Nourishing the environmental debate

Author Archives: John Hepburn

John worked as a mechanical engineer making components for the coal, oil and nuclear industries before becoming an environmental activist in the mid 1990’s. He co-founded a successful recycling business in Brisbane before moving to Sydney to work with Greenpeace. He has a strong interest in the politics of technology and in social movement strategy, and, like many, is extremely concerned about climate change. He currently co-ordinates the Greenpeace Australia Pacific climate change campaign.

Australia accused of cooking the books in Copenhagen

When the draft texts were presented in Copenhagen last Friday with proposed emissions reductions of between 30-45%, you could almost feel the wave of panic juddering through the delegates of the Annex 1 countries.
Cut emissions in line with the science? That would be insane. We might actually have to take action to cut our industrial [...]

Antarctic treaty: lessons and hope for Copenhagen

Like a lot of people, I’ve been finding it difficult to reconcile the massive gulf between what I want to happen at the Copenhagen meeting, and what most people think is likely to happen. There is a tension between doing what you know is right and “demanding the impossible” on one hand, and at the [...]

Maybe nick and the boys should talk to Liz?

In her opening statements to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago yesterday, the Queen made an empassioned plea for action on climate change by Commonwealth Governments. In doing so, she sided with Turnbull, the republican. It no doubt caused a minor conniption amongst the arch conservatives of the Liberal Party [...]

Exposing polluter influence on climate policy

Stay tuned for the release tomorrow of an investigative piece by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
According to their website…
“Starting in July 2009, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists fielded an eight-country team of reporters to uncover the special interests attempting to influence negotiations on a global climate change treaty. Relying on more than 200 [...]

Climate talks hotting up in Barcelona

The global climate talks are hotting up. This week, negotiators are meeting in Barcelona for the last week of discussions before the Copenhagen meeting in December.
There is a lot at stake. Arguably it is the future of the planet. Some countries are literally fighting for their survival while other countries are fighting to defend the [...]

Coal association ads get a makeover

As I was saying in my post a couple of weeks back, the Australian Coal Association have hired the big guns to help them bully the Government into giving them a massive compensation payout through the emissions trading scheme. Neil Lawrence of Kevin 07 fame, has designed the “coalmine09″ campaign which is running in coal [...]

NSW considers new coal

Ever belligerent, it would appear that the NSW Government are determined to build new coal power stations in spite of everything we know about climate change.
The department of planning this week released documents outlining plans for a new coal or gas plant at Mt Piper (near the Blue Mountains) and Bayswater in the Hunter valley.
The [...]

From Kevin 07 to Coalmine 09

The front page of the Oz revealed today that advertising guru Neil Lawrence has moved seamlessly from Kev to coal. The architect of the Kevin07 campaign is going to be lending his creative services to the coal industry in their attempts to extract even more public subsidies from the Government in order to avoid having [...]

Cairnsgate

Ok, sorry about the tabloid title, but this is a pretty disturbing story. Following my earlier post about the Pacific Island Forum, here is the analysis of the PIF from Shirley Atatagi – climate political advisor for Greenpeace in the Pacific.

International climate negotiations just got dirty, even if the final stage hasn’t started. Australia and [...]

Rudd’s dilemma at PIF

Pacific leaders are meeting in Cairns today for the Pacific Island Forum. In recent years the agenda has been dominated by issues of regional stability including the intervention in the Solomons and more recently the troubling political events in Fiji. But with the forum happening in Australia for the first time in over a decade, [...]