[UPDATE: climate-emergency-handbook.org has been set up as a platform to develop a handbook.]

Preface

With the publication of the IPPC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C [1] on 8 October 2018, it has become overwhelmingly evident that strong action on global warming must be taken now. The targets and target dates set in Paris are insufficient[2].

Governments appear to be incapable of taking the necessary actions because of fears of losing international competitiveness.

In light of government inaction local governments have started to declare a Climate Emergency. As of 13 December 2018 there are 6 in England, 7 in the USA and 7 in Australia [3]. Surely many more will follow.

It is not just local government that can declare a Climate Emergency. Anyone and any organisation can do so.

This handbook has been written to provide an action guide for those who have declared a Climate Emergency.

There are no right ways to do this, so take what works for you from this handbook. Also what you can do depends upon what level of control you have. For example:

• National governments can change laws, taxation and budgets.
• Local governments have less control, but can play a vital role.
• Companies have control over their suppliers – ie who they buy goods and services from.
• Individuals, particularly acting collectively, can also influence those they buy goods and services from.

Some of the suggested actions are based on those that have already been taken by those declaring a Climate Emergency, others are new.

At the end of the handbook you will find a list of resources. For an updated list, visit the handbook website. The resources include:

• “Don’t mention the emergency[4]” which while Australian in origin, has a global message on how to language the emergency and calls to action.
• Websites which provide advice and avenues for action.
• The Club of Rome which has recently released a “Climage Emergency Plan[5]”.

The handbook is full of suggestions. Some suggestions are for individuals, others for organisations, while most of the suggestions can be used by both individuals and organisations. In summary the suggestions include:

• For organisations, depending on the existing organisation structure, create something that is in line with this emergency being the organisations top priority. Why top priority? Because if the climate crisis is not averted, the organisation will have no future.
• Reporting – this is not wartime – there is no need for secrecy – make reporting as public as possible.
• Make the climate emergency first order of business at all meetings
• An organisation should have an Action Plan. The suggested items below can also be used as a set of suggestions for individual action.
  Items to consider in an Action Plan include:
  • Purpose and Inteded Results (P&IR) or Purpose, Objectives and Outcomes (POO)
  • Set a goal such as zero carbon emissions in your area or for your organisation by a date, such as 2025 or 2030 with measurable mileposts. While tomorrow may not be possible, the earlier the date the better.
  • Disinvestment: Disinvest from fossil fuel industries, both your (organisation’s) own funds and pension funds. Find and use a bank that does not provide funding to fossil fuel exploration or development, nor invest in fossil fuel industries. Find and use insurance companies that do not provide cover to fossil fuel industries and do not re-insure with companies that provide cover to fossil fuel industries.
  • Ensure all electricity purchases are from a renewables tariff.
  • Ensure all gas purchases are from suppliers who guarantee not to supply gas from fracking.
  • Specially for local authorities, consider establishing your own energy supplier (as has Bristol [6]).
  • If your organisation is large enough require of suppliers that they make, other wise look for suppliers who have made, their own climate emergency declaration, action plan, and are successfully implementing their plan.
  • Public engagement including, but not limited to:
    • This is real and urgent action is needed now.
    • Diet – spread the message that avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce environmental impact on the planet[7].
    • Purchasing (as above) look for suppliers who have declared a Climate Emergency and are actively taking steps.
    • Support or deliver climate emergency briefings which would outline the science of global warming and the actions that can and are being taken to deal with it, and what more needs to be done.
    • Sign a climate emergency pledge (see below).
  • Conduct a micro-hydro survey. In the UK studies have estimated that there is potential for the development of 850 to 1550 MW of micro-hydro[8], often by the the redevelopment of abandoned water mills.
  • Retrofit existing housing stock. As the Guardian reported, the UK’s housing stock ‘needs massive retrofit to meet climate targets'[8].
  • Beware – don’t make other issues worse. Global Warming is not the only issue that needs to be addressed. Check that your planned actions won’t make other issues worse. For example using productive farm land to grow crops for bio-fuels or for solar electricity generation will have adverse effects on global food supply.
  • Make the assumptions that your plan is based on explicit & regularly review them – things will change fast over the coming years – good assumptions may turn bad very quickly
• Many proposed actions will require significant funding. In the absence of, or as well as, national government funding, things to consider are setting up a local charity, and undertaking retrofitting in partnership with energy suppliers.
• Associations / Twin Towns – encourage the associations you or your organisation belong to / twin towns to declare a climate emergency.
• Support a Climate Emergency Project or something similar that promotes a Climate Emergency Declaration such as:
  • I/We acknowlege that Global Warming is an existential threat to all life on Earth.
    I/We also acknowlege that I/We am/are powerless to deal with this threat on my/our own.
    Therefore I/we shall act with others to deal with this threat by reducing or eliminating my/our meat consumption and giving strong preference in my/our purchase (and investment) decisions to individuals and organisations that have declared a climate emergency and are taking effective action on the emergency.

Here is the latest version.

Please note that at this time they may only be used for private study. Any other use will still require our written permission.

However we do plan to release updated versions of the handbooks under a Creative Commons licence.

2008-09 Participant Handbook

Also note that some handbooks have not been updated recently and some of the material is out of date.

Some random ideas on things to do about Climate Change:

1. Establish regarding the Government’s Head of Atmosphere (can’t remember his exact title) how much he has wanted to spend on educating our citizenry (£20-£30 m) and for how long he has had no joy from his masters – and how his masters think about this.
2. Assemble a digest of all the UNFCCC’s IPCC-based scenarios & the Government Chief Scientist, Professor Sir David King’s communications on this matter since the beginning of 2004 – and convey them to all MPs, Members of the House of Lords and elected local government Councillors, asking what if anything they are planning individually to do. In regard to the 635 or so MPs, start with a telephone survey to establish their knowledge – and current personal attitudes. Then publish it – and follow-up every quarter until something happens.
3. Locate and do a similar survey of the top 100 advisers to the government on a) CC & GW and b) departmental Environmental Management/SD. Could be fascinating!
4. Locate and do a similar survey of the HSE directors of a) the largest 100 companies and b) Local Government – and their sense of ‘Responsibility’ (sic) to lead on the basis of their superior knowledge!
5. Assemble a consortium (coalition of the willing!) of all willing leading investigative journalists and Programs to find out why the UK government has not been communicating and leading – perhaps there is a carpet to lift… Perhaps we are all in denial…
6. Very carefully investigate the dimensions and the particulars of the lobbying effort with regard to the government to not take it seriously or ‘scare the horses’ (focusing on the lobby firms, their paymasters, et al)…
7. Investigate any relevant hold the US has over our government. Is it our politicians’ desire once in the hot-seat to stay close to mother or father? Or is it that we will be subject to sanctions if we don’t, e.g loss of access to intelligence, control over ‘our’ weapons sourced from across the Atlantic (if so which etc), loss of financial support in the next financial crisis, or anything else…
8. Survey all members of the IEMA (the Institute of EM and Asessment) and ask them how much they could reduce GW emissions (in tonnes) if they had non-interest bearing returnable loans from the government to run projects that would be self funding (say) in 3 months (in the first year), 6 months in Year 2, one year in Year 3……
9. It would probably be sensible to ask the question of the IPCC and the UNFCCC.  There may be someone at home in either organisation of whom one can ask their thoughts about what is ideally needed to raise awareness and public pressure for action. These are the ‘official’ international bodies and they ought to have worked on this – and possibly been well-funded to do so.
10. There are widely different ideas ‘out there’ about what will happen on present or likely policies – and by when. The IPCC work is really not well known in the UK and is probably the best – but from what I have seen still doesn’t really communicate. It is more a musing between experts and avoids nasty things like probable death counts. If alongside the CO₂ curves, temperature curves, we had probable death curves – this might begin to do the trick.
11. We need to have properly thought out ‘soft landing’ requirements – what by when to achieve what by when.

Based on emails dated 20/08/2004 21:54 and 1/08/2004 11:11.

• The Companies Acts do not recognise that there are other stakeholders than shareholders.
• They do not recognise that other living beings than human beings – are stakeholders in enterprises
• They do not recognise that ecological systems may also be seen as stakeholders in enterprises
• They do not recognise that society is the context of enterprise – and not the other way
• They do not recognise that ecology is the context of society & enterprises
• They do not recognise that there is a human and societal interest in maintaining stable, clean ecological systems services
• There is even a strong business interest in such ecological systems services!
• There is a societal interest that the values that society would like to live by are supported by business’ own values. That these are triggered and enabled by Company law in relation to the duties of directors
• The current central requirement to maximise shareholder return – and that alone – is tantamount to enshrining greed as the greatest, most central moral good. This tends to ‘ghettoise’ business in a space which is quite different from that of the rest of society, where other human higher values are valued, inculcated into each generation and are in fact demanded in daily social life.

Some Finance Directors have said independently and spontaneously that they feel trapped and disabled by the bald requirement to maximise share-holder value. How can they freely do anything else that they might consider important.Several have similarly said that they would appreciate some sort of formulation based on the concept of maximisation, subject to one or more constraints. This might come out, for example, as ‘maximisation of shareholder vale subject to facilitating and maintaining the economic, social and environmental sustainability of activities, products and services’.The obvious advantage of such an update to the central requirement of the Companies Acts would be that they would have a universal impact – and release creativity in every enterprise to meet the requirement. This would, of course, naturally include every business in the financial sector – which ‘owns’ the ‘doomsday machine’ which is the current global financial system.The financial sector seems to me to really be the very last sector in which narrow, Friedmanite, economic fundamentalism is hunkered down and not really getting the sustainability messages. I suspect that it might resist such a fundamental update to Company law. The backwoodsmen might be out in force. But it should not worry them. Even they have an interest in survival! What better way to preserve the benefits of the capitalist system than to perform a simple tweak that alters the whole game so positively?

[ The CSEM-BMP Sustainability Leadership Programme includes an Integration module.  The following essay is based on insights gained from running that module. ]

Most businesses see integration as just good planning, organisation or management.  Such integration covers work on mission, vision and values.  It also includes meetings of various types.  As well it covers risk-based and other planning, budgeting and reporting.

Such a view appears to miss something important.  This is particularly when dealing with the environment and sustainability.  Typically different parts of a company consider their:

• impacts on air/ land/ water/ communities;
• social impacts; and
• regulatory compliance.

In addition each part deals with rapidly changing technological options and opportunities.  In practice parts of the company cause environmental impacts and effects.  Each such part tends to adjust independently in relation to these.  Such changes are more or less successful.

For many large companies, since at least the early 90s, disparate responses happen in different parts of the company.  These responses are organised by different people.  People who have little or no awareness of what others are doing!

Often this work is ‘under the radar’.  That is senior and particularly top management are not aware of what is happening or why.  They may well remain ignorant of what and how much is happening in their company.  Management can be caught in an outmoded mind-set.  This mind-set sees a necessary conflict between profitability and sustainability.  Knowing little, they will sometimes block these ‘under the radar’ changes.

They may still not put the whole picture together.  They may have no-one doing this for them.  They encounter changes in their company.  These changes may be a very necessary response.  [Very large and unavoidable changes in the market require a response.]  However they do not see the connection.

Integration of these multiple local positive responses helps top management.  It helps them to see the whole picture.  It helps to see where and how to lead the company.

Without integration of these piecemeal activities, the company remains in reaction.  This has a cost.  The world is waking up to the need to work within ecological (and social) limits.  With change come opportunities.  Without integration the company may miss these opportunities.

Integration allows for a coherent, active response to the new agenda.  This would include identifying relevant products and services.  It would include shaping the sector response.  It would include taking a consciously strategic approach.

One might simply call this ‘getting organised’.  But hitherto ‘getting organised’ was related to narrower goals.  Such goals have included producing a new product or a new product range or reducing costs.  They have included ramping up production or improving service experience.  They have not included a comprehensive response to a new agenda.

This agenda requires all of these responses and more! And the sooner the better! The time for change was yesterday.  Every aspect of every company – at every level – needs to change, adapt and transform.

Every employee’s mental picture of the world they live in also needs to change.  It needs to adapt and transform.  Every employee has prejudices, mental sets, attitudes feelings and emotions about this agenda.  These may be called up, called into play.  Employees need to be allowed their space for expression, consideration, discussion, debate and resolution.

Their partial knowledge of the science needs to be supplemented.  It needs supplementing by providing the best available science area by area.  Each employee needs to be won over on a rational scientific basis.  They also need to be won over on a rational ethical and business basis.  Otherwise there will be a pent-up reaction.  There will be potential for damaging upset in the future.

This will lead each employee through a process of re-integration.  Each employee will experience internal changes.  These changes will be mental, feeling, emotional, attitudinal and more.  They will be about the science.  The changes will be about man’s necessarily evolving relationship with the environment.  It will be about their evolving relationship with each other.

For the next few years integration will be important.  It will play a key role in the necessary sustainability transition.  Integration is needed at the level of the company.  It is also needed at the level of individual employee and adviser.

This needs to be put very intelligently to top management.  They need to be won over.  Top management need to support a programme of education, change and cultural change.  Such a programme will assist the company to achieve deep integration.  It will assist:

• individual-by-individual;
• team-by-team;
• division-by-division;
• function-by function; and
• area-by-area.

It will be required until integration is achieved across the whole company.  It will also be required until it is achieved across the extended organisation.  This will provide a key part of a successful transition to real sustainability.

Success could include gaining market share.  It could even include avoiding disasters such as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Success is likely to include cost reduction on regulatory compliance.  It is likely to include new and profitable products and services.  It will likely create new markets, and new business openings.  Also likely are new sources of capital.  That is in addition to reduced costs of capital and insurance.  Success will likely lead to recognition and happier regulators, shareholders, top teams, employees and communities.

© Ross King and Michael Baker, August 2010.