The Guardian

‘We’re now looking a bit tame’ Leaders look to broaden Greenpeace’s aims

Damien Gayle Environment correspondent

On 24 July 2020, radical climate activists walked up to Greenpeace UK’s elegant 1930s HQ in the heart of Islington and smeared it with pink paint. “What have you done?” they wrote in furious letters stuck to the NGO’s glass front door. “It’s time for you to step up or get out of the way.”

Early last month, as members of the Burning Pink campaign stood trial accused of criminal damage for that and other attacks on NGOs, political parties and newspapers – including the Guardian – they called a surprise witness for the defence. It was Will McCallum, the new co-executive director of Greenpeace UK.

The appointment of McCallum and Areeba Hamid in August constituted many firsts for Greenpeace UK: Hamid, 39, is the first woman of colour to lead the organisation; McCallum, at 34 is the youngest; between them they constitute its first job share. They say they are setting out to transform Greenpeace UK, intending to foster a deeper engagement with grassroots protesters and a more combative theory of power. “We are hoping to build a long-term campaign around climate justice which will look at, a minority of people whose actions are causing damage … and getting them to pay for it,” Hamid said.

Launched in 1971, Greenpeace was once a byword for radical climate action, its activists going toe-to-toe with whaling fleets and French commandos at the high seas. But like many in middle age, it has become more moderate, critics say, swapping high-stakes protests for lobbying politicians, and sitting down with multinationals.

Greenpeace UK, as one of the more influential of the international federation’s branches, had led much of that change. The former executive director John Sauven, lauded by the Times as a “suave political insider”, met the heads of oil majors and worked with McDonald’s to strike deals over deforestation. Sauven has defended his work with big business, which is credited with saving a number of great forests. But since 2019, what with Extinction Rebellion (XR) and school strikes, Greenpeace has appeared to have been outmanoeuvred by a new breed of more agile climate campaigns. Activists talked of institutional anxiety, fearing that appearing too radical would alienate donors.

One accused it and other NGOs of “living in a zombie world of middleclass privilege and denial”.

On the day the Guardian visited Greenpeace, XR had blockaded the private aviation terminal at Luton airport, activists from its vegan splinter group Animal Rebellion had been tossed around the road by irate motorists after blockading Westminster Bridge, and Just Stop Oil supporters had read out a message to the prime minister threatening to escalate their campaign of disruption

McCallum and Hamid had been meeting a team of activists to discuss messaging for a future action at sea. They conceded that the ecosystem of environmental protest had changed. With more people taking part in direct action, said Hamid, “people like Greenpeace [are] now almost looking tame in comparison.”

But “the bar” for Greenpeace was different, she added. “I often describe Greenpeace as a bit of a Swiss Army knife of an organisation, which means we’re also doing investigations, which are really groundbreaking; we do lobbying; we have a science unit producing original research; and we do direct action ... we’ve always believed it’s a combination of things that will make us win.”

McCallum said since he and

Hamid had taken over, activists had made an intervention in the Conservative party conference hall, he had joined disabled protesters in an occupation of parliament, and Greenpeace climbers had staged a 13-day occupation of a Shell drilling platform being shipped to the North Sea.

They were doing their best to “not bring back, [but]) continue and evolve” Greenpeace’s history of radical tactics and “add value”, McCallum said, not just in terms of tactics, but also in terms of raising specific issues. “We’re constantly trying to think … where does Greenpeace fit into this much healthier ecosystem?”

With a turnover of £25m a year, Greenpeace UK is one of the country’s most important environmental organisations. One of Hamid and McCallum’s priorities is using Greenpeace’s considerable resources to support grassroots groups, but to do this systematically, as opposed to the “ad hoc” ways in which the organisation had in the past, said McCallum.

They have opened up Greenpeace’s warehouse, at the rear of its offices, to groups campaigning on connected issues, which does not have to include the environment but must be aligned with Greenpeace values.

Like the more radical climate activists, Greenpeace is grappling with a wider problem: how to extend its support beyond a niche, white and professional-class audience. As the urgency around climate and ecological breakdown grows, how can environmentalists harness the power of a mass movement for change?

For Hamid and McCallum, the answer lies in a change of politics. Greenpeace can no longer be a single-issue group campaigning solely on the environment, but must engage with a spectrum of social justice issues, from racial equality and migrants’ rights to trade union struggles and fuel poverty. Hamid said the objective was to build as many alliances as possible, “not define ourselves within just the narrow lens of

‘is this environment-related or climate-related?’”.

When Greenpeace climbers boarded Shell’s oil platform in January, they unfurled a banner demanding the company not just “stop drilling” but “start paying” – a deliberate choice, said Hamid.

They want to be talking more about hope, says McCallum. Environmental campaigns had previously just sought to shock and appal people so much that they felt compelled to action.

“We’ve saturated that. People are not bored, but they’re tired want to feel hopeful. So when we’re thinking about climate justice, it’s ‘Stop drilling, start paying’; putting an end to campaigns that just say stop, and looking at what [kind of] world we want to live in.”

Environment

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2023-03-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://guardian.pressreader.com/article/282033331445851

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