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n this section the SCCC and the four member organizations, whose media officers took part in the expert interviews, are presented. This will give an overview over their interests and backgrounds.
S top Climate Chaos Coalition
SCCC is a coalition of 110 organisations, uniting environment and development charities, women’s, faith and community groups, and unions. The Stop Climate Chaos Coalition Steering Group board members are Friends of the Earth, Oxfam, Greenpeace, WWF-UK, Christian Aid, Tearfund, CAFOD, World Development Movement and RSPB (We are, SCCC, 2010). This umbrella coalition exists since 2005 and has organised climate change campaigns since then. The ‘I Count’ campaign was the first big campaign held by the coalition in October 2006 and was pressuring the UK government to include a climate change bill in the upcoming parliamentary session to include binding emission cuts and an annual carbon budget. The I Count London climate change rally in November, 2006 was attended by 25.000 people and the coalition succeeded in pushing all its demands through (Walsh, 2006; stopclimatechaos.org/icount, 2008).
In 2009, SCCC aimed to follow in the footsteps of I Count and once again influence the government on climate change at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen. The march organised on the 5th of December, 2009 was to be the biggest climate change protest in the UK with around 50.000 people attending (.stopclimatechaos.org/the-wave, 2009). Although the British government seemed cooperative with the protesters and Gordon Brown even invited 25 of them to visit him and talk about their demands in No. 10 Downing Street, the overall UN Summit lacked in success and had rather disillusioning results.
SCCC is represented on a large number of social network sites. These are Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Act.ly, YouTube and Friendfeed.
The expert interview was conducted with Tom Allen, who is the new media officer of the coalition and thus responsible for being in contact with the followers over social media platforms and social network sites, as well as organising mobilisation for online events, such as Twitterstorms.
Oxfam Great Britain (GB)
Oxfam is one of the largest coalition members and one of the largest development charities in the UK and worldwide. It is not only working on issues such as climate change, but started off as an organisation concerned with developmental issues, gender and poverty issues, providing help after natural disasters and a lot more. Oxfam is a founding member of SCCC and also part of other coalitions like TckTckTck (OXFAM’s Climate Change Partners, 2010). Oxfam charity shops are wide spread and very popular in the UK.
As one of the founding members of SCCC, it is also likely that Oxfam is one of the largest sponsors of the coalition, as all members are required to pay a participation fee in relation to their size (T. Allen, 2010). Unfortunately no numbers on Oxfam membership amongst the general population is available, yet the Oxfam GB Facebook Fanpage alone has 27.104 fans, which gives an impression of the large number of members of the organisation, when put into relations. The Oxfam homepage also links to other social network sites, like MySpace, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.
The expert interview was held with Lucy Brinicombe, the Press Officer for the climate change section of the Oxfam Media Unit in Oxford, which meant that this interview was conducted over the phone.
Action Aid
This international development charity works in 50 countries around the world with the long-term goal of ending poverty. The organisation works on the ground and provides people with education about their rights, such as health care and education and other human rights, thus changing aiming to change the structures that lead to poverty. As food shortages and resulting poverty can be induced by climate change, Action Aid also is interested to battle it. Action Aid has offices around the world and cooperates in most cases with local partner organisations to ensure that the people are in charge of their own development. The role of Action Aid UK is mainly fund-raising and lobbying of the UK and EU government and international institutions (A. Wickenden, 2010).
The representative of Action Aid that the interview was held with is the head of the youth engagement team, Anella Wickenden. The youth branch of Action Aid is called “Bollocks to Poverty” and especially targets young people by approaching them events such as festivals like Glastonbury or Reading. Young people are invited to volunteer at these festivals for Bollocks to Poverty and get involved with the organisation in the long term. Bollocks to Poverty has its own microsite on the Action Aid homepage and is represented on most major social network sites (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube).
E
nvision
Envision describes itself as a “national education charity that provides young people with opportunities to make a difference” (Envision.org.uk, 2010). Envision is directed at teenagers between 16 – 19 years and aims to change the perception that young people are uninterested and apathetic (Envision.org.uk, 2010). The charity is in his 10th year of existence, thus still relatively young and growing strongly. The working ways of Envision differ slightly from traditional NGOs, as it works very closely with schools and get students involved in issues ranging from climate change to gang crime to anything that interests them in their communities. The organisation wants to empower young people and show them that they can make a difference and are important in society. Envision is involved in the SCCC, because many students are interested in climate change and environmental issues, the organisation can thus target those young people especially. Envision belongs to one of the smaller member organisation, yet it has been growing in size and increased the number of schools it is working with to 130 in Birmingham, London and Leeds and works with satellite schools in Cardiff, Essex, Oxford and Walsall.
Envision links to the traditional social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Helen Thomas, the expert interview candidate, is the communications and events manager in the Envision London office.
C
ampaign Against Climate Change (CACC)
This pressure group has been active since 2001 with a demonstration against George W. Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol and is strictly occupied with climate change and its effects. Since 2005, the organisation has established the “Global Day of Action”, when climate change demonstrations are organised worldwide and unite thousands of people on the same day all over the world around the time of the UN Climate Change Summit. Even though demonstrations in some countries are relatively small, like a 6 person gathering outside the American Embassy in Bermuda in 2006, organisations in other countries rally large groups, such as at the global action day in Utrecht, Netherlands, which attracted 10,000 people in 2009. For the Global Day of Action in 2010, 109 organisations in countries all around the globe have already signed up to take part (globalclimatecampaign.org, 2010). Campaign Against Climate Change sees its function in bringing the different environmental organisations in the UK and the green movement together to create a stronger force against climate change and to have more power in lobbying politicians, especially as climate change issues are becoming an increasingly prominent issue. Therefore it saw the need of creating large scale political climate protests to reflect the transition of climate change from a niche issue to a major global political problem (P. Thornhill, 2010).
Campaign Against Climate Change has become a member of the SCCC in order to adapt to the new situation of the environmental movement scene in the UK, created by the coming together of the SCC Coalition members. Campaign Against Climate Change now cooperates with the coalition as much as possible. SCCC has a lot more resources, especially financially, because they are big membership organizations, whereas Campaign Against Climate Change sees itself as a left-wing grassroots organization. The representative of this organisation who participated in the expert interview was Phil Thornhill, the national coordinator. The website links to a number of social network sites, like Facebook, bebo, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter and Flickr, and according to Thornhill (2010) are mainly maintained by volunteers.
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