Below the Iceberg's Waterline

It struck me recently that many people I know work on crucial environmental issues that are opaque or invisible to the general public. While communications folks like me strive to get these matters broader attention through newspaper headlines - a marker of not only raising awareness, but a way of applying of pressure on governments - most people remain unaware of the hundreds of vital environmental skirmishes being fought out - in the forests and on the ocean, in drab meeting rooms, cavernous conference halls and in courthouses, in defence of the health and wellbeing of our planet and all of us who inhabit it.?

This week, Karen McVeigh at The Guardian wrote about this, in relation to the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, or “BBNJ” in New York, in an article ‘One of the most important talks no one has heard of’: why the high seas treaty matters.

Sometimes, after years of horse trading, haggling and stalemates over fine details, important environmental issues do make into the public consciousness - either because there’s a momentous success, or because campaigners identify the need to call on the powerful voice citizens to demand that politicians make revolutionary - or common sense - changes that will, in the long term, benefit everyone. Other times it’s less complicated - people take to the streets, and get writing and phoning their elected policymakers because of direct, recognisable impacts on their health and livelihoods.?

This really is a tip-of-the-iceberg scenario - before an environmental campaign bursts onto the scene, there’s often years of behind the scenes campaigning. What we don’t hear so much about are the quiet successes, the gains and wins made for the better that never need to be escalated. It’s often - but not always - a last resort to go public.?

Many of my colleagues spend their time hammering away in the rarified dungeons of bureaucratic mumbo jumbo, striving for inclusion of text in an obscurely named national or international policy document. Such tasks may not seem glamorous, but words matter - the right sentence can lead to the flourishing of renewable energy investment, or the discontinuation of burning a climate-warming, lung-destroying fossil fuel. The “small print” can be a matter of life and death, or about the cynical or lazy continuation of business-as-usual, instead of a revolutionary flip to the future we need and want.?

For me, the first months of 2023 have been about supporting colleagues who are demanding better small print that governments might otherwise choose to deliver. In January, I helped the Clean Arctic Alliance - made up of 20 international NGOs - thrust the issue of underwater noise pollution and its impact on marine wildlife into the spotlight, at a meeting of the International Maritime Organization in London, the somewhat renegade UN body that governs global shipping (on behalf of the shipping industry, some might argue).?

How did it go? Some good - the IMO took baby steps towards protecting marine environments, including in the Arctic, from underwater noise pollution, but some bad - it fell short of taking any real, immediate action - and we told them as much.?

For me, February was all about the European Union, with news that the key EU institutions - the Commission, Parliament and Council were disagreeing over some fine print regarding emissions of climate-warming black carbon from shipping. With the EU having failed to regulate black carbon in its Fit for 55 Fuel EU Maritime Regulation, the Clean Arctic Alliance is now calling on Sweden's EU presidency to not remove mention of black carbon from a future review - and the Clean Arctic Alliance wrote to key ministers from the government of Sweden , to ask them, as well as ensuring some stinging media coverage. As I write, this issue is yet to be resolved.?

Towards February’s end, the European Commission finally went live with its long-awaited, much-leaked package of action plans. I couldn’t help feeling that the Commission seemed overjoyed with what it presented, while the collective NGO community responded with a collective “is that it?” At Our Fish, we asked How Can Weak EU Marine Action Plans Jump Chasm from Rhetoric to Real Change?, with our suggestions resonating in media across Europe - e.g. France 24 (FR), La Vanguardia (ES), where we said that the Commission "fails to bridge the gap" between the words and the acts, "for meaningful action that would transform Europe's fisheries and address the planetary crisis."

We also said that “the EU must end the ploughing up of seabed carbon stores, the excessive removal of the ocean’s carbon engineers such as fish, and the CO2 emissions from vessels burning subsidised fossil fuel. These practices are neither good fisheries management nor good carbon management and the Commission’s Marine Action Plan fails to put this right within the urgent timeframes we need”.

“The time for grand talk is over – Our Fish is calling on the European Commission and EU member state governments to ditch the rhetoric and take definitive action, by immediately beginning to implement and strengthen the measures described in these proposals, and for Members of the European Parliament to support them in doing so”.

Meanwhile, the Stop Fossil Fuel Subsidies campaign - let by ClientEarth and Our Fish, along with Seas At Risk and BLOOM, called out the Commission’s “lack of ambition, and the absence of concrete actions and strong guidelines – that would enable EU Member States to drive the process of decarbonisation of the fishing sector”, while putting forward clear solutions.?

What’s next? Well, I’m currently keeping an eye on the Arctic sea ice maximum - we could be on course for a record low. Expect a statement from the Clean Arctic Alliance on the need to slash shipping emissions, including black carbon. I’m also working with the Global Climate and Health Alliance - which represents health professionals from around the world working on climate change, to prepare for the COP28 climate summit. In the coming weeks we’ll be releasing the latest edition of our Healthy NDC Scorecards - where we compare the climate commitments of countries, with regard to how they choose to integrate health. Are national climate commitments enough to protect our health?

So what are you working on? Post comments and links below, and let’s talk.

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Clean Arctic Alliance

Our Fish

Decarbonise Now EU

Global Climate and Health Alliance