How we achieved a climate victory in the Council of Europe
This article was originally released as an edition of my newsletter.
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Last month, the European Court of Human Rights made a landmark ruling: Switzerland’s lack of effective climate action violated human rights. As usual, Greta captured the moment standing outside the court, proclaiming “this is just the beginning” with the global climate movement in raptures.
In a stuffy Council of Europe building looking over the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest, I found out via a tap on the shoulder telling me to check my phone. Eyebrows were raised. This was objectively good news. But for my day this was a pain in the ass.
It was the first meeting of the Council of Europe’s Advisory Council (AC) on Youth. The AC is the best example of youth participation in democracy that I know about. Basically, 30 of us are elected as youth experts to work with national governments on measures for the benefit of young people in the Council of Europe’s 46 member states.
And we were negotiating a text on climate. This text was the result of 6 years of work. Four generations of my friends in the Young European Greens had fought in the AC (along with some other esteemed comrades) to push the CoE from a state of not recognising that climate action is part of its work, to two years of negotiation on the details of the text that would change that, to us voting on it that day.
And then I got the tap on the shoulder from my co-conspirator Agnes. We had been working into the middle of the night preparing to argue our case that this text should be passed. Importantly, two countries had put amendments in that we did not like very much, so we were hoping to get them thrown out.
Oh, and the body requires unanimity. So we need every member state present to agree to it. Hence the two years of negotiation. And hence my eyebrows being raised when I looked at my phone.
The government representatives were spooked.
The job of the people in this room is to represent the position of their government. And, since we were debating climate law, a landmark ruling on climate had blown their careful preparation for this meeting out of the water. However efficient your government ministry is, they’re not going to be able to make a full legal assessment of a 250-page ruling in the space of an afternoon.
The funny thing is that this ruling actually strengthened our position that the Council of Europe should have a recommendation on climate. And indeed, some member states were arguing that this ruling was important and should be mentioned in the text - giving our text extra weight. But the problem is that this would reopen negotiations on the text, and there would be no hope of passing it today.
If we didn’t pass it there and then, it might never pass.
While climate change remains the number one priority for young people in Europe, and is still a high priority for the population as a whole, political momentum has clearly shifted against climate action - in part thanks to the farmers’ protests I recently wrote about.
Our next meeting with governments would not be for another six months, and who knows how many far right-sympathising conservatives will be in power by then.
In other words, the window might be closing for us to pass a recommendation on climate change.
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So we needed to change strategy.
When called upon to speak, as planned, we laid out why the amendments proposed by member states both defied logic and weakened the text, and that this text had already been watered down enough over the last two years of negotiation. But we concluded by saying fine, we will accept these amendments. Because the essential point at this stage is that the Council of Europe has a text on climate change and young people.
In other words, we compromised.
The implications of our compromise were clear. We were making a big sacrifice to make sure that this text was passed today. So these mother fuckers better pass this text or else when we see each other in six months we will fight balls to the wall to get these amendments rejected.
And it worked.
Every member state voted for the text. If this passes the Committee of Ministers, it will be a historic win for the climate movement. The text means heightened international pressure on member states to not only take climate action, but protect climate activists and encourage young people into climate activism. The text is dressed in language of intersectionality and climate justice that until recently would have been considered inappropriate for an institution like the Council of Europe.
Texts like this mean that when activists stand up in court, or politicians stand up in parliament, they can point to this as a pledge by the government to take action.
It’s a bureaucratic text that almost nobody knows about. But like the ruling in Switzerland, it is one more tool in the arsenal of the climate movement.
Compared to direct action, institutional politics is inglorious, unsexy work. But it is an essential part of our collective struggle, and we need more activists pressuring the men in suits for change. Even when that means compromise.
The content of this newsletter is by me. Not the Advisory Council. This is obvious. Please do not sue me x
STUFF WORTH KNOWING
🇵🇸 The kids are alright. Climate Vanguard just released a sensational brief on the role of youth in liberatory struggle. Drawing heavily from the theory of Manifesto of the Youth: Revolutionary Youth Movement of Kurdistan and social movement literature, the brief traces a brief history of youth in social and political struggle to argue that “we can observe an emergent revolutionary youth subject in the ongoing student protests for Palestinian liberation”.
✊ Activism is a dangerous game. In the last month, peaceful protest has led me to being arrested at the European Parliament (here’s a video of me in a police cell, having not broken any laws) and tear gassed outside the Israeli embassy. These are very real examples of the erosion of the right to protest. But at least I still have all of my fingers, unlike one unlucky Green Party candidate who had her’s bitten off by a dog on the wrong side of a letterbox.
📚 The way we’re campaigning is too transactional. Ned Howey argues in his book, entitled ‘Fixing Our Democracies and Winning Elections in The Age of Junk Politics: A Guide to Transformational Campaigning’ and released by the movement building agency Tectonica, that this campaign logic is feeding "“junk politics” and political disillusionment. Howey proposes an alternative paradigm for “transformational campaigning in the age of junk politics”. Download the ebook for free here.
🇪🇺 I won the EU youth debate! In anticipation of the EU election, I recently debated the leaders of the other youth political organisations - and I was voted the most convincing by viewers! You can watch the debate back here (for the rec, I am an activist not a politician).
🗳 Tell your friends to vote. The research is clear - one of the most effective ways to increase voter turnout is coordinated peer pressure. Please, for the sake of all of us, text your friends and tell them to vote. It’s not sexy, but there’s too much at stake not to.