Global Power Shift

Help to Shift the Power in Ukraine

We are posting a message sent to us by a GPS organizer from Ukraine about the recent unrest and a plea to help Ukrainian people protect their freedom and basic human rights. 

Dear 350 team!

As you know, people of Ukraine have been struggling on Euromaidan for democracy, human rights and freedom of speech for almost 3 months. The situation became critical 3 days ago, when Ukrainian so-called government began to use weapons against protesters, among which are our family members, friends and all our environmental NGO partners and funds. 5 protesters are reported dead from tortures and shot by snipers yesterday.

Photo: Riot police posing for a group photo after scattering the protesters in Kyiv, Ukraine. Courtesy – Reuters. 

Our “government” are issuing one by one anti-constitutional laws against press, NGO’s and activists almost every day. If all these laws stay in force, the activities of climate, environmental and social organisations in Ukraine (and wearing helmets or polar bear hats in the street as well) will become nearly illegal or impossible.  

Apparently, main sponsors of the ruling political party in Ukraine (Mr. Akhmetov, Mr. Klyuev) are stakeholders of  our energy sector (DTEK and Metinvest). Their official plan is to grow coal industry by 40% until 2030 and to extract shale gas in Ukraine, confronting the European energy strategy, publicly agreed on before.

All this time we were successfully using everything we have learned on Power Shifts before about peaceful protests organizing and empowering people, but now it is not enough. Today appeared a serious threat that all communications – internet and mobile – will be turned down, before the final violent extrusion of #euromaidan by so called government. The voice of foreign press and activists could become the only source of information about the situation in Ukraine. We ask you for advice and support.

Here are our ideas on what can be done and how you could help.

1. Picketing of Ukrainian embassies and oligarchs houses in Europe and USA, who are sponsoring violation against Ukrainian people. Here are the addresses. Search for actions planned near you.

2. Donate to support medical, food and other needs of resistance movement in Ukraine.

3. Spread information about situation in Ukraine as wide as possible.

4. Brainstorm with us and help to figure out the way out of this hell together.

5. Call for freezing assets of Ukrainian oligarchs.

 

The roof is on fire!

Yours,

climate organizer from Ukraine

(name is not disclosed for safety reasons).

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For more information in English please visit this stream or this Facebook page

Meet the new leaders of the climate movement in Bahrain

In June 2013, national coordinators of the Arab Youth Climate Movement’s Bahrain chapter, Tariq and Reem, went to the Global Power Shift summit in Istanbul, together with teams from 135 countries from around the world to share skills, ideas and strategise on how to scale-up the global climate movement.

Tariq – a biomimicry expert who founded his own Think/Do Tank-  and Reem -one of the first female marine scientists in her country- had been leading the climate movement in Bahrain since the Arab Youth Climate Movement was launched in 2012, so with their participation at the 2013 GPS summit in Istanbul, they were committing once again to continue taking the climate movement forward in their country and region.

AYCM Bahrain has grown from a 2-person team in 2012 to a network of youth working on the ground on projects such as the “Citizen Scientist Program”, as well as helping to influence climate change policy in Bahrain and the Gulf region by working on a policy paper that will serve as a guide for decision makers and civil society on current issues, positions and recommendations for the Arab States.

We recently caught up with Tariq and Reem to interview them about their Power Shift plans, and were delighted to hear that the national chapter had just elected two young women to be the new AYCM Bahrain national coordinators: Ashwaq and Eman. We are therefore excited to give them the opportunity to share with the world how AYCM Bahrain is helping to shift power as part of the global climate movement: 

1. Ashwaq and Eman, please introduce yourselves.

Ashwaq Shukralla: I joined the Bahrain chapter of the Arab Youth Climate Movement (“AYCM”) in March 2013, which is my first involvement with climate change outside of reading about it in the media.

Eman Husain: I am a sustainability specialist. I have been an active member of AYCM-Bahrain since October 2012. I am a certified by the Climate Reality Project as a  Climate Leader.

3. What made you interested in getting involved with climate change and the Global Power Shift Movement?

Ashwaq Shukralla: There are many reasons, but agriculture in particular is a topic that I consider to be of significance to my community and to our planet and through my involvement with AYCM Bahrain I have come to appreciate its connection with climate change. Regarding Global Power Shift, climate change is an issue where everyone’s actions can resonate locally and globally and Global Power Shift is a platform for everyone’s actions to resonate globally.

Eman Husain: I have been always interested in environmental issues and in particular climate change as it is the most serious environmental threat the earth faces. We have been witnessing the impacts of climate change and its disasterouss effects on communities, environment and the economy. Climate change is a global problem, thus it requires individuals, communities, leaders and others to collaborate in order to come up with solutions. Hence a global movement such as the Global Power Shift is needed to have  bigger and more effective climate actions.

 

4. What are climate change related issues in your country?

One issue is that Bahrain is a water scarce country with high water demand. Agriculture in particular accounts for approximately 85% of groundwater consumption, which is the only natural supply of freshwater in Bahrain. Climate change can aggravate the effects of already erratic rainfall and seawater intrusion into the groundwater aquifers.

Another particular concern is sea level rise. Most of the coastal areas of the islands do not exceed 5 meters above current mean sea level. Bahrain’s coastal built environment supports critical infrastructure such as roads, buildings, and telecommunications, as well as extensive commercial and industrial activities. Sea level rise could potentially expose large areas of Bahrain’s built environment to inundation and increased erosion.

There are also many other climate change related issues and challenges for Bahrain to overcome both as a high per capita energy consumer and as a low-lying arid archipelago.

5. What is your plan for Phase 2 in Global Power Shift? Why did you decide to make it this way and how does it fit into the big picture of building a climate movement? 

As part of phase 2, AYCM Bahrain’s strategy includes increasing citizen awareness about climate change in Bahrain. Capacity building and empowering youth, women and children is important to spread the message. Part of that is through engaging our community in a citizen science program that we plan to launch. The program will collect environmental data including climate change phenomena, which will feed into an online database. We also plan to conduct public workshops and are also exploring how to integrate climate change in schools and curriculums. Another part of phase 2 will be to collaborate and form a regional network with youth in the surrounding gulf countries with an aim to create a regional power shift. We have also begun to be commissioned by local authorities to take on a number of environmental consultancy projects.

6. What excites you and what makes you worry about Phase 2 and beyond?

Power shifts are new to the country, which makes it both exciting and worrying. It is a great opportunity to create and sustain momentum for change, but there is still much to learn and gain experience from about this process in order to succeed going into phase 2 and beyond.

7. What kind of support can you offer to other organisers and what support would you like to get from them?

We can offer other organisers the gulf perspective and share our experience and our solutions. We can also look to other examples in GPS that we can help complement and amplify.

We would ask for opportunities to collaborate, particularly within the region, as a stepping stone to creating a regional power shift.

8. What is your general message that you’re sending to the GPS organisers, the climate movement and the world with your Phase 2 and with your work as climate leaders?

Phase 2 will be a tool to spread climate change awareness and engage with our communities, our youth, our leaders and our visionaries. We are here to lay the groundwork that is needed to build and sustain solutions to climate change.

2013: A Powerful Year – and there is still much more to come

Global Power Shift was still just a dream one year ago. It was in January of 2013 that the first physical meeting took place to discuss what GPS could and should look like. The basic vision and plan had been laid out, and over 5,000 people had applied to join the kick-off event in Istanbul, but there was still lots to be organised: programmatic details, travel arrangements, food, housing, communications plans, followup plans, and more. Since that time, nearly 600 people came together in Istanbul in June for one of the most inspiring, beautiful, and diverse climate movement gatherings there has ever been. If you have not watched the report-back video, it is a must-see. (Scroll up on the GPS homepage to watch it).

Even more importantly, GPS did not stop at just one big event in Turkey. After the kick-off Power Shift activities have been organised in Australia, Sweden, Vietnam, Brazil, Ukraine, Netherlands, Thailand, Canada, the US, Georgia, Poland, India, Malaysia, and Kyrgyzstan. Now, as we turn the corner from 2013 to 2014, it continues! Just before the new year 14 new project plans were submitted to the GPS funding selection committee for Power Shifts in early 2014. And more proposals continue to come in before the final, 2 February, funding deadline. So, 2013 was the year a Global Power Shift began, and now is 2014 we are going to see it through with a bang.

We are holding a live Google Hangout this coming 9 January, at 8 AM and 8 PM GMT/UTC. It will feature Power Shift organisers from around the world sharing their experiences thus far, discussing tactics and strategies and lessons learned. Join in for the discussion here. We are looking forward to hearing from you – all together again, even if just virtually – and on we go with Power Shifting into 2014!

GPS Australia team putting the ‘direct action’ back into, well, direct action

Back in June 2013, Katie, Lexy, Claire, Simon, Sarah, Alana, and Josh went to İstanbul to take part in the Global Power Shift, which brought people from 135 countries together to plan, strategise and get active in building a global climate movement.

They returned home with a plan to have a summer full of actions targeting the fossil fuel industry during the Australian summer, called ‘Summer Heat’. They were inspired by the campaign of the same name in the US and by the existing work of communities all around Australia.

Since June, Australia has had a new Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, who is hell-bent on abolishing the price for carbon and replacing it with a claptrap policy called ‘direct action’. Just to provide some context, in a recent survey, 32 out of 35 renowned Australian economists said that the Direct Action policy is both economically and environmentally inferior to the existing carbon price.

Cue in Summer Heat. On December 2, as part of the launch of ‘Summer Heat Australia’, the faces and names of hundreds of community members who have pledged to stand up to the fossil fuel industry were projected onto the side of the Minerals Council of Australia building in Canberra (which recently engulfed the Australian Coal Association).

Summer Heat campaign coordinator Josh Creaser said that the action was designed to tell the industry that even if Tony Abbott refused to take climate change seriously and halt these dangerous plans, the Australian community will. “With the Abbott Government failing to lead on climate change, the community has decided to take real Direct Action. As the temperature rises over Summer, people from communities across Australia will be stepping up campaigns to target the industry and stop their radical plans.”

This isn’t a movement of radical activists. It is mothers and fathers, grandparents, church leaders, lawyers, teachers, nurses and students. This is a community standing up to an industry that is threatening our future.

“Today is just the start.” Creaser said. “We will keep campaigning until these plans are stopped project by project and until this industry realises that they cannot continue to expand if we are to survive.”

And so the power shifts.

A decade of community engagement for energy solutions begins in Vietnam

“Nóng” (Hot) – the National Day of Action for Climate and Energy held on November 10 in Phu My Hung Area in Ho Chi Minh City was one of the highlights of Vietnam Power Shift. The event was open from 9AM to 4PM to the public and aimed to raise the awareness on climate impacts and introduce the locals to sustainable energy solutions through exciting creative activities and arts.

While most of people believe that Vietnam needs a lot more coal and fossil fuels for its economic growth in the decades to come, members of Vietnam Power Shift had a different point of view. Being young and creative, they were able to engage a number of young artists to join in a series of artistic activities to convey their messages. These inspired members of 350 Vietnam’s newly established NAAC (Network of Artists Acting for Climate) used large spaces of the event venue to maximize their creativity.

In addition to an impressive photo exhibition with photos donated from Greenpeace and 350.org, the young artists set up inspiring art installations that depicted the negative impacts of coal on the heath of human and environment. Attendants to the event especially enjoyed playing a special Noughts and Crosses Game where the noughts were pieces of coal and crosses were symbolic solar cookers, to reflect the intensity of the opposition of these two forces in our real life.

Vietnam Power Shift does not intend to only raise the awareness, but also to demonstrate that renewable energies to replace dirty energies could be possible for normal people’s life. Solar cookers were set up at the venue and were used to cook vegetarian dishes for all attendants to try. It was in fact very fortunate for the event team as the super typhoon Haiyan was supposed to hit the country on that exact day, but it had changed the direction and went North, so Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) enjoyed a beautiful sunny days that made the solar banquet a truly fascinating experience for the participants.

Another highlight of the day was the “Solar Chef” cooking competition, where three teams selected from the previous online selection rounds competed in three hours making vegetarian dishes on the solar cookers. The jury of the competition was Ms. Phan Tôn Tịnh Hải, the renown judge of MasterChef Vietnam 2013-2014, Headmaster of Mint Culinary School, who shared her thoughts:

“This event is such a significant activity in the context of the warming planet and the current extreme weather events. I am aware dining could be a key factor affecting the climate. Everything from choosing your kitchen appliances, the ingredients, to the way you use energy to cook and eat, all will have positive or negative impacts on the planet”.

Right now, 350 Vietnam is discussing with Ms. Tịnh Hải possibilities to insert energy and climate related contents to the next MasterChef Vietnam season. A video of true stories of sufferings of frontline communities throughout Vietnam was shown and induced strong emotions among the participants. The mood was lifted up right after that by a happy speech of a farmer from Bac Lieu Province who shared her happiness about the new wind power plant in her province.

And of course a public event of 350 Vietnam could not be without its famous celebrity Ambassadors. If you attended Global Power Shift in Istanbul earlier this year, you may still remember the 350 Celebration song that was played at one of the plenaries and later performed live at the closing ceremony by its composer – singer-musician Thanh Bui and his team member Thanh Van who wrote the lyrics. At Nóng, Thanh showed up again sharing his concerns about the recent climate disasters and calling for young people to get engaged in Vietnam Power Shift in different ways.

The 350 Celebration song’s Vietnamese version was performed by Thanh Bùi and his students from The Voice Kids who are already very concerned about the planet’s problems at their young age. Other Goodwill Ambassadors of Vietnam Power Shift – Hà Okio, Hoàng Bách, Acoustic Band and Lý Lệ Quyêns Band … also joined the concert and spread the message for actions.

Ms. Hong Hoang, 350.org Southeast Asia Coordinator said in her speech at the event:

“Vietnam is trying to adapt to climate change, but we also need to make much stronger mitigation efforts. We can only win this battle if we can engage the local communities in providing and adopting sustainable energy solutions and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. If Vietnamese farmers could create so many great inventions in agriculture in the past decades, I believe they can invent renewable energy alternatives in the decades to come.”

The Day of Action was a key event of Vietnam Power Shift’s Phase I, to follow up with the outstanding successes of the campaign’s previous events: the National Climate Leadership Workshop I AM A CLIMATE CITIZEN held in early October that engaged 60 climate leaders from 20 cities and provinces, and a Press Conference held in September to launch the 2-year campaign.

Vietnam Power Shift is an ambitious youth-led campaign on climate change and energy, coordinated by 350.org Vietnam under the patron of CHANGE (a local NGO working on climate change and youth empowerment), and has received support from HCMC’s Climate Change Department and major media partners – Tuoi Tre Newspaper, VTV6, VOH. Other sponsors of the campaign included Samdhana Institute, Phu My Hung Development Company, Soul Music Academy, ERC Institute, 2U, Pepsico, URC Vietnam, Zodiac, Anh Duong Co Ltd …