CLIMATE ADVOCACY
Why I keep going back to the grassroots
by Farhan Ahmed
BANGLADESH
is at the top of the list of countries most vulnerable
to climate change-related risks, according to a recent
report released by the Asian Development Bank. We are
consistently cited by climate advocacy campaigns as an
example of the impending humanitarian disaster looming
in the not-so-distant horizon. On the other hand, there
still remains an opinion within the political spectrum,
most noticeably in the United States, which denies
climate change. Some polls show that almost half of
America does not believe in climate change and majority
‘believe that if climate change does exist, it is not
caused by humans.’ The US seems alone when it comes to
being unable to make up its mind on the issue on the
international stage. At past United Nations annual
conferences on climate change, the US has consistently
opposed all pledges to reduce carbon emissions, and has
earned a reputation as being ‘obstructionists’, getting
in the way of an urgently needed global plan of action.
America’s
indecisiveness also explains why the green movement is
the loudest and most active there, out of a necessity to
mobilise public and political opinion for the cause.
Within the movement, it has come to be widely accepted
that most of the negations (counter to the opinion of
the vast majority of the scientific community) find
their impetus in powerful oil lobbies that are deeply
entrenched in US politics, in reaction to the loss of
revenues oil companies will incur if a concerted global
effort to prevent climate change is actually
implemented. Others simply claim that the scientific
data is inconclusive. While still others negate for
various perplexing reasons – John Shimkus, for example,
believes that ‘the planet won’t be destroyed by global
warming because God promised Noah it wouldn’t happen
again after the great flood.’
As
in any battle, I had to choose a side after much
contemplation. As a citizen of the most vulnerable
country, I chose to believe that we are indeed at risk
from climate change, in line with the age-old adage —
better safe than sorry. With time, I have come to
realise also that it is simply not enough to choose a
side in this battle — one has to also choose the
battleground. The battle is being fought on two
different fronts, on the political stage and at the
grassroots of public opinion. The former is what happens
at the state level in every country and at the
international level in the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change. It is quite clear by now
that any solution to the climate change phenomenon has
to be worldwide, unanimous, cooperative and
comprehensive. It will not be solved by singular efforts
by any country or community, but requires a complete
overhaul of the global socioeconomic and energy system,
and must include all countries working together. As
such, the political platform provided through the UNFCCC
is indeed the only premise imaginable where such a vast
plan can be conceived, structured, implemented and
followed-up on.
However,
the problem with the global political stage is that it
is teeming with politicians. What’s worse is that these
are 20th century politicians trying to solve a 21st
century problem. This is the reason why even after 20
years of negotiations, the negotiators only managed last
year to ‘agree to start work on a new climate deal that
would have legal force.’ To grassroots climate
advocates, especially in the US, who have been watching
this never-ending bureaucratic fiasco, it is all vacant
words and empty promises. This was the reason why last
year at Durban, in the middle of a speech by US
representative Todd Stern, 21-year-old Abigail Borah, an
impassioned climate activist (with whom I also share my
alma mater), stood up and shouted out to the delegates
that ‘I am speaking on behalf of the United States of
America because my negotiators cannot. The
obstructionist Congress has shackled justice and delayed
ambition for far too long. I am scared for my
future.’ Abigail resonated, in those words, the
sentiments of a whole generation of us. A generation
that has passively watched as their fathers’ generation
lead the world into the climate crisis, by
indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels, by erecting an
unjust global economic system (only to let it collapse
at the expense of millions of working class people) and
are now delaying any possibility of correcting these
wrongs. For many of us it has been like watching a car
crash, in slow motion, being unable to do anything about
it. A whole generation of disenfranchised youth, who are
entering economies that have no place for them and will
inherit an earth plagued with the disasters of climate
change, can see no hope in the political jargon.
For
us in Bangladesh, climate change negotiations on the
political stage are also doomed to be a magnificent
failure. We send delegates to the UNFCCC meetings, and
lay out our rightful position as blameless victims of
climate change — that is all well and good. But, our
negotiators are solely banking on the $100 billion
climate mitigation fund, which was pledge by
industrialised nations. For starters, it is worth
pointing out that Bangladesh is not only at the top of
the ‘most vulnerable nation’ list, we are champions of
the ‘most corrupt nation’ list as well. Our political
class has failed again and again to rectify our
tarnished image. Given our track record, there is
absolutely no reason to believe that industrialised
nations will simply ‘give us’ such an exorbitant amount
of money, no matter how much our politicians pledge now
to do the right thing. It has not happened in 40 years
and, for us Bangladeshis, this too has been like
helplessly watching a car crash in slow motion. On the
national political level, the first solution to our
climate change woes is the same solution for all our
other woes — a new, functional and patriotic politics.
Furthermore,
the various solutions that come out of the UNFCCC
meetings prove, time and again, to be unproductive in
our case. The Clean Development Mechanism projects, a
green development alternative for third world nations
funded by the UN, has had little success on our soil,
although our neighbouring India and China have made the
most of it. It would seem that our political machinery
has failed to respond with specific, viable,
well-defined projects, most probably for lack of
expertise. Also, no matter how much the UNFCCC wants to
avoid the idea and distracts itself with ‘protocols’ and
‘mitigation funds’, the ultimate solution will have to
be a unified global effort to move away from fossil
fuels to clean energy. In our case this means
developing, from now on, through renewable energy
sources. However, such ideas never seem to be on the
political agenda, neither here nor at the UN.
Given
the political deadlocks around climate change, both at
home and abroad, I chose my battleground to be at the
grassroots, to work with public opinion, even if it is
one person at a time. I have come to accept that working
from the roots (something especially needed in the
United States to get the ball rolling for the rest of
the world) has a greater chance of success. Call it
fate, or mere coincidence, that I, a reasonably
‘biplobi’ Bangladeshi, ended up in Middlebury College in
Vermont, the birthplace of 350.org. In the United
States, 350 is the loudest and, thus far, most
successful grassroots climate advocacy group, started by
a Middlebury College professor, Bill McKibben. Most
recently, through grassroots mobilisation and
non-violent protests, 350 stopped the Keystone XL
pipeline from Canada, which would have had disastrous
environmental implications. Professor McKibben, who
began his 350 journey in 2008 with a fired-up group of
my classmates, by now, has mobilised hundreds of
thousands of young people around the world, like Abigail
and me, who partake not for any political or financial
gains, but out of a sense of justice. It has been in the
grassroots that I have found the most honest motives.
On
the fifth of May (the same day that the US secretary of
state, Hillary Clinton, arrives in Dhaka), 350.org has
organised a global day of action called Climate Impacts
Day, when people will gather in various communities
around the world that are already being affected by
climate change, in order to show that climate change is
not just a problem of the future, but is happening right
now. The situation is true in our case as well. The
effects of climate change are already visible in our
country as changing weather patterns, sea-level rise
destroying coastal farmlands, more frequent cyclones, to
name a few. When I came across the campaign website last
week I searched in Dhaka for any organisation that was
planning do something on the day. I found only one sole
trooper, Shah Tasadduque Ali Khan, from one small
organisation, Participatory Human Rights Advancement
Society. I had settled for the fact that such is the
battlefield in the grassroots — lonely. The fact had not
broken Mr Khan’s spirit. He was more than willing to
stand at Central Shaheed Minar premises, all alone,
banner in hand, in solidarity with the global campaign.
As of yesterday, however, other local environmental
organisations have joined the bandwagon. The event is
scheduled to take place at 10:00am on Saturday, at
Shaheed Minar. I intend on being there and doing my part
for bringing the case of Bangladesh to the world’s
attention.
Farhan Ahmed is an editorial assistant at New Age.
Source:http://newagebd.com/detail.php?date=2012-05-05nid=9159#.UagX21L3Ct8
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International Walk For Human Rights
Youth for Human Rights (YHRI) has been actively working on creating awareness among the youth and on the occasion of Human Rights Day, Hundreds of youth joined the walk in their city or village, thus carrying the message of human rights far and wide.The purpose of YHRI is to build a culture based on human rights through education and awareness of human rights. In solidarity with YHRI, Participatory Human Rights Advancement Society joined & organized the walk in Dhaka,Bangladesh.News Published on YHRI Newsletter.
The link of the Newsletter: https://backup.filesanywhere.com/fs/v.aspx?v=8c706a865d5e73bd739c
The Press Release from YHRI : https://backup.filesanywhere.com/fs/v.aspx?v=8d69638d5b5f6eae9da5
