12 November 2009 - Tokyo,
Japan — We've been watching the horizon
for this one for a very long time, but our
colleagues up in the crow's nest report
that a new blip
on the horizon could mean an end to Japanese
whaling in Antarctica.
A major review of Japanese
government spending could spell the end
to whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
Commissioned to cut
wasteful programmes by Japan's new government,
a review committee has proposed massive
cuts in subsidies to a body which funds
the so-called whaling research programme.
Without government subsidies,
the whaling programme would be doomed.
The Spending Review
Committee recommended that the Overseas
Fisheries Cooperation Fund (OFCF), which
gives loans to the Institute for Cetacean
Research (ICR) to run the discredited science
programme, have all of its funding revoked,
except monies needed for loans in 2010.
The OFCF claims it needs
70.4 billion yen (around US$780 million)
for various programmes, including whaling,
in 2010. The Review Committee and Cabinet
Office will determine by early next year
if the proposed operations for 2010 are
actually “necessary” or should also be cut.
Waste of money? Well,
yes...
Fact is, if the Review
Committee wanted to know if whaling was
a waste of taxpayers' money or not, they
could have asked us. Our colleagues at Greenpeace
Japan have been relentlessly attacking the
whaling programme domestically for exactly
that reason for quite some time now.
In particular, two activists,
Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, sparked a
domestic debate in Japan in June 2008 when
they revealed widespread corruption in the
government-supported programme. They set
off a backlash from powerful interests,
and found themselves arrested for "stealing"
whale meat which they had presented to police
as evidence of embezzlement.
Junichi and Toru were arrested with the
TV cameras rolling, and our Greenpeace offices
were raided by police who seized supporter
lists, documents, and computer disks in
an attempt to intimidate our staff and supporters
and deter our efforts. Junichi and Toru
still await trial and face up to ten years
in prison for the "crime" of exposing
a misuse of public money.
But despite the charges,
they have not been quiet. Both activists
have spoken out against the cost of the
whaling programme and the fact that only
a handful of fat-cat bureaucrats really
profit from the programme. Last year alone
it cost 8 billion yen, or nearly US$90 million,
to run the annual Southern Ocean whale hunt.
Of that, 1.2 billion yen, or more than US$10
million, came from government subsidies.
The rest is in theory covered by the sales
of whale meat.
Whaling is bad business
The Institute for Cetacean Research, which
runs the whaling programme, has failed to
repay government loans for several years
now, as demand for whale meat has plummeted
and the cost of whaling increased. Practises
which would have lead to bankruptcy for
any commercial firm have been the target
of outspoken criticism not only from Greenpeace
Japan, but from the business press and even
the former spokesperson for the Japanese
Foreign Ministry, Tomohiko Taniguchi. Taniguchi
lamented the financial propping up of a
programme that caused endless headaches
for Tokyo abroad and generated revenues
worth "less than one-tenth the value
of the country's annual market for toothbrushes."
With the change in government
at the recent election, a new focus on reducing
spending and cutting wasteful programmes
has meant a more sympathetic ear for whaling
critics like Junichi and Toru. The Prime
Minster recently shocked conservative politicians
who equate whaling and patriotism by admitting
that he disliked whale meat -- something
that would have been an unthinkable admission
for his predecessor.
Thirty+ years
Greenpeace has been fighting Japanese whaling
for more than three decades, from the waters
of the Southern Ocean to the online world
to the courts of Japan.
We first brought whaling
to the world's attention in 1975 when activists
put their own lives on the line by navigating
small inflatable boats in front of the harpoons.
We have opposed whaling operations in countries
including Australia, Brazil, Chile, Peru,
Iceland, Spain, Norway and Russia and exposed
and shut down pirate whaling operations.
Over the years, our tactics have widened
to include consumer pressure -- which was
crucial in getting western corporations
such as Gortons Seafood to distance themselves
from whaling, financially isolating the
whalers -- and domestic efforts in Japan
aimed at communicating the cost of whaling
to the 71 percent of the Japanese public
that do not support it. In 2008, we suspended
our voyages to the Southern Oceans in favour
of concentrating efforts on domestic pressure
in Japan, including "Operation Silver
Bullet" -- our ongoing investigation
into whale meat embezzlement and scandals
in the whaling industry.
Today, it seems that
strategy is paying off. All of us who have
worked together on this issue for decades
are holding our breath -- that an end to
Japanese whaling could well be on the way.
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Naked emperors: the
Greenpeace Guide to Climate Politics
06 November 2009 - Barcelona,
Spain — You know the story. The clever tailors
that convince a kingdom that only intelligent
people can see the clothes they make. Everyone
talks about how fine the emperor's outfit
is, until one audacious voice pipes up to
say there's nothing there, the king is naked.
When the reality of climate change politics
is stripped of rhetoric, most of the industrialised
world's leaders are seriously underdressed,
and Obama isn't wearing a stitch.
Greenpeace's new Guide
to Climate Politics shows just how badly
the leaders of rich, industrialised nations
are failing in their efforts to address
climate change.
In the last year developing
nations have made real progress and put
a series of offers on the table during the
UN climate negotiations. With the final
negotiating session just a month away the
response of the developed world has been
to throw up more obstructions.
Explore our Interactive
Guide
Read the country by country briefings
A year in office should
have been long enough for Barack Obama to
turn the United States from climate destroyer-in-chief
to at least a mid-table performer. Alas,
he ranks at the bottom. For everyone who
hoped to see the political promises made
during his campaign turned into real action,
this is a disappointment. “Yes we can!”
has been replaced with “No we won’t.”
In recent weeks the
USA has lobbied to turn the planned climate
treaty from a binding contract to a political
promisen - to replace targets based on science
with ones based on expedience, and to build
a carbon market based on licences to pollute
(or ‘offsets’, as they’re usually known).
Another master of political
announcements is Nicolas Sarkozy, President
of France. In speech after speech, he has
announced his political commitment to saving
the planet – it was a key plank of his election
campaign. All these political promises have
turned out to be nothing more than greenwash,
and he scores just 37 out of 100.
In the rest of Europe,
Merkel, Brown, and Tusk don’t do much better,
and Spain’s Jose Luis Zapatero closes the
march with a shameful 28 out of 100.
In stark contrast to
the backsliding of developed nations, the
developing world has been making strides.
South Africa, India, China, Brazil and Indonesia
have all offered to restrain the growth
in their carbon emissions if the right deal
is done.
While these nations
all face domestic challenges when it comes
to delivering on their promises, they have
said that with the right support they’re
willing to make the effort. In a world where
the average American uses around 60 times
as much CO2 as a Kenyan, it’s only right
that the industrialised world take the lead.
No wonder African nations
walked out of climate negotiations this
week after industrialised countries continued
to refuse to discuss how much they were
willing to do.
The leader making the
best showing in our guide is… Apisai Ielemia,
of the small low-lying Pacific nation of
Tuvalu. His country is directly threatened
by climate change. If a good deal isn’t
done, he and his 11,000 citizens will have
to abandon their entire country. If only
other world leaders had the interests of
their citizens so clearly in mind.
To develop this guide,
Greenpeace has assessed the world leaders
according to the following criteria:
?Targets – do they support
emission reduction targets strong enough
to avoid catastrophic climate change?
?Finance – are they prepared to ensure a
climate deal has sufficient funding to be
implemented?
?Forests – are they prepared to end deforestation,
and the emissions it causes?
?Legal Framework – do they support a legally
binding deal?
?Domestic Action – are they walking the
talk at home?
(For more details on the criteria, view
the detailed guide to climate policy).
We will update this
guide as the Copenhagen talks go forward.
As the last pre-COP
15 conference is taking place in Barcelona,
the idea of a 'politically binding' agreement
– as opposed to a legally-binding one –
is being pushed. But Copenhagen needs to
be more than a photo opportunity and an
empty promise. Only a truly legally binding
treaty will force each and every one of
these politicians to take their mission
seriously and become the leaders we expect
them to be.
And frankly, we expect
them to get some clothes on.
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SHUTDOWN! Forest destruction
blocked by Greenpeace to save the climate
12 November 2009 - International
— While politicians continue to talk, we're
taking action at the frontline of forest
and climate destruction in Indonesia. Barack
Obama is about to arrive in Asia for his
first official visit while the US continues
to block progress ahead of the critical
UN climate summit.
With up to a fifth of
global greenhouse gas emissions coming from
cutting down and burning forests, it's clear
we cannot avert a climate disaster unless
world leaders take action of their own to
stop the destruction.
Fifty of our activists
- from Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand,
Spain, Germany, Belgium, Brazil and Finland
- shut down deforestation operations in
the heart of the Indonesian rainforest and
stopped companies clearing and destroying
the carbon-rich forest peatland and asked
Obama to live up to the promise he made
to take decisive action on climate change.
With just weeks left before December's critical
UN climate summit, his administration is
actively undermining and stalling the climate
change negotiations.
One group unfurled a
huge 20x30 metre banner in a freshly destroyed
area of rainforest that read “Obama: you
can stop this”. Others locked themselves
to all seven digging machines that were
in the middle of destroying the rainforest
in one of the pulp and paper concessions
in the Kampar Peninsula - owned by Asia
Pacific Resources International Holding
Limited (APRIL -- one of Indonesia's biggest
pulp and paper producers). In spite of intense
heat, swarms of mosquitoes and tropical
rain - our activists managed to hold their
nerve and remained locked onto the digging
machinery. Workers even started three of
the excavators and moved one of them with
three of our activists still on its roof.
They only stopped when other activists bravely
sat right in front of the machine.
Things began to get
tense about 10 hours into the action - when
company staff broke the chains and started
another of the four diggers - even though
it had 7 activists locked onto it. The police
moved in to stop the protest. Our activists
are currently detained by the police.
Liar, liar - trees on
fire!
In response to a letter we sent voicing
our concerns about forest destruction in
this region, pulp and paper company APRIL
stated that it had ceased operations in
the Kampar Peninsula. But we knew otherwise.
So, earlier this week we released fresh
evidence - including aerial surveillance
images - that left no doubt that APRIL is
destroying this rainforest. This data also
raised damning suspicions that the company
is draining and destroying forest peat that
is deeper than three meters - the maximum
depth allowed by Indonesian law.
A few hours ago, we
brought this evidence to a public meeting
held by APRIL in the regional capital of
Pekanbaru where the company was introducing
the latest of a string of so-called 'High
Value Forest Assessments' aimed at greenwashing
its image.
Watch this space to
see what happens next...
Dam it! We need forest
protection NOW!
Today's action took place on the Kampar
Peninsula on the Indonesian island of Sumatra,
where we have set up a 'Climate Defenders'
Camp'. Rainforest and the destruction of
the forest's carbon-rick peat soil in Indonesia
emits huge quantities of CO2 and has driven
Indonesia to become the world's third largest
climate polluter after China and the US.
The peatland in this area alone stores approximately
2 billion tonnes of carbon. Our activists
at the camp have spent the past weeks constructing
dams across the canals - built by paper
companies to prepare the land for plantations
- to prevent them draining and destroying
the forest and its peat and releasing alll
this CO2 to the atmosphere.
In two days, President
Obama joins 20 other Heads of State in Singapore
to discuss Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) - just a few weeks before he and
other leaders must agree an historic deal
to avert a climate crisis at December's
UN climate summit. Instead of continuing
to block progress - Obama and other world
leaders need to push for an ambitious, fair
and effective deal that includes ending
the destruction of the world's rainforests.
To end global deforestation,
industrialised countries must invest 30
billion euros in forest protection (on an
annual basis, mostly from polluters, not
taxpayers). This is less than the US gave
to individual banks during the financial
crisis last year - a staggering $180 billion
went to bailout AIG alone.
