Author: r.d.pancost

Rich grew up on a small farm in Ohio and studied Geology at Case Western Reserve University and Penn State University, where he developed tools based on organic compounds to reconstruct past climate. He worked at the Netherlands Institute of Sea Research and joined the University of Bristol Organic Geochemistry Unit in 2000. He helped found the interdisciplinary Cabot Institute and became its Director in 2013, stepping down in 2018 to become Head of the School of Earth Sciences. With Ujima Radio and BGCP, he co-created the Black and Green Ambassadors. Throughout it all, he has most enjoyed bringing brilliant, diverse people together to stimulate the creation of new ideas.

A response to Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement

Posted on by r.d.pancost

The decision by President Trump to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change puts the United States at odds with both science and global geopolitical norms.  The fundamentals of climate change remain unambiguous: greenhouse gas concentrations are increasing, they are increasing because of human action, the increase will cause warming, and that warming creates risks of extreme weather, food crises and sea level rise. That does not mean that scientists can predict all of the consequences of global warming, much work needs to be done, but the risks are both profound and clear. Nor do we know what the best solutions will be – there is need for a robust debate about the nature, fairness and efficacy of different decarbonisation policies and technologies as well as the balance of responsibility; the Paris Agreement, despite its faults with respect to obligation and enforcement, allowed great flexibility in that regard, which is why nearly every nation on Earth is a signatory.

Moreover, although climate change affects us all, it will affect the poorest and most vulnerable the most. They, despite being least responsible, bear the greatest risks and the greatest burdens. For the President of the world’s second largest carbon polluter to blatantly disregard such evidence and injustice, to refuse to even acknowledge the consequences of its actions and to disengage with this relatively modest and non-binding agreement puts it odds with the norms of global partnership and human rights. This abrogation of responsibility is particularly profound because President Trump has also withdrawn the United States from the Green Climate Fund, which helps the poorest of the world adapt to the climate change that his actions make more likely.

And to what end?  Other nations will now assume global leadership, politically, morally and technologically.  It will likely cost American businesses money, hinder innovation in one of the world’s most dynamic sectors, and ultimately cost jobs. It will likely undermine the United States’ global stature and diplomatic reach. It is hard to imagine a decision so blatantly motivated by self-interest while being so profoundly self-harming.

The crucial question now is how we respond.  China and the EU have stepped forward, increasing their voluntary commitments, repudiating President Trump’s decision and assuming the mantle of leadership.  Nations around the world are following suit, as are cities and states across the United States.  Businesses have re-stated their commitment to decarbonisation – ironically, the day before Trump’s decision, shareholders voted that Exxon develop plans compliant with the Paris Agreement’s targets.  In the UK, in the midst of a general election, parties from across the political spectrum have responded to Trump’s decision with reactions ranging from disappointment to outrage. The UK has always provided leadership in this arena, recognising that climate change is a non-partisan issue, and it is one of the few nations with a cross party Climate Change Act.  It is vital for both the planet and the UK that these initial comments are followed by bolder actions and stronger leadership.

***********************************

We will not be stopped.

Across the world and in the University of Bristol, we are frustrated with the symbolism of Trump’s actions, his speech’s misrepresentation of facts, and his decision’s potential to slow climate action.  But we also recognise that these actions will not stop climate action. The responses of local, national and international leaders, in politics, community groups and businesses, across sectors and across society show that no person, regardless of his position or his nation, can stop the energy revolution. It is too deeply embedded in our politics, economy and ambitions, borne of out of multiple necessities.

Here, in the University of Bristol Cabot Institute, we remain committed to this challenge.  Our University is committed to carbon neutrality, ethical and low-carbon procurement and divestment from fossil fuel-intensive businesses. We have foregrounded Sustainable Futures in our undergraduate teaching.  And in our research, we are investigating improved energy efficiency in everything from computer software, to our homes and our cities.  We are exploring how smart technology enables new forms of transport, community energy and individual action. We are converting nuclear waste into diamond batteries with 5000-year lifetimes, we are leading one of the projects under the Natural Environment Research Council’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction programme and we have just launched new initiatives in wind, tidal, solar and nuclear energy.

Our ambitions are at all scales, from the local to the global.  We continue to work with our Green Capital partners, with a focus on building an informed, diverse, inclusive and powerful movement to become a more sustainable city and region, exemplified by the Green and Black Ambassadors Initiative.  Globally, our projects have been exploring the impact of conflict, climate change and geological hazards on development and the environment; the potential for micro-grids to deliver electricity to isolated communities; new forms of parasite resistance for subsistence farmers; and how geothermal energy can be harnessed in Ethiopia.

This commitment to sustainability builds on five decades of research on our environmental challenges and how to manage them.  The Atmospheric Chemistry Research Group makes among the world’s most accurate measurements of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, and they have shown how rapidly these compounds are accumulating. They are committed to refining those measurements and the modelling methods that allow us to understand why global emissions change. The Bristol Initiative for the Dynamic Global Environment reconstructs past climates and uses those insights to better understand our future; recent projects are building global collaborations to explore the controls on Earth’s temperature and monsoons.  Our glaciologists study sea level rise; our hydrologists study floods and drought; our social scientists study the injustice of climate change and its impact on migration and conflict; and our vets and life scientists are exploring how to improve animal welfare and crop yields on a climate disrupted planet.

Our commitment includes appointing the best and the brightest at understanding these challenges, including Dr Dann Mitchell who joined the University in November.  As co-ordinator of the largest dedicated project in the world on the climate impacts of the Paris Agreement (www.happimip.org), he sums up the Cabot Institute’s collective commitment: “The news of Trump wanting to pull out is incredibly frustrating. Our results are already suggesting more extreme events, such as droughts and heat waves, and serious impacts on society, such as increased human and animal health issues, failures in global crop distributions and bleaching of our coral reefs. I am frustrated that Trump continues to ignore the scientific evidence that has been recognised by his global peers, but that will not dissuade us from doing all we can to understand climate risks… and prevent them.’

Bristol Clear – My Life in Science

Posted on by r.d.pancost

Bristol Clear is a University of Bristol initiative to build support, create voice and connect Early Career Researchers.  One of its activities is sharing the stories of more senior researchers, stories that are honest about the challenges many of us have faced, the hurdles we have overcome, the love for research or teaching that keeps us going, and the sacrifices we have made. Academia is a wonderful career; but we lie to ourselves and the next generation if we are not open about its challenges and demands.  Here is my (abbreviated) story.

What I do:

I study how the Earth works as a system, how all of the biological, climatic, geological and chemical components interact today and how they interacted in the past.  I was also Director of the Cabot Institute, which was a chance to not only work across disciplines and research environmental problems but to support a wide range of academics and partners studying solutions to those problems.  Currently, as Head of School, I have all sorts of new obligations but am particularly enjoying connecting to a new group of amazing students.

Why Academia?:

How I ended up in academia and even higher education is a complicated question.  Part of it was because I was good at it: I was smart, good at exams and course work and got good grades.  Part of it was because I loved it; I followed every Shuttle launch and was glued to the television as Voyager 1 and 2 whipped past Jupiter and Saturn. And part of it was because it could get me out of poverty.  I try not to overly mythologise growing up on a small dairy farm in Ohio, but I did love it.  I loved working outside and working with my family.  But I also hated the machinery, the brutality of it; the ceaselessness of farm life, no matter if you are sick or if there is a heat wave or a blizzard; the uncertainty, the worry, the continuous worry about the weather and the bills. It seemed like we were always talking about bills – for the farm equipment, the mortgage, the water and electricity, the dentist and the doctor….

So university always seemed inevitable.  I could go. I wanted to go.  I needed to go.

Our dairy farm in Ohio – photo taken just before we sold the farm (which is why there are no cows or horses)

 

College was fantastic.  I loved the intellectual freedom and the variety.  My god, especially the variety.  Then and now, that has to be one of the most amazing things about academia.  Every day is different.  Every hour is different.  I had come to college to study astrophysics.  Or political science. Or literature.  In the end, I studied geology. I loved it all.  [During the summer after my Freshman Year, with discussions of environmental crises beginning to trouble the news, with my family’s farm seen in a new light after being away for a year, and with my interest in both science and politics growing, I decided I would merge my interests.  I would study geology and then go on to Law School and become an environmental lawyer.]

However, it also took a long and awkward time for me to fit in, this farm boy at a big university, first generation, working class, a bit of a country hick. I was anxious about belonging in this different world. I was anxious about my grades – I’d lose my scholarships if my GPA dropped below 3.0.  I was anxious about my family, who had to give up farming when my brother and I went to college because they just did not have the labour to keep it going.  I was anxious about money – money to join activities and money to even pay tuition (I could not work during the summer after my 3rd year because I was at Geology field camp; thankfully I got a last minute alumni scholarship).  But I did not know I was anxious.  There was no time to contemplate that.  And in any case, where I come from, you don’t get anxious; you fight.

I had support, but I wish that support had been more aware.  I wish that they could have seen past my good grades and enthusiasm for scholarship and seen the kid who was suffering from anger and anxiety. I wish they could have seen that my bravado was a lie and that my cuts and bruises were a sign of someone using sports and contests to inflict self-harm. I wish that I had been more self-aware.  I wish that I had realised that some of my actions were signs of self-doubt, fear of appearing foolish or uncool, and anger at being mocked and poor and unable to afford what others could.

But friends – even those who inadvertently made me feel that way – supported me. Lecturers championed me.  And helped me financially.  They paid me on internships and work study and once, when money was really tight, even to paint their house. And they taught me with passion and love for the subject. They gave me good grades; and when I was complacent, they gave me my first bad grades.  They were patient and then impatient and patient again.  And finally, they gave me advice, support and wisdom.  I graduated top in my class and won a PhD Fellowship to the Department of Geosciences at Penn State.

There are two stories that explain why I went to graduate school rather than becoming an environmental lawyer, and they are both true in their own way.  In the first, Geology stole me from that path by showing me a stunning and beautiful world: I found my first fossil in the Cleveland Shale in Rocky River Park; I felt my first sense of wonder at geological time in an outcrop teeming with Ordovician brachiopods and trilobites in the Cincinnati Arch; I marvelled at the forces that had shaped the Appalachian Mountains. And then, in the summer of 1991, my field project in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, one of the most beautiful parts of the world, revealed to me 500 million years of Earth history over the course of an exhausting, exhilarating, sweaty, blistering, eye-opening summer.

And the second story? I would have had to go further into debt to attend Law School, whereas graduate school would pay me a stipend. That’s all. Your choices are never entirely your own.

My career path / the big decisions:

 I loved graduate school, but the first two years were a battle.  A battle to flip from being a straight-A student who had excelled at learning and tests, who could solve problems and equations to a scientist who could conceive new ideas, new questions and design the experiments to test them.  I had a brilliant supervisor – Kate Freeman – but also a network of mentors and advisers across the department who tolerated my fumbling journey, pushed me at times, and let me make a few astonishingly poor decisions – but not too poor. I was allowed to learn and to fail and learn again.  And it was frustrating and it was amazing and always always always interesting.

And thrilling.  Nothing is as thrilling as discovering something, whether it be something fundamentally new, like a new biogeochemical pathway or a new compound, or even just being the first person in the world to analyse a particular rock.  And related to that is the thrill of having an idea, nursing it, testing it, patiently, rigorously and then proving it right – bringing a new sense of understanding into the world.

 So clearly I was hooked.  I would finish my PhD.  Get a post-doc. And then get an academic job. And I am still hooked, almost like a drug, addicted to those thrills, those moments of discovery, those moments when you know something – even if it is just a small something – about the universe that no one else does. And then sharing that with the world.

But addictions require sacrifice.  The post-doc opportunity was in the Netherlands.  I’d only been out of the country once before and no one else in my family even owned passports. You don’t travel when you have no money.  You don’t travel when you own a dairy farm. My parents always wanted the best for me, they wanted me to go to college, they wanted me to excel and to be successful; but at heart, we were still a farm family from Ohio and they never thought I would move that far away.

But I did.  And then I made that permanent when I moved to Bristol.  I have no regrets about those moves; I love this University, my School, my discipline, this city and my academic career.  But it would be a lie to say that this career does not demand sacrifices from us.  It would be a lie to say that this move was not hard and painful, that it has not had consequences, that family connections are more fragile and that some have been lost.  My parents cannot fly, they still do not have passports; they have never seen my house or my home or my city.

My advice to my younger self:

 I’d tell him that he could ask for help. I’d tell this kid, who was proud of his working class background but who had also buried some anxiety and fear and anger,  that he could ask for help.  That it is not a sign of weakness.

I’d tell him to stay true to who he is; it will have consequences but you cannot betray who you are.  Academia is less prone to class prejudices than other disciplines, but they do persist.  I always felt out of place at the wine tastings and expected cultural literacy.  I still have some dodgy teeth because we could not get dental care when I was a teenager. And even now, despite a great deal of success, I can still be told that I ‘lack gravitas’…

And I’d tell him that we always have choices. They can come with financial or emotional risk, but we do have them.  You can embrace the addiction of academic life or you can kick the habit if the thrill is not worth the sacrifice. I think he would have made all of the same decisions, but I wish he had known that the world is vast and full of options.  I would tell him that he will have an amazing life no matter what choices he makes as long as he remains true to himself and his values.

This was originally posted on Bristol Clear Blogs.

The Machine and its Fuel

Posted on by r.d.pancost

21st century, fossil fuel powered civilisation is a machine, with every last part of the planet engineered to serve us. We are all part of it; we all benefit from it; we are all complicit in it.

 

We must decarbonise by 2050.  Or by 2030.  Or even by 2025.  The sooner we do it, the greater we mitigate the ongoing climate change crisis and the more we spare our planet, nature, vulnerable communities across the world and especially future generations from dealing with the consequences of our unfettered growth.  But whether we act quickly or slowly, the challenge will be profound.  It is certainly not impossible and certainly does not require a terrible lurching into the austerity of the past; in fact, it could be liberating, innovative, exhilarating.  It could be the next great technical, cultural or social revolution (or all of the above), a revolution that reinvents our society, our relationships with one another and our relationship with the planet that sustains us. The only life-sustaining planet of which we know in all of existence.

It is necessary; and achieving it will bring out the best of us. But it will be hard.

21st century society is a vast, magnificent machine that has created great art, launched probes to Mars, Jupiter and beyond, extended our lifespan by decades and connected us across every corner of the globe.  But it is also an infernal machine, designed primarily to produce and consume and fuelled by environmental degradation, class imprisonment, colonialism and racism.  Most importantly, it is a near-inescapable, unsleeping and inexorable engine, so that we are all to some degree beneficiaries of its success and complicit in it sins.  And at its very heart, it is a transformer, reliant on and converting coal, oil and gas, fossil chemical fuels that are remarkable for their density of energy and, by extension, their capacity to generate heat and power.  Fossil fuels can warm a home and electrify our lights, but they can also melt lead and power shipping vessels that weigh 100,000 tons across the Atlantic in days.

Within that fossil-powered machine, we have some degree of agency: we can fly less or eat less meat; we can consume less, waste less, recycle more; we can fight to shatter glass ceilings and challenge structural racism.  But whether our mode of transport is a plane, car, train, bus or bicycle, all of those instruments have embedded carbon, embedded environmental degradation and embedded racism and worker exploitation.

So we implore each other to do what we can. You do your bit; I’ll do mine.  But until we break the machine – a machine that has gifted the world a century of unprecedented (albeit unequal) prosperity – and replace it with something new, the fundamental issues will remain unchanged.

How long do we have?  We have both little time and as much time as it takes. On one hand, the IPCC has warned that we have 12 years to redirect our society, which will in turn allow us to achieve net zero carbon between 2040 and 2050 and have a reasonable chance of limiting warming to 1.5C. The scale of change is vast, requiring not just an end to fossil fuel production but a change in our energy, heating, transportation, construction and agricultural systems, all of which have been designed to exploit those fossil fuels.  It is not just planes but gas central heating and the manufacture of steel, and tractors, JCBs and global supply chains. Our fossil-fuelled society is a like a vast juggernaut of a ship that must be returned to land but is sailing in the wrong direction.  When we argue that we have 12 years to act, we mean that we must stop this juggernaut and turn it around if we are to have any chance of returning it to harbour in time to meet our agreed goals.

But if we fail to do that, that does not mean we can accept defeat. The machine still must be broken.  We still must make these changes because they are necessary – 2C of global warming will be worse than 1.5 C and 4C of global warming will be worse by far; the struggle against exploitation of nature and fellow peoples will remain. And ultimately, diminishing supplies – the inevitable demands of living sustainably on a finite planet – will demand change.  Even if we do not achieve our targets, somehow, eventually, we or our children will dismantle this infernal engine; but in our prevarication we will have lost far more of ourselves and our planet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The abolitionists did not put targets for a tolerable number of slaves; they instead recognised that slavery was the foundation of their society, the basis for their prosperity and an abomination to be eliminated. Similarly, modern society, built upon fossil fuels and class exploitation, must change or end.  This is not a single election and it is not a 90 minute football match; we will not ‘win’ or ‘lose’.  This must happen. Inevitably. If it does not happen in twelve years time, we must keep fighting until it does.

The Green and Black Ambassadors

Posted on by r.d.pancost

Summary: The Green and Black Ambassadors project arose from a series of conversations during and after Bristol’s year as the European Green Capital 2015.  Although the year was lauded for numerous successes, including in public engagement, many (including the organisers) agreed that it failed to overcome barriers to inclusion, especially with marginalised communities. The G/B Conversation revealed many of those barriers and proposed ways forward, one of which was to properly fund members of BME communities to challenge and connect different groups. To achieve that we, launched the Green and Black Ambassadors Programme, to build bridges but also to challenge and provoke. To provide focus, we engaged with the African and Caribbean communities prominent in Bristol.  This work was funded by the Cabot Institute, NERC and the ERC.

NOTE: An inspiring and exhaustive collection of Green and Black Ambassadors multi-media resources are available at the website of our partners, the Bristol Green Capital Partnership.  This project has been an outstanding collaboration, including the University of Bristol, Ujima Radio, the Green Capital Partnership and of course the Ambassadors. Particular acknowledgment must be given to Ujima Radio, who initiated the Green and Black Project which was the foundation for much of what is discussed here.  Please also read the final report:

Green-and-Black-Ambassadors-Pilot-Report-2018-yo3y5k

Related image

Background: In 2013, Bristol was announced as the 6th European Green Capital (for 2015) and the UK’s first. This award acknowledge a wide range of initiatives, success stories and ambitions, including significant waste reduction, widespread cycling, city-owned renewable energy provision, a rapidly growing green economy, and strong university partnership.  The year had a particularly strong focus on climate change, as it occurred during COP21. Crucially, the award itself as well as policy decisions made during and since the end of the Green Capital Year commit the city to a bold plan of leadership and social and technological innovation to become more sustainable and reduce its carbon footprint.  For example, representing Bristol at COP21 Mayor George Ferguson committed Bristol to decarbonisation by 2050, a pledge that his successor Marvin Rees has reiterated. Such an ambition requires widespread buy-in amongst formal and distributed city leaders as well as Bristol’s population.

The year was characterised by a range of Summits, lectures and festivals; a cultural and arts program; new public and private initiatives; and more. However, this engagement was incomplete. Throughout the year, many explored the social justice issues arising from climate change.  Echoing commentary by numerous international political and religious leaders, discussions at Green Capital events frequently focussed on the ethical dimensions of climate change, including those related to class, ethnicity and race. As such it was considered necessary to engage a diverse cross-section of society (and of course, this was also considered necessary to mobilise support for the aforementioned policy objectives). There were many efforts to achieve this.  The Year included a Neighbourhood Arts Progamme and a Primary Schools Programme, both of which were rolled out across the city. The Cabot Institute led several events in the poorest parts of the city, to complement those held on our campus. Nonetheless, poor inclusion was a persistent and legitimate charge (Pancost, 2015), as it has been for other Bristol activities. It was the disconnection between the Green Capital’s ambitions for inclusion and the lack of it that has proven to be particularly frustrating to many.

 There are vital lessons to be learned from this and there is a necessity to resolve it if Bristol – and other similar cities – are to achieve their desired transformations. Ujima Radio, recent winner of the UK’s Best Community Radio Station, initiated this effort in late 2014 and explored it throughout 2015 via the Green and Black Programme.  In late 2015, the Cabot Institute and the BGCP joined Ujima to explore this further via a series of workshops with BME leaders.  Two broad messages emerged, as summarised by our partner Roger Griffiths (Chair of Ujima Radio): ‘To many, the ‘green’ debate has hallmarks of being predominantly understood as a white, middle-class domain; moreover, there is a strong narrative of existing and potential engagement with green issues across BME communities that must be recognised and developed.’ Around these wider issues, a number of specific challenges were identified:

  • There was a widespread perception that formal activities – and especially the higher level decision-making – was led by an ‘in-crowd’ of established green activists, city leaders, and usual suspects (university and industry leaders).
  • Many venues were considered ‘off-limits’ to members of the BME community for a combination of issues related to perceived class bias, reputation or history (bearing in mind the role of slaving in Bristol’s history). Aside from that, many venues in the city centre, Bristol’s traditional focus for events (including the University), are not readily accessible.
  • Participation in events remains difficult for many due to childcare or work responsibilities. This reinforces the ‘in-crowd’ nature of activity and city planning, as many were able to attend as part of their jobs. Events were numerous and often organised at the last-minute, which further disenfranchised those with less flexible personal or working relationships.
  • Similarly, many were able to either volunteer time or were seconded from their businesses to participate; this puts particular stress on community organisations with limited resources.
  • BME leaders who were invited to attend workshops and planning meetings were often asked to attend or even speak but ‘rarely to help set the agenda.’

This is summarised with clarity and purpose by our partner at Ujima Radio, Roger Griffith in the Green and Black Conversation. The Green and Black Conversation 2015-2016-2f0l648

One of this consortium’s main conclusions was to launch a Green and Black Ambassador Programme, to pay, train and support (and learn from) a new generation of leaders who would: 1) foster dialogue among diverse groups, including showcasing examples of sustainability leadership arising from BME communities; 2) serve as a positively ‘disruptive’ participant on strategic boards (i.e. BGCP Board); 3) generate bespoke material on environmental issues and sustainability solutions for BME communities, some of which will be broadcast by Ujima Radio; and 4) conduct further research on the obstacles to BME inclusion in environmental initiatives. Given the diversity of Bristol with at least 91 languages spoken and 45 religions practiced, we have focussed on those communities of African and Caribbean descent, recognising that even that represents a great diversity of cultures, faiths and experience. Crucially, a goal of this initiative, directly identified during community consultations and reiterated by Mayor Marvin Rees, is to invest in the leadership skills of those bridging environmental and social justice ambitions.

 

Our events and networks forged

The Ambassadors have contributed to or led dozens of events, all characterised by their diversity and ambition, connecting people from a range of communities to one another and to natural resources. They have occurred across Bristol and the West of England, either in traditional locations with a specific aim to challenge and disrupt conventional approaches to engagement (i.e. Cabot Institute lecture in the Wills Memorial Building or the BGCP Board Meeting); in communities with large BME or otherwise marginalised communities (i.e. Hamilton House); or by bringing BME citizens out of the city to nature-rich areas (i.e Slimbridge).

Through Festivals, Workshops and Lectures, the Ambassadors have reached over 1000 people, and likely several 1000 more through their monthly radio shows. These events have included classical outreach activities, engaged workshops, field trips and knowledge sharing. Emerging from these activities has been sustained and deeper engagement, outlined below. This is critical.  During one presentation, while discussing the outcomes of the project, the PI was asked: ‘How will you measure how BME communities have adopted more sustainable practices?’ This is a critical misconception of the entire project of engagement and certainly a misunderstanding of the Green and Black Ambassadors Programme. The goal is to constructively change the scientists, the campaigners and the communicators alongside the public participants; the goal is for these leaders to listen to, learn from and better understand the initiatives occurring in and knowledge generated in marginalised communities so that the scientific endeavour becomes richer and stronger – and better connected to a wider variety of the public.  Therefore, the Ambassadors have devoted particular effort to engaging and collaborating with organisations.  These include:

Slimbridge WWT: The Ambassadors brought BME citizens to Slimbridge to stimulate a conversation around engagement with nature; they then collaborated on a workshop to address inclusion and diversity in their nature programme.

Avon Wildlife Trust: The Ambassadors are developing collaborations to address diversity in the AWT programme.

University of West of England and University of Bristol (including the Students Union): The Ambassadors have worked with the Joint University SU Skills Bridge team including advising the team’s inclusivity efforts and featuring individual researchers on their radio show and promotion of Photovoice (Drs Shaun Sobers & Ade Olaiya).

Bristol City Council and Mayor: The Ambassadors have met the Head of the Sustainable Cities Team, engaged with knowledge sharing / interactions with the Mayor on social media, and met with Cllr Asher Craig.  This is serving as the foundation for future projects focussing on air pollution and health.

Numerous connections and outputs have emerged from these events and activities, with highlights being: the embedding of diversity issues, awareness and responsibility across the BGCP network of over 800 organisations; a dramatically raised profile of BME-led initiatives in the city and a stronger dialogue between NERC researchers and marginalised communities; a website containing numerous blogs, commentaries and interviews (http://bristolgreencapital.org/category/green-black/); and a multimedia archive of the Ambassadors’ radio show on Ujima Radio.  These dynamic and interactive shows have featured leading scientists, campaigners and politicians can be found on Soundcloud, i.e.: https://soundcloud.com/ujimagreenandblackradio/green-and-black-radio-002.  Guests and topics have included: Fuel poverty in Bristol – Bristol Energy Network; What happens when you flush your toilet in Bristol – GenEco; Monitoring equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – Ade Olaiya, UWE; Focus on Guyana’s biodiversity (World Wetlands Day special); Exploring spaces outside the city – Imayla. This network and knowledge building will culminate during the 10th Anniversary celebration of the BGCP on 6 July, where the G/B Ambassadors will showcase their findings to hundreds of industry, civic society, public and political voices in the West of England sustainability movement, a conversation to be broadcast live by Ujima Radio – this will feature environmental research, showcase the need for a far more inclusive approach to outreach activities, and provide critical commentary on how to better engage with marginalised communities.

Other networks that are being developed include those with Black 2 Nature, Resource Futures, GENeco, Sustrans, Journey to Justice, Bristol Food Network, Up Our Street, Bristol Energy Network, Easton Energy and Lifecycle UK.  In doing so, the Ambassadors are facilitating a rich but challenging conversation among some of the city and region’s leading environmental and social justice networks.  Over 20 other organisations have expressed interest in engaging the Ambassadors to explore their own diversity and inclusion challenges with respect to public engagement.

 

The Reception

It is hard to convey the enthusiasm with which this scheme has been received.  Industry, government, civil society and public participants in environmental and sustainability issues are passionate about inclusion for its own sake but also because of its necessity to achieve the profound changes to which Bristol committed when it was the European Green Capital in 2015.  However, those organisations and individuals recognised that well-meaning efforts to engage and include failed because of a lack of common understanding, misplaced or insufficient effort, disparity of resources, and the lack of facilitators that could help navigate interactions among diverse communities.  Against that backdrop, the Green and Black Ambassadors Programme has been hailed by numerous citizens, lauded by some participants as transformative, identified by members of the BGCP as an exemplar project, and celebrated by civic leaders including the Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees.  This is evidenced by a strong twitter following, hundreds of retweets, over 30 requests to engage with other organisations and the Ambassadors’ prominent role in the BGCP 10th anniversary celebrations.

Such enthusiasm and engagement must be met with some caution.  The goal of the programme is not to simply better connect environmental researchers and organisations to more diverse communities as a box-ticking exercise.  The programme is meant to be disruptive and challenging – leading to genuine transformation of organisations, practices and relationships. We do not aspire to ‘communicate better’ but to have a shared agenda for making the scientific endeavour, including its participants and users, more diverse. As said by Zakiya: ‘Our task is to build bridges. We are honest about the barriers within our own communities and will hold people to account. We are also here to challenge the environmental and science sectors to co-produce, consult inclusively and step outside of the pervading bubble of whiteness and masculinity as necessary for validity. We have a daunting task that will agitate people on both sides of the divide but as we say in Jamaica “one, one cocoa fill basket”; by using our skills to fill the void in conversation, Jasmine and I are making way for better dialogue and real, inclusive actions.’

There is strong evidence that the organisations involved have been transformed, with both the BGCP and Cabot Institute being recently celebrated for better showcasing BME citizens, putting visible effort into engaging with those citizens, and adopting more rigorous and challenging practices. A crucial research question if the programme continues will be to explore how deep, wide and long-term such transformations have been in those and in other organisations.

 

What was learned

During Bristol 2015, the profile of environmental research was dramatically raised; from climate change scientists to atmospheric chemists to biodiversity experts, our work was showcased at Green Capital Summits, married to arts exhibits, centred in citizen science initiatives (i.e. Urban Pollinators), and integrated to local and regional policy makers (i.e. Pancost was invited to accompany the Mayor and BCC to COP21 and has contributed to developing Bristol’s 50-year trajectory by serving on the Resilience Sounding Board).

This initiative has not raised that profile but changed it.

Through the Green and Black Conversation we facilitated a community-led dialogue about the limitations of previous outreach and engagement activities in Bristol – including our own. The Ambassadors Programme allowed us, our partners and our fellow citizens to put those lessons into practice.

The most important of these lessons was: “Do not assume that different communities are not engaged; assume that they are but are doing it separately or differently.  So ask them what their ideas are.”  Consequently, engagement must be co-designed, with joint agenda setting (‘We are invited but the agenda is already set.’), and a recognition of different forms of knowledge and a shared capacity to contribute.  Within this broader context, five key themes emerged: 1) Change or recognise the constraints of terminology, its culture and ownership; 2) Profile activity beyond that which takes place in white middle-class neighbourhoods; 3) Create a new set of green narratives that relates to different cultural perspectives and experiences; 4) Challenge leadership and decision-making, especially by developing new leaders; and 5) Fund and support active projects that make the difference rather than just well-meaning manifestos and statements of intent.  From these lessons derive some self-evident actions for future events and initiatives: a) engage under-represented marginal communities early and often, funding them as appropriate, while creating the space and open dialogue that encourages all to contribute their ideas; b) host events in a variety of venues and actively ensure that all feel welcome at all venues; c) depoliticise discussions by acknowledging and exposing their political dimensions rather than treating them as apolitical; d) challenge those with influence and position to ensure that BME citizens are given voices within institutions – and to ensure those voices are supported when they provoke and challenge; and e) guarantee representation.

This project also reinforced the challenges related to time and capacity to engage. Engaging the public but especially marginalised communities requires time to gain trust; but at the same time, the public can have limited resource or capacity to engage. For poor communities, time and resource issues are compounded. These are difficult barriers to overcome but can be mitigated by: longer lead-in times and earlier invitations; providing child-care support; and having fewer events but delivering them in a way that involves a wider cross-section of the city (including perhaps running the same event several times at multiple locations).

Crucially, it was argued and accepted that privileged leaders, including many in Bristol’s thriving green economy and HEI sectors, must both build structures and cultivate the culture change that allows inclusion to thrive. Liberating the strength of our diversity requires not just good will but the creation of structures that promote inclusion, including training and genuine financial support of community partners. It is illuminating that one of the Green Capital’s strong inclusion stories was the School’s programme, which essentially engaged every primary school child in Bristol.  Tapping into structures or networks – where they exist – can facilitate engagement; but where they do not exist, they must be built.

‘These issues affect everyone.  Class, race and gender need not be obstacles. This gap needs to addressed and acknowledged and realised by communities and organisations together if we want to move forward as a city.’ Jasmine Ketubah-Foley, Green and Black Ambassador.

Arguably, this investigation has moved into issues far beyond those that are the normal scope of engagement and outreach discussions: how to better communicate to diverse audiences, tailoring messages, choosing diverse venues and format. Nonetheless, valuable lessons were learned – derived from the above – that could be applied to nearly any NERC-based science outreach. The programme reinforced the lesson to connect research findings to the needs and interests of your audience; however, most audiences were quite receptive to a creative connection – linking palaeoclimatic events to air pollution challenges or past biotic change to current migration debates were welcomed. Other lessons were surprising – although not in hindsight.  For example, NERC scientists work all over the world or on samples collected from all over the world; BME audiences, perhaps due to a more recent immigrant past, wanted to hear more about this.  Who were the partners and collaborators?  What was it like working in these countries, especially for communities that have ancestral roots there?  And most critically, are these scientific efforts still informed by colonial biases – have we worked with, respected and co-authored with citizens from those nations?

 

Project Highlights

All of us involved have different thoughts: For some it is the disruptive presence of BME citizens in places that had seemed ‘off limits’ such as the University’s Great Hall; for others, it will have been the excitement of young people taken on a field trip to the wetlands.  More broadly, we argue it is the fact that the language of social justice and inclusion are now ubiquitous in environmental and sustainability conversations, exemplified across the manifestos of all major party candidates for Metro Mayor (we cannot take all credit for that but the Ambassadors Progamme has been a focus and distillation of numerous other conversations).  Personally, the PI of the project thinks that the best outcome has been the unleashing of Jazz’s and Zakiya’s talents.  We have given some training to these exceptional women, but the real benefit has been the commitment of the partners to give them a platform and show city leaders the skills, knowledge and passion they already had.

More fundamentally, it has changed perceptions on engagement between diverse publics, civil society organisations and universities. It is not enough to think about science communication as apolitical and in isolation.  If we want citizens to engage with scientists, then we must show that we have made commitments to their communities, that we are engaged in the challenges those communities face, that we are committed to addressing the flaws within our own institutions.  It is not enough to say ‘we wanted to have a diverse panel but there are very few black climate scientists.’  Of course, scientists should be very cautious about appearing partisan but nor can we ignore the challenges of those we engage, especially where it interfaces with our work.  Engagement is far more than ‘better communication.’ It is becoming constructive partners in our communities, of which science outreach is a small part of a wide portfolio.

 

Reflections

There is much that could not be achieved during a brief pilot project (even extended to 10 months by co-funding).  First, given the key outcome that engagement between researchers and communities must be protracted, allowing for deep, mutual, respectful and trusted collaboration, these types of initiatives must have long-term investment.  Building trust is always important but particularly so for marginalised communities with a history of being excluded. Second, we caution against extrapolation to other marginalised communities; our efforts focussed on BME communities of African or Caribbean descent (already a multitude of different voices) and that means that we have not probed a range of more nuanced issues related to religion, gender or class. Future efforts could widen this exploration; we doubt that the fundamentals will differ (diverse venues, family or worker-friendly times) but nuanced findings almost certainly will.  Third, we aspire to test the long-term changes these interventions have made.  Have AWT or WWT (or UoB and BGCP) embedded diversity in their practices?  Have they adopted new policies or practices?  Do they remain dependant on the initiative of marginalised groups or individuals, such as the Ambassadors, or have they taken on their own responsibility to support inclusive initiatives?  If these changes have occurred then these organisations, in partnership with NERC researchers, will be better poised to connect our research findings to a wide and diverse part of the UK’s population.

We collectively agree that we must challenge/re-imagine models of scientific ‘pubic engagement’ – and that therefore NERC should think about moving away from the kind of measures illustrated in this report (i.e. to be judged on number of events and number of people ‘engaged’) and towards thinking about ‘quality’ of engagement – long term meaningful relationships based on the sharing of knowledge and expertise.  Most importantly, however, the final reflections should belong to our two Ambassadors:

Image result for Green and Black Ambassadors

 

Holding the green sector to account

Jasmine Ketibuah-Foley, Green and Black Ambassador

Being part of the activist movement in Bristol, something kept picking away at the back of my brain. After some time I realised I could find almost no black or brown role models to look up to. Where were the culturally rich BME communities of Bristol who have so much to say on the environment, environmental racism and sustainability? Why were they not thriving in this supposedly inclusive space?

Bristol’s year as the European Green Capital in 2015 had many successes but it failed to include BME communities. The community radio station Ujima ran a debate about the issue in 2015 and this project has grown from there. The University of Bristol Cabot Institute and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership joined up to continue to fund it along with the public engagement funding from NERC. Together they set up the ambassador programme to pay, train and support a new generation of BME environmental leaders – Zakiya and I.

We are trying to find out why inclusion has failed so far and we’re challenging Bristol’s research and BME communities to work together. We have a radio show on Ujima, we run workshops and we took a group of young BME people to a large wetlands centre outside of Bristol to explore why these nature attractions aren’t attracting diverse communities.

Zakiya and I come from community research backgrounds and worked as radio and TV broadcast journalists. Our passion to tell people’s stories and our brazenness in asking difficult questions with a healthy sense of justice fits well with the role.

 

Tackling inequality in Bristol

Zakiya McKenzie, Green and Black Ambassador

In March 2017, The Sunday Times named Bristol the ‘best place to live in the UK’. As a black woman, single mother and mature student, I cannot help but wince at this misleading accolade. The difference in life expectancy between the city’s wealthy and deprived wards is as much as a decade. I grew up in Jamaica, studied in NYC and worked as a journalist in Johannesburg and I absolutely love ‘ole Brizzle’ – but nothing prepared me for the city’s virtual segregation.

In one of our workshops people told us they found it difficult to get the time to attend research events, particularly if they worked for small organisations with limited funds. Participants also found that they might be invited to events, but not to help set the agenda.

Our task is to build bridges. We are honest about the barriers within our own communities and hold people to account. We are also here to challenge the environmental and science sectors to step outside of the pervading bubble of whiteness and masculinity as necessary for validity.

We have a daunting task but as we say in Jamaica “one, one cocoa fill basket”. By using our skills to fill the void in conversation, Jasmine and I are making way for better dialogue and real, inclusive actions.

 

 

A proposal to link Past Climate Research to Inclusion Initiatives in Bristol

Posted on by r.d.pancost

This is a proposal that was funded by the NERC to support the ongoing Green and Black Ambassador’s Project.

The Green and Black Ambassadors: Fostering a Dialogue between Environmental Research and BME Communities

Summary: During 2015, the city of Bristol delivered an extensive programme of activity around its role as the European Green Capital, the first British city to win this accolade.  Despite numerous activities, including new art, concerts, international Summits, workshops, a city centre office, and hundreds of talks, the year was widely perceived as failing to crack through the long-standing inclusion issues that affect the city of Bristol and other British core cities as well as much of the global ‘green’ movement. The PI of this project, Professor R Pancost, was strongly engaged with the Green Capital programme, including partnering with a wide range of other groups and hosting joint events with colleagues to showcase NERC environmental science. Given the inclusion concerns, Pancost (and subsequently the University of Bristol Cabot Institute and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership) funded Ujima Radio to continue its Green and Black Programme of activity, which started in late 2014 and explored issues of inclusion and points of opportunity throughout the Green Capital Year.  At the end of 2015 and in early 2016, we jointly convened a variety of workshops with BME leaders in Bristol, documenting their concerns and learning about how subtle organisational issues, timings, venue location and in-built pre-conceptions had a collective negative impact on inclusion.

One of the main findings was that the ‘in-crowd’ nature of Bristol’s enthusiastic environmental community, closely aligned to city leadership, universities, business and civil society, undermined engagement from outsider voices. We found little evidence for active exclusion – in fact, nearly all participants in the Green Capital year shared the frustration expressed above.  Nonetheless, many implicit assumptions and behaviours of that ‘in-crowd’ – from choosing venues that were perceived as ‘posh’ or ‘off-limits’ to last-minute planning – effectively disenfranchised some citizens.  Of relevance to this proposal, this implicit exclusion made it difficult to entrain the alternative voices needed to develop an ongoing dialogue about NERC-derived environmental and climate change research that appeals to, connects to and learns from the experiences of Britain’s BME communities. To address this, we are proposing to launch – in partnership with Ujima Radio and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership (BGCP) – a new Green and Black Ambassadors Programme.  This programme will have several goals, supported by the Cabot Institute and BGCP (£10K). However, funding is sought from the NERC Engagement Scheme for two of its most important features:

1) Initiate a dialogue with BME communities to identify new and vital research directions, inspired by their concerns, needs, experience and knowledge; and

2) Exploring the ways in which NERC environmental change research resonates with the BME community, revealing opportunities for stronger, more relevant and more inspiring dissemination of our findings.

Background: In 2013, Bristol was announced as the 6th European Green Capital (for 2015) and the UK’s first. This award acknowledge a wide range of initiatives, success stories and ambitions, including significant waste reduction, widespread cycling, city-owned renewable energy provision, a rapidly growing green economy, and strong university partnership. The year had a particularly strong focus on climate change, as it occurred during COP21. Crucially, the award itself as well as policy decisions made during and since the end of the Green Capital Year commit the city to a bold plan of leadership and social and technological innovation to become more sustainable and reduce its carbon footprint. For example, representing Bristol at COP21 Mayor George Ferguson committed Bristol to decarbonisation by 2050, a pledge that his successor Marvin Rees has reiterated. Such an ambition requires widespread buy-in amongst formal and distributed city leaders as well as Bristol’s population.

The PI was strongly engaged with these activities in 2015 and continues to support its follow-ups. As Director of the Cabot Institute, he seconded the Institute’s Manager to be the (elected) co-Director of the BGCP in 2014 to help prepare for the year. He served as a Science Advisor for the 2015 Company and helped to frame the discourse, Summits and cultural program. He hosted one of the flagship Summits, and advised and contributed to the others. He also contributed to the Arts Program, including writing the Introduction to its Guide, co-hosting the Coleridge Lectures with the Festival of Ideas, co-curating the Fog Bridge Exhibit, advising on @Bristol’s Blue Marvel movie, and co-sponsoring Withdrawn with the National Trust. Overall, he led or participated in events that reached >50,000 people. In all of this he showcased NERC Research, emphasising his own palaeoclimate, environmental and Earth system research but also that of others, especially that related to future climate change impacts globally and on the UK. This public engagement led directly to engagement with policy makers, with Pancost being invited to serve on the Bristol City Council (and Rockefeller Foundation) Resilience Sounding Group and to work with numerous city and national organisations on an ad hoc basis, including Bristol Health Partners, Somalia First, Bristol is Open, Voscur, Schumacher Institute and Happy City. He was invited to attend COP21 with Mayor George Ferguson, representatives of Bristol City Council and business and civil society leaders.  [RDP: A bit of bragging here, as one must do for proposals.  But there is a crucial subtext – I was deeply involved with the Green Capital project and by extension was part of the community that failed to engage and include more diverse voices.]

However, this engagement was incomplete. Throughout the year, Pancost (and many others) explored the social justice issues arising from climate change.  Echoing commentary by numerous international political and religious leaders, discussions at Green Capital events frequently focussed on the ethical dimensions of climate change, including those related to class, ethnicity and race. As such it was considered necessary to engage a diverse cross-section of society (and of course, this was also considered necessary to mobilise support for the aforementioned policy objectives). There were many efforts to achieve this.  The Year included a Neighbourhood Arts Progamme and a Primary Schools Programme, both of which were rolled out across the city. The Cabot Institute led several events in the poorest parts of the city, to complement those held on our campus. Nonetheless, poor inclusion was a persistent and legitimate charge (Pancost, 2015), as it has been for other Bristol activities. It was the disconnection between the Green Capital’s ambitions for inclusion and the lack of it that has proven to be particularly frustrating to many. There are vital lessons to be learned from this and there is a necessity to resolve it if Bristol – and other similar cities – are to achieve their desired transformations. Ujima Radio, recent winner of the UK’s Best Community Radio Station, initiated this effort in late 2014 and explored it throughout 2015 via the Green and Black Programme.  In late 2015, the PI, the Cabot Institute and the BGCP joined Ujima to explore this further via a series of workshops with BME leaders.  Two broad messages emerged, as summarised by our partner Roger Griffiths (Chair of Ujima Radio): ‘To many, the ‘green’ debate has hallmarks of being predominantly understood as a white, middle-class domain; moreover, there is a strong narrative of existing and potential engagement with green issues across BME communities that must be recognised and developed.’ Around these wider issues, a number of specific challenges were identified:

  • There was a widespread perception that formal activities – and especially the higher level decision-making – was led by an ‘in-crowd’ of established green activists, city leaders, and usual suspects (university and industry leaders).
  • Many venues were considered ‘off-limits’ to members of the BME community for a combination of issues related to perceived class bias, reputation or history (bearing in mind the role of slaving in Bristol’s history). Aside from that, many venues in the city centre, Bristol’s traditional focus for events (including the University), are not readily accessible.
  • Participation in events remains difficult for many due to childcare or work responsibilities. This reinforces the ‘in-crowd’ nature of activity and city planning, as many were able to attend as part of their jobs. Events were numerous and often organised at the last-minute, which further disenfranchised those with less flexible personal or working relationships.
  • Similarly, many were able to either volunteer time or were seconded from their businesses to participate; this puts particular stress on community organisations with limited resources.
  • BME leaders who were invited to attend workshops and planning meetings were often asked to attend or even speak but ‘rarely to help set the agenda.’

One of this consortium’s main conclusions was to launch a Green and Black Ambassador Programme, to pay, train and support (and learn from) a new generation of leaders who would: 1) foster dialogue among diverse groups, including showcasing examples of sustainability leadership arising from BME communities; 2) serve as a positively ‘disruptive’ participant on strategic boards (i.e. BGCP Board); 3) generate bespoke material on environmental issues and sustainability solutions for BME communities, some of which will be broadcast by Ujima Radio; and 4) conduct further research on the obstacles to BME inclusion in environmental initiatives. Given the diversity of Bristol with at least 91 languages spoken and 45 religions practiced, we have focussed on those communities of African and Caribbean descent, recognising that even that represents a great diversity of cultures, faiths and experience. Crucially, a goal of this initiative, directly identified during community consultations and reiterated by Mayor Marvin Rees, is to invest in the leadership skills of those bridging environmental and social justice ambitions. These goals are complementary and we argue that all fit within the remit of the NERC engagement call; however, we do note that goal (3) is most strongly aligned with this call to better share the results and value of NERC research.  As such, we are supporting this bid with matched funding from the BGCP and the UoB Cabot Institute and the requested funding will focus on this third area of action.

Approach and Delivery:

NERC Science to be the focus of Engagement. Pancost’s NERC funded research employs lipid biomarkers to study modern and ancient biogeochemical processes.  Superficially, such research appears to be rather fundamental and somewhat removed from the actionable needs of the public and policy makers, but three main strands resonated with public and policy partners during the Green Capital: (i) our research underpins our understanding that pCO2 levels have not exceeded 400ppm for about three million years, a symbolic threshold only recently crossed due to human activity; (ii) our research contributes to the evidence base that the current rate of climate change is nearly without precedent in Earth history; (iii) our work has also shown that rapid warming has complex biological and biogeochemical impacts – and feedbacks – on the Earth system.  These observations arise from a long research career and represent the achievements of many in the NERC research community but can be specifically related to at least three recent NERC-funded projects:

  • Terrestrial methane cycling during Paleogene greenhouse climates, 2012-2015; NERC Responsive Mode grant to RDP (~£900K to RDP and Paul Valdes, Bristol; David Beerling, Sheffield; and Margaret Collinson and Andrew Scott, RHUL).
  • Timing, causes and consequences of the decline in Pliocene pCO2; NERC Standard Research Grant to RDP (~£850K to RDP, Dani Schmidt and Dan Lunt, Bristol; and Gavin Foster, Southampton).
  • The Descent into the Icehouse, 2011-2014; NERC Thematic Consortium Grant: Long-Term Co-Evolution of Life and the Planet to Gavin Foster; RDP was Bristol Co-I (£110K to Bristol)

Engagement Plan. The focus of our plan is to appoint two ‘Green and Black Ambassadors’ from African and Caribbean communities, to provide reciprocal mentoring and support to and from the PI and his collaborators and research group. Ujima Radio has identified two ambassadors, Zakiya McKenzie and Jasmine Ketibuah-Foley, ensuring a prompt start to this project in Jan 2017. Specific activities in approximate chronological order will be:

Be trained in co-production research methods and then build on our existing research: The ambassadors are already receiving training on research co-production by Helen Manchester, who is directly linked to the ESRC-funded Productive Margins programme. The ambassadors will use this to explore areas of interest to the African-Caribbean community; for example, initial work indicated that air quality, a profound exacerbator of inequality in Bristol and other UK core cities, resonates more than climate change – but it is unclear how much more engaging it is or how the strands can be integrated into a wider narrative. We will also explore whether palaeoclimate can provide an alternative entry point to discussion by serving as a neutral space for discussion or by disrupting climate change fatigue (a concern of Andrew Garrad, Chair of the Bristol 2015 Company, and a reason why artists frequently engaged with Pancost). The two ambassadors will explore these issues and identify potential areas of common interest.

Test via Case Studies: Based on these findings, Pancost and the Ambassadors will develop a new suite of materials, including a joint presentation, but also interactive activities.  We will share these twice with members of the African-Caribbean public in local community centres (for example, the Malcolm X Centre).  Afterwards, the Ambassadors will use focus group discussions to identify how the NERC research could be better connected to their concerns and learning interests. We will specifically explore: 1) Are the research findings of interest, in and of themselves; 2) Are the findings more interesting when linked to other topics (i.e. air pollution); 3) Are the findings more interesting when linked to solutions or contemporary political issues (inequality, food or fuel poverty); and 4) what would the community like to know more about, both within and beyond NERC’s remit.

Create Media Projects: Arising from the previous activities, we will produce three brief radio broadcasts that will be broadcast on Ujima Radio.  The content will depend on the outcomes of the previous exercises, but in all we will feature some aspect of NERC science.  (NOTE: due to scheduling issues and the wider aims of the programme, it is unlikely that all will actually be broadcast by grant-end)

This is a pilot project but, via support from Helen Manchester who has expertise on co-production, we hope that it can be transferred to other excluded communities in Bristol and elsewhere and other parts of the NERC research portfolio.  We do recognise the profound challenges associated with simplistic translating of lessons learned in this project; in fact, it is the assumption that all communities have similar interests that this project will challenge. However, we still argue that the lessons learned will provide broader lessons on engagement of value to the whole NERC community, and this will be published as a public commentary (likely The Conversation). To ensure this programme’s legacy, the Ambassadors will write a follow-up proposal on behalf of Ujima Radio to the Esme Fairborne Foundation and help identify and recruit future BME community leaders who could benefit from the programme.

The roles of Our Partners: This project arises out of the Ujima Radio-led ‘Green and Black Project’, an inclusive movement for social and environmental justice. It recognises that this vision can only be realised when people are meaningfully involved in the environmental agenda regardless of race, religion, class or origin and when the environmental community speaks to – and for – the concerns of all. It is these ethos that inform the collaboration between the Ujima Radio and the PI, supported by the University of Bristol Cabot Institute (of which RDP is also Director, but formal representation will be from Hayley Shaw, the Institute’s Manager, and Kat Wall of UoB’s Centre for Public Engagement), and the BGCP, who will co-deliver the project with Ujima Radio to address the aforementioned concerns and deliver the crucial support, mentorship and training of the Green and Black Ambassadors.

The PI will be responsible for the project’s deliverables and ensuring that NERC environmental and climate change research is shared with a more diverse community, as guided and facilitated by the Ambassadors. However, in the spirit of this endeavour, Ujima Radio will manage ambassador selection. They will also provide mentoring and media training, curate and communicate media projects, and involve wider communities. Bristol Green Capital Partnership CIC will provide mentoring through leadership development – providing Ambassadors with constructive engagement with leading civil society sustainability organisations at Board level, in addition to brokering connections within wider ‘green’ networks. University of Bristol’s public engagement team and Cabot Institute will provide project administration and research curation.

2.4. Costings and Justification:

[RDP: This is important.  Nearly all of the funding went to our partners.  When you ask marginalised groups to help you with inclusion issues, you have an obligation to provide the financial support for their labour.  This was a partnership.  But it was vital to recognise the privilege the University had in that partnership and the obligation to direct the financial support accordingly.]

Activity Cost
Ambassador salary x2: Contract terms are 12 hours per week at £11.10 per hour for 14 weeks; 1 Jan to 31 March (These are the preferred working arrangements of the two Ambassadors) £3,730
Ujima Radio project management costs (inc. coaching, mentoring, media production); this partnership cost is vital for engaging community groups) £1,800
Ujima Radio operations and HR to support three pre-recorded broadcasts featuring NERC climate change science by the PI and collaborators £1,500
‘Green and Black’ Convo workshops focussed on ‘Is past climate relevant to the BME community?’ (inc room hire and catering costs) £450
Ujima Radio website hosting/online presence £250
Directly Incurred Cabot Institute Costs for hosting content on website and production costs for materials and video-recording of engagement events £750

 

Summary

Although this project has a relatively narrow focus – connecting a particular strand of NERC research to a specific community – we have ambitions that this pilot will enable much more substantive change. We will learn from one another, train new leaders, and start building new relationships among major institutions and diverse communities across the city. Through long-term widening of the public dialogue we aspire to influence, challenge or support current decision-makers, thereby delivering more ambitious policies, such as implementation of Bristol’s Climate Change and Energy Security Framework and its Resilience Strategy. We will do this by acknowledging, listening and promoting inclusive initiatives, engaging communities with environmental issues, and re-focusing organisations (including our own) to encompass the concerns of BME communities. Specifically, this multi-stakeholder approach will leverage the expertise of civil society partners to deliver long-lasting impact by: 1) contributing directly to a more diverse environmental community; 2) identifying and making progress on issues of concern for newly-involved communities; 3) developing new forms of communication, outreach and sharing, by which environmental and climate change issues can be better connected to BME communities; and 4) exploring how diverse communities can better access, understand and ultimately make use of academic research to drive their own social initiatives.

Environmental Justice Must Recognise and Centre Social Justice

Posted on by r.d.pancost

This is Bristol: Numerous green businesses and voluntary organisations, a multitude of cyclists, recyclers and circular economists; ethical banking and a local currency; a Council-owned windfarm, Energy Company and low-carbon investment strategy; local food production, community energy, sustainable housing developments.  The 2015 EU Green Capital and the owner of the most rapid and extensive decarbonisation ambition of any city or nation in the world.

This is also Bristol: Congestion, polluted air and a polluted harbour, heat-inefficient Victorian homes, fuel poverty and food deserts. Economic inequality magnified by environmental inequality.

Bristol has been a leader in the environmental movement for decades, and it has been a leader in tackling climate change. I’ve been studying climate change for 30 years but am still in awe of the Bristol spirit.  And since arriving in Bristol, I’ve tried to help my small bit: I was with George Ferguson in Paris when he pledged carbon neutrality by 2050; I also collaborated on the Council’s Resilience Strategy and, more recently, Marvin Rees’ One City Approach, and especially its environmental theme.

Consequently, I was enthused to see Bristol pass a motion of intent, declaring a Climate Emergency and a desire to become carbon neutral. Carbon neutral across all sectors. By 2030. This is the ambitious Bristol that I love.

And yet I am wary.  I am wary that in our fear of catastrophic climate change and in our urgency to declare a Climate Emergency, we fail to build a genuinely inclusive movement.  And such a movement is needed to achieve the tremendous change that is required.

We must drive our society towards sustainability, circularity and carbon neutrality. It is necessary to protect our civilisation, to protect all of us and our planet.  But most of all, we must minimise climate change because climate change is unjust.  It will affect all of us, but it will affect some of us more.  It will affect children more than their parents. The young more than the old.

And it will affect the poor, the vulnerable, the isolated – and it will do so not just because of the unfortunate coincidences of geography but because of the structural inequalities in that same society that we are fighting to save. Heat waves kill the poor, they kill outdoor labourers, the working class. Sea level rise will trap, drown and infect the poor, those without the means and wealth to freely move among nations. The volatility of food production will be particularly devastating to those who already struggle to feed their families, who already lean on food banks and charity. Hurricanes and storms will continue to devastate the communities with the least recourse to escape, who likely already live in flood-prone areas, who can be sacrificed, like those in Puerto Rico, with minimal political repercussions.

Climate change is an affront to our proc ideals of fairness and equality. It is classist.  It is racist.

But if climate action is a question of social justice, then those marginalised groups must be part of the movement.  They must set the agenda of that movement.  They must lead the movement.  And if they are not, those of us who claim the title ‘environmentalist’ cannot ask why they are not engaged, and instead must ask how we have failed.  We must challenge ourselves, our privilege, our dialogue and our institutions and understand how we have excluded them. Have we invited marginalised groups to participate in our events and our agenda?  Or have we honestly co-created an open space for multiple agendas?  Have we recognised that destroying inequality is a legitimate starting point for fighting climate change?  Have we recognised that many of our proposed solutions – entirely rational solutions – can be implicitly racist or sexist?

If we are going to prevent catastrophic climate change, then we must act fast and with unrelenting persistence. But at the same time, we must be patient, check our privilege and listen to those who have been marginalised by past environmental movements. This is especially true because it is those same marginalised groups who will most likely bear the greatest burden of climate change. We assault these groups doubly if we do not centre their voices in our common cause.  And because the environmental movement is unstoppable – technologically and socially inevitable and therefore economically inevitable – exclusion from these opportunities is yet a third assault.

I am by no means an expert on co-creating powerful social movements, fuelled by equality amongst the participants and effective in achieving change.  But I have been lucky enough to work and learn from those who do. They have shown undeserved patience and understanding and trust.

They taught me that it is vital to recognise not just your own privilege but the economic, historical or social privileges of the institutions one represents. In my case, a world-leading university.  In other cases, a business or a trust – even a small green business or cash-starved charity. And even a movement, especially a movement perceived as being by and for the white middle class.

Having recognised that privilege and in many cases the structural racism, sexism and wider inequalities that come with it, it is our obligation to decolonise those institutions rather than to plead for yet more labour from those our institution oppresses.  It is our obligation to do our own research and to commit our own emotional energy and labour. And when we do work with marginalised groups, we are compelled to respect their expertise by paying them for their services.  Major institutions will pay consultants 100s of thousands of pounds for a re-brand or governance review but ask marginalised groups to help address our diversity challenges by serving for free – by serving on our Boards, attending our workshops, advising on our projects.  It is insulting to imply that the privilege of entering our institutions and projects is adequate compensation for their time, their re-lived trauma or their expertise.

Of course, a recognition of the limitations of our institutions, our organisations and our movements is only the start. The next steps involve a fundamental reckoning with the word ‘our’ in those projects – who has owned these, who owns them now, who will own them in the future?  And given those answers, are they fit for the challenge at hand? Are they projects capable of becoming genuinely co-owned, co-creative spaces, where not just new members are welcomed but also their new ideas, challenges and perspectives?  Or are these projects that must be completely deconstructed, making way for the more energetic ones to come?  Do we ourselves have the humility to deconstruct our own projects and cede our labour to those of someone else?

Image from the PhotoVoice Project of the Green and Black Ambassadors

These are challenging questions and the answers are not as simple as I imply.  Those of us who have been fighting climate change, plastics in the ocean, toxins in our soil, pollution in the air, and the non-sustainable exploitation of our planet are deeply invested in the struggle and in the solutions we have forged. It is not trivial to patiently draw in new perspectives nor to have our ideas questioned – we have been fighting an establishment for five decades that has been guilty of predatory delay and manipulation of public understanding.  We are right to be wary of anything that delays action, right to be uncivil, impatient and intemperate.

But it is also time to concede that a thousand ripples have yet to become a wave.  Certainly not the wave needed to dismantle the environmental degradation that has become a near-inextricable feature of our society.

In Bristol, we have the potential to create this wave together.  We have a Partnership, a One City Approach and a cross-party ambition without precedent. This is the time to re-invigorate our environmental movement, to align it with our other challenges, to become genuinely inclusive and diverse.  It will not succeed with a simple majority, with a mere 52% of the vote.  It will have to be a new political project but with an apolitical community that rejects the discourse of division and embraces new and unexpected collaborations.

It will be a community that makes use of all of our talent and is united not with a single strategy or action plan but a common cause and shared values. It will be a community that thrives through a multitude of equally respected agendas.

I would like to thank so many people for inspiration, patience, passion and laughter: The original Green and Black Ambassadors Jasmine Ketibuah-Foley and Zakiya Mackenzie; and of course: Roger Griffith, La Toyah McAllister-Jones; Andrew Kelly, Sado Jirde, Paul Hassan, Ruth Pitter, Hayley Shaw, Kat Wall, Sumita Hutchison, Eric Herring, Karen Bell, Ian Townsend, Vicki Woolley, Marvin Rees, Stacy Yelland, Cllr Asher Craig, Zoe Banks, Mya ‘Birdgirl’ Craig, Peaches Golding and many many more. And associated organisations (Ujima Radio, Bristol Green Capital Partnership, Festival of Ideas and the Cabot Institute for the Environment) and funders (the EU ERC Programme and NERC).

Originally posted by Rich Pancost on the website of Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees.

 

The Green and Black Conversation – Exclusion and the Environmental Movement

Posted on by r.d.pancost

This is a report from the very first event in the Green and Black partnership between Ujima Radio, Bristol Green Capital Partnership and the Cabot Institute.  Ujima had been leading on the Conversation for the previous year, and  this particular event was the catalyst for a three-year (and growing) partnership that was the foundation for the award-winning and celebrated Green and Black Ambassadors.

This Green and Black Conversation involved several members of Bristol’s Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) community and organisations. It was held in partnership with Bristol Green Capital Partnership (Gary Topp), University of Bristol (Hayley Shaw, Cabot Institute & Kat Wall, Policy Institute) and sponsored by the Cabot Institute whose Director Professor Rich Pancost addressed the group. The campaign has political support from Mayor George Ferguson and also Marvin Rees who attended the forum with European Member of European Parliament Claire Moody.  

Our new volunteer Helly Dudley, Broadcast Assistant on Ujima’s Old Skool Cruising Show (Monday 4-6) with Roger Griffith who was co-facilitator with Julz attended her first community engagement event and here is her blog. 

The Report of the Green and Black Conversation, written by Roger, can be read here.
———————————

The Green and Black Conversation

Arriving at St Werburgh’s community centre I knew I was going to be getting involved in discussions about being ‘Green/Environmental’ and how this is linked to the BME community in Bristol. However, I wasn’t sure what would be discussed, how they would be viewed and spoken about.

From the get-go I realised that this is extremely important to many members of the BME community as there was enthusiasm for living in an environmentally beneficial lifestyle and also a feeling of a lack of support which members of the BME community feel they are receiving from the campaign. Although Bristol is European Green capital, there is a divide occurring within the city and certain communities feel they are being excluded by Bristol European Green Capital from this campaign.

We first looked at the use of language and the ways in which this can be limiting to people of all ages and ethnicities. Not only do language barriers prevent certain communities from getting involved but it also prevents them from knowing how to help and giving them a sense of self-responsibility. When one member of the group declared they didn’t know what ‘buying organic’ meant this created a murmur of agreement throughout the rest of the group as few of us were able to define what ‘organic’ meant. If you, like me, are unsure of the term ‘organic’ then the definition is – ‘(of food or farming methods) produced or involving production without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or other artificial chemicals.’

If the Green agenda wants to get all of Bristol’s residents on board to help the environment then they need to change the way in which they portray their methods of being sustainable and as we explored language is just one of those methods.

Another issue raised throughout the day was there was a belief that it was seen as an elitist campaign which directs its messages mainly to a white middle-class demographic. One attendee pointed out that, Gloucester Road is covered with Green campaign posters, Stapleton Road was left untouched. Why is it that the campaign is just aiming their agendas at the central zone of Bristol and neglecting the rest of its communities?

Kat Wall, who works with the University of Bristol and helped set up this discussion, mentioned that she had been to an environmental meeting and was shocked by the lack of BME members present. When she questioned the organiser of the event why this was the case they just replied that they had sent out the necessary invites but no one turned up. When this was put to the rest of the group there was an immediate response that the main reason they don’t attend these events is because they are tired of time and time again going to the same talks and making their input but never actually being heard or have their opinions taken on board.

There seems to be a lack of conversations between communities and those in power. To quote a member of Bristol’s Bus Boycott and activist and former farmer Roy Hackett ‘nobody ever asks me’ so if Bristol City Council and others don’t start listening to the ideas and needs of their own citizens  then how are we as tax-paying citizens  supposed to be able to get involved . One attendee mentioned that if her house was better insulated then she would be able to use less gas and her bills would decrease and she would be able to find the money to buy organic foods.

How can our city expect to stay regarded as a great city when we are cutting out members of our society from joining this campaign and others? We need to change our way of approaching the environmental issues and instead of forcing change onto communities we need to ask the residences of Bristol what they need for change.

We need to carry on having these discussions with each other, and those in power on what the people need in all communities not just the city centre. With the United Nations COP21 meeting taking place over the next 10 days in Paris, discussing climate change we need to now, more than ever, change our way of approaching this subject; and this can be done by including all members of our communities and tackling environmental issues together.

I really enjoyed attending this event and, by the enthusiasm and energy in the room, so did the other participants I believe that it was a conversation that was desperately needed so communities understand that this isn’t just an environmental issue but a social one that needs tackling. It is essential we work together and listen to one another to create new ideas of how to better enhance Bristol’s sustainability.

—————————————-
This event took place at St Werburgh’s Community Centre in Bristol on 30 November 2015.

This blog was written by Helly Dudley, follow on Twitter @helena_dudley
Follow @ujimaradio.com @julzbrizzle and Roger Griffith @rogerg44.

The Green and Black initiative is a campaign ran by Ujima Radio to raise awareness within the Black & Minority Ethnic (BME) community about the environment and includes Bristol European Green Capital 2015 and beyond. The campaign has been led by Ujima presenter Julz Davis AKA Mistri and has included live broadcasts, debates, featured radio shows and ideas and brings people from marginalised communities into the discussions. This can include cooking tips, exercise and health, climate change across the African and Asian diaspora or heavy air-pollution from the M32 corridor that divides St Pauls and Easton.

Read more about how the Cabot Institute is working with the BME communities around the legacy of the European Green Capital year – see project Green and Black- An alternative green capital.

Most importantly, follow @ketibuahfoley @ZakiyaMedia, the Green and Black Ambassadors.  The issues raised by the Green and Black initiative and conversation led to a coordinate effort to create a new form of collaborative partnership and to procure funding to support our community partners (from the ERC and NERC).  It has been profiled by NERC and the final report from the Ambassadors pilot phase can be downloaded here.

Montage of some of the Green & Black Ambassadors

Archive: COP21: What Next For Bristol

Posted on by r.d.pancost
From the Archive: Reflections at the end of COP21 for Bristol

As you might imagine, especially given the focus on cities, it was an exciting two weeks for Bristol.  The City was everywhere.  In Paris with Anne Hidalgo; with its resilient partners in the Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cites group; representing smart city investment on behalf of Eurocities; hosting a Bristol Green Capital display in the Green Zone; and also sponsoring the linked Cities and Regions Pavilion nearby. Our city is going global in reputation, stature and visibility . This is a great achievement for our city and a great opportunity.  We are viewed as ambitious, eager to embrace the new economy, and supportive of technology and creativity.  We also had hundreds of people come to our stand and ask about moving to Bristol – the best and the brightest of the next generation also see Bristol as a place to bring their talents.

We cannot be complacent, however.  A corollary to the message of ambition was that a new race to lead in the global energy transformation has already begun; the cities, regions and nations that drive the agenda will prosper and those that do not will be left behind.  Those that move slowly will eventually benefit from new innovations, but the skills, businesses and IP will have moved elsewhere. Bristol is one of the leaders but it will have to fight to remain so.

In this sense, it is exciting to see the European Green Capital year ending with some exciting consolidation around major themes. Among these are partnership, resilience and health and well-being.  Here, however, I want to focus on three others; two where our efforts are consolidating into deeply impressive and globally distinctive initiatives and a third where we need to do better.

One of the major themes of this year has been energy use, and Bristol’s Transformative Action Plan, The Bristol Billion, will dramatically accelerate residential energy efficiency. This TAP, by virtue of its concrete targets, themselves underpinned by the University of Bristol Mini-Stern Study and the STEEP Project, was a foundation to the ICLEI and Mayors’ argument that cities do have the appropriate ambition.  The Bristol Billion will work in tandem with the new City Council-owned Energy Company, launched on 1 November 2015. The company will initially focus on using its profits to improve energy efficiency and tackling fuel poverty, and it will eventually offer a renewable tariff. Crucially, the Company intends to complement rather than compete with existing and emerging community energy initiatives, such as that explored on 14 December 2015: Towards a Smart Energy City: mapping a path for Bristol.

(NOTE: While many of these initiatives have stalled or their aspirations curtailed due to austerity and changes in governance, it can be argued that the ideas still thrive in other forms.  In particular, the launch of the City Leap initiative could procure the financing necessary for real transformation to low carbon transport and energy infrastructure.)

Another emerging theme is the role of the Smart City, whether it be Bristol is Open or the Bristol Brain (Bristol’s other Transformative Action Plan). I have written about these extensively and won’t repeat that here!  Ultimately, however, I do not think these will be about techy solutions to our cities’ problems – although that will certainly be part of the smart, future city.  I think and I hope that smart city technology will yield ‘smarter’ citizens and ‘smarter’ leaders allowing us to make much harder – and smarter – decisions. What I mean by that is that smart technology can empower people to make their own observations, to be directly involved in the exploration and learning journey of their home and city.  We will be able to monitor electricity usage and heat loss in our own homes; urban planners will be able experiment in a virtual world to fully explore the implications of their decisions.  Ultimately, this technology could provide a place where many people can come together and discuss their future city. This is Colin Taylor’s vision for the UKCRIC-funded Collaboratory.

There are many opportunities that will come from addressing climate change; but the full road to decarbonisation will be challenging, requiring hard choices and compromises.  In Bristol, home improvements will create jobs, fight fuel poverty, save money, improve health and reduce emissions – a win win win win win proposition! A Bristol transportation system that produces no carbon dioxide will be much harder to achieve.

To me, finding the pathway to that political consensus – and the inclusion that demands – is probably the third major theme of 2015.  And not because we did it terribly well.  Some successes include the fantastic new Sustainable Education Programme.  And I think we did okay in the Cabot Institute by putting on many events and getting out into the city to educate or inform, often with artists or other groups. Local initiatives have also raised awareness.

Rich Pancost at Hamilton House for a Cabot Institute Uncertain World public event this year

But we have not truly entrained new and diverse groups in a new dialogue; instead it feels as if the old dialogue has just had the volume turned up.  That’s fine but we can do more. This issue was the focus of the meeting I alluded to in the first blog and the subject of Helly’s blog on behalf of Ujima Radio.  Convened by Policy Bristol, the Green Capital Partnership, Ujima and ourselves, the meeting explored some of the challenges we face.  I’ll revisit this in the New Year, but I’d like to share a few initial thoughts.

We listen to each other but often do we understand. That is perhaps inevitable as we come from different backgrounds; nonetheless, we have to invest the time to really understand the wants, needs and (most of all!) capabilities of the many groups in Bristol.

Minority groups are invited to events but rarely given the opportunity to set the agenda. This must change.

Different groups have their own suggestions and ideas, often arising from our diverse cultures.  We need to pivot from preaching about solutions to sharing ideas.

Building mutual trust in one another – trust in our fellow citizens and our leaders – must be a focus of 2016 as we build on our Green Capital legacy and look to the future.  I do not have an easy answer to that; no one does.  But perhaps some small, positive steps together can help to build that trust.

Archive: COP21: What Next for Our Planet

Posted on by r.d.pancost

After the problems of Copenhagen, the French were keen to avoid surprises, which was the rationale for the INDCs (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) we have heard so much about over the past year – and this they did superbly well. This agreement is consistent with what most of us expected two weeks ago.  Having said that, most of us are still very excited by that achievement given the numerous potential pitfalls.

There was one surprise, however. As I wrote  a few days ago, the Conference was stunned by the emergence of a large and diverse group that demanded (and somewhat achieved) a more ambitious overall global warming limit – well below 2C rather than 2C. This is an achievement for science in that it acknowledges the impact of 2C warming on small island states and nations with extensive low-lying areas. Jonathan Bamber of Bristol’s Glaciology Research Centre was part of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative and Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research session on the Irreversible Impacts of Climate Change on Antarctica, a session that acutely underscored the implications of 2C warming just as the ‘Coalition of Ambition’ was preparing to reveal its agenda.

However, this increase in ambition and the surrounding rhetoric disconcerted many in the community.  As I wrote on Friday, the disconnection between these agreed limits and the INDCs and between the INDCs and national policies has led many to claim that the agreement represents ambitious grandstanding without concrete actions.  Moreover, the INDCs remain voluntary…

Strikingly, the Agreement makes no direct mention of negative emissions nor carbon capture and storage – although that is clearly implicit in directives for carbon neutrality and in the adopted limits themselves. We will need to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere to limit warming to this degree.  We will need new aviation and shipping technology to achieve this limit.  It is the gap between aspirations and technological capacity, social behaviour and political will that has caused some to disparage the Paris Agreement.

We will need new aviation and shipping technology to achieve the 2C limit.

It is too soon to say, but I don’t think that captures the complete picture of what happened in Paris over the past two weeks and it does not capture what this Agreement could eventually achieve.  In many senses, this Agreement is about empowerment, confidence and united commitment. No other COP has had such a deep engagement from non-national actors. It was not just the usual NGOs, but also a huge range of businesses from Coca Cola to New Holland to BMW to exciting new kids on the block that you’ve likely never heard of (like Gogoro!). Crucially, investors were also present – Moody’s and Santander but also a plethora of green bond developers and other alternative financiers. And more so than ever before, the cities were out in force, both collectively via groups such as ICLEI, C40, and the Covenant of Mayors (and the Compact of Mayors) and individually.  In our Pavilion alone, over 70 cities presented their plans for climate action.

The highlight of the cities initiative was when Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, launched and hosted the Climate Summit for Local Leaders at Paris City Hall.  Attended by 640 Mayors, thought to be the largest such gathering, the Summit presented its ambitions to UN Secretary General Ba Ki-moon. It is a great credit to Paris that not only did it host COP21 but that it did so with such a spirit of hope and optimism so soon after the tragic events of 13 Nov.

(It is noteworthy that cities have continued to lead since COP21, even when nations falter.  When Trump denounced the Paris Agreement, citing that Pittsburgh did not care about these issues, the Mayor of Pittsburgh was one of the first to reaffirm his city’s support for action.)

Throughout, the message was that the world is at tipping point between the old fossil-fuel based economy and a new economy – and most are ready.  Cities, regions, businesses, investors are already working together.  They are already reconfiguring for this new world. What they demanded of the Agreement was that it formally recognise their involvement and that the Agreement be an ambitious and unambiguous statement of intent.  They wanted confidence to act boldly and a role in accountability.  They got both.

Unlike the Kyoto protocol, this Agreement formally recognises the role of sub-national governments as partners in this process.  This was one of the major goals of ICLEI, and I am very proud that via the Bristol co-hosted Cities and Regions Pavilion, Bristol’s prominent presence as European Green Capital, and the concrete aspirations of our Transformative Action Plans, our city and our University helped ensure the inclusion of such recognition in the final document.

View image on Twitter

In the words of Gino Van Begin, “Pavilion co-hosts, Paris and Bristol, along with ICLEI, made possible an unprecedented show of unity by local actors at a COP.”  The City of Bristol, via George Ferguson but also via Bristol City Council and numerous partners, was everywhere at COP21 – and the University of Bristol was central to that, our contributions highlighted dozens of times.

As for a statement of intent?  That’s we got. When I spoke with Sir David King about the UK’s goals for the negotiations, he emphasised the need to emerge with the clarity to build confidence and support cooperation.  He went further by arguing that one of the UK’s main contributions will be via its Aid Budget, which will prioritise green growth and in turn, through technology development and scale-up of manufacturing, drive the global price of renewables below that of fossil fuels.

Similarly, Amber Rudd, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (and therefore, Britain’s senior negotiator in Paris), emphasised that the 1.5C target was about aspiration and sending a clear message of confidence to investors.  Alas, our visit was too fleeting for me to ask her whether that balances the investor confidence lost when renewable subsidies are removed…

(And of course, she has had a rather controversial political career since then…)

 

View image on Twitter

Arguably, no other international diplomatic effort has had higher ambitions: the COP21 Agreement successfully asked all the nations of the Earth to commit to a fundamental transformation of their energy, economy and society.  The achievement, then, has been about unlocking capital, stimulating investment and establishing confidence.  It is still the same old economic model – the Agreement was never going to deliver the downfall of neoliberalism – but different levers are now being pulled.

Will it work? That rather depends on what your definition of success is. But it is estimated that 10,000 new initiatives were launched in Paris last week.  That is a good start.

Archive: COP21 What Next for the University of Bristol

Posted on by r.d.pancost

After reflecting, post-COP21 on the next steps for our planet and for our city, it is appropriate to look atbrings us to the University of Bristol and the Cabot Institute.  I hope that this year we also have made some steps towards being a trusted participant in shaping our city’s future. I have lived here over 15 years and so I know that has not always been the case.

We must contribute via our role as a business.  With the NHS, we are the largest employer in the city and our behaviour should lead by example.  This is why we have developed a district energy strategy with BCC and the NHS.  This is why we are planting trees all over the city.  That is why we collaborate with Bristol City Council and fund community initiatives. But we do need to do more.  We will be judged on how we build our next buildings.  We will be judged on how we procure our goods. We will be judged on how we engage with the other citizens of Bristol.

We must contribute via our role as an educational institution.  We are already committed to pan-University Education for Sustainable Development (and thanks again to Chris Willmore for championing that). Now we are exploring a new initiative to build sustainability, enterprise and global citizenship across the student experience; those of us in the Cabot Institute are very excited to have been asked to play a role in translating our ambitions for multidisciplinary, challenge-driven, environmental research to our Undergraduates.

Students working with a local organisation in Bedminster, Bristol.

Of course, those students are driving us as often as we are leading them!  In the words of Hannah Tweddell of Bristol’s Student Union:

 ‘Our students and young people are the future. We’ve seen the amazing work they’ve done in partnership, helping Bristol Green Capital transition towards a more sustainable inclusive city. We’re committed to getting 100,000 hours of student engagement with the city to help make our city more sustainable every year – real action on the ground to tackle climate change, inequality and sustainability.’

And finally, the Cabot Institute will continue to conduct ambitious research in this area. Being at COP21 with Bristol City Council showed me the power of academic contributions.  Our Mini-Stern review and the STEEP Project sit at the foundation of Bristol’s Climate Change and Energy Security Framework.  Bristol is Open was repeatedly cited as an exemplar in Future Cities thinking. These partnerships were embedded in the argument by ICLEI and others that cities must be taken seriously as partners in this endeavour. Our climate change research was also on display and invoked at key stages as ambitions were raised.

It is not all about the Cabot Institute.  Sustainability policy is increasingly linked to health issues, whether it be the benefits of cycling and walking or of cleaner air; as such, the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute is also a central part of this conversation. The Brigstow Institute will explore the role of self, identity and community in the 21st century, issues that will be central to the social transformations that the Paris Agreement requires.  And there is no doubt that Big Data will be key to understanding, managing and navigating the future city; our new Institute (currently the Bristol Institute for Data Intensive Research) is poised to make major contributions.

Our research must continue and become more ambitious because we do not have all of the solutions – yet. So we will continue to innovate, whether it be exciting new functional nanomaterials to underpin the next generation of renewable technology or the mathematical expertise that will help us best extract tidal power from the Severn. We will have to help explore new financing tools to fund a new kind of global development; and there is a role for Bristol in shaping the emerging new forms of governance and economy. But new solutions require an engaged and interested public – and we do not intend to develop them in isolation or in our old disciplinary silos.

As our train pulled into Temple Meads, Alex Minshull told me that what he took from the Conference was a renewed awareness of what he already knew – do not get ‘locked in’ to the future you do not want. We must make the right choices today, choices that do not pile future carbon debt onto the future.  We must invest in our young people today so that they are prepared to lead tomorrow.  We must invest in new technology today so that it is ready when we need it.

It starts today.