Time is running out (for a climate treaty
that could save the world from complete disaster) was the clever catchphrase of
NGOs during United Nations Climate Conference at Copenhagen last year. With the
same Conference again due to kick off at the end of this month at Cancun, we
did a quick survey to check the impact on their campaigns, after a year’s delay
of inking this Climate Treaty.
We assumed, given the kind of passion and drama that they displayed in
Copenhagen, their campaign should now display an air of even more desperation
and shrillness. Today, we visited the lead page of the websites of the World
Wildlife Fund (WWF), Greenpeace, Christian Aid and Oxfam, all leading members
of the Climate Justice Network just to get a feel where their campaign was
going. This is what we found:
WWF:
Unlike other NGOs and environmental groups, WWF can be
singled out among the few that actually directly profited from the global
warming in a big way. So theirs was the first website we visited and what did
we find? Not a mention of any climate issues by the lead page of their website.
Time was now running out for saving tigers and pandas. This was apparently
their need of the hour!
Apparently, they have moved on. They have gone back to
the core issue which is their raison d'etre.
GREENPEACE:
After
Copenhagen, they were the ones who threatened we climate sceptics telling us "We know
where you are". They also promised to take their struggle to the
grassroots, to breaking laws. So we were extremely curious to know their
preparations for Cancun. And no surprise here as even the Greenpeace lead page
showed that climate change was apparently an all forgotten issue.
Instead,
Greenpeace were found directing all their ire at the Ministry of Environment
& Forests (MoEF) for their double speak on violation of the Forest
Conservation Act in Orissa. Like WWF, Greenpeace also apparently have gotten
over their climate obsession and moved on. Like WWF, they apparently returned
to core environmental issues which are a welcome change.
CHRISTIAN
AID:
Christian
Aid was a key member of Countdown to Copenhagen, a global campaign of church
based development and humanitarian agencies across Europe and the world,
ostensibly campaigning for social justice on climate change. So seriously
global warming was taken by this lot that they even revised Christian theology
to align with the teaching of Al Gore's religion of doom.
Yet one
year later, we found no mention of climate issue in their lead page. Instead,
we find more mundane stuff such as the former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown
praising their trace the tax campaign; their Christmas fundraising, details of
their sanitation programme etc. Evidence of Christian Aid retreating
back to their roots. Hallelujah! This makes 3 out of 3 who put climate change
in their backburner.
OXFAM:
Oxfam is generally considered a market
leader of the sector and who set the development trends. Instead of
differentiating from the likes of Greenpeace and WWF, on the climate issue,
they became a copy cat while it is open to question whether even
environmentalism and science are the core strengths of the organization. We
would have expected as leaders, once realizing they are on the wrong path they
would quickly retracted their steps. But no. Oxfam was the only among the four biggies
we found whose main feature of their website was still on climate. Their
Indian blog pointed that the Oxfam campaign on
climate was still very alive and kicking:
“In 2009 Oxfam India worked with partners to hold more than 6 hearings
across the country involving people from affected communities, climate experts
and local and national decision makers.
In 2010, on 16th November, Oxfam India and partners are going one-step further
– they are bringing together people from communities across 10 different Indian
states, along with climate and legal experts, to explore what the
possibilities are for litigation both at national and international level on the impacts of climate change...
While we all recognise the central importance of a fair ambitious and binding
deal that involves all countries, this is not the only course of action. And we
cannot sit back and wait for politicians to act in the interests of people
right across the world while those very people continue to suffer. Climate
litigation provides a real possibility in terms of bringing those responsible
to account – and Oxfam India and their partners are helping to lead the way for
India and the world.”
Climate litigation maybe look catchy advocacy
but it can also open a can of worms as it is not only NGOs and environment
organizations suing everyone else. It is also possible that it can be the other
way round - anyone can sue NGOs and environmental organizations. Suing Oxfam
for example for distributing tens of thousands of fuel guzzling SUVs over
decades to their staff and partner organizations or for transporting “climate
activists” to Copenhagen or climate tribunals and thereby unnecessarily
increasing their “carbon footprints”. And these are only of starters. So
will this advocacy have a future? Most probably not. Before the next financial
year, climate sfaff of Oxfam can expect the pink slips.
Climate Change as an Issue is Terminally ill, It may
survive Cancun but not this Winter
Gore and
Pachauri advised the Chicago Carbon Exchange (CCX) to be closed. The closing
price a mere $0.05 per ton of CO2, and yet no buyers. Here’s the final day
closing page for posterity - the confirmation from CCX’s ECG chart. CCX was
closed two months.
The carbon market, an important fulcrum of the climate scam, is dead and
this signals a quick end is in sight for the issue of Climate Change. While the
issue may survive the expected failure of Cancun, it may not survive this
coming La Nina winter, which experts has forecasted as one of the harshest in
recent times. There might not be a formal acknowledgment that the issue was a
false alarm. But for all practical reasons, the main actors in the Climate
Justice Movement will allow it to quietly fade away.
With our
objectives attained, accordingly, we will be continuing this blog until
December. After that the blog will transform itself to addressing issues
and challenges of coping with global cooling!
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