Climate change & climate action

Climate Rush is a new campaign inspired by the actions of the Suffragettes 100 years ago, who showed that peaceful civil disobedience could inspire positive change. We are a diverse group of women and men who are determined to raise awareness of the biggest threat facing humanity today – that of Climate Change. We demand DEEDS NOT WORDS because individual choice alone cannot curb CO2 emissions if we are to stop runaway global warming.
We say: “No new coal – to avoid runaway climate…

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), remarked of US president Barack Obama on 11 March: “He is not going to say by 2020 I’m going to reduce emissions by 30%. He’ll have a revolution on his hands. He has to do it step by step.”

Within the mainstream, the kind of protest and turmoil that might be thrown up by a strict climate policy amounts to a “revolution”.

Frankly, we do need that kind of revolution. We need to force political…

Following Climate Camp Cymru in mid-August, Wales set up a neighbourhood at the Climate Camp in London. The first of the Wales crew arrived with our enormous marquee squeezed into a small camper van. After a battle with the elements we got the marquee pegged down and could set up to boil the kettle for a much-needed brew.

Other Wales Campers arrived once the site had been taken in a swoop. “Is this the right station?” we wondered, exiting Blackheath station. Surprised by the…

Founded in 2008, Workers’ Climate Action (WCA) is a direct action and solidarity network made up of socialists, anarchists and other class struggle activists involved in both the environmental and labour movements.

We must move our economy away from fossil fuels – but in a “Just Transition”: the costs of changes in employment and economic activity should fall on those who can afford it, not on those who can’t. WCA stands for a worker-led just transition to a low-carbon economy and…

The most firmly held myth of our time is that no society can exist without a government and that we need the state to protect us – including from environmental destruction.

Let’s begin by not confusing two terms. Anarchy is the condition of a society without a ruler. Anarchism is a rich nineteenth-century political philosophy. Anarchists are not against democracy, they want to deepen it and make it our servant, not our master.

While it does reject the idea of governments…

Since Climate Action Scotland (see PN 2513), the camp at Mainshill Wood, site of a proposed opencast mine in Lanarkshire, has continued into its third month with the support of the local Community Council.

At the camp, Beth told me how the local community is particularly concerned about the cost of opencast coal mining to public health, in an area that already has three mines. There is evidence of strong linkage between opencast mining and asthma, as well as increased cancer rates…

Across the UK, companies are planning to cash in on a subsidy bonanza for electricity from burning biofuels. Producing one megawatt from biofuels such as palm oil attracts up to twice as many “green energy” subsidies (Renewable Obligation Certificates or ROCs) as gaining the same energy from onshore wind.

One company, Vogen Energy, applied for permission to build a vegetable oil power station in Newport, Pembrokeshire. Some 10,000 hectares of oil palm plantations would be required…

The Drax 29, who in June had obstructed a train carrying 1,000 tonnes of coal to be burnt at Europe’s largest coal-fired power station, were sentenced on 4 September. Five activists who had previous convictions were given 60 hours’ community service each, and three were ordered to pay £1,000 in court costs. However, the remainder were all given conditional discharges.

Beth Stratford said she was “really relieved” at the verdict, “but Drax costs £3m [in damage to environment and…

I went to the UN Climate Negotiations in Poznan in December as an International Youth Delegate, hoping to help sway the negotiators from their positions of bad science and inaction to build our future in consultation with young people.
But, day by day, bad news filtered through to the IYD: the US, Canada and New Zealand voted against keeping the clause protecting indigenous peoples’ rights in the policy on deforestation; Australia decided not to announce their emissions reductions…

On 6 December, two of us from Wales joined with a larger group to blockade the runway at Stansted Airport. I’ve now been sentenced for this action at Margam magistrates’ court.

This is the statement I gave to the judge explaining my actions:
“On 6 December I felt that I had no other option but to join 56 other worried citizens on a taxi-way at Stansted airport, directly halting the emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and drawing attention to the absurdity of…

This year saw some outstanding court victories, including a legal breakthrough in Nottingham on 14 January when 11 East Midlands activists were allowed to present a legal argument known as “defence of necessity”. They had shut down the Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal-fired power plant in 2007.

The big court wins of the year were the 10 September Kingsnorth Six victory, securing an acquittal on charges of causing £30,000 worth of damage to Kingsnorth power station, and the 11 June Raytheon…

It has been intriguing in recent weeks to follow the various, and largely more coherent, debates and discussions that have emerged in the wake of the Climate Camp, and also as the discussions about Transition that the Trapese Collective’s “Rocky Road” document stimulated have rumbled on. A recent piece from Peace News by Kelvin Mason entitled “When Climate Camp Comes Home”, drew on his reflections as an activist who attended previous Climate Camps and also as someone with an involvement in…

On 10 September, six Greenpeace activists won a historic legal victory after they were found “not guilty” of criminal damage by a jury at Maidstone crown court – after admitting causing £30,000 worth of damage to a smokestack at Kings-north coal-fired power station.

The legal defence was mounted by Michael Wolkind QC, barrister Quincy Whitaker, and Mike Schwarz and Catherine Jackson of Bindmans Solicitors, and supported by testimony from, among others, the world’s most eminent…

China, which spent £6bn on green energy projects last year, may soon become the world’s largest investor in renewable energy.

The ministry of public security has listed pollution as one of the top five threats to China’s peace and stability. In 2005, China experienced 51,000 riots or demonstrations of 100 or more people protesting against pollution – according to official estimates.

Li Junfeng, an energy expert at the National Development and Reform Commission said in…

A “Transition Initiative” is a community working together to address this BIG question: “for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how do we significantly increase resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of Climate Change)?”
An Initiating Group raises awareness, connects with existing groups in the community, builds bridges to local government, forms groups to…