Sierra club | Cathy's Class Blog

A big performance, a big rally, a big grant, a big complaint, and a big arrest — all in one semester

January 4 2019September 4, 2019

My intensive summer internship doing Ready for 100 work showed me what was possible when you put your mind to a campaign. I was determined to keep up the pace in the fall, not just with Ready for 100 but with other environmental and political activities as well. So much was happening in Central Ohio, it wasn’t possible to do it all, especially balancing work and school. But I did a lot.

The Ready for 100 team tabled at Josh Fox’s performance of The Truth Has Changed on September 14.

The Ready for 100 Columbus campaign held its regular steering committee meetings on the fourth Thursdays. In addition, I held one-on-one meetings with key volunteers such as our camapign manager Michael Wang, grassroots chair Raemona Cannon, grasstops chair Scott Bond, volunteer coordinator Angie Santo-Walter, communications chair Brittany Converse, and new volunteer for social media Andrew Keller. We did a lot of planning and pulled off several fantastic events:

Tabling and speaking Josh Fox’s performance of his one-man show, The Truth Has Changed, at Wexner Center for the Arts. Afterwards I got to speak about Ready for 100 to the audience of about 500.
A research party, maybe the first of its kind, in which a dozen people showed up to eat pizza and go through city documents, looking for information relevant to climate change, carbon emissions, and renewable energy. From the results of this, we were able to create a new Ready for 100 Columbus fact sheet (pdf).
A General Meeting in Franklinton that brought out about 25 people, some of whom became new volunteers.

I got to speak along with other local activists after Josh Fox’s performance of The Truth Has Changed. Photo by Paul Becker

We also began sending volunteers to attend area commission meetings in Franklinton and Linden, two neighborhoods identified by the 2018 Franklin County Energy Study as having unacceptably high energy burdens. As in many low-income and communities of color, the percentage of income that people pay for gas and electricity is much higher than average, both because they have lower incomes to begin with, and because they live in inefficient buildings with old appliances. We also met with Council Members Elizabeth Brown and Michael Stinziano.

Rise for Climate

Mother Nature came ready to protest fracking. Photo by Paul Becker

Another major event of the fall was the Rise for Climate, Jobs, and Justice rally and march held September 8 and sponsored by a broad coalition of environmental and community groups including Sierra Club Ohio Chapter, Simply Living, Defend our Future Ohio, Ohio Poor People’s Campaign, Move to Amend, Central Ohioans for Peace, Columbus Community Bill of Rights, Ohio Interfaith Power and Light, Unitarian Universalist Justice Ohio, Citizens Climate Lobby Columbus Chapter, Central Ohio Worker Center, and more.

Representatives of these groups met several times throughout August to plan the event, but with so many groups, disagreement arose about what kind of event to hold. One group wanted to hold a large rally and march, which another wanted to make it a small teach-in. We were not able to get the park space we wanted, so we couldn’t have tabling or food trucks. But in the end we put together a fantastic lineup of speakers (pdf) from the environmental, faith, indigenous, and labor communities.

Chuck Lynd brought the earth balloons that we popped in front of Sen. Portman’s office. Photo by Paul Becker

The morning of the event it began pouring rain, and I feared that despite all our publicity, no one would turn out. But 100 people did, some in amazing outfits. We started at the Statehouse with indigenous and labor speakers, marched to Senator Portman’s office, where we popped huge earth balloons while citing all of Portman’s votes to destroy the planet, then went to City Council where we heard from Council Member Emmanuel Remy, chair of the environment committee, Rev. Susan Smith of Crazy Faith Ministries, and were led in song by the Vocal Resistance choir. Here are photos by Paul Becker and Ralph Orr.

City meetings

Throughout the fall I continued to participate in city meetings and events. Each August the Columbus Foundation holds a Big Table event for community conversations to take place across the city. I attended the one on electric vehicles at the Smart Columbus Center, then rode as others test drove EVs including a Chevy Bolt. A reporter from the Dispatch covered the event, quoting me that the Bolt would be my next car.

Majorca Carter explains how her company led development that cleaned up the Bronx and jump-started new business at the MORPC Summit on Sustainability on October 25.

On September 7 the Office of Sustainability invited me a meeting to prepare for their interview with the Bloomberg Philanthropies as part of their application for the Bloomberg Climate Challenge Grant. I sat in on that interview September 12. Several VIPs who had not attended the preparation showed up, including Jordan Davis, director of Smart Columbus for the Columbus Partnership, and Laura Koprowski, vice president of Central Ohio Transit Authority. As they took charge of the interview, I realized I was the only volunteer in the room.

On October 25 I attended the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Association’s annual Sustainability Summit. I had never been before, and found the day extremely useful and insightful. The keynote was Majora Carter, who had brought equitable development to the South Bronx. Breakouts included sessions on regional energy, smart agriculture, and social equity.

A few days later I got a message from Alana Shockey, assistant director of sustainability, that the city had won the Bloomberg grant! This grant funds a climate advisor for the city as well as money for energy efficiency and renewable energy, as well as consultation about how to get buy-in from residents for new programs. It was fantastic news that we were more than happy to shout from the rooftops – or at least all over our social media. Ready for 100 team members met with the Office of Sustainability — now with a staff of five — to discuss next steps on November 15. They are not ready to make a commitment, at least not now, but they continue to lay the foundation for making one in the future.

Ohio Sierra Club

Raemona Cannon, Vicky Mattson, and I attended the 2018 Sierra Club Grassroots Network workshop at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife training center in Shepherdsville, W.V.

Raemona Cannon, Vicky Mattson, and I attended the 2018 Sierra Club Grassroots Network workshop at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife training center in Shepherdsville, W.V.

Meanwhile my work with Ohio Sierra Club continued. I attended bimonthly chapter Executive Committee meetings and participated in biweekly strategic planning calls to hammer out proposals for chapter communications and leadership development. From October 19-21, I attended the 2018 Grassroots Network campaign planning workshop, held at the training headquarters for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Shepherdstown, W.V. It’s a beautiful campus setting about an hour from Washington, D.C. The workshop covered movement building, equity, justice and inclusion, campaign planning, building campaign teams, online tools, and action planning. Also attending Ready for 100 Columbus grassroots chair Raemona Cannon and Ohio Chapter ExCom member Vicky Mattson.

Another Sierra Club success happened on December 4, when we packed a hearing by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio on AEP’s proposal to build 400 MW of utility-scale solar generation in southeast Ohio. About 55 people turned out to testify, with every single person testifying in favor of the proposal. I testified on behalf of Ready for 100 explaining that cities want their electricity to come from renewable energy. My tweet about the hearing got 20 retweets and almost 7,300 views.

Unfortunately not everything regarding Ohio Sierra Club was happy. When I got back from my summer study abroad trip to South Africa, I found messages from four different people telling me about the behavior of the chair of Sierra Club Central Ohio Group, who was also a member of the state Executive Committee. He had literally tried to get the chapter to stop the statewide Ready for 100 training I had spent all last spring planning and that by then had speakers committed and 50 people signed up. He was angry that it hadn’t gone through him.

I had a long history of problems with this man, who had tried to stop everything I wanted to do when I was in Central Ohio Group. Unless he could control it, he didn’t want me doing it. He accused me of running a “rogue campaign” — never mind that I was working with the national campaign and a state planning committee. He wanted me to clear it with him every time I spoke to any public official or said anything about Ready for 100 in public — although he spoke constantly to public officials and represented the Sierra Club publicly without consulting anyone. He had made meetings of Central Ohio Group so unpleasant that I stopped going and ran the Ready for 100 campaign on my own.

I had thought that by holding my meetings separate from Central Ohio Group I would not have to deal with this man, but I was wrong. He had attacked the campaign I had worked on for so long, and he did it while I was out of the country. I decided I could no longer ignore his attacks, and I wrote a 13-page single-spaced letter to the national office of chapter support outlining the years of problems I had with this toxic volunteer. Several other women had previously filed complaints against him, but I still had to check on progress every few weeks to keep my complaint from being dropped.

Ohio Chapter tried to deal with the matter for awhile, but was unable to do so effectively. After several months, it finally went to the top three people at Sierra Club, who conducted an investigation, then suspended this man’s membership. At that point this toxic person who had driven away so many good volunteers for so many years resigned his membership and quit his leadership post. Central Ohio Group still has not recovered, and Sierra Club nationally is working to come up for better procedures for dealing with toxic people like this. Ohio is far from the only chapter to have had these issues. Organizations must deal with toxic conduct like this quickly and effectively, or they risk derailing all the good work their volunteers are trying to do.

Sunrise and politics

Members of Sunrise Movement get ready to interrupt the DNC meeting on August 23, 2018, in Chicago.

Meanwhile, I continued trying to keep participating in national climate politics. I found out that Sunrise Movement planned an action at the Democratic National Committee meeting in Chicago on August 23-25 and decided to go. The action happened on the first day of the meeting, when the Resolutions Committee was discussing a proposal to stop taking large donations (defined as more than $200) from fossil fuel executives and employees. Sunrisers attended the meeting, then in the middle stood up singing and marching, then held a rally outside the meeting. It was a great privilege to be part of this.

Selina Vickers, delegate extraordinaire, and me

Selina Vickers and me at the DNC meeting no April 24, 2018, in Chicago

The next day the DNC had a vote about whether to reduce the power of superdelegates. Many progressives wanted the party to do away with superdelegates altogether, but they were not going to do that. However, they did have a proposal that superdelegates would vote only if selection of the presidential nominee went to a second ballot at the convention. Debate over this proposal was bitter, but I joined with member of Our Revolution Chicago to lobby DNC members to support the resolution, and it passed. The entire meeting was livestreamed by Selina Vickers of West Virginia, who has been livestreaming every meeting of the DNC since 2016.

Canvassing for Democrat Rick Neal in German Village, Columbus.

During the fall I somehow found time to do some local politics. I canvassed for Rick Neal running for Ohio House District 3 in October, then for Richard Cordray and Betty Sutton running for governor. Ohio Sierra Club had interviewed Cordray as part of its political endorsement process, and I was impressed with his plan to increase Ohio’s renewable energy standards while cracking down on fracking violations. I had originally supported Dennis Kucinich, even raising money for him, but supported Cordray after he won the primary decisively. I also helped pass out fliers for the Columbus progressive group Yes We Can on election day.

(left to right) Me, Carolyn Harding, and Elizabeth Hixson had to get our photo outside after we could not get in to Rep. Joyce Beatty’s office in November. I went back later myself but could not get her to support the Green New Deal. Photo by Paul Becker

After the election, Sunrise sent out a call for people to visit their local members of Congress and ask them to support the Green New Deal. I made an appointment with Rep. Joyce Beatty’s office and invited local progressives to attend. Two others showed up. Unfortunately, when we got there, we were told we did not have an appointment, and the security guards would not even let us drop off our materials. I posted about this on social media, and the next day, Beatty’s office called me and made another appointment. I had to go to that one by myself, and I tried to explain the urgency of climate change and why we need a Green New Deal. However, Beatty is close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who does not support the Green New Deal, and I could not get her on board.

Arrested in support of the Green New Deal on December 10, 2018, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Paul Becker

Finally in December was the highlight of my fall: I got arrested with 165 other Sunrisers for the Green New Deal. This was a planned civil disobedience action in Washington, D.C. Hundreds of people met for training the night before at Luther Place Church. That morning we lobbied our local members of Congress — about a dozen of us visited Rep. Joyce Beatty.

That afternoon I went to get arrested in front of Rep. Steny Hoyer’s office. I was designated as a “door holder” — one of three people to hold open the door during occupation of the office so people could come in and out to deliver letters and tell their stories. When that was done, I sat with a few dozen others in front of the office and waited to be arrested. I was handcuffed, taken outside (where it was very cold), patted down, and taken to the police holding station, where I had to wait for over six hours to pay a $50 fine.

Washington, D.C., sees so much civil disobedience that the Capitol Police have a special procedure called Post and Forfeit, in which you pay a fine and avoid a conviction going onto your record. It is low risk but takes a looooooong time. By the time I got out, it was dark and I was starving. Sunrise had a meeting place with snacks, then called a Lyft to take me back to my hotel where I got a good dinner and finally some rest.

Ohioans lobby Rep. Joyce Beatty’s office in Washington, D.C., asking her to support the Green New Deal. Photo by Paul Becker

Me with my fellow door holders at the Sunrise action in Washington, D.C. on December 9, 2018. Photo by Paul Becker

Occupying Rep. Steny Hoyer’s (D-Md.) office during the Sunrise action on December 9, 2018, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Paul Becker

Me (near the center) singing and chanting with a few dozen Sunrisers as we wait to be arrested outside Rep. Steny Hoyer’s office on December 9, 2018, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Scott Applewhite.

Green New Deal banner at Luther Place Church in Washington, D.C., on December 9, 2018.

Why Columbus needs to commit to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050

June 20 2017June 29, 2017

This article appeared in the July 2017 newsletter for Sierra Club Central Ohio Group.

On June 1, Donald Trump stunned the world by withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. Reaction was sharp and swift. Twelve states, more than 200 colleges and universities, and more than 1,000 businesses (including two dozen Fortune 500 companies) have pledged to honor the goals of the Paris accord whether Trump is on board or not.

Also committing to the Paris goal of reducing carbon emissions 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 are almost 300 cities in the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda, including Athens, Bexley, Cleveland, Columbus, Gambier, Lakewood and Toledo in Ohio.

Of those, 30 cities – including Atlanta, Grand Rapids, Mich., Madison, Wis. Rochester, Minn. and most recently Pittsburgh — have gone further by committing to get 100 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2050 or earlier.

Sierra Club Central Ohio Group urges the city of Columbus to join its peer cities in committing to 100 percent renewable energy. Science tells us that climate change is real, caused by human activity and poses an imminent threat to civilization and all life on earth. We have the solutions, but the window of opportunity to implement them is starting to close. We must act now.

Columbus has taken several positive steps to address climate change. Initiatives include:

The GreenSpot program that encourages businesses to save energy, reduce waste and promote green transportation.
The Columbus Region Energy Fund to help businesses and nonprofits improve energy efficiency.
The Green Fleet Action Plan to reduce the carbon footprint of city vehicles and maintenance.
Blueprint Columbus, which uses green solutions to mitigate stormwater runoff.
Branch Out Columbus, the goal of which is to plant 300,000 trees by 2020.

Columbus has also received a Smart Cities grant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through modernizing the grid, promoting electric vehicles and boosting the charging infrastructure. And on June 9, Mayor Ginther signed on to the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda.

All of these things are great steps forward, and we want to recognize the good things the city is doing. But it is not enough. Columbus can’t just enact green programs; we need to become a national leader on climate.

The Paris Agreement that the city has now signed has a stated goal of holding global warming as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius and no more than 2 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists have said is the highest we can go and still have a chance of an inhabitable climate.

However, if you add up all the pledges that every country has made under the Paris Agreement, that doesn’t get us to 1.5 degrees. It gets us to about 3 degrees Celsius, which is better than 5 degrees if we do nothing, but not good enough.

We have to do more than what the United States pledged under the Paris Agreement. Science is telling us that we must reduce emissions to zero by 2050.

In other words, we must transition to 100 percent renewable energy.

Some may think transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy is impossible. But that is not the case. Consider these facts:

$58.6 billion was invested in clean energy in the United States in 2016.
Enough solar energy reaches the Earth every hour to fill the entire world’s energy needs for a full year.
The cost of solar power has fallen from $79 per watt in 1976 to 41 cents per watt in 2016 – a staggering drop of 99.2 percent.
Wind generates enough energy to supply worldwide electricity consumption 40 times over.
The cost of wind power has fallen from 55 cents per kilowatt hour in 1980 to 2.5 cents in 2013 – a drop of over 95 percent.
The current fastest-growing job in the United States is wind turbine service technician.
The cost of lithium ion battery storage has fallen from $1500 per kilowatt hour in 2006 to $273 in 2016, a drop of 80 percent.
Renewables accounted for 90 percent of new electricity generation in 2015.

So the solutions are at hand, and adopting a target of 100 percent renewable energy community wide is within our reach.

100 percent renewable energy would also improve the health and well-being of the people of Columbus. According to the Columbus Department of Public Health, climate change will bring more extreme heat, which results in poorer air quality. This increases the number of people diagnosed with asthma and at risk of asthma attack.

Stronger, more frequent and more severe storms will increase chances of injury and death in a natural disaster. Warmer temperatures and flooding also increase the risk of diseases such as West Nile virus, Lyme disease and even Dengue fever.

Hardest hit will be the most vulnerable populations: the poor, very old and very young; those with mental or physical handicaps; and those with chronic health conditions. In other words, the people suffering most from infant mortality in our community will also be most affected by climate change. We must keep that from happening.

Finally, it is our duty to act. Although climate change is an international issue, we unfortunately have a federal government that has abdicated its responsibility to solve this problem.

In that vacuum, cities must step up. Cities account for 76 percent of carbon emissions from energy use. More than half the world’s population lives in urban areas, with more than two-thirds projected by 2050. Columbus is now the largest city in Ohio with almost 1 million people, but is projected to have up to 3 million by 2050.

All of these reasons are why 30 cities have passed legislation committing to 100 percent renewable energy. In addition, 90 mayors have pledged to support a vision of 100 percent clean and renewable energy in their cities, towns, and communities and across the country.

Columbus is well-positioned to join these forward-thinking cities. Besides the green programs we already have, the city is also home to several businesses that have a 100 percent renewable energy policy, such as Ikea, Anheuser-Busch and BMW Financial Services. A 100 percent green portfolio would attract more future-oriented businesses to locate here.

As a community, we can come together and deal with the climate crisis. The Department of Defense calls climate change a national security threat, but within this crisis is also an opportunity: to make our city stronger, healthier and more vibrant than ever before.

For all these reasons, we urge city leaders in Columbus to commit to getting 100 percent of our community’s energy from clean, non-polluting and renewable sources by 2050 or sooner.

Inside Climate Reality training with Al Gore

March 25 2017June 29, 2017

Almost 1000 people participated in Climate Reality training, March 1-4 in Denver. Click on photo to enlarge it.

Ten years ago when An Inconvenient Truth came out, I like so many other people became aware of the climate crisis. The movie ended with 10 things each of us could do to help stop global warming, and I did all of them: changed my light bulbs, took shorter showers, started recycling.

Yet now the climate crisis is worse than ever. Each of the last three years has been the hottest on record. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is at its highest point since the age of the dinosaurs. Oceans are 30 percent more acidic than before the Industrial Revolution, the fastest chemistry change in 50 million years. Glaciers worldwide are melting, the jet stream is wobbling, and ocean currents are slowing down.

I was lucky to get this pic with Al Gore at the Cedar Rapids airport in May 2015. No he doesn’t fly around on private jets. Photo by Brian Ettling

Clearly individual action is not enough. So two years ago, I attended my first Climate Reality training with Al Gore in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to find out what else I could do. There I met hundreds of climate leaders from around the world and started learning about climate in depth.

Here are some mind-blowing facts:

The energy trapped by man-made global warming pollution is now equivalent to exploding 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day, 365 days a year.
Extreme hot days are now 150 times more common than 30 years ago.
2016 was the 40^th consecutive year with a global temperature above the 20^th century average.
93 percent of the extra heat trapped by manmade global warming pollution goes into the oceans.
Seven 1,000-year floods have occurred in the United States in the last seven years.
A 1ºC mean temperature rise decreases wheat yields by 21 percent.
Water scarcity now affects 40 percent of the world’s population.
Air pollution kills 6.5 million people worldwide every year.
Land-based plant and animal species are moving poleward at a rate of 15 feet per day.
We have lost more than half of the world’s wildlife in the last 40 years.

Climate action

My Ohio mentees at Climate Reality training in Denver.

I came out of the Iowa training determined to tackle the problem of climate change in a much more systematic way, through action on the local, state and national level. The first thing I did was join the Sierra Club, which helped me get to the People’s Climate March, testify about the Clean Power Plan, and lobby my state legislators on returning Ohio’s clean energy standards.

In December 2015 I went to Paris for two weeks as part of the Sierra Club delegation during the COP 21 climate conference. At the time, no climate agreement had included developing countries, and no one knew if almost 200 nations would come together to make it happen. But they did, and I came back full of hope that the climate crisis would finally be addressed.

My California mentees at Climate Reality training in Denver.

A year later, after the 2016 election, I knew I had to get back to climate activism. In January, Climate Reality announced a new training in Denver, so I applied to go – this time not as a participant but a mentor. I was thrilled to be accepted and get 20 mentees from Ohio and California.

At mentor training the day before the conference, I learned that 2,700 people had applied for 900 slots. My list of mentees was full of accomplished people – among them, a city councilwoman from Cuyahoga Falls, a county commissioner from San Jose, a staffer for Ohio EPA, a former staffer for Florida Department of Transportation who left for a job at Google after the governor told employees they couldn’t discuss climate change, a doctor at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and a high-school student from Marin School of Environmental Leadership.

Day 1

Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and Isa Caress performed their new song “Break Free” at Climate Reality conference in Denver. Photo by Jill MacIntyre Witt

On the first day we saw Al Gore give his entire slideshow, “The Climate Crisis and Its Solutions,” based on his presentation from An Inconvenient Truth. Gore updates this slideshow constantly, with many slides containing graphics and videos from recent events. This was followed by a panel discussion on responding to the impacts of climate change, featuring first responders, emergency managers, and community leaders on the front lines in Colorado.

Only the first half of Gore’s presentation is about the problem of climate change. If it stopped there, we would have been left hopeless, but it didn’t. The second half covered the incredible takeoff of renewable technologies. Here are a few facts:

In 2016, $58.6 billion was invested in clean energy in the United States.
Wind energy capacity has grown 16 times faster than 2000 projections.
The United States now has 75 gigawatts of wind power installed, enough to power 20 million homes.
Globally there is enough wind energy to supply electricity consumption 40 times over.
Solar energy capacity has grown 77 times faster than 2000 projections.
The cost of solar cells has fallen from $79.40 per watt in 1976 to 41 cents per watt now.
Solar installation has gone from 4 megawatts in 2000 to 35,800 megawatts now.
Enough solar energy hits the earth every hour to fill the world’s energy needs for a year.
Renewables accounted for 90 percent of new electricity generation worldwide in 2015.
The subsidy-free cost of solar and wind is now less than gas, coal or nuclear.

We also heard from Leah Greenberg, co-author of Indivisible, a guide by former Congressional staffers of best practices for making your elected representatives listen. The day ended with a performance by Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and his sister Isa Caress, indigenous hip hop artists. Xiuhtezcatl is also a plaintiff in the Our Children’s Trust lawsuit of 21 children against the federal government for not fulfilling its public trust to protect the climate for future generations.

Day 2

Al Gore’s photo with youth trainees at the Climate Reality conference in Denver.

Day 2 featured an incredible panel of scientists including Kevin Trenberth, climate scientist with NOAA; Henry Pollack, geophysicist at University of Michigan; and Don Henry, director of Climate Reality in Australia.

They talked about the impacts of various types of greenhouse gases, the most prevalent denier claims and how to respond (check out Skeptical Science), political forces aligned against climate action (see Merchants of Doubt), the Montreal Protocol that phased out ozone-destroying CFCs as a model for climate action, how to get coal country on board (clean energy jobs), and the outlook for carbon capture and sequestration (too expensive for coal plants to implement), nuclear (too slow and expensive for our needs), and fracking (methane leakage and risks to water make it untenable, and we should just leapfrog to renewables).

We also heard about best practices for communicating climate change from Ngiste Abebe of Aulenor Consulting, and Jon Shenk and Diane Weyermann of Participant Media, who talked with Al Gore about making An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power, which premieres July 28.

Day 3

The 2017 Denver mentors get their photo with Climate Reality Chairman Al Gore and CEO Ken Berlin.

Day 3 began with a survey of the political landscape after the election of Trump by Ken Berlin, president of the Climate Reality Project. One point Berlin made is that Trump can’t just roll back climate rules or even agency budgets without new rules and action from Congress, and that environmental activists and groups will be fighting his anti-climate agenda every step of the way.

We heard from Director of Engagement Olena Alec about what we as climate leaders could do, with slides of actions by current climate leaders, including two people I had trained with in Iowa, Doug Grandt presenting to a room of fifth-graders and Ina Warren conducting a monarch workshop.

Al Gore recognizes leaders of cities and universities that have committed to going 100% renewable. Photo by Bill Trueit.

Gore then presented awards to representatives of several cities that have recently committed to transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy. Climate Reality’s 100% Committed campaign is working with Sierra Club’s Ready for 100 campaign to bring on dozens of new cities by 2018. Stay tuned – this could be coming soon to a city near you.

Next was a presentation by Jules Kortenhorst, CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute, that explained both the technology and economics behind the unstoppable rise of renewable energy over expensive, outdated and polluting fossil fuels, followed by a livestreamed panel of Climate Reality leaders talking with Al Gore about their experiences.

Mentees at the very first training in Al Gore’s barn in 2006 for what was then called the Climate Project. Photo by Keith Bergman.

Over lunch the mentors got to meet Al Gore in person. I had gotten my photo with Gore at the Iowa training in 2015 – purely by luck meeting him at the airport – so this time I took photos for other people. Some of the other first-time mentors were thrilled, while the longtime mentors caught Gore up on their latest news. Two mentors in Denver, Keith Bergman and Bill Bradbury, had been among 50 people at the very first training in 2006 at Gore’s barn in Carthage, Tenn.

The afternoon was filled with breakout sessions on topics like public lands, the water/energy nexus, putting on sustainable events, but after an intensive four days of training, I took a couple of hours for myself before commencement at which I gave certificates and Green Rings to my mentees. I’ll be following up with them throughout the year, hoping to arrange a meetup for the Ohio mentees this summer. We now have at least a dozen Climate Reality leaders in the state.

Moral challenge

The last day of Climate Reality training in Denver. My tables were in the back of the room that day.

Al Gore’s closing remarks to the conference summed up why I’m in the climate movement. Climate change, he said, is a moral challenge in the tradition of other moral issues of our time such as abolitionism, women’s suffrage, civil rights, apartheid, and most recently gay marriage. These movements encounter roadblock after roadblock, until finally they succeed.

“When any great moral challenge is resolved into a binary choice between what is right and what is wrong, the outcome is foreordained because of who we are as human beings,” Gore said. “That is where we are now, and that is why we are going to win this. We have everything we need. Some still doubt we have the will to act, but I say the will to act is itself a renewable resource.”

The Climate Reality Project has now held 35 trainings for over 11,000 climate leaders from around the world, and they are still going strong. This is a unique opportunity to learn about the most pressing crisis facing the planet, and how to make change even in a hostile political environment. It’s also a chance to meet some amazing people you will be in contact with for years. If you are concerned about climate change, this is a program you won’t want to miss.

This article appeared in the April 2017 newsletter for Sierra Club Central Ohio Group.

BLM auctions off 750 acres of Wayne National Forest for fracking

December 20 2016June 29, 2017

Demonstrators gather at the entrance to the Wayne National Forest in Nelsonville, Ohio, on December 1, 2016, to protest a BLM auction of oil and gas leases on public land in the forest. Photo courtesy of Kimberly Dawley.

Over the objections of the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations, the Bureau of Land management on December 13 auctioned off leases for parcels in Wayne National Forest to oil and gas corporations for fracking.

Parcels in the Marietta unit of Wayne National Forest marked off for auction to oil and gas corporations for fracking.

More than 750 acres across 17 parcels in the forest’s Marietta unit were sold to 22 oil and gas companies for a total of about $1.7 million. Winning bids ranged from $2 per acre to $5,806.12 per acre.

Originally the BLM had posted 31 parcels in Wayne National Forest for lease, but pulled 17 at the last minute, finding that they already had existing oil and gas leases. A few of the pulled parcels even have operational wells.

Discussion of fracking in Wayne National Forest goes back to 2011, when the BLM proposed leasing parcels of the forest to oil and gas operations. At that time the Sierra Club joined with other groups such as Athens County Fracking Action Network and Buckeye Forest Council to successfully lobby Wayne Forest supervisor Anne Carey to withdraw consent for fracking.

But in late 2015 the BLM brought back plans to frack Wayne National Forest. The agency held information sessions near each of the forest’s three main units in Athens, Marietta, and Ironton. In Athens 200 citizens showed up to oppose fracking.

The sale came after BLM issued a draft Environmental Assessment, a “fast-track” assessment of the risk of oil and gas drilling in the Marietta unit, along with an unsigned Finding of No Significant Impact in April 2016. Their proposal was to lease fracking rights to 40,000 acres, including 18,000 acres in the first auction. More than 50 oil companies expressed interest.

Objections

In response, the Sierra Club with Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Ohio Environmental Council submitted a 78-page letter demanding a full Environmental Impact Statement, a much more comprehensive examination of environmental risks.

Activists rallied against fracking in Wayne National Forest outside Sen. Rob Portman’s office in Columbus on November 3, 2016.

The groups said the draft assessment had not taken into account that:

Fracking poses a risk to water quality through contamination of rivers, streams, and water tables from fracking fluid and disposal wells.
Fracking harms air quality through pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and ozone.
Methane from fracking significantly increases greenhouse gas emissions, adding to climate change that increases the chances of extreme weather events, sea level rise, and impacts to infrastructure.
Fracking poses significant human health and safety risks such as increased risk of cancer, birth defects, and heart attacks.
Fracking poses a risk to wildlife species such as the northern long-eared bat and threatens loss of wildlife habitats.

BLM must end all new fossil fuel leasing and fracking on public lands in order to limit greenhouse gas emissions and keep fossil fuels in the ground required to meet the Paris Agreement on climate change, the environmental group’s letter said.

Activists rallied against fracking in Wayne National Forest outside Sen. Rob Portman’s office in Columbus on November 3, 2016.

Sierra Club also worked with Center for Biological Diversity and Ohio Environmental Council to ask the U.S. Forest Service to intervene to stop the sale of Wayne National Forest for fracking. Under federal rules, BLM oversees oil and gas operations, but the Forest Service must consent to these activities and can withdraw consent at any time.

“Public lands are for the people, not for the benefit of Big Oil and Gas,” Lena Moffitt, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign, said in a statement last month. “Drilling for oil and gas means more fracking, and fracking means poisoning our air and water, and threatening the health of our communities and our environment. At a time when clean energy like solar and wind is proving to be safest, healthiest and most cost-effective way to power our country, it’s high time we recognized that we need to leave dirty fuels like coal, oil and gas in the ground.”

Unfortunately, the BLM did not take concerns raised by Sierra Club and other groups into account and declined to do an in-depth Environmental Impact Statement. In October the BLM published its final Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact, setting the auction date for December 13.

Online auction

The auction was conducted entirely online. To bid, interested parties had to sign up through the auction portal, declare they intended to use the land for oil and gas exploration, and provide their bank account information to receive a maximum bid allowance.

Activists made plans for how to counter fracking in Wayne National Forest at a meeting on October 27, 2016.

Several environmental groups ran campaigns against fracking in Wayne National Forest. More than 4,000 people sent letters to the U.S. Forest Service through an action alert posted by Ohio Sierra Club. An Action Sprout petition posted by Ohio Environmental Council got over 8,000 signatures, and a Change.org petition posted by Athens County Frack Action Network netted over 99,000 signatures.

In addition, protests were organized at the offices of Sens. Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown, as well as at U.S. Forest Service offices in the Athens unit.

Coincidentally, also on December 13, the Environmental Protection Agency released its final report showing that fracking has indeed contaminated drinking water. This was a change from the draft report that found such contamination only in isolated cases.

The EPA updated the report after a virtually unanimous outcry from environmental protection organizations across the country as well as its own Science Advisory Board.

Activists rallied against fracking in Wayne National Forest outside Sen. Rob Portman’s office in Columbus on November 3, 2016.

BLM has 60 days to issue the fracking leases sold on December 13. Companies then must apply for a permit to drill, a process that takes at least six months.

Parties interested in opposing fracking in Wayne National Forest will meet on Thursday, January 26, at 6 p.m. in Room 100 of the Northwood-High Building, 2231 N. High St., Columbus, OH 43201, to discuss options following the December auction.

This story appeared in the January 2017 newsletter for Sierra Club Central Ohio Group.

Witnessing – and making — history in Paris

December 28 2015June 29, 2017

Note: This is an article I published about my experiences at the Paris climate conference in the newsletter for the Sierra Club Central Ohio Group (pdf).

In December I traveled to Paris as part of the Sierra Club delegation to the COP 21 climate conference. The conference marked a turning point for humanity, resulting in an agreement by almost 200 countries signaling that the age of fossil fuels is over.

Although I did not have a badge for the actual climate negotiations – the United Nations issued many fewer badges than usual this year – Sierra Club members got daily reports from Fred Heutte, lead volunteer for the Federal and International Climate Campaign.

That left most of us free to attend civil society events and actions – and there were a lot. Throughout the two weeks, the Sierra Club had a booth at Climate Generations, the space next to the negotiations where hundreds of organizations had displays, and as many as eight speakers and panels on climate were going on simultaneously.

There were also dozens of meetings, festivals, actions, and other events occurring daily throughout Paris – sometimes it was hard just hearing about them all. There was no way to attend everything – you had to choose. But no matter what you picked, it would be good.

The hostel where I stayed, called Place to B, had daily programs featuring speakers such as James Hansen, Vandana Shiva, and Amy Goodman. There were also numerous side conferences such as UNESCO’s Earth to Paris, featuring an all-star lineup of scientists and activists and an interview with Secretary of State John Kerry; and the Climate Summit for Local Leaders, at which 1,000 mayors pledged to take their cities 100 percent renewable by 2050.

Here are some highlights from my time in Paris:

1.5 degrees. Although most observers expected participating countries to agree to limit warming to 2°C, almost no one anticipated the momentum to lower that limit to 1.5°C. It started with a call from climate vulnerable countries led by the Marshall Islands. Then France and Germany joined, then Canada and Australia, then the United States and China.

In the end, all countries pledged to limit warming to “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.”

Indigenous peoples. Indigenous people from around the world were key players in many events such as an anti-fracking summit and a conference on women at the frontlines of climate change.

They also led the Indigenous Flotilla, featuring the Canoe of Life which traveled from the Amazon. Dozens of indigenous people canoed and kayaked into Bassin de la Villette to present world governments with their “Living Forest” proposal drawing from indigenous experience to live in harmony with nature.

Rights of nature. A two-day International Rights of Nature Tribunal explored the rights of nature as a legal concept and how they might be defended in a series of cases against violators of those rights. Cases included:

Climate crimes against nature such as fossil fuels, deforestation, and water use;
Financialization of nature, including carbon trading and REDD;
Agribusiness and GMOs;
Criminalization of environmental activism and murders of activists;
Shale fracking operations, which speakers argued was akin to rape of the earth;
Megadams in Brazil that destroy ecosystems and displace indigenous people;
Ecocide through oil operations in Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park.

Trade and climate. Throughout the two weeks were events on trade, unions, jobs, and climate, emphasizing that while addressing climate change through renewable energy creates jobs, bad trade deals destroy both jobs and climate. The culmination was a general assembly at the Climate Action Zone on “Capitalism and Climate” featuring Naomi Klein.

While climate agreements are not legally binding, Klein said, trade deals such as NAFTA and the TPP are not only binding but would allow corporations to sue to overturn laws protecting the climate that hurt their profits. The trade and climate movements should work together to defeat this, she said.

Exxon trials. There were two mock trials of Exxon similar to the successful RICO case against tobacco corporations by the Justice Department. A recent investigation by Inside Climate News shows that Exxon was conducting some of the foremost climate science in the 1970s and 80s, but in the 1990s chose to bury this information and instead fund climate denial campaigns.

In the first trial, held at the People’s Climate Summit, Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein called a series of witnesses affected by climate change to show the damage that Exxon’s denial campaigns have done. The second event featured Matt Pawa, an environmental attorney who has won cases against Exxon and AEP, building a RICO case based on recently released documents.

On and off police actions. Before COP 21 started, French authorities banned large climate marches due to the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris. The attacks were still fresh when I arrived. Massive numbers of flowers, candles, photos, and other mementos were placed around the statue of Marianne at Place de la Republique as well as in front of and across several blocks near the Bataclan club, where most of the victims lost their lives.

I was taking photos at Place de la Republique on November 29 when police cracked down on a few hundred demonstrators, and I was nearly swept up. By December 12, thousands of activists were flooding the streets, and French authorities finally relented and gave them a permit. The result was a beautiful Red Lines demonstration organized by 350.org.

The climate conference in Paris was historic, not only for the agreement it produced, but for the breadth, depth, and global nature of events and actions surrounding it. I feel privileged to have participated in these events and witnessed history being made.

Saturday, December 12 – We have an agreement

December 12 2015December 27, 2015

Today was my travel day back to the United States. It was also the day that the final draft of the Paris Agreement was to be released — and the day thousands of climate activists had vowed to flood the streets of Paris in defiance of a ban on demonstrations by the French government — both happening around noon. With my flight from Paris to New York leaving at 10:30 a.m., I was in the air for nine hours, plus an additional six hours due to changes in time zone – putting me out of communication for a crucial 15 hours.

Lots of legroom in business class

Fortunately I was able to upgrade to business class for the long flight, which meant I could actually sleep a few hours after staying up very late packing, But by the time I landed in New York at 8 p.m. Paris time, 2 p.m. local time, I was desperate for information. My friends on social media were only too happy to supply it. The negotiators at COP21 had reached an agreement — by most accounts a good one. The French government at the last minute had issued a permit to climate activists. My feed was flooded with stories and analysis about the historic Paris Agreement, my email was overflowing with reactions from NGO groups, and my friends were posting photos and videos from the day’s events.

The photos and videos from the demonstrations organized by 350.org and others are amazing, and remind me of the 2014 People’s Climate March in New York City. I am so glad that the French government finally came to its senses and allowed people to express themselves. Perhaps they had no choice, as literally tens of thousands of activists were in the streets, and there would be no way to arrest even a small percentage. Perhaps this chain of events shows people like Naomi Klein know more about activism than I do. When she urged people to take to the streets in mass numbers, they did, and they won. I was now sorry that I couldn’t get an extra day at Place to B, but then I’m also glad to be home.

My Paris flight landed 45 minutes late in New York, giving me only half an hour to go through customs, collect my luggage and recheck it, get to the other side of the airport, go back through security, and find my gate. I got there two minutes before the plane was to take off, but it was already gone. It took me awhile to rouse up someone at an American Airlines counter to rebook me, and when I did they were incredibly rude. Air travel has become extremely stressful and unpleasant. On the other hand, the three-hour wait for the next flight gave me time to get a good dinner and catch up on all the COP 21 news and reactions. Here is some of what I found.

Paris Agreement

UNFCCC – Final agreement

UNFCCC – Press release

Video – Fabius bangs gavel on COP21

President Obama – Video statement

White House – Press release

Ban Ki Moon – Statement

Saturday actions

350.org – Video

350.org – Photos

Citizens Voice – Video

Greenpeace – Video

Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben – Facebook live

News stories

The New York Times – Nations Approve Landmark Climate Accord in Paris, by Coral Davenport

The Washington Post – 196 countries approve history climate agreement, by Joby Warrick and Chris Mooney

Politico – The one word that almost sank the climate talks, by Andrew Restuccia

Think Progress – In Historic Paris Climate Deal, World Unanimously Agrees To Not Burn Most Fossil Fuels, by Joe Romm

Mother Jones – Breaking: World Leaders Just Agreed to a Landmark Deal to Fight Global Warming, by Tim McDonnell and James West

Guardian – Paris climate deal: nearly 200 nations sign in end of fossil fuel era, by Suzanne Goldenberg et al

Al Jazeera – World leaders make history with climate deal in Paris

BBC – COP21 climate change summit reaches deal in Paris

Carbon Brief – Analysis: The Final Paris climate deal

Reactions

Sierra Club – Sierra Club on the Paris Climate Agreement: “A Turning Point For Humanity”

Citizens Climate Lobby – With Paris agreement adopted, climate action begins in earnest

James Hansen – James Hansen, father of climate change awareness, calls Paris talks ‘a fraud’

Bill McKibben – World leaders adopt 1.5 C goal — and we’re damn well going to hold them to it

Climate Action Network – Civil society responds as final Paris Climate Agreement released

International Council for Science – Top scientists weigh in on current draft of Paris climate agreement

The Conversation – Historic Paris climate pact reached: Experts react

After 22 hours of travel, I am happy to be home.

COP 21 State of Play – Days 10 and 11

December 11 2015December 26, 2015

Each day, Fred Heutte, lead volunteer for the Sierra Club’s Federal and International Climate Campaign, is providing updates about the day’s events at COP21, the Paris Climate Conference. I will reprint these in this blog with his permission.

Fred Heutte

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 9 — There was a lot of anticipation for the release of a new negotiating text, but when it finally appeared Wednesday afternoon it was immediately clear that it lacked ambition even in the limited political bounds of this COP.

A lengthy evening review session of the Paris Committee showed general support for the French presidency’s process going forward, but highlighted a great many concerns across both the draft Paris Agreement and the COP decision.

While the text reduced the draft Agreement from 22 down to 14 pages and removed a lot of brackets, all the key issues remained and in some cases the opposing proposals were even farther apart.

Art in the Green Zone at COP 21.

THURSDAY, DEC. 10 — This was a pivotal day for the negotiations. After being postponed several times, a new text was finally issued just after 9 p.m. After a brief Paris Committee meeting, there was a two-hour break while countries and observers separately reviewed the new revision.

The new draft arrived in the proper order. Now the draft COP 21 decision goes first, and the Paris Agreement is attached as an annex. This sets up the final COP plenary on Saturday, which will adopt both as a single package.

The new Paris Agreement text is now 14 pages, and removes most of the brackets and many of the minor options. Remaining are key issues that will be in play until the hour, early Saturday morning, when the French presidency determines things are close enough to propose a final text.

Broadly speaking, as we knew for the last couple of years during the development of the Durban Platform and the run-up to Paris, this will be a deal reflecting the political state of play among the world’s nations at this time, and not fully encompassing the reality of climate change and the what the science is saying.

Within that context, our reaction to the Thursday text is fairly positive, and it is going to be the high water mark for this process. It is much better on the five-year cycle of stocktaking and new contributions (plans for mitigation, adaptation, etc.) from all countries, quite good on the process for providing finance to developing countries and language supporting a progressive increase post-2020 from the $100 billion per year level, a strong long-term climate goal, and moving forward with a coherent technology transfer program with social and environmental integrity.

The text is weaker on other aspects and particularly messy on loss and damage, where the U.S. “safe harbor” language ruling out any liability or compensation is now on the table and threatens to undermine the entire loss and damage section.

Our assessment of the Thursday text

What we like:

1.5 degrees referenced in Article 2
Long-term goal of greenhouse gas emissions neutrality within the second half of the century guided by science
Five-year cycles of INDCs starting in 2020
Global stocktake for mitigation and finance every five years starting 2023
Floor of $100 billion climate finance with cycles of review

Parts we don’t love:

Just transition, human rights and other elements of the “Paris principles” only in Preamble, which is non-binding language — but at least they are there
Transparency and verification are still in flux with options

Ministers pulled another all-nighter to respond and try to influence the text behind closed doors. In these last hours we are pushing hard to retain the strong parts of the text and against the bad options that remain.

Informal very high level negotiations will continue throughout the day on Friday and a final text may now appear on Saturday morning, with a Paris Committee and plenary meeting probably around noon, but clearly the timeline is a moment by moment matter at this stage.

State of Play Dateline

[x] Sunday 29 ADP pre-plenary
[x] Monday 30 COP opening plenary – Leader Event
[x] Tuesday 1 COP/CMP joint plenary, SBI and SBSTA opening plenaries,
start of ADP contact group and spinoffs
[x] Wednesday 2 – Spin-Off Groups, ADP stocktaking
[x] Thursday 3 – Spin-Off Groups, ADP stocktaking
[x] Friday 4 – revised ADP text 8 a.m.
[x] Saturday 5 closing ADP plenary, COP plenary
[x] Monday 7 High Level Segment, Paris Committee
[x] Tuesday 8 High Level Segment, Paris Committee
[x] Wednesday 9, Paris Committee
[x] Thursday 10, Paris Committee
[ ] Friday 11, Paris Committee
[ ] Saturday 12 (extra time), closing COP plenary

Friday, December 11 – New text, Extreme Whether

December 11 2015December 26, 2015

As promised on Wednesday, new draft text for the agreement did come out yesterday, but not until 9 p.m. Thus, when Naomi Klein ended her event at Climate Action Zone last night by telling everyone to flood the streets on Saturday in defiance of French government plans to crack down on demonstrators, she was operating off the weak draft of the agreement released Wednesday. Yesterday’s version was a lot better — though climate activists are not cancelling their plans to flood the streets.

A series of equations related to the general circulation model of climate lines the train stop to Le Bourget at Gare du Nord in Paris.

Lisa Friedman of E&E News has a good rundown of the new draft, which apparently involved a long speech to negotiators by Secretary of State John Kerry:

Ratcheting: This is the provision under which countries will agree to have their emissions targets reviewed and increased every five years. This has been something the United States and many environmental groups have insisted upon, while India and others have insisted that doing so must be voluntary for developing nations and come with the commitment of money. The current text includes some key elements the United States hopes to see, including potentially strong language ensuring that all countries move toward economywide emissions cuts. At the same time, it recognizes that “peaking will take longer for developing country parties.”

Transparency: This is another issue dear to the heart of the U.S. negotiating team. State Department Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern has called it “vital” that developing countries be asked to report their progress toward their emissions targets with as much rigor and frequency as rich countries. Today’s text leaves that still very much up in the air. Deutz said the biggest resistance there comes from India and China, which, like many other developing countries, are wary of intervention from abroad. “It’s a historic issue for China and also some countries with a colonial past. They jealously guard their sovereignty and domestic politics,” he said — though he also noted, “developed countries don’t really like other nations poking around in their business, either,” but have become comfortable with the U.N. system for reviewing emissions cuts.

Temperature target: In a big win for island nations, the new text now calls for holding the global average temperature increase to “well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C.” Scientists say it will be tremendously difficult to meet that goal, but the most vulnerable nations said the deal must at minimum recognize it as an aspiration. “With this, I would be able to go home and tell my people that our chance for survival is not lost,” Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum said.

Legally binding: In a surprising move, the final text makes no mention of either internationally binding emissions pledges or a demand to implement policies to see those targets through. That’s another win for the United States, which is trying to avoid the need for Senate approval. Rather than requiring that countries make good on their pledges, it states only that intended nationally determined contributions “shall be recorded in a public registry maintained by the secretariat.” European and American activists described the language as a major concession on the part of the European Union, which had sought binding commitments as a means of guaranteeing that promised reductions would happen.

Again negotiators stayed up most of the night to get to this draft of the agreement, and they are promising to release final text tomorrow (Saturday), which means they met at 5:30 a.m. today to start the final round of negotiations. To think the fate of the world rests on the shoulders of people who have had practically no sleep for three days …

Today was my last full day in Paris. Tomorrow I have to catch the shuttle at 7:15 a.m. to head to the airport for a 10:30 a.m. flight. I was debating whether to use the day to go back to the Climate Action Zone or to Climate Generations, but the decision was made for me when the Sierra Club sent out a message that its final gathering would take place at 4 p.m. at Climate Generations. I enjoyed a leisurely lunch while catching up on COP news and then headed over.

Final meeting of the Sierra Club delegation at Climate Generations.

At the Sierra Club gathering, we heard from Fred Heutte and John Coequyt of the Federal and International Climate Campaign, who have been inside the negotiations the entire time. They stressed that the Sierra Club really likes most of the agreement. Points they like include five-year cycles for national commitments starting in 2020, goal of greenhouse gas neutrality in the second half of the century, a target of 1.5 degrees C referenced in Article 2, global stocktaking for mitigation and finance every five years starting in 2023, and a floor of $100 billion in climate financing per year with cycles of review. Parts of the agreement they do not like are the just transition only in the preamble, not the body of the agreement, and transparency and verification still in flux.

Sierra Club members signed its COP21 sign.

Coequyt said the Sierra Club would be using positive messaging to talk about the agreement, even though other groups may use a negative frame. The reason for this, he said, is that these groups have different audiences. The Sierra Club’s audience is mainly Americans who we need to support this agreement. Many aspects, especially the incorporation of the 1.5 C target, are above and beyond what anyone expected, though he noted that scientific integrity calls for us to clarify that humans will most likely overshoot 1.5 C (1.4 C is already locked in) and then have to bring it back down. Other groups, especially those representing climate vulnerable populations, Coequyt said, would frame it negatively because they want to pressure countries of the world to do more. This explanation really helped me understand why there are such wildly varying frames of the same agreement.

After the meeting, I headed with Glen Besa and Tyla Matteson to the Fondacion des Etats-Unis to see a theatrical reading of a play called “Extreme Whether” by Karen Malpede, based in part on the work of climate scientists James Hansen and Jennifer Francis (though they are not in a relationship in real life). Here’s the summary:

Extreme Whether poses a bitter debate over the future of the planet but becomes a meditation on the sublime in nature. Written in a mix of prose and poetry, with invective, humor and a full musical score, Extreme Whether sets the battle over global warming within a single family as a challenge to the American family at this moment of ecological crisis.

A major climate scientist, his colleague and lover, an Arctic scientist, wage fierce battle with his twin sister, a publicist for the energy industry, and her husband, a lobbyist, over scientific truth and an inherited wilderness estate. His wise-child daughter and her side-kick Uncle work to protect the natural world and sabotage its abusers.

Theatrical reading of Extreme Whether. My Place to B roommate is second from right.

As it happened, one of my roommates at Place to B was in this play. I had heard about it while scouting out events to attend before my trip, and she told me that she was acting in a play here when she first checked in this week, but I didn’t put it together that this was the play she was in until today. The reading was excellent even without the normal props and costumes in a full production. If you ever have a chance to see this, go. Here’s a good review.

After the play, I headed over to Piscine Pontoise for a swim. My flight to Paris had been miserable in part because I hadn’t gotten in a workout before going, and I wanted the flight back to be easier. Swimming meant that I had to skip a special appearance by Amy Goodman at Place to B. I was hoping it would be recorded, and fortunately it was. You can join me in watching it here:

Thursday, December 10 – State Department warning and Naomi Klein

December 10 2015December 26, 2015

Today started with an email from the U.S. State Department warning me that the French government is likely to crack down on climate demonstrations planned for Saturday. As it happened, my plane flight home was scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Saturday, so I can’t take part in this anyway. Knowing that UN climate negotiations have a history of going over by a day, I asked Place to B before my trip if I could stay until Sunday. But they said they had another event starting Saturday and would not have room, and I didn’t want to try to find a place to stay in Paris for just one night.

So I scheduled my flight to return home Saturday, and now I am just as glad. I nearly got swept up at Place de la Republique my first day here, and do not want to try my luck again. It sounds as if there will be mass arrests not only at Place de la Republique but also Le Bourget. Although I respect each person’s decision about practicing civil disobedience, and under the right circumstances I might decide to do so myself, I am not interested in getting arrested in France.

I spent the day in a low-key way trying to catch up on news from the Blue Zone and touch base with my friends back home though social media. The truth is, I have been here 12 days and am ready to go home — but negotiations over the agreement are entering a crucial phase, and I want to see this through. Yesterday at 3 p.m. the UNFCCC released its latest version of the draft text — to the pleasure of no one. Many important areas of disagreement still have not been hammered out — for example, there are still three options regarding temperature target, and some of them still have brackets. Activists staged a huge sit-in near the replica of the Eiffel Tower in the Blue Zone while negotiators stayed up most of the night working on the text, with another draft due today. I’m thankful that Amy Goodman with Democracy Now is inside reporting on events.

I also got news from back home of a Senate hearing organized by Ted Cruz this week on “Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate over the Magnitude of Human Impact on Earth’s Climate” — featuring testimony from a right-wing radio host and three of the only scientists in the world who disagree with the 97 percent consensus that climate change is real and caused by humans chiefly through burning of fossil fuels. Cruz’s stance on climate change is to claim that his denial is based on science, even though pretty much every scientific academy in the United States and across the rest of the world disagrees.

However, Greenpeace had a surprise going into this hearing. Earlier it conducted an investigation in which its agents posed as representatives of a Middle Eastern oil company and offered one of the witnesses, William Happer, professor emeritus of physics at Princeton, $250 an hour in exchange for a research paper touting the benefits of carbon dioxide. The parties even discussed how to route the money through a nonprofit called Donors Trust, known for its support of climate denial, so that Happer could state he was not paid for the research. Happer bragged that he had been paid $8,000 by Peabody Coal in exchange for testimony at regulatory hearings in Minnesota, and that he had donated the funds to CO2 Coalition, run by a man with ties to the George C. Marshall Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, and American Petroleum Institute.

Just before the hearing, Greenpeace confronted Happer personally, and it was this footage I saw today. While I wish such investigations were not necessary, unfortunately right now they are. Scholars such as Robert Brulle and Riley Dunlap have documented the vast network of dark money front groups that fund climate change denial — groups that are completely legal under our current system because they don’t have to disclose their donors, but which are used to mislead the public based on a model pioneered by the tobacco industry. The subject has gotten comprehensive treatment in Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, now available as a documentary.

Oreskes and Conway argue that climate denial is not about science but about politics, and is rooted in free-market fundamentalism that has transferred the old Cold War mentality of fighting Communism to fighting environmentalism. Despite the emphasis on money, Oreskes and Conway think that the few scientists involved with climate denial front groups are motivated not by money but by ideology. This makes sense in Happer’s case, as he was donating any money he got to a climate denial front group.

3,000 people ready to hear Naomi Klein.

Today in Paris I decided to visit the Climate Action Zone, or ZAC, held in the Centquartre, an arts complex located near the basin where the indigenous flotilla took place. It is yet another multi-day conference held in conjunction with the negotiations at COP21. ZAC started on Monday, but today is the first day I was able to get there. Each day ends with a general assembly, and tonight’s assembly featuring Naomi Klein was on “Capitalism Against Climate: How Free Trade Agreements Undermine Climate Actions.” This time I heard about the event in advance because the Sierra Club is a co-sponsor through its campaign on trade and climate, and we were asked to tweet from the event.

Naomi Klein speaks at the Climate Action Zone.

The Centquartre, or “104” turned out to be an enormous open building — which was good because 3,000 people were already there to see Klein when I arrived 15 minutes early. I had wanted to get there earlier, but had a hard time finding a place to eat in the area. There were few restaurants, and the one I found through Yelp turned out to be closed – but fortunately another one was open across the street where I got a delicious potato-cheese casserole with a side salad for about 12 euros. Up and down each side of the main auditorium were large climate banners and posters, and I managed to find a place to stand on some steps in the back where I could see proceedings.

Naomi Klein kicked off the event with a 20-minute talk on trade and climate. Calling the rise of awareness about climate change coupled with the rise in multinational trade agreements an “epic case of bad timing,” Klein gave examples of cases in which trade agreements allowed corporations to sue governments to stop projects that would be good for climate – a solar plant in Quebec and community ownership of power plants in Germany. She argued that the Kyoto accord contained express provisions stating that trade agreements trump climate agreements, and that while the United States was insisting the Paris agreement not be legally binding, fossil fuel corporations were heavily involved in insisting that trade agreements such as the TPP be as binding as possible. My Citizens Voice colleague Jeremy Lent was there and recorded her talk.

Also speaking was German climate activist Tadzio Mueller; Ilana Solomon of the Sierra Club Responsible Trade program, and Joseph Purugganan, a climate activist from the Philippines. Mueller discussed how the trade and climate movements don’t talk to each other but should. Here is video of his talk from Jeremy Lent of Citizens Voice:

Panelists for “Capitalism Against Climate: How Free Trade Agreements Undermine Climate Actions.”

The event made me think a lot more about the crossover between trade agreements and climate. I disagree with Klein’s implication that the Paris Agreement needed to be binding, because that would require it go before the U.S. Senate, which as we know would never approve it. The world cannot afford for the United States to pull out of this agreement as it did from Kyoto. On the other hand, I did not know about the rules allowing trade to trump climate, and believe we will need to take action to ensure trade does not multiply greenhouse-gas emissions or that corporations can sue to dismantle climate programs and regulations to guard their own interests.

After the trade and climate event, I walked to Generator Hostel to catch the discussion after their showing of Groundswell Rising. I got there as a doctor with Physicians for Social Responsibility was discussing the health aspects of fracking. This is what ultimately got Gov. Cuomo to ban fracking in New York, and has not been seriously considered by states like Ohio where fracking is rampant. Several British fracking activists were present, including Maria from Scotland, and they made plans to have a tour of the movie there. I also met a former fracking worker named Ray from Dimmock, Penn., the epicenter of fracking problems in the United States. He was featured in Josh Fox’s Gasland and knows every anti-fracking celebrity in the book. Discussion went so long that there was not a second showing of the film, so I hope to catch it another time.

COP 21 State of Play – Days 7, 8, and 9

December 9 2015December 26, 2015

Fred Heutte

SUNDAY, DEC. 6 — While no formal sessions occurred on Sunday, the French presidency was engaged in a constant round of consultations with groups and countries both on the emerging content of the Paris agreement and COP 21 decision and on the process for the rest of the week. Four subgroups set up on Saturday began their meetings:

Support: means of implementation (finance, technology, capacity building)
Differentiation, in particular with regard to mitigation, finance, transparency
Ambition, including long-term goals and periodic review
Acceleration of pre-2020 Action, Workstream 2 excluding pre-2020 finance

MONDAY, DEC. 7 — The two-day High Level Segment began. This is a regular feature of every annual COP where ministers give 3-minute speeches (many of the texts are available on the UNFCCC web site) while one-on-one and group discussions are happening all around the conference center.

Indigenous people’s flotilla, Sunday, December 6

The French presidency began setting up new subgroups on:

Adaptation and loss & damage
Preamble
Forests
Cooperative approaches and mechanisms
Response measures
Facilitating implementation and compliance

With all negotiating sessions closed and only the daily “stocktake” at 7 p.m. on screens and the webcast, civil society observers including the Sierra Club were very busy finding out what was actually being discussed and the stress points on a wide range of issues. The stocktakes are basically a place to put the best possible face on the state of play and also to see if there are serious objections on process or the substance. So far, with very little actual removal of options, and the strong leadership of the French presidency, there haven’t been any serious objections.

A major development of the day was the re-emergence of a 1.5 degree global warming target alongside the long-established 2 degrees. This is roughly the Sierra Club position (supporting 350 ppm). Quite a few countries including Canada and Australia are indicating openness to 1.5 degrees as at least something to aim for, joining over 100 developing countries that have long supported a 1.5 degree goal.

TUESDAY, DEC. 8 — Work continued throughout the day in closed ministerial meetings. In the evening, COP President Fabius laid out the procedure for the rest of the week:

An initial draft of the final Paris Agreement and COP decision by 1 pm on Wednesday afternoon. We anticipate the Paris Agreement draft will probably be reduced from 22 pages to around 15.
The draft will be released for the Paris Committee at 1 p.m. (later moved to 3 p.m.), then a break of several hours to study the new draft. A second Paris Committee meeting will then be held and this is a critical moment because options are now being taken off the table and the final trade-offs among key elements will start to emerge.

Civil society including the Sierra Club pushed hard throughout the day for the package of human rights, gender equality, just transition, rights of indigenous peoples and other elements that will signal that the Paris Agreement is not only an agreement of governments but will also actively include all people.

A new ministerial group met in the evening to discuss these and other elements as part of the Preamble. On the “just transition” language, which the Sierra Club has strongly supported alongside the trade union movement, countries offering support included Brazil, Argentina and Canada. And in a positive step forward, the United States and Norway said they would support just transition not only in the Preamble but in Article 3 (mitigation) — thanks in part to a Twitter campaign by the AFL-CIO, their first ever on climate.

On the substantive issues, we heard report backs from a small group meeting with the French presidency that many parts of the draft Paris Agreement are not strong at the moment.

Some of the problem areas include lack of a specific date for the “long term goal” for emissions reduction, no process for updating nationally determined contributions before 2020, and no adaptation finance before 2020 and vague provisions after that, and a standoff on loss and damage.

The larger questions of how much real “review” the whole Paris Agreement will have, and how much finance developed countries will provide to developing countries, especially the most vulnerable, remain the big crunch issues for the rest of the week.

State of Play Dateline

[x] Sunday 29 ADP pre-plenary
[x] Monday 30 COP opening plenary – Leader Event
[x] Tuesday 1 COP/CMP joint plenary, SBI and SBSTA opening plenaries,
start of ADP contact group and spinoffs
[x] Wednesday 2 – Spin-Off Groups, ADP stocktaking
[x] Thursday 3 – Spin-Off Groups, ADP stocktaking
[x] Friday 4 – revised ADP text 8 am
[x] Saturday 5 closing ADP plenary, COP plenary
[x] Sunday 6 [COP 21 closed, informal consultations]
[x] Monday 7 High Level Segment, Paris Committee
[x] Tuesday 8 High Level Segment, Paris Committee
[ ] Wednesday 9, Paris Committee
[ ] Thursday 10
[ ] Friday 11 closing COP plenary

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