Campaigns

This page not only covers relevant demonstrations and rallies but also conferences in which we have participated since the start of 2004. Those with significance to the UK also appear on our UK site

Conferences, Meetings and Demonstrations

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4 November 2006, Climate Change Demo organised by Campaign against Climate Change and Stop Climate Chaos coalition.

26 August - 4 September 2006, Camp for Climate Action, North of England. Contact www.climatecamp.org.uk for details

18 May 2006 'Kyoto and Beyond: a Global Strategy' Conference, Commonwealth Club, London

Contributions were made by distinguished speakers: Tom Spencer (Institute of Environmental Security); Sir Crispin Tickell (former UK permanent representative at the UN); Andrew Simms (Policy Director, New Economics Foundation); Elliot Morley MP (former Minister of State for Climate Change & Environment); Lord Redesdale (Vice-chair Parliamentary Group on Climate Change); Ritu Kumar (Director of TERI-Europe); John Gummer MP (former Secretary of State for Environment); and Aubrey Meyer (Director of Global Commons Institute).

Key points included the following. The arguments on climate change are not now technological but political, with the US administration doing all it can to avoid the evidence for it until time runs out. There are a number of tipping points into irreversible climate change, which will shortly be examined in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's fourth report. CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are now higher than they have been for the last 650,000 years! No solution to stabilising CO2 concentrations is possible without contraction and convergence in some form.

A lot of pressure is needed from members of the public in order to bring about a major change of mind about economics and true costs, replacing the 'consumer society' with the 'well-rounded society'. The Chinese political system can no longer guarantee delivery of top-level government policy, because of the power of liberalised markets. No attempt is being made currently to live within our economic limits. There are enormous barriers to changing economic tenets, despite the economic and environmental consequences of climate change having been clear for the last 30 years. Little work has been done by governments on the economics of climate change because of the belief that it will destroy their economies. But averting climate change together with continuing economic growth is not credible. The consequences of non-sustainable activities have to be costed within economic modelling.

All the UN's Millennium Development Goals will fail as a result of global warming and climate change. Some other countries (than the UK) are very resistant to taking action on climate change, but some US companies and individual States want action to be taken. International progress is snail-like, unlikely to avert tipping points, but will be progressively more difficult the longer it is left. Tony Blair's support for nuclear energy is pernicious, because it bypasses the real problem: first address what energy reductions and efficiencies are necessary before deciding energy solutions.

We need a new ideology in society, for people are prepared to do the easy things to support the environment but not the hard ones like changing habits about car and air travel. The change we seek has to be ideological as well as political, addressing what truly matters most. Since CO2 in tonnes is impossible to visualise, carbon 'units' could be more acceptable, just like a £, without having to think what it represents. There is a big potential for decentralised renewables in countries like India.

6 May 2006 Lectures by Deepak Chopra, Friends Meeting House, London

The inclusion of these lectures here breaks new ground, for the topic was entitled 'The Seven Spiritual laws of Love', and not centred on environmental matters as such. However, he addresses life priorities and values which are becoming increasingly relevant to our challenge for a New Movement for Survival, and to our overall profile as an organisation. In this summary references are also made to a workshop given by Neale Walsch in October 2005, which was of a similar nature, and who inspired our rallying cry to Love Life Itself Above all Else!!!

Deepak Chopra said we now have the means to answer profound questions about our existence, through building on the 'wisdom traditions' and counter-balancing materialistic interpretations of the world. Our personal transformation can change the world, by taking us to the next stage of evolution, from survival of the fittest to self awareness and survival of the wisest. The awakening of the collective soul is needed now, in the crisis we face, in which we have to change in ten years or risk extinction within 50 years.

His words echoed those of Neale Walsch, who had said we are on the verge of the second great reformation, similar in scale to the Renaissance in Europe, but much faster. It is 'jump time', which is made unavoidable by humanity having to deal with a series of insuperable crises, which can only be surmounted by entirely new understanding. We have to ask ourselves: is the world we have the one we want to perpetuate? or a different one? If we do not answer these questions, life as we know it will disappear. The question is not when will we hear the truth, but when will we live it?

4 May 2006 Climate Change: the challenge for education. Conference at London South Bank University.

Dr Mae-Wan Ho, Director of the Institute of Science in Society, concluded a resume of the evidence for climate change by saying that mutualism and reciprocity are truer of nature than 'tooth and claw' competition. She then demonstrated how populations could become self-sufficient in energy and food through integrated food and energy farming.

Alan Simpson MP, long-term Labour radical, said it has never been so important as now to reclaim the intellectual agenda from the culture of exploiting future generations, in which builders put up gas-guzzling buildings and pass them off as sustainable. His own eco-house, filmed by Independent Television, generates 50% more energy than it consumes. He is against the culture of individualism and global liberalisation and pro-interdependency, citing reducing incomes in developing countries with the rise of corporate power.

Anne Finlayson, Education Commissioner for the Sustainable Development Commission, said sustainability is an end point, but we do not know what it is like. So a teaching team has also to become a learning one, in which people do not learn what you teach. Do not presume you have the answers, and telling people what to do does not change their behaviour. Social change is not just about behaviour but also about social systems and values.

Emma Smith is a teenager, who had lobbied Parliament with other young people about the government's response to climate change, said her secondary school had not been interested in climate change. She met politicians who were interested but not doing much about it. Most of her friends were ignorant about it, even at advanced level in Geography. Not put off by them, she had lots of ideas for 'greening your school', particularly through practical rather than classroom work, and had worked with RSPB in Costa Rica. She said teenagers care much more about the environment than was generally believed.

3 May 2006 Debate on balance: living within our means, Institution of Civil Engineers, London

This was the third of the 'Edge Energy Debates - supply, demand and balance'. Lord Oxburgh, former chairman of Shell Transport and Trading, who hit the headlines in June 2004, for admitting that the threat of climate change made a person in his position "really worried for the planet", spoke first. He said our present industrial infrastructure mistakenly assumes energy is cheap and can easily be wasted, so we are working on the wrong basis. He believed that energy demand will continue to increase and there is little that we can do about it, travel being a basic need and aspiration. The only way he could see real cuts being made in carbon emissions was by the co-production of food and fuel, utilising forestry and agricultural residues.

Aubrey Meyer, the other invited speaker, prefaced his introduction to his Contraction & Convergence framework for stabilising carbon concentrations in the atmosphere, by stating that the world's economic development is highly asymmetric. 2/3 of the world's population have only 6% of its purchasing power, with the remaining 1/3 having 94%. This is 'expansion and divergence' on a huge scale, apartheid at a global scale. What is more, the environmental damage caused by climate change is growing at twice the rate of global economic growth. [The Contraction & Convergence framework is incorporated in our Boiling Point issue for May 2002 and fully described at www.gci.org.uk]

In discussion, Jim Scott asserted both speakers' viewpoints are connected by the necessity for global carbon targets, but the demands for more energy and travel are incompatible with the resources of the planet. Colin Challen MP, who has introduced a number of environmental Bills in Parliament, said Lord Oxburgh's solutions have to be subjected to the C&C framework and the culture of economic growth has to be challenged. Others agreed with Save our World's position by saying that the 'parties involved have to employ enlightened self-interest, and that the whole debate is about values and ethics.

6 March 2006 'The Weather Makers - How Climate Change Shapes our World' discussion in St Paul's Cathedral, London

Participants in the discussion were Tim Flannery, author of the new book 'The Weather Makers', David Attenborough and Claire Foster.

Among the many points made, Tim Flannery said that climate change is the first great test of our civilisation. 60% of all species may become extinct this century, and sea levels rise four metres over the coming century. And yet the actions required are not too onerous for humankind to take.

Claire Foster said we have become a rogue species; the natural world is our kin, and to make it too toxic is to reject our kin. Contrary to popular belief, the original Hebrew (version of the Christian Bible) reveals we are all interconnected. Wisdom shows all of life hangs together exquisitely, even though every blade of grass is different. We abuse wisdom in following the mistaken theology that we dominate nature. Repentance derives from the word 'metanoia' which means 'change of mind'. We all have to make this change of perception; then we can call upon governments to change.

Sir David Attenborough had no doubt at all that we are changing the climate, for changes in the atmosphere over the last thousand years mirrors the rise in human population, almost identically. He said he is horrified by the changes he finds when revisiting parts of the world; over the past two years he has found it difficult to find untouched areas. Forests have been cut down for replacement by palm oil plantations which then failed and left only wasteland. Grass is now growing on the Antarctic continent.

He went on to agree that the domestic lifestyle changes people can make are small, but they change the way you see your life. It is a moral question, sinful to be wasteful, and one about which you have to face your grandchildren. Desertification results from over-development. The earth cannot support unlimited population growth; either we choose to limit our population size or it will be limited by famine, as is already happening.

20 February 2006 'Earth Democracy' talk by Vandana Shiva for the Alternatives programme at St. James's Church, Piccadilly, London

She said globalisation has produced the global supermarket, and deprives people of their livelihoods. She believes that citizens have the right to protest and remove genetically modified crops if all avenues are closed to them by state policy supporting the corporate control of agriculture. She said 40,000 'suicides' among Indian farmers who are forced into debt by corporations actually constitute 'genocide', as would any group of human beings who are deliberately targeted by another trying to harm them. Corporations are even recruiting Indian saints to say farmers will become millionaires by buying their products.

She started an Indian organic movement for farmers to protect their own seeds from the predation of corporations, for their own future and for their animals, to maintain their own food sovereignty, and to maintain adequate water supplies. It has created networks of organic production, whereby farmers can support themselves on less than ½ acre of land, making money by not trying to make money. The movement managed to fight off corporate attempts to patent natural products, including Bhasmati rice and the Neem tree.

She said those who claim we need more biotechnology to feed the world are lying - it destroys through monoculture, producing poor quality food and soil, in place of amazing biodiversity. The Green Revolution did not feed India but enslaved peasants and destroyed the earth. Commercial agriculture uses ten times more water than organic. With organic agriculture we can feed everyone in the spirit of giving, not getting.

11 February 2006 'Climate Change: What can Christians Do?' Conference in Oxford

Dr Paula Clifford, of Christian Aid, said we cannot expect our governments to do what we do not do ourselves. Asked whether the climate change warnings we have been given have scared enough people to do anything, however, she said no - for fear is not the right motivator for action.

One workshop utilised a map of the world to illustrate the stages of human settlement, the onset of industrialisation, and the effects of pollution, loss of biodiversity and exhaustion of natural resources. The participants were asked what they thought God would say about this, but Jim Scott no longer believed God stands apart from creation, and was wary of the thinking that He might rescue human beings from their folly, however they treated the earth. Later he suggested God is neither vengeful nor a rescuer to bail us out, but works through us.

George Marshall said he had had a moment of enlightenment when his experience of the hottest October month ever recorded made him realise climate change is really happening! Most people separate ever growing evidence of it from how they live: compromise by guilty travel habits; ignore unwelcome evidence, and what is not immediate or 'not happening here'; disassociate perpetrators and victims. He said transformative belief does not come from data alone; it does not come easily; one has to meditate on it, discuss it and explore it together. Some Christian fundamentalists in the USA are getting the message; and Buddhists meditate on paradox.

9 May 2005, Joanna Macy Lecture, Oxford

This was a most uplifting evening in the company of about two hundred people. She started by describing the sudden onset of climate change, but the lack of urgency about it among ordinary people in the USA, being remote from its effects - and the suppression of action on it by government.
Regarding fear and guilt as 'lousy motivators for change', she questioned how effective it is to march in order to keep things the same. She then described her own approach to social change, through enthusiastic creativity, in which uncertainty is welcomed, and feeling an erotic connection with the earth and with life itself. She said 'love is the nervous system of the universe'.

She said it is time for the third revolution in human activity, the 'Great Turning' to ecological sustainability, in succession to the agricultural and industrial ones. First we need 'holding actions', regulatory in order to prevent perpetual profits that go beyond the point of 'no return' with respect to depletion of resources and the creation of waste. Next we need new structures, methods and understanding, rooted in values. Thirdly, we need a profound shift in consciousness, involving resurgence of the spiritual traditions of interdependence, the wisdom of the ancients and the goddess traditions, deep ecology, and the all-inclusive expanded Self.

She exhorted those present to act immediately themselves, in their families and organisations - not measuring their effectiveness just by their actions but also by their interdependence, committing to a longer time span than their own lives - ushering in a thousand years of healing.

13 November 2004 "Nuclear Power: The Answer to Climate Change?" Debate arranged by Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future, Islington, London

Chaired by the environmental correspondent to Independent on Sunday newspaper, this was very one-sided, those supporting the motion not putting up an effective fight, and the audience just as committed against nuclear power at the end as it was at the beginning. The one telling argument that continued and increasing economic growth and demand for energy can only be met at the scale that nuclear power can operate, was much better expressed in a channel 4 TV programme 'The end of the world as we know it' in the UK on 8 January 2005. The answer to this argument, of course, is that economic growth is not sustainable either.

Nevertheless, the event is worth reporting for a number of effective arguments against nuclear power. First of all John Gummer MP, memorable Secretary of State for the Environment in the Thatcher government, urged against placing less important issues above Climate Change; warned against the UK keeping nuclear power and refusing it to other countries, and allowing its adoption to replace developing non-polluting renewable sources of energy.

Jeremy Leggett, of 'Solar Century', said that the necessity for nuclear energy could be obviated by retrofitting houses with energy-efficiency methods; his company is doing thousands of zero carbon-emitting projects; and that nuclear energy would take too long to introduce as well nowhere near solving its waste disposal problems.

Roger Higman, senior climate campaigner for Friends of the Earth UK, echoed the unsolved problems of nuclear waste, equivalent to five times the size of the Royal Albert all in London; mentioned the consequences of terrorist attacks on nuclear power stations; and the dangers of nuclear power being misused for military purposes; and said other countries will not cut greenhouse gas emissions if we deny them the nuclear technology that we use ourselves; besides, energy demand can be reduced by one third and both on- and off-shore wind-power is already competitive in price.

12 November 2004 "Climate change and humanity: elite perceptions, sustainable solutions" Crisis Forum Workshop held at University of Southampton, UK.

This Workshop brought together a cross-disciplinary group of invited academics and activists, practitioners and fundraisers, in order to discover ways of combining their contributions to dealing with climate change. Jim's conclusion, representing Save our World, was that it was effective in challenging participants to 'think outside the box' of our normal perspectives, but did not extend to our 'seeing' from one another's viewpoints, and so transcend our cultural differences and arrive at a new synthesis. He expressed the view that an examination of the various motivations linking the main perspectives which were presented could assist this process, but it was not sufficiently supported as a possible way forward, at the end of the day Workshop, or to feature in a proposed publication on it.

Many valuable contributions were nevertheless made at the Workshop, about which you are welcome to contact jim@save-our-world.net.

29 June 2004 "News from a Warming World" - a Catalyst Climate Change Trust event organised by New Economics Foundation, at the Royal Geographical Association in London.

Mark Lynas gave examples of calamitous climate change already happening, from his new book 'High Tide'. James Cameron highlighted disproportionate coverage given to climate sceptics by the media. Andrew Simms called for a new coalition on averting climate change, which has a similar breadth of appeal as Jubilee 2000 had on debt. See latest Boiling Point for valuing the continuation of life on Earth above all else, as providing such a rallying point, which SoW has followed up with both Mark and Andrew since this event was held. Sir Crispin Tickell (past UK ambassador to the UN) said the latest UK Energy proposals by the government fail to state how targets are to be met and that neither the public or politicians understand climate change. His stating we have to bring climate change into the school curriculum instead of our being forcefully educated by catastrophe - fully vindicated SoW's current programme for Climate Change Roadshows and Workshops.

15 June 2004 "What can we do about climate change?" - evening meeting at the House of Commons, UK Parliament, London.

This meeting provides the opener to the latest issue of Boiling Point. It marked the publication of Meyer Hillman's book 'How we can save the planet?' Meyer was the first speaker, who berated the public for making excuses for continuing to travel by air and for collective amnesia about climate change, and warned of the danger of runaway global warming before the target date of 2050 for the UK government to achieve 60% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. He went on to say carbon rationing has to be imposed if not willingly supported.

Aubrey Meyer, founder of the the Global Commons Instiute, then illustrated the necessity of rapid contraction of emissions because carbon concentrations are cumulative in the atmosphere, and strongly defended the principle of per capita equitable reductions of emissions across the world - within the framework of Contraction and Convergence, which he has been advocating globally since 1990. He has also been a close ally of SoW in our correspondence with Michael Meacher prior to the World Summit in 2002 and in coalition building (see Summit page in Archive, Campaign for Climate Crisis Resolution - below, and Global Projects page on the global site).

8 June 2004 "A Crisis in Global Governance" conference organised by Stakeholder Forum at Westminster University, London

Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Environment in the UK, spoke of the great opportunity in 2005, when the UN will review progress with the Millennium Development Goals and the UK holds the presidencies of both the European Union and the G8 group of countries. She said the convergence of the hitherto separate environmental and world development agendas is very important, and provides an opportunity to mobilise political will. It is clear that climate change is the most significant factor already affecting the poorest developing countries - which the UK Prime Minister will address in his Commission on Africa in January 2005.

Jim Scott, on behalf of SoW, made a plea for countries to place a higher value on their common interest in survival than maintaining their conflicts of interest.

Ian Christie said we now have governance for unsustainable development. Global institutions are not democratic enough, show little political will, are poor at implementation, and have little or no impact. 'Corporate responsibility' requires a new ethic and controlled incentives to make money.

In discussion, a new World Environment Organisation was proposed to have similar authority to, and independence from, the World Trade Organisation. Failures to abide by Multilateral Environmental Agreements should be penalised as unfair subsidies.

29-31 May 2004 "Second World Renewable Energy Forum" and 1-4 June 2004 "International Conference for Renewable Energies" Bonn, in Germany

We were represented on the last day of the first of these and the first two sessions of the International Conference - which directly followed it.

Second World Renewable Energy Forum

Franz Alt, a co-chair of the first morning session, was upfront in saying the war in Iraq was about oil, that oil reserves will only last forty years, and that we face a Third World war aganist nature after that if world demand carries on as it is. We are burning the future of our children and of our grandchildren. We cannot exist without plants and animals and yet 100 species per day are lost and we create desserts at the rate of 30,000 hectares daily. Desserts are already spreading from northern Africa into southern Europe, and will do so into the middle of Europe during the next generation. Less fertile land is available for feeding more people, so resource wars are inevitable. We are the first generation that has lost its sense of the wild. We have no need for wars over oil, for we can have peace from the sun.

Roger Bentley, of Reading University in the UK, pointed out that new discoveries of oil peaked in 1930 and production in 1970. Sixty countries have passed their peak in conventional oil production. Worldwide, combined oil and gas will peak in 2015 and regular oil in 2010. Julian Darley, from Canada, said gas is not an alternative answer because it is in decline, and has to be liquified in order to transport it.

Wolfgang Hein, vice-president of Eurosolar, spoke of the renewable potential of biomass to produce fuel and help with carbon sequestration, but it is largely ignored by the financial community.

The afternoon session was devoted to Education, Financing and Capacity-building for Renewable Energy. Judy Siegel, of Global Village, said small-scale rural developments are effective, though not interesting to large financial institutions which require collateral that is not available and look for short-term returns. Renewable energy solutions have to be demand-driven, which requires capacity-building. Frank Pinto from the UNDP said it is difficult to persuade developing countries to adopt renewable energy, for lack of action in the developed world. Current subsidies do not favour investment to meet local peoples' needs, and have to be phased out and replaced by Renewable Energy Small Grants programme [RESCO].

Professor Schmidt said the demand for energy arising from economic growth cannot be realised, for distribution is a problem even if further reserves of fossil fuels are found. The advantages and disadvantages of both public and private supply systems are poorly understood. Education in wind energy is available from the European Academy of Wind Energy at EUREC.

Benchikh from UNESCO said renewable energy can potentially serve the 95% of the population of e.g. Malawi who have no access to electricity. It also has potential benefits for job creation, though it does require education and training, which is not normally included in project proposals. Users are poorly informed and educated, and many faults with equipment occur that take months to repair. The Global Renewable Energy programme by UNESCO was approved by the UN General Assembly in February 2004.

Klaus Knecht said it has to be determined which services and goods can be marketed to repay loans, maintenance and repayments, and support local small investors. Nancy Wimmer spoke on microfinance in the Effective Promotion of Renewable Energy in Rural areas [ERR]. The microfinance industry has to be developed on a sound model using rural banks, for start-up costs are the biggest problem.

International Conference for Renewable Energies

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, gave the first introductory keynote speech. Underlining the significance of the Conference [see current Boiling Point], he said the mitigation of climate change depends on the development of renewables. The proceedings from this conference should also assist the writing of the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC, which will include energy. By 2010 wind can supply 4% of the world's energy needs. With greater take-up cost reductions can be improved upon. Fuel cell and other decentralised forms of energy will be the most attractive in the long term. Renewables are also needed to establish energy security.

In Plenary Session II, a Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue was chaired by David Hales, on behalf of the Stakeholder Forum in the UK [on whose committee Save our World is represented by Jim Scott]. The representative for developmental and environmental NGOs said it is essential to keep the global temperature rise below a 2% increase from pre-industrial levels. Later he said the world cannot wait for multi-national companies to adopt renewable energy voluntarily, and so political will is required to set suitable targets and regulatory frameworks. Not surprisingly, the Business representative disagreed, and called for voluntary initiatives, fair competition, 'clean' fossil fuels along with renewables, and locally-based targets.

The government representative from Belgium said renewables have to be subsidised while they are more expensive and so opposed by industry, and the one from Iceland said the country has to compete financially with imported fossil fuels, despite 72% of its own energy economy being based on renewables. However, the representaive of Renewable Energy Suppliers said renewables would be competitive were it not for the externalisation (exclusion) of the social and environmental costs of conventional fuels. This situation must be changed by means of international legally binding policy measures and corrected financial incentives.

The NGO representative of 'actors in poverty alleviation' said micro-wind-power and biomass may be more suited to the poorest people who find photo-voltaics are often too expensive - not least to transport, according to the Uganda and Africa Energy Ministers. She was also supported by government representatives from Turkey and Djibouti who claimed that renewable energy is the energy of the poor and a matter of survival for their people.

For official reports of the Conference, especially the Political Declaration, visit www.renewables2004.de.

7 April 2004 "Hilltops-2-Oceans (H2O) UK Stakeholder Roundtable", hosted by Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in London

The purpose was to contribute suggestions to the UK government for developing a national programme out of global recommendations for reducing marine pollution from land-based activities. Specific targets and timetable were called for, and suggestions for institutions, frameworks and financial resources.

Discussion centred on how to value natural systems and establish polluter-pay principles, and those of environmental justice and equity - particularly as the voices of ordinary people do not get through. Given the disincentives identified for awareness-raising on climate change (see World Summit page in Archive), the SoW view was advanced that agreement is needed on common intentions of government, non-government organisations, academia and the private sector. Proposals from break-out groups included: concentrating on ecosystem requirements, strengthening local government opportunities to prioritise environmental issues, getting the public to discuss attitudes to water usage and become aware of the consequences of their actions, and setting highly regulated waste-water emissions targets.

Sir Richard Jolly, chairperson of United Nations Association, opened by saying poor water supplies and inadequate sanitation kill over 6000 people per day. Peter Adamson called the provision of water and sanitation a graveyard of good intentions. Pioneers have too few followers, there is a lot of agreement on what needs to be done but not enough support, a lack of willingness to listen and to learn. The resource most needed is not money but motivated action. Big budgets and profits accrue to large contractors instead of responding to the need for small, particular projects and solutions. Initiatives on water and sanitation are also relevant to alleviating poverty. Myriam Sidibe called for alternative motivators to knowledge transfer which is based on fear. These are: dignity, pride, disgust and nurture. She said many countries have not consciously adopted the Millennium Development Goals for sanitation. Even with large urban populations absolute water shortage is not a major problem.

Jim Scott then joined a small group discussion and highlighted the key importance of motivation affecting outcomes, starting with oneself and working outwards, rather than expecting action to follow just from reasoned arguments. He also challenged governments on their not caring enough to ensure sustainability and the deceit that long-term requirements can be self-sustaining if left to the private sector.

Others spoke of the need for partnership between local communities and local authorities and reconciling their respective attitudes; promoting education on sanitation within the UN programme on Education 2005-2015; challenging governments on the privatisation of services proposed in the GATS proposals [General Agreement on Trade in Services]; the need for micro-credit to overcome the costs of water privatisation; the role of NGOs as social intermediaries in the provision of services.

In the second plenary session, Ravi Narayanan, Director of Water Aid, criticised lack of conviction and determination by governments. Foreign assistance can only supplement local efforts and resources. Public policy solutions are often regarded as the ones and only ones to be applied everywhere and for all time. Attitudes to change have to change. Dr Lyla Mehta said the water crisis is about access and control - not absolute quantitites justifying large engineering projects. Look at water and sanitation issues in a wider context that includes pressures by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to privatise services, as well as rights to land and property.

Baroness Amos, Leader of the House of Lords in the UK, said the overall aim of the government was to reduce poverty, within which water and sanitation issues have high priority, good solid evidence of progress is required on all the Millennium Development Goals - for they are inter-related, and apply a co-ordinated approach which does not pre-determine private or public provision.

She was the first speaker to mention the wider context of sustainable development and climate change, which Jim Scott put to her as an essential pre-requisite for action on poverty, water and sanitation. She warmly agreed, saying that climate change is likely to be devastating for Africa, placing both Africa and climate change at the top of the UK government's agenda. Jim also asked for the government's assurance that it would not be swayed by the demands for privatisation from the IMF and World Bank.

Baroness Amos only acceded to holding dialogue with the IMF and WB, but Lyla Mehta agreed that such demands are disastrous for the poorest people of the world. Ravi Narayanan had an open mind on public versus private provision as long as the latter is well regulated, but said that private provision was only suitable in towns, and not in rural areas.

27 January 2004 'Progress and Prospects for the International Climate Regime' meeting at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London.

This meeting was timed to review the outcome of the ninth Conference of Parties [COP9] to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was held in Milan from 1-12 December 2003.

Some disappointment was expressed over lack of momentum at the Conference, and over modest goals for stabilizing the climate. Agenda games were reported on the part of oil companies and advocates of renewable energy. Ministers had made their political points forcefully for bringing the Kyoto Protocol into operation, while the US made a strong plea for an alternative to Kyoto. A real appetite was reported for addressing international action on the climate in the next phase starting in 2012.

Although the Conference had not been thrown by uncertainty over Russian ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, one of the speakers at the meeting said Russia's decision has huge importance for individual countries, with opposing pressures coming from the EU and the US - which will not change with a new US President, because of the need for huge transfers of resources. Only the American public can force the US Administration to change policy, of which there are signs in north-eastern States proposing a cap-and-trade system.

Russia is playing 'good cop/bad cop' games in order to extract concessions from the EU, but is also irritated by the EU moralising tone towards it. There is so much momentum behind carbon trading in Europe that trading is likely to go ahead irrespective of the official line of the'no Kyoto no trading' view held by the EU.

(updated 14/06/06)

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