nothing to make sense of, nothing to comment on. Twenty teenagers waited for me to tell them that something good had resulted from the conference. As I struggled to find anything worth pointing out in the document, twenty teenagers sat in silence. Some of them never came to our weekly meetings again.

What COP15 proved is that we cannot wait for our elected representatives (and for those my age and younger, representatives who we have no chance to elect) to take the first step.

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It continues a lot more positively than that particular introduction, I encourage you to read on here!

Idea of the day: Green Investment Bank bonds for the public

Many people have compared decarbonisation to the world wars. An international crisis, requiring all of society to unite in action and, to an extent, in frugality. This is a natural comparison to make - the first major recycling took place in the wars, people are once again growing their own food at home or in public spaces, the ‘make do and mend’ mentality is returning - but this has only really been matched on a domestic scale.

The real war effort took place in industry. In a matter of weeks, typewriter factories transformed to make machine guns and ribbon factories produced parachutes. The removal of iron railings for smelting, in reality, largely produced useless pig iron - but the psychological impact made it worthwhile regardless.

So maybe we need to look to other areas of the world wars for inspiration - in their positive action and not just their frugality. After all, frugality is only a way to expend more energy in other areas. We need an industrial revolution to match that of the internet, one which will transform our society completely, and that needs funding.

Current government plans to fund ‘green’ investment revolve around proposals for a Green Investment Bank. DECC and the Treasury have said to have been disagreeing over the details for some time, and it has been dramatically restricted (some say to a level which will prohibit its success), but the concept is sound. Now it needs investment. These are projects that will pay back over time, but do require a large capital investment - hard to achieve through taxation.

How was large capital investment achieved through the world wars? Bonds.

Government savings bonds still exist and are a vital way of raising revenue. Many people would like to invest in transition technologies that will lead us to a sustainable economy, but don’t have the right medium in which to do so. The accountability of democratic government will inspire trust to invest much more than the ethically ineffective shareholder-owned banking system. Government backed bonds would be safe, suitable for pension funds and resources would be available to ensure money went to the right places. Combined with investment through taxation, the pot available would be huge.

The public recognise the benefits of a low-carbon economy, on the whole, and are awaiting opportunities to invest intelligently, with proper information on how their money is spent. This is a luxury denied us by the current banking system and one which a system of bonds alongside the Green Investment Bank could deliver.

In the USA during the second world war, American Boy & Girl Scouts sold $8 billion worth of ‘war bonds’. That tactic could even be repeated again - changing the face of British banking. Now those would be some bankers deserving of bonuses.

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.

Talking sustainability with 10 year olds

I attended Frome Sustainability Conference with Green Vision on Friday. We were expecting to be presenting to 14 - 17 year olds but arrived to discover it was a somewhat younger audience.

It was an experience unto itself, really. How clued up they were was impressive - climate change is now taught at school from a very young age - but they hadn’t quite got the grasp of how it all ties together. They understood that greenhouse gases emitted by burning fossil fuels heat up the earth, they understood that they had to save energy - but they couldn’t quite explain how the two linked together.

I always find it interesting to get perspectives from very young children on this - when pursuing issues with such a grounding in intergenerational equity, we are all in some way attempting to speak up for those younger than us and those not yet born.

When writing the report with DECC’s Youth Advisory Panel I asked for quotations from 6 - 10 year olds on their perceptions of the planet and their future. Jade, aged 7, said: “if people keep using electricity it is going to melt the ice at the North Pole and it’s going to flood’. Sam, also aged 7, said “I’m scared because the air might be polluted”. Isabel, aged 8, said: “Climate change might make our planet like Mars”.

Even if their technical understanding is lacking, the emotional understanding these children have is spot on. My favourite of the quotations was from a 6 year-old in Brighton: “In the future everyone will be friendly.” The ‘adult’ world of today could do well to seek guidance from the basic moral values of its offspring.

The full set of quotations can be found in the introduction to the DECC Youth Advisory Panel’s report: ‘Energy: How fair is it anyway?’

A Public Audience with Nick Clegg: My Reaction

Nick Clegg visited Bath last Friday - one of the Lib Dems’ few safe seats - for a public question and answer session. The Guildhall audience dominated by students, it was bound to be heated, but the vocal and rowdy audience obviously took Clegg by surprise - not his typical image of heritage city Bath, I imagine!

Firstly, the bravery of a serving cabinet member to do this is refreshing. It brings politics out of the proverbial smoky back rooms and even more importantly, out of Westminster village. There is little better to get people involved in politics. That said, it cannot be looked past that this may well all be for show.

So his actual response? I was somewhat disappointed by the questions asked. Although on all essential subjects, none were asked in a challenging way, and his answers were predictable. The tuition fees betrayal? His “progressive” plans to enable lower economic entry barriers were quoted. Terrible conjunction of constituency boundaries and alternative vote bills? “I’m fixing British politics”. Massive issues such as the misplaced priorities displayed in legislating for the rise in tuition fees months before a (yet to appear) new solid system of aid to entry was created were not addressed in the slightest.

To give credit to the man, his staunch defence of democratic values was impressive and his mentions of new projects interested me greatly. The Green Investment Bank (another long promised project yet to appear!) was only touched upon, but if it receives suitable government capital investment, it could be an excellent system to promote investment in the urgently required renewable energy and sustainable transport infrastructure. His excitement at prospect of reforming the House of Lords (“something that has been discussed for over 150 years”) was distinctly visible. How this comes to fruition will be of interest, but whether he succeeds or not it will be a mighty legacy for him.

I found him interesting and engaging, if not enlightening, and I was disappointed to miss the opportunity to ask him a question myself. Whether any of this allows Don Foster to keep his largely student-supported seat at the next general election is something for which we will have to wait and see.

An Hypothesis on British Food Culture

British food is pretty shit. We have to admit it: as a nation, our national eating habits are poor. Roast dinners and shepherds’ pie can only take you so far, and even these dishes rely heavily on potatoes which haven’t been in the British Isles all that long. It wouldn’t be that bad, but from my perspective is has seriously exacerbated the environmental impact - and quality - of food in the United Kingdom.

As culture became globalised in the 20th century, people began to experience and consequently covet the way people ate in other parts of the world - especially the Mediterranean diet. The caveat to this is that the Mediterranean diet relies on fresh produce and on high-quality, in season goods - produce that just doesn’t grow well in Britain. Resigned to the fact that British food was appalling, British produce was abandoned too, with different fruit and vegetables shipped in from across the world.

On top of the massive carbon cost of this, this causes this food to lose the critical factor that makes the Mediterranean diet so appealing - it’s freshness. Rather than trying to recreate that element with the resources we had at hand we attempted to recreate the Mediterranean food quite literally.

Luckily this trend is now reversing. Farmers are seeing traditional British vegetables, such as squash, become increasingly popular as people become aware of the environmental impact of what they are consuming. A rise in food quality is inevitable.