Sara:
Last night I was invited onto the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, small parts of which were even from the original ship infamously sunk in Auckland harbour.
Stepping on board reminded me of the birth of environmentalism, when Greenpeace activists and other so-called ‘greens’ were determined to raise widespread consciousness about environmental issues such as whaling and deforestation. And here we are decades years later anchored close to where 13,000 people from 190 countries are negotiating how best to save the planet from a potentially catastrophic environmental threat.
How I needed some of that early-environmentalist spirit today as we lobbied in response to yet more intransigence from the USA. Inevitably, any global agreement comes down to detailed text and today some crucial text was opposed by the USA. They want to remove reference to ‘sufficient, predictable, additional and sustainable’ funding for vulnerable countries affected by climate change.
In short, this means the US approach could seriously undermine progress on funding for poor and vulnerable people suffering the effects of climate change. Both Tearfund and Oxfam estimate that $50 billion per year is required to help poor communities cope with the ravages of climate change.
So our lobbying work is cut out for us in the next 24 hours – encouraging other governments to strengthen, not weaken, text on funding for poor countries.
Sailing the oceans in Rainbow Warrior is one end of environmental campaigning. Arguing over the detail of sentences and paragraphs is the other.