GREENPEACE SPEAKS OUT
Kumi Naidoo blasts government’s ‘disastrous’ environmental record
Canada’s record doesn’t impress director Naidoo
Kumi Naidoo, the executive director of Greenpeace and veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, was in British Columbia this week to attend a First Nations ceremony commemorating Greenpeace’s 1971 voyage to stop a U.S. nuclear test.
In an interview with the Montreal Gazette, he shared his thoughts on Canada’s environmental record, federal anti-terrorism legislation Bill C-51, university fossil fuel divestment and more.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Q: What do you think of Canada’s recent environmental track record? A: Disastrous. Canada was for decades the voice of sanity from the developed world — not only on the environment but on democracy, on the important role of civil society, gender equality and so on.
I have to say it’s really sad to see the slippage over the last several years.
Canada is associated with some of the best international law that has come out that has an environmental component to it. The Montreal Protocol (on substances that deplete the ozone layer) is one piece of global law and consensus where, thankfully, we’re seeing progress — unlike with climate negotiations.
Q: What’s your take on Bill C-51? A: It worries me in the sense that it could have a chilling effect on young people, in particular, who are wanting to get involved. Government is telling them don’t participate in peaceful protest.
Young people everywhere — I think Canada is no different — are worried about the future and they feel that adult leadership is selling their future down the drain by not acting on climate.
I think it (Bill C-51) is tough on terrorism but hard on democracy.
Q: Students in Montreal, and others around the world, are pressuring their universities to dump their holdings in fossil fuel companies. The same tactic — divestment — was used to pressure South Africa to abandon apartheid. Is it as effective for fighting climate change? A: I think the divestment movement allows a broad range of citizens across the world to participate in a meaningful way in terms of trying to shift us away from fossil fuels and toward renewables.
Like the anti-apartheid divestment movement, it started on campuses but it’s moved on. We’re beginning to see real momentum around that.
Bill McKibben and 350.org came up with the idea originally.
It caught fire in the United States and it’s growing in Canada but not at the same pace. And it’s moving to Europe and other parts of the world.
Essentially, it’s saying to the governing bodies of institutions that it doesn’t make sense for a foundation, for example, that says it’s against poverty to put its investments in fossil fuels that endangers people’s health and the future of the planet.
It’s already getting traction in places where there wasn’t a divestment movement against apartheid. So I would say it has even more potential to be helpful than the divestment movement was for the anti-apartheid struggle.
Q: What significance do you see in being first executive director of Greenpeace from the developing world? A: I think it’s significant because the mistake that was made in the early days of environmental activism was that fighting to protect the environment was one thing, and trying to eradicate poverty was another.
My background is more in anti-poverty and human rights activism than environmental activism. I’m not a traditional environmentalist.
I came to the job with the view that the struggle to end global poverty and the struggle to address environmental sustainability and climate change must, can, and should be seen as two sides of the same coin.
We’ve shown in very practical ways how you can do that. For example, in a rural part of northern India we were able to electrify through a micro-solar grid the homes of 3,000 people — which was good from an environmental perspective, but has also been massively popular from a developmental perspective. Children can study at home. Women can walk more safely at night to their roadside stalls.
Q: What kind of impact would TransCanada’s proposed Energy East pipeline have on the environment? A: That’s another carbon bomb. I’m confident that Canadian civil society will resist it very strongly. I don’t think the plan will go ahead once we become more aware of its impacts and its risks.
Q: What do you make of the mayor of Saguenay’s comment about mobilizing against “Greenpeace and the intellectuals of the world”? A: I think it’s very sad (he laughs). The successful economies of the future are those that develop green technology because that’s where the world is moving.
It’s interesting that the mayor would single out intellectuals. What’s with that?