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breaking barriers breaking barriers breaking barriers breaking barriers by john foran and richard widick

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35S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 c o n t e x t s

At the end of last year, the United Nations convened its annual

climate talks in Doha, Qatar, attempting to negotiate binding

international agreements on climate change. By limiting future

temperature rise to two degrees Celsius, it hopes to stave off the

worst effects of irreversible, possibly catastrophic changes in the

climate system.

These negotiations have been ongoing for the past 18

years and now appear locked in a long-term stalemate. At the

previous summit, in Durban, South Africa, we observed on one

side, a shifting line-up of wealthy oil-producing countries and

developed industrial economies, and on the other, the European

Union and some emerging and still developing nations, largely of

the global south. While the first group—led by the United States,

Japan, India, Canada, Russia, and South Africa—drags its feet

on moving toward a low-carbon future, the second struggles

for sharper, more equitable emissions cuts by developed and

emerging nations and financial transfers to help their countries

replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.

Meanwhile, China, the world’s biggest emitter, plays a

complex role in these negotiations—sometimes inside, and

sometimes outside both groups. And to complicate things fur-

ther, carbon dioxide emissions are up nearly 50 percent since

the negotiations began, leaving many wondering whether the

U.N. process is part of the problem rather than the solution.

We attend these annual climate talks—formally known as

the Conferences of Parties (COP) to the U.N. Framework Conven-

tion on Climate Change (UNFCCC)—intent on discovering who

and what is obstructing progress, and how the stalemate might

be broken. As public sociologists, we want to contribute by join-

ing the global climate justice movement in demanding equity

in all climate governance, and by helping underrepresented

voices be heard at the annual summits. At the Durban talks we

interviewed activists and scholars, sat with delegates and listened

to their speeches, collected documents, and attended sessions

both inside and outside the negotiations.

On the final day of the proceedings, we saw frustrated

activists and even official members of some national delegations

raucously engage in civil disobedience, occupying the conference

corridors. And we witnessed an emerging alignment among

progressive nations, youth movements, and global civil society

organizations around demands for “climate justice”—a coalition

that may represent a way out of the stalemate.

making a better treaty The scientific consensus on climate change is by now well

established, and in dispute only in the United States, where

powerful fossil fuel corporations spend millions of dollars on

media designed to shape the political debate and sow confu-

sion. For climate scientists, the two-degree limit, and a return

to no more than 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the

Earth’s atmosphere—currently we are at 394—is the maximum

allowable threshold. If these limits are exceeded, scientists

predict a centuries-long epoch of extreme weather, sea level

rise, extinction of species, and untold social unrest due to mass

human migrations, famines, and wars.

At face value, the Durban decisions appear to confront

the problem of climate change directly and ambitiously. The

COP sustained the faltering Kyoto Protocol and mandated the

negotiation of a new global climate treaty. It also advanced

the Green Climate Fund, primarily market-based initiatives and

financial mechanisms that seek to mitigate climate change. Chief

U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern, corporate business leaders,

and other powerful actors declared their satisfaction with these

decisions, echoing the words of the conference’s South African

president, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane: “What we have achieved

in Durban will play a central role in saving tomorrow, today.”

Against these optimistic pronouncements, leaders of the

global climate justice movements declared that the Durban deci-

sions are disastrous for the planet. They argued that in order to

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<< At the 2011 U.N. climate talks in Durban, South Africa, Oxfam dramatizes the devastating impact of climate change on the world’s poor.

Scientists predict climate change will bring more frequent and severe storms.

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keep the Earth from heating up beyond the two-degree mark in

the twenty-first century, more rapid action is necessary. Shannon

Biggs, part of the Climate Justice Now! network, lamented that

“the UNFCCC stunned even seasoned observers with a plan

tantamount to genocide.” Emissions targets were dropped,

loopholes for the worst offenders were permitted, and most

critically, key decisions were put off until 2020.

Suggesting that delaying action until 2020 is a “crime of

global proportions,” Nnimmo Bassey, the charismatic Friends of

the Earth International spokesperson, observed that the likely

“business as usual” increase in global temperatures of four

degrees Celsius is “a death sentence for Africa, small island

states, and the poor and vulnerable worldwide.” Invoking the

Occupy movements, he argued that the summit was enacting

a kind of “climate apartheid,” whereby the richest one percent

of the world have decided that “it is acceptable to sacrifice the

99 percent.”

Activists felt they had made little progress in compelling the

U.N. and their home states and industries to take decisive steps

to meet the real needs of the planet. Many saw their work as

NGO delegates representing civil society, and their movement-

building work outside of the negotiations, as ineffective. Asad

Rehman, the London-based head of the International Climate

Committee of Friends of the Earth, told us: “We have to ask

ourselves, and for me the most fundamental question is: why are

we so weak? Why is the political climate justice movement inef-

fectual, divided, weak and unable to exercise political power?”

Yet an emerging alignment among progressive nations,

along with the rise of youth and global civil society activists,

suggests there are reasons to remain cautiously optimistic about

the U.N. process, and hopeful that the climate change stalemate

can be broken.

new alignments The two-week negotiations saw a large, loose coalition of

countries committed to a just and binding treaty form stron-

ger alliances. The 39-member Alliance of Small Island States

(AOSIS), on the front lines of ocean waters that are already rising,

demanded that global emissions be cut deep and fast enough to

limit warming within a range of 1-1.5 degrees Celsius. An equally

wide-sweeping set of demands came from

the progressive Latin American Bolivarian

Alliance (ALBA) nations, including Venezu-

ela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Cuba, led by

Bolivia and its indigenous president, Evo

Morales, a staunch defender of measures

to reduce global warming.

The majority of the Group of 77, a

coalition of 132 African, Asian, and Latin American nations, also

tried to move toward a serious treaty. These three groups exerted

pressure on the 27-member European Union (EU) to affirm a

long-standing position that mandates deep emissions cuts by

the global North, and the payment of a substantial climate debt

to the countries of the global South.

Perhaps three-quarters of the world’s countries demanded

far more ambitious measures to avert the worst impacts of

climate change. They argued that since the wealthy industrial

nations have placed most of the humanly-created carbon diox-

ide into the atmosphere, they have an historical responsibility

to make the deepest cuts. They also argued that the wealthy

should subsidize the transition to low-carbon economies in the

rest of the world. If these countries maintain their stance, there’s

a chance the stalemate might break in the direction dictated by

scientific necessity and demanded by social justice.

An emerging alignment among progressive nations, youth movements, and global civil society organizations may represent a way out of the stalemate.

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Coal emissions create climate changes that place our global food supply at risk.

Women farmers “negotiate” with politicians who hold power over water and other necessary resources.

37S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 c o n t e x t s

Meanwhile, as states were jockeying for position in the

high-level meetings, youth activists came to Durban from

everywhere to present their demands. Even before the U.N.

conference started, activists gathered for three days of work-

shops and movement building. Heather Bruer of the Australian

Youth Climate Coalition described their agenda: communicating

the gravity of climate change, and building “strong, effective,

strategic, positive, cool, engaging, and effective movements”

in their countries. Young people, she said, are the “biggest

stakeholders in this debate and absolutely the people who need

to be most into this because it is our future that is at stake.”

youth step up Everywhere we turned, the global youth movements pre-

sented delegates with unflagging urgency, conveying the feeling

that something unexpected might occur. Aaron Packard, a

young New Zealander helping build climate movements among

the Pacific island nations, described his strategy of “being the

most joyful person in the room—that can change the energy

of what’s happening in the room. And I guess the other thing

is just believing in the people you work with.”

In the second week of the conference, at a press briefing

by Canadian Minister of the Environment Peter Kent, six young

citizens of that country stood up, turned around, and displayed

t-shirts proclaiming “Turn your backs on Canada!” On the eve

of the conference, their country had announced that it would

pull out of the Kyoto Protocol, and that it would facilitate the

massive financial and political investments in the hugely destruc-

tive tar sand oil fields of Alberta. Leading climate scientist James

Hansen has warned that if the dirty tar sands oil is extracted

and burned, it is essentially “game over” for the environment.

Working with U.S. activists, these Canadian youth had

helped to successfully block the TransCanada Corporation’s

Keystone pipeline, designed to bring synthetic tar and crude

oil from Canada to U.S. ports on the Gulf of Mexico, and

helped force the White House to with-

hold approval until a careful study of the

pipeline’s environmental impact has been

conducted. Empowered by success at

home, they brought their symbolic protest

to Durban, keeping the media spotlight on

the pipeline controversy.

Middlebury College student Abigail Borah shouted down

chief U.S. negotiator Todd Stern as he prepared to address the

press. “2020 is too late to wait!” Borah implored the audience.

“We need an urgent path to a fair, ambitious, and legally binding

treaty!” Continuing, she demanded: “You must take responsibil-

ity to act now, or you will threaten the lives of the youth and the

world’s most vulnerable. You must set aside partisan politics and

let science dictate decisions. You must pledge ambitious targets

to lower emissions, not expectations. 2020 is too late to wait!”

On the last day, civil society spokespeople were allowed to

address the closing plenary, and Anjali Appadurai, from Maine’s

College of the Atlantic, delivered a passionate plea for delegates

to heed the voices of the world’s youth: “I speak for more than

half the world’s population,” she said. “You’ve been negotiating

all my life. In that time, you’ve failed to meet pledges, you’ve

missed targets, and you’ve broken promises.“ According to the

International Energy Agency, we have five years to avoid irrevers-

ible climate change, she said. “The science tells us that we have

five years maximum. You’re saying, ‘Give us 10.’”

She spoke of the “stark betrayal of your generation’s

responsibility to ours,” asking: “Where is the courage in these

rooms? Now is not the time for incremental action,” she said,

telling the crowd this will be seen as “the defining moments

of an era in which narrow self-interest prevailed over science,

reason and common compassion.” There is real ambition in

this room, she added, “but it’s been dismissed as radical, and

The scientific consensus on climate change is by now well established, and in dispute only in the United States.

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Droughts, like this one in southwest China, destroy crops and leave hundreds of thousands of people without drinking water.

deemed not politically possible.”

But long-term thinking is not radical. “What’s radical,” she

said, “is completely altering the planet’s climate, betraying the

future of my generation, and condemning millions to death by

climate change”—words that brought down the house.

occupy the COP The Occupy movement lent its form and strategy to the

local and international activists on hand. Young and old, officially

delegated or not, met daily for general assemblies at the People’s

Corner—a designated protest zone set up by authorities outside

the militarized perimeter of the meeting—and staged a dramatic

occupation inside the convention center.

Several hundred people gathered around the outspoken

Maldives representative and tried to escort him into the central

meeting room for the final plenary. When confronted by police,

they refused to stop chanting “Occupy the COP” and singing

“Shosholoza,” a South African folk song (“move on and cre-

ate space for the next person”)—explaining to global media

representatives why the time had come for civil disobedience.

They came, they said, to support the island nations, to

stand with Africa, to say no to the World Bank, to demand

“not just a climate treaty—a just climate treaty,” and to protest

what seemed to be a conference that had made little progress.

The direct action continued for nearly two hours until the U.N.

police threatened everyone with expulsion, and several people

sat down and refused to leave. Those who sat were placed in

the hands of the South African police, who dropped them off

at a designated protest zone across the street. Their acts of civil

disobedience introduced a new sense of urgency into interna-

tional climate negotiations.

In Durban, the growing majority of nations who insisted

on science-based solutions, the rise of youth

activism, and the occupation by representa-

tives of civil society injected a new dynamic

in the movement for climate justice. These

efforts pushed the conference toward a target

of 350 ppm and less than two degrees—and

to seek non-market solutions, as well as more

financing for adaptation measures in the least

developed and most vulnerable countries.

This new dynamic mobilizes a large part

of the global South, most of the European

Union, the youth movements, and the NGOs

who are seeking a fair and binding treaty. Its

success will depend on their ability to further

and more effectively penetrate the official

boundaries of the COP and bring in other-

wise marginalized voices, such as indigenous

groups that come bearing advance warning

of incipient climate chaos in their homelands.

As Friends of the Earth’s Asad Rehman

observed, “it’s the tiny little countries and the individual negotia-

tors who hold out under incredible pressure.” If people on the

inside felt they have more support from the outside, he said,

many more would feel empowered “to say no to the bullying.”

As movement elder Lidy Nacpil said, “We do have to combine

outside and inside…to fight on many fronts at the same time,

including local, national, and so on…. I think people have to

understand it is going to be a long struggle.” And Pablo Solon,

former climate negotiator for Bolivia, told us: “In order to have

climate justice it’s necessary that the key thing is not inside the

COP. It’s not going to come through diplomatic negotiations;

there will only be climate justice if there is a strong organization

from social movements and civil society around the whole world.”

Climate justice, he said, is like civil rights—you have to fight

for it. But the problem, he said, is that the clock is running out.

“We need to build this movement as fast as we can.”

eyes on 2020 The world can no longer afford the global stalemate in

climate negotiations. Emissions rose 2.5 percent in 2011, exceed-

ing all previous years, and the World Bank is now predicting a

world utterly wrecked by a planetary average of four or more

degrees Celsius if the current growth rate of emissions is not dra-

matically reversed. Hurricane Sandy was but the latest warning.

Given that climate change is largely created in the wealthy

North, and perpetuated by the one percent who hold global

power, the climate problem will not be resolved without trans-

forming the social system. That is the ultimate aim of the climate

justice movement, expressed in the demand for “System Change,

not Climate Change!” To be successful, this movement will need

to be active both inside and outside the negotiations, in every

locale and also in the international arena, fighting the sources

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Estimates suggest that as little as 10 percent of climate change money designed to aid developing countries is channeled towards climate adaptation.

39S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 c o n t e x t s

of carbon pollution inside national borders, but also returning

to future climate conferences.

At the talks in Doha late last year, despite the fact that the

physical distance and expense kept participation at a minimum,

this progressive agenda advanced. The Kyoto Protocol was

renewed for another eight years, and the Durban treaty for 2020

moved forward incrementally. In the halls, all eyes turned toward

Poland, where the next climate conference will convene this year.

Our best hope is that global civil society organizations, and

the movements of youth, indigenous people, labor, and environ-

mentalists, will continue to converge at these talks, supporting

those countries whose positions best address the magnitude

of the crisis, and challenging those which do not. Under these

conditions, there is a cautious basis for optimism.

recommended resources Anderson, Kevin. “Climate Change Going Beyond Dangerous— Brutal Numbers and Tenuous Hope” (2012), whatnext.org/ resources/Publications/Volume-III/Single-articles/wnv3_anders- son_144.pdf. A clear and devastating look at the coming clash between societies and nature that concludes our only hope lies in decisive collective action.

Chivers, Danny. The No-Nonsense Guide to Climate Change: The Science, the Solutions, the Way Forward (New Internationalist, 2010). A perceptive and lively introduction to the science, politics, and our possible futures, and a perfect text for undergraduates and the general public.

Lynas, Mark. The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans (Fourth Estate, 2012). A guide to the “planetary bound- aries” approach, which looks soberly at how we have pushed the Earth to its limits, and proposes some provocative ways forward.

McKibben, Bill. “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math: Three Simple Numbers That Add Up to Global Catastrophe—And That Make Clear Who the Real Enemy Is,” Rolling Stone (July 19, 2012), rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terri- fying-new-math-20120719. The most well-known U.S. climate activist, co-founder of 350.org, shows that the world’s oil com- panies possess reserves that are five times in excess of what the world can afford to burn this century without triggering runaway warming.

Schneider, Stephen. Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth’s Climate (National Geographic, 2009). One of this nation’s best communicators of climate science to a skeptical public, the late Stanford scientist recounts how tough it has been to counter the denialists and their carbon funders.

Urry, John. Climate Change and Society (Polity, 2011). The con- summate sociological guide to the “high-carbon lives” we lead, and the alternative futures we face.

John Foran is professor of sociology and environmental studies at the University

of California, Santa Barbara. Richard Widick is visiting scholar, Orfalea Center for

Global & International Studies, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Together,

they direct the International Institute of Climate Action and Theory (iicat.org) and

study the shape of the coming climate wars.

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Civil society, organized labor, faith-based organizations, artists and musicians rally in a peaceful march through Durban.