Camp for Climate Action

Global Commons Institute developed contraction and convergence

Media: we've got a strong media profile. Doing something so audacious has made Drax fairly contraversial, even in the mainstream media. We've not been so good at avoiding co-option: need to get across the messages 'reduce consumption' and 'corporate greenwash is bollocks'. Do we need to keep plugging the 'action is needed now' message? And/or look at where we might get co-opted?

Internationally:

Oilwatch: southern based network resisting oil-based development

People's Global Action: anticapitalist global network, people looking at how radical anticapitalist politics can connect with energy descent.

Campaign against Climate Change: has worked to get a large global response to Nov summit: http://www.globalclimatecampaign.org

NGOs such as Greenpeace, FoE have international contacts

Rising Tide North America: day of action in response to G8+5, picked up by people in Edinburgh. Organising a camp next summer -- we could think about coinciding with dates.

What do we need to do?: Ideas from discussion groups

Group 1

• Repeating the camp scenario, leading onto something permanent? cf Road
• protests, food, water infrastructure.
• Cycle caravans and revolving actions.
• Co-ordinated days of action on themes (4 by 4s, airports, stopping corporate greenwashing) Different groups could focus on greenwash in their areas... "Greenwash guerillas"

Group 2

• Action should be solution based. not blame on individual consumers
• Take over petrol stations, community gardens and workshops
• Garden on tesco car park
• Do another camp as a culmination of a year's action, not THE action!
• Film tent in Trafalgar Square on November 4, showing Climate camp film?
• Local level stuff, creatively. Compost toilet in a town!! In order to link in solutions...

Group 3

• Go on November 4th go as 'Climate Camp bloc'
• Second climate camp, moving regional from North to South West
• Train people to do NVDA
• Sustainable roadshow
• Shut down Drax
• Urban climate camp
• Field for cc at Glastonbury
• Practical Solutions
• Website online teaching tool
• Publication about what happened at the camp
• Legal Support
• Massive Sticker campaign.
• Group directory on website
• List of potential targets, local groups to check them out
• Resource pooling
• Consistent message
• Fundraising- big party
• Utilise social centres
• Core values discussed revised
• We make a point of being fundamentally anti-capitalist

Group 4

• Two parts- abstract part first. We need clear sense of strategy
• Are we trying to stop emissions directly, focus on major emitters, create social conditions for change, make carbon emitters uninsurable?
• Specific action ideas: stop airport expansion, shut down power stations, dig up motorways, linked camps near Heathrow and at the turn-off the M25 for Heathrow, HQs of energy companies, target climate deniers, disrupt CBI conference, organise a spoof conference ('How much would it cost to put Bangladesh on stilts?', showtrial carbon criminals in 2030.)

Group 5

• no-one in group thought another camp would be a bad thing.
• Building mobilisation around a specific target
• Urban camp
• Link with airports
• Mobile camp, important that it was fresh, not exclusive with 40 people on bandwagon
• Mass Action days, including everyone, not just social centres
• Sweet action, banging party
• Educating people. We need to have a better analysis of what the government is doing. Then we will be better at interacting with media We all commit to living one day a month like we want to. Start living in that way (first day of month not shopping in supermarket, building compost toilets etc)
• Use action that will get a ball rolling and use that momentum. Theatre etc.
• Critical Mass notion "meet and go and do an action"
• Use culture- short stories, poems etc.

Practical issues - Finance

We made a surplus of just over £5000. See attached figures, numbers within about £200 of what we have at the moment.

For more detailed figures see http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/linkedresources/financial-summary.xls

These don't reflect the total costs of putting on the camp: the food was all fronted by someone else, the outlay for the beer hasn't been included, and substantial costs for networking/printing were covered by private donations. Costs for squatting the land (the get-in) were covered by an anonymous donation.

Biggest source of money was donations from individuals. Excluding the carpark, people tend to give about £10 each (might be useful for organising future events).

Outgoings: site was 2/3 of the total. Could perhaps have saved some money by buying more things in advance? Might have been useful to have someone responsible for procurement. We still have some reusable tat (e.g. plumbing) for future events. Could have saved more money if we'd had more time, energy and transport to collect tat from skips etc..

Workshops: only spent £1000 of a £3000 budget (Kids' area came in at £250).

Time Up book looks likely to bring in another £400 of costs.

There are a few calls on the money. The Common Place has asked for £100 towards their costs. Agreed.

£1500 received from Dissent! on condition that we would give up to that of any surplus towards G8 prisoner support if needed, and the rest to go to funding radical projects. Finance group to ask July 2005 Solidarity to ask how much they still need.

Discussion on giving money to the landowner: £300 paid in rent for the car park, and £500 as compensation for damage to the field we camped in. Questions raised about how the decision was made to make this payment.

Practical issues - legal support

Climate Camp prisoner support: 21 people on police bail for action at Hartlepool Nuclear Power station. Someone arrested in Hebden Bridge for jumping bail: had originally been arrested for assault on the Thursday day of action. Most of the charges from the day of action (criminal damage, aggravated trespass, assault) have since been dropped by the police (lack of evidence, contradictory police statements). Some (6 or 7 out of c.38 arrests) also accepted cautions.

Legal group has been asked for a written report.

East Midlands Airport: 24 people allegedly cut a fence and occupied a taxiway for over 3 hours with two tents, one labeled 'Climate Camp 2', one 'Symptom of Sin'. A sermon was preached linking short haul flights with the Bishop of London's recent comments about flying being a sympton of sin. 24 protestors and one Sky journalist arrested for aggravated trespass, breaching of the Aviation Security Act, Criminal Damage, Public Nuisance (maximum sentence: life imprisonment). Held for 36 hours, majority of people's houses were raided (some armed); PCs, driving licenses, passports etc. confiscated. Restrictive bail conditions: not allowed within 500m of an airport; for the first two weeks, they weren't allowed to associate with each other.

Defendants have opted for crown court and making a political defence. Next court appearance is December 15.

Proposal: up to £1500 for legal support (to help with travel costs, etc.) for these actions, more if people come back to the group. Encourage those who were arrested with charges drops to sue the cops.

Issues raised re communications with the legal group.

Huge thanks given to the Finance Group for the work done during the whole process.

Practical issues - website

Large and vast at the moment: has done a lot of stuff. It's going to be simplified to tell the story of the camp: will still have means of getting in contact, and of donating.

We didn't invite people to send in action reports to the website: redesigned site will publicise other places that are doing this (Indymedia, UK EF! website). But people are encouraged to submit reports of their experience of the camp. Send them to website[at]climatecamp.org.uk.

Our aims for the next 2-3 years - ideas from small group discussions:

To create change, our movement should be based on the relationships between people: create interlinked partnerships from household, through neighbourhood, city to supra-regional networks.

Things we want the public to know could be the same as our organising principles:

• we need massive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions
• for this to be remotely pleasant, we need massive social change
• need to make sure that descent in energy consumption is equitable
• can't rely on others to do this: we must take action ourselves

Large group of trained and tooled-up activists.

Bring the public to where we are -- partly for our own protection, partly, perhaps, to allow the government to feel able to take action on climate change.

Empowering the mainstream.

Making it unacceptable to use carbon profligately.

Getting over our own prejudices about working with, e.g., local Friends of the Earth groups

Get support from other parts of the movement who aren't (yet) taking direct action.

Symoblic value of direct action perhaps more strategically useful on climate change than on other environmental issue because of the scale of social change needed: but actions still need to be real and trying to create the changes needed, rather than only trying to speak to people.

Strategy has to be to prevent industrial expansion. Need to think about the resources we've got -- perhaps a line in the sand where we are now, resisting any more development; perhaps destroying stuff we've already got. This is enormous: we need to do more stuff that builds from where we are, perhaps having another camp.

What our identity as a group is? suggestion of 'Climate Action' as a name.

What we're doing now

There will be another camp, probably next summer.

There will be a meeting in early January in Yorkshire to begin planning the next camp. Local groups are asked to discuss what they would like the next camp to be like so they can feed in to the January meeting.

A leaflet advertising the january meeting will be given out at the Nov 4 Climate demo. This leaflet will include details of local meetings. Email details of local/regional meetings (with day and time, venue, and contact info if possible) to networking[at]climatecamp.org.uk - the deadline is Oct 22. The leaflets will be paid for out of surplus money from the Climate Camp.

Projects

• Book of critical reflections and practical help on how to put on such events in the future: email timeup[at]climatecamp.org.uk if you want to get involved.
• Discussion group about climate change, politics, sustainability Talking about how we can practically reduce greenhouse emissions by 90 percent, and the political, social, ethical and economic effects of this from an anticapitalist perspective, locally and globally. Details of how to get involved will be posted on the website soon: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk
• Organising co-ordinated actions. Meeting to discuss ways of supporting local groups and actions 11 November Leeds, email actionsupport[at]climatecamp.org.uk to find out where we are meeting Ideas from this meeting will be brought to the next climate camp gathering in Leeds in January for dicussion and putting into action.
• Looking at inclusivity
• Training events on practical skills learned in organising the camp
• Outreach into workplaces and people organised in trade unions
• Organising a weekend-long meeting to think about long-term strategy The aim of the meeting is to look at what needs to happen over the next ten years in order to get global emissions peaking and declining by 2015, and what we can do to bring that about - pressure points and strategic levers. We have a rough plan of running a weekend meeting in London around mid-February and are going to have an initial planning meeting in London in November (very likely the 5th). We will be reporting back to the big meetings and welcome suggestions for issues we need to cover or resources we should be aware of. If you want to get involved or give feedback, please email workshops[at]climatecamp.org.uk
• Producing a 'little document of values', 'an inspirational little thing' that defines what we're about in a poetic way, not a document or manifesto
• Setting up a semi-nomadic camp
• Network of kitchen people interested in training and skillsharing around cooking at events such as the climate camp
• Creativity -- art, poetry, music etc. -- in action.