Climate campaigning: do we really have to start all over again?

How do you follow a failure? That’s the question facing the world after the Copenhagen climate summit. It’s also a question vexing development charities which spent lots of time and money building up the expectations of their supporters. A fair, ambitious and legally-binding deal? It was always a long shot.

But the UN process continues. For a time it looked like the G20 were going to take matters into their own hands. But since they didn’t have the mandate to act, it seems that the UN process is once again the only show in town.

Where the last was in Copenhagen, the next world climate jamboree is in Cancun, Mexico. Before that happens there are a few ‘inter-sessional’ meetings to hammer out thinking around adaptation and mitigation. The next one is in Bonn and we’re taking Innocent Ogaba, a local hero working in Malawi, there next week.

Lots of the work happens in these inter-sessional meetings, so by the time Cancun swings around opportunities for campaigning are going to be limited. So what should we do at Progressio?

The new politics in the UK means we need to re-build support for action at the highest levels. We need to work hard to push action for climate change high up onto the political agenda. And after ‘climategate’ the same can be said of the public generally. Climate denial is on the rise.

The need for action has never been higher. Climate change hasn’t stopped merely because it slipped from the headlines. For communities all over the world it’s still a big deal. We need to start with those communities. And Progressio knows plenty of them, so expect to hear their stories.

Meanwhile Maggie von Vogt, a Progressio local hero in El Salvador, has been hearing what civil society in Latin America is thinking about doing when the world flies in later in the year.

Maggie says, “the Mesoamerican Climate Justice Committee, of which we [in Progressio partner UNES] are a part, will be linked into groups travelling from different places and converge at the mass mobilisation that will be occurring outside of the talks.”

It’s clear that partners in the south haven’t given up on these talks, and they’re ready to speak up together. For me, that’s really good to know, and it’s pretty clear where we need to put our efforts – foursquare behind theirs. Watch out Cancun, the Central Americans are coming!