Category Archives: Activism

Combat Climate Change? There’s an App for That.

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Fed up of folks Instagramming their dinners?

A new app from Melbourne-based climate action group Less Meat Less Heat will have you craning your neck to see what’s on other people’s plates.

Used to having control at the swipe of a touchscreen, millenials are turning to their devices for everything from financial management to weight loss to language learning. Now there’s an app for monitoring the carbon footprint of our food choices.

The aptly named Climatarian Challenge app is scheduled for launch on 1st July, and will be free to download, thanks to a bold crowdfunding campaign to cover the cost of production.

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Last stand: saving the world’s forests

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One of my vivid boyhood memories is of scrambling amongst granite outcrops of the Canadian Shield in the shimmering heat of a July afternoon.

I emerged from the forest into mottled sunshine and stretched out on flat, lichen-covered rocks, high above the black waters of a quiet lake. Stately white pines touched the sky. Underfoot was a cushion of sharply perfumed pine needles. The air was calm.

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Please take a seat – it’s Angelique Kidjo at WOMADelaide

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Telling the WOMADelaide crowds to sit down is a tall order. There’s so much dancing on stage and in the crowd.

But just occasionally there’s a performance of such subtle beauty and dynamic range – such as with the performance of Ravi Shankar and Anoushka Shankar six years ago – that WOMADelaide organisers insist the crowd sit on the grass and focus.

The big sit this year will be to bask in the magic of Angélique Kidjo with guitarist David Laborier and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

This extract from a classic interview for the New Internationalist magazine illustrates just how many strings The Grammy award-winning musician, writer and UNICEF goodwill ambassador has to her bow. You can read the full interview here.

NI: You left Benin in 1983 to study jazz in Paris, and ended up finding Africa elsewhere: in jazz music in France, then the blues of the US, the carnival and candomblé of Brazil, the salsa of Cuba. Is this testament to the resilience of African music? Continue reading →

Saudia Arabia – making friends, making enemies

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The Saudi regime won’t like this magazine. Nor will the Western governments who kowtow to it while exploiting its wealth and paranoia – which have been on full show recently.

The Saudi justice ministry threatened to sue a Twitter user who compared the regime with ISIS after poet Ashraf Fayadh was sentenced to death ‘for spreading atheism and disrespecting the prophet’. This was met with an international #SueMeSaudi campaign.

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The COP-out we cannot afford

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One week on from COP21, Mark Pershin and Kari McGregor weigh in on the false promises of a flaccid agreement that leaves behind the innocent and most vulnerable.

Paris was a world-first: all of the major emitters huddled around the negotiating table, ready to write the script for a new era of climate action. No absences. No excuses.

It took 21 years of bureaucratic wrangling to transcend tactical boycotts and get everyone to the starting blocks. If nothing else, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) twenty-first conference of parties (COP21) can take credit for a full house.

Talks have often been fraught with tension: negotiations at COP6 at The Hague in 2000 broke down and talks were rescheduled for 2001 in Bonn; COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009 collapsed in disarray without agreement.

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Looking forward from COP21 Paris to COP22 Marrakech

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What was unthinkable is now unstoppable – Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General

His quote resonated among the many speeches that followed French President Francois Hollande’s announcement that we now have a new global understanding on climate – the legally binding Paris Agreement.

Following Copenhagen 2006, it was unthinkable 196 nations would voluntarily sign up to the world’s first global agreement to work together on climate change in good faith, with 189 lodging Intended Nationally Determined Contributions INDCs before Paris.

Yet it’s important to state plainly that the net contribution of all INDCs now in hand still commit the world to 2.7-3 of warming, so we are not out of the woods yet, but at least we are starting to take it all seriously…

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Two and a half cheers for the COP21 climate talks outcome

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George Monbiot got it about right with his assessment of the COP21 outcome:

By comparison to what it could have been, it’s a miracle. By comparison to what it should have been, it’s a disaster.

But no matter what, the Paris Agreement does mark a turning point, and sends by far the strongest signal yet to banks, investors and industry. One might ask where they have been looking in the past decade if they haven’t already read the signals. Has it been gross negligence or haven’t they read their own disclaimers that past performance should not be taken as an indicator of future returns on fossil fuels? How can it be that they’ve wilfully ignored the risk of stranded assets?

As May Boeve – Executive Director of 350.org – put it:

“This marks the end of the era of fossil fuels. There is no way to meet the targets laid out in this agreement without keeping coal, oil and gas in the ground. The text should send a clear signal to fossil fuel investors: divest now.”

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COP21 – Eavesdropping on an old family argument

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I stayed up until 3am this morning, listening to every speech made on the new draft text delivered by the French Presidency and prepared during the first gruelling 10 days of discussions.

I wanted to hear, firsthand, the voices of all those sent to represent us, the people of the world.  A few voices stood out for me:

  • Australian Ambassador for the Environment, Peter Woolcott, disappointed but resilient on behalf of the Umbrella Group
  • Egypt speaking for Africa, the reality of the urgency facing the continent
  • Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) approving acknowledgement of 1.5°C target but calling for action on mitigation and adaptation to reach it.
  • Angola speaking for the LDCs, registering a proposal for unblocking political issues of finance and mitigation
  • Ramos Horta for East Timor, suggesting that Hollande will deserve a Nobel Peace Prize if he delivers a strong binding global agreement …

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COP21 – Raising ambition to bring the world back from the brink

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AYCC/SEED coordinated an excellent action to support the global #1o5C degree campaign, with young people asking their countries to sign a declaration stating:

We will do what it takes to ensure the survival of all countries and peoples.

Australians Paul Gorrie, Maddie Sarre, Rachel Lynskey, Moira Cully and Jaden Harris led a well-targetted call out on countries acting as blockers to the 1.5oC target.

Greg Hunt signed the pledge for Australia, along with others such as a Senior US Advisor and representatives from China, the Maldives and the Philippines.

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Naomi Klein’s ‘Leap Manifesto’: we can’t rely on big business for a climate fix

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Discussions at the Paris climate talks take place within incredibly narrow parameters. In fact, it would not be too great an exaggeration to say that the summit’s main purpose is to send the private sector a message about which way it should steer its future investments.

The financial press tends to be the most explicit on this point. The Financial Times, for instance, described the purpose of the Paris summit like this:

Investors will need to be persuaded that governments are going to make it easier for them to make money from a new electric bus system or a wind farm rather than a highway or a coal power plant.

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