From human rights to green ideals

Kumi naidoo once thought environmental activism was something white people did, but now he's leading Greenpeace

The head of one of the most powerful environmental lobby groups in the world admits he felt some contempt for green ideals and values in his youth as a victim of one of the most notorious apartheid regimes of the 20th century.

"For me, (with) the environmental journey in the early days, growing up in my teenage years, there was a negative attitude toward the environmental (movement) because it was seen as what rich people did and in our country it was what white people did," said Kumi Naidoo, 46, during a wideranging interview with Postmedia News.

"People used to say that white people in South Africa treated animals and trees better than they did black people."

Naidoo spent his teenage years in Durban as a humanrights activist, spending his fair share of time in jail because of his opposition to the system of racial segregation that plagued his country until the end of the 20th century.

He moved abroad as a young adult, studying as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, while pursuing anti-poverty and civil-rights campaigns.

When Greenpeace first came calling, he was in the midst of a hunger strike to protest against his government's position on the Zimbabwean regime of Robert Mugabe, but was later convinced to accept the environmental group's offer in 2009 by his own teenage daughter, who made him believe her that Greenpeace was an effective vehicle to peacefully fight for a better future.

Moving from humanrights activist to environmental crusader in his new role as executive director of Greenpeace International, Naidoo told Postmedia News he discovered a strong connection between his past and present roles, noting the cause-and-effect relationship between environmental degradation and poverty.

But he admitted it isn't easy to convince people to accept a message that could mean dramatic changes to their lifestyles.

He said the campaign is similar to battles from the past on issues such as slavery, civil rights and a woman's right to vote.

"All these struggles for justice are not popularity contests," Naidoo said. "They require moral courage, like the fights on many areas of injustice historically. - Those movements were dismissed as radical, extremist and soft."

Naidoo said the biggest challenge comes from going up against a powerful alliance of multibillion-dollar corporations in the oil, gas and coal industries that have an army of lobbyists and consultants at their disposal to fight environmental policies and protect the status quo.

He said Greenpeace's resources, based on donations of individuals from around the world, without any corporate or government funding, are a drop in the bucket when compared to what they are up against.

"If you look at what the fossil fuel (industry) is putting up in money to promote climate denialism to block climate legislation and so on, if you put it all together it's more than the combined GDP (Growth Domestic Product) of the 25 per cent poorest countries in the world," Naidoo said.

"So we are not apologetic at all that if we are to defend remote parts of the world to expose environmental crimes that are happening in the Arctic or the Antarctic or in the Amazon, or wherever, we need to get there."

Last June, Naidoo said he was part of an excursion in the Arctic that targeted an energy company for not having an adequate plan to prevent an oil spill that could devastate the region's fishing industry and threaten its food security.

"We're not going there and having fun on these ships," he said.

"We're going and putting our lives on the line. For myself, as a person coming from Africa, you cannot believe how far the Arctic was for me. - It was no joke trying to go and occupy an oil rig in the middle of the Arctic. To be honest I was scared, terrified, the waves are very rough and so on. So we're not doing this for fun."

Naidoo added Greenpeace is always reviewing its business model, increasing the number of video conferences instead of face-to-face meetings, and adopting other related strategies to reduce the environmental footprint of its operations.

Economically, Naidoo said it also is important for Canadians also to recognize the world is moving away from fossil fuels toward cleaner forms of energy that require countries to transform their industrial sectors to compete in the global cleanenergy economy of the 21st century.

"A failure to develop those industries is going to be bad for Canada's economy in the future as well as being a big contributor to, actually, in a sense, obliterating small island states, because that's (where) we're going to end up if we continue to have the (low) level of ambition (on reducing greenhousegas emissions) that Canada seems to want the rest of the world to have so that it can go on with its tarsands misadventure."

The small island states have been among the most vocal advocates for deep cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions since their nations are already under siege from rising sea levels and extreme weather linked to climate change that could threaten their existence in the coming years and decades.

While the climate-change summit was supposed to end a few hours after the interview, the talks wound up being extended two days before all countries agreed to a 2015 deadline to reach a comprehensive deal that will legally bind all major sources of greenhouse-gas pollution to commit to reducing emissions and preventing dangerous changes in the atmosphere.

Naidoo, who was ejected from the summit during a noisy protest, said the world still needs to act faster.

"The glaciers are melting faster than these negotiations are going," he said.

"This fight is about securing our children and their children's future. We are the most pathetic bunch of adult leaders that there has ever been. The writing is on the wall and we are sleepwalking, our leaders are sleepwalking us, into a crisis of epic proportions."


(2012-01-05/montrealgazette)