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After Copenhagen: Opportunities and challenges
March 1 – 19, 2010
One, two and three week options
Vandana Shiva, Malini Mehra, Ian Christie, Rob Hopkins, Nigel Topping, Clare Short MP, Miriam Kennet
This course is open for bookings.
Already booked on the course? Click here for course resources
Masters credits available subject to University approval.
Course Introduction
What do the agreements resulting from Copenhagen really mean for people working on the ground in all parts of the world? What’s missing? What’s next? The teachers on this course will share their insights into what was achieved and what the implications are for efforts to build a fairer and more sustainable global community.
Now, more than ever, we need to direct our activities and address shared concerns to find solutions locally as well as internationally. This course will bring together essential themes of the negotiations, across three individual weeks, to help you maximise opportunities and understand the challenges going forward.
See our editorial section for a selection of news and comment on Copenhagen.
Week 1: Views from the South
Vandana Shiva and Malini Mehra
During this first week, Vandana Shiva will explain her understanding of how the food crisis, peak oil, and climate change are inextricably linked. Any attempt to solve one without addressing the others will get us nowhere. Condemning industrial agriculture and industrial biofuels as recipes for ecological and economic disaster, Vandana champions the importance of small, independent farms. What we need most in a time of changing climates and millions hungry, she argues, are sustainable, biologically diverse farms that are more resistant to disease, drought, and flood. Calling for a return to local economies and small-scale food production, she will outline our remaining options and reflect on the extent to which the Copenhagen summit has helped us along the way to a people-centred fossil-fuel-free future, which will offer a decent living for all.
On Friday, Malini Mehra will join the course to discuss her interpretation of the outcome of Copenhagen. What actions will be needed to achieve a climate-resilient world and what are the challenges for human societies?
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Week 2: Climate Change, Peak Oil and the Industrialised World
Ian Christie, Rob Hopkins and Nigel Topping
All the teachers this week share Vandana Shiva’s view that the climate change issue needs to be addressed alongside the other crises of scarcity, pollution and loss of biodiversity.
Ian Christie will look at the political, social and psychological dimensions of climate change and other crises that not only demand urgent and difficult action but also challenge the master concept in the West’s politics and economics – indefinite growth. He will discuss the nature of ‘denial’ and resistance in Western societies to the diagnosis of unsustainable development, and how policymakers see issues of sustainability such as climate change. Can we have prosperity without growth while respecting ecological limits? Can we innovate our way out of growth dilemmas through new technologies? He will finish by evaluating the prospects for social innovation – and community movements and values consistent with ecologically resilient and respectful development.
Rob Hopkins will join the course to discuss how the Transition Towns movement (described by Patrick Holden as “one of the big ideas of our time”) can help to address fossil fuel dependency. This model of social and environmental change involves the application of systemic thinking to towns and villages. The first Transition Town was set up three years ago in Totnes to explore and then follow pathways of practical actions that will reduce carbon emissions and dependence on fossil fuels, and to build the town’s resilience – that is, its ability to withstand shocks from the outside, through being more self reliant in areas such as food, energy, health care, jobs and economics. Transition towns have since been set up all around the world. Rob will give examples of the kinds of projects and strategies the Transition Initiative is pursuing, and discuss how they are likely to be helped or hindered by the Copenhagen outcomes.
Nigel Topping will discuss the role of business in exacerbating or helping address climate change, focusing on the following questions:
1. Climate change has largely been caused by businesses acting on our behalf. How can we engage with the business community to solve this global problem on our behalf?
2. Many of the solutions exist but are not being implemented. This is a problem of the allocation of capital – what is preventing much more money flowing to solutions?
3. Much attention has been placed on Carbon but this is a difficult commodity to grasp – what hopes are there for using forestry or water issues as levers for change?
4. Surely the global oil industry has known about the twin problems of climate change and peak oil for a long time – why are they not moving faster to accelerate investment in non-fossil fuel energy sources?
Additional event available to week 2 participants: Alex Randall will hold an Open Evening at the College. At the Copenhagen negotiations Alex was part of he negotiating team of Kiribati – a small island state in the Pacific Ocean. The talk will give a flavour of what it was like being part of the delegation of one of the most vulnerable countries in the world at COP15. During the talk we will explore some of the problems with the COP process and try to understand how these lead to the disappointing outcome at Copenhagen. The talk also look at the specific problems faced by low lying island states like Kiribati including flooding and migration as a result of climate change.
Week 3: Government, Policy and Action
Clare Short & Miriam Kennett
Clare Short’s considerable experience in government, in particular as Secretary of State for International Development, enables her to help others understand the inside story of politics and policy making. On an earlier course at Schumacher, Development: What Next?, she discussed the limitations and achievements of foreign aid. In this course, she will build on these insights to explore how the industrialised nations and the developing world will be able to work together to implement the Copenhagen agreements.
As leader of the Green Economics Institute delegation to the Copenhagen Summit, Miriam Kennet witnessed the power struggles and conflicts of interest that lead to a near collapse of the summit. With participants she will discuss what these power relations mean in terms of looking constructively at expectations and targets for the Mexico summit, what and when it is, and how the lessons learnt from the challenge of management of the Copenhagen summit will be invaluable moving forward. Participants will explore the concept of a ‘maturity of the movement’; a process which ensures experts and negotiators can conduct progressive meetings with appropriate levels of involvement from civil society, government officials and the media.
Miriam Kennet will discuss with participants a range of climate change policies, and how they fit within the economic system. Participants will discuss what adjustments need to be made on an individual and societal level and the risks involved in these changes. They will explore how to engage more effectively with economists and policymakers, to understand where the real levers for change can be found.
With participants Miriam will dissect the Copenhagen Accord and what it means for participants’ own work and/or activism. They will explore how this document and their work can be taken forward towards the revision of agreements and targets at the Mexico Summit. Participants will have a chance to contribute towards documents and briefing for international negotiators attending Mexico with Miriam and the Green Economics Institute.
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Most Recent Editorial on Copenhagen
World Conference of the People on Climate Change
Thursday January 14, 2010
Bolivia, one of a handful of poor countries which openly opposed the deal in Copenhagen, has invited countries and non-governmental groups which want a much stronger climate deal to the World Conference of the People on Climate Change.
Read Beyond Copenhagen by Stephen Hale, Director of Green Alliance, which was recently published in Resurgence: Why our leaders are failing us and why, collectively, we now need a far broader and deeper global movement for change.
How big a deal is Copenhagen? Read what our teachers say…
In addition to the teachers on this course involved in Copenhagen, click here for the sessions run by Schumacher College at Klimaforum09, the civic society conference, which ran alongside the UN organised Climate Change Summit.
Teachers
Vandana Shiva is an Indian physicist, philosopher, feminist and tireless environmental activist. She was involved in the women’s campaign against the destruction of the Himalayan forests, the famous Chipko movement, and now works in the movement to protect biodiversity and prevent the patenting of seeds in India. She has a PhD in the Philosophy of Science and has written many books including Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development, Monocultures of the Mind, Biopiracy, Water Wars and most recently Soil Not Oil. In 1993, she won the Alternative Nobel Prize (the Right Livelihood Award). In 1984, she founded Navdanya, an organisation which works for organic farming methods, biodiversity, the Earth and India’s small farmers. Bija Vidyapeeth, Navdanya’s residential course centre, was inspired by Schumacher College. Vandana returns to teach her eleventh course at Schumacher College.
Malini Mehra is the founder & CEO of the Centre for Social Markets in India. In 2007, CSM launched Climate Challenge India, the country’s first national mobilization campaign on climate change promoting a fiercely pro-active, leadership agenda. A political scientist and gender specialist by training, Malini has worked on sustainability issues in civil society, business, and government for more than 20 years. In 2009, she was nominated as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (Davos). Prior to founding CSM in 2000, Malini worked on international trade, environment and human rights for NGOs including Oxfam and Friends of the Earth. She has been involved in climate issues since the United Nations’ conference in Kyoto (1997) where she coordinated the input of Friends of the Earth International.
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Ian Christie is an associate of the UK think tank Green Alliance and a visiting professor at the Centre for Environmental Strategy at the University of Surrey. His experience spans the voluntary, public and private sectors, and includes work as a local government head of environment and as an advisor to ministers, senior civil servants and government agencies in the UK. His most recent work has been as an advisor and writer for the Church of England, preparing its new vision and strategy for action on climate and environment, Church and Earth 2009-2016. He is a pro bono advisor to Durrell Wildlife and a trustee or advisory board member for WWF-UK, Global Action Plan, Involve and the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development.
Rob Hopkins is founder of the Transition Towns movement and author of The Transition Handbook. He is a permaculture teacher and set up the Hollies Centre for Practical Sustainability in Ireland.
Nigel Topping is the Chief Development Officer of the Carbon Disclosure Project, a global NGO working to accelerate the corporate response to climate change by raising investor awareness of the impact on businesses (CDP, www.cdproject.net). He will be in Copenhagen promoting the creation and adoption of accounting standards for climate change and will be in Abu Dhabi in January talking to leading oil companies about how climate change is affecting their industry. Nigel has twenty years experience in manufacturing industry, much of it overseas in USA, China, Brazil, India, Spain and Germany. Nigel has an MSc in Holistic Science from Schumacher College where he researched the role of business in solving global problems. This year CDP worked on behalf of 475 investors with assets under management of about $55 trillion to engage with over 4000 companies, asking them to disclose information on their carbon emissions and climate change strategy. The data gathered is increasingly used by investors and governments to redirect the flow of capital away from the causes of climate change and towards the solutions. CDP has been described as an example of ‘private politics’ and Nigel is at the forefront of creating new ways to bring about change in the global economy.
Clare Short MP was Secretary of State for International Development from 1997 to May 2003. The Department for International Development (DFID) was a new Ministry created after the 1997 general election to promote policies for sustainable development and the elimination of poverty and it manages Britain’s programme of assistance to developing countries. Clare entered the House of Commons in 1983 as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Ladywood. From 1996 until the 1997 General Election she was Opposition spokesperson on Overseas Development. She was Shadow Minister for Women from 1993 to 1995 and Shadow Secretary of State for Transport from 1995 to 1996. She has been Opposition spokesperson on Environment Protection, Social Security and Employment. In November 2004, her book An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq, and the Misuse of Power was published as an attempt to explain why Tony Blair did what he did on Iraq so that lessons about foreign policy can be learned.
Miriam Kennet is Founder and Director of the Green Economics Institute and attended Copenhagen COP15 Conference on Climate Change as leader of their international delegation involved in developing a green economic analysis of climate change policies. She is currently writing a taxonomy of economics of the environment and the policy responses to climate change. She is a member of Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute and Mansfield College, Oxford University. She is researching the roots of the climate change policy options being offered at the moment. She speaks and advises on green economics around the world,advising governments on sustainability. She has published numerous articles and book chapters, and founded and edits the academic journal International Journal of Green Economics and is series editor for several book publishers.
Course Fees
For businesses: One week £1,200, Two weeks £1,800, Three weeks £2,200
For individuals, NGOs, Educational & Public Sector Organisations: One week £700, Two weeks £1,300, Three weeks £1,800
All course fees include accommodation, food, field trips and all teaching sessions.
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Discounts
10% for residents of South West England
20% with five or more people coming from the same organisation on the same course
(only one discount applicable per booking)
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