by Alex Evans | Sep 1, 2009 | Influence and networks
I take it all back. Within moments of publishing the post below about the naked protestors at Edelman, not one but two Edelman employees were in touch via Twitter, pointing me to a blog post by their CEO. Full marks for new media nimbleness. So what do they actually say? Well, their main point is that
As with last time, we offered the protestors the chance to sit down (preferably, fully clothed) and engage in a constructive dialogue with us. We are happy to hear their concerns and discuss their issues. Sadly, they seem more intent on going for the headline, picture story and the sound-bite, rather than for a constructive and engaged conversation.
Now of course, it’s an entirely sensible comms strategy for Edelman to let everyone know that they tried to have a dialogue, but were snubbed by the protestors. It positions them as the magnanimous, reasonable, centrist party, while the protestors are made to appear rather fringe by comparison. The point is reinforced in the post’s last paragraph, which talks of the need for “engaged dialogue among multiple stakeholders, including the NGO community”, while accusing the protestors of “cheap stunts”.
But wanting to be seen to be open to dialogue isn’t the same as being open to dialogue.
The protestors would doubtless reply to Edelman’s entreaties by pointing out that Edelman work with E.On – the power company that owns Kingsnorth – not (as their CEO’s blog post implies) because Edelman is impressed with E.On’s arguments that “in order to reduce our carbon emissions, keep energy affordable and keep the lights on, we need a balanced energy policy that includes renewables, nuclear and cleaner fossil fuels”, but instead for the rather more earthy reason that E.On pay them a healthy monthly retainer.
Now, I’m willing to give Edelman the benefit of the doubt here (they are after all involved in the admirable Citizen Renaissance project), but presumably not everyone will be so generous. So how can Edelman win over the sceptics?
Quite easily, actually. For Edelman to prove beyond dispute that they are themselves genuinely open to “engaged dialogue” – in their own right, rather than just as a mouthpiece for E.On – all they need do, surely, is point to an example of an area in which they have a substantive disagreement on climate policy with E.On.
Perhaps in the comments section below?
by Alex Evans | Sep 1, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, Influence and networks
Public relations firm Edelman is very proud of its crisis management practice. As its website says:
Companies must address parallel challenges which must be addressed head on: the actual issues or crisis situation and the potential reputational fall-out of not being perceived to handle the related problems in a timely and effective manner. Edelman’s specialist Crisis and Issues Management & Communications team is organised and equipped to ensure that both angles are covered through an integrated management and communications approach which anticipates and addresses both underlying risks and surface realities.
All the more amusing, then, that the News section of Edelman’s website makes no mention of the fact that a number of naked demonstrators from the Climate Camp are currently occupying their London office in protest at their PR campaign for a new coal power station at Kingsnorth…
Update: Edelman have been in touch to reply to this post
by Alex Evans | Sep 1, 2009 | What we're watching
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiAc5IVXI7g[/youtube]
by Alex Evans | Sep 1, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity
Ten years of freedom for East Timor today, and a notably graceful editorial in the Jakarta Post:
Indonesia would have learned a great deal from the fatal mistakes of its 24-year occupation of the then East Timor, now Timor Leste, so it hardly needs more lessons. Well perhaps one more: a lesson on statesmanship from President José Ramos-Horta.
On the 10th anniversary of the UN-sponsored independence referendum that ended Indonesian rule, Ramos-Horta’s speech Saturday was worthy of his standing as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, part of which read “My stated preference, as a human being, victim and head of state, is that we once and for all close the 1975-1999 chapters of our tragic experience [and] forgive those who did us harm.”
It concludes:
Timor Leste is fortunate to have truly great statesmen like Ramos-Horta and Gusmao. Statesmanship will remain in short supply among Indonesian leaders for as long as we continue to let human rights violations go unpunished. While our leaders are busy talking the talk at international forums, we are certainly not walking the human rights walk.
But in an FT interview, Ramos-Horta’s own preoccupations are focused on the future:
José Ramos Horta, the president, who shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Indonesian rule that left more than 150,000 Timorese dead, says that when a shortage of water and dependence on subsistence agriculture is added, the scale of the problems the country faces cannot be overstated.
“With this population growth and poverty, [and] increasing pressure on water and land, 20 years from now we will start killing each other over water and land,” he told the Financial Times. He has no doubt that, unless more attention is paid to rural areas, urban migration – particularly among the rapidly escalating ranks of disillusioned and unemployed youth – will be so great that it will create a “time bomb”.
by Alex Evans | Aug 28, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, Influence and networks
And so to TckTckTck.org, the most pointless NGO campaign of the year, upon whom I heaped ridicule earlier this month for their fabulously vague policy position that Copenhagen should produce “an ambitious, fair and binding climate change agreement”. After a period of silence, TckTckTck have now been in touch via email, and have explained that
We’d been waiting for our site to officially launch so that we could point you and your readers to a resource that specifically addresses your questions. The site launched earlier this week, and we’ve put this page together for that purpose.
And so (drum roll), here’s the real policy platform.
Fair
– Reduce developed country emissions by at least 40% by 2020.
– Enable and support poor countries to adapt to the worst consequences of the climate crisis, reduce their emissions and ensure technology sharing including through the provision of sufficient public funds.
– Protect marginalized communities in rich and poor countries.
Ambitious
– Ensure that global greenhouse emissions peak no later than 2017.
– Create a pathway to clean jobs and clean energy for all.
– Establish necessary conditions for a sustainable and prosperous future for people, flora and fauna.
Binding
– Agree to a legally binding international agreement that can be verified and enforced
Saints preserve us – that’s the detailed policy position?
OK, we do have two pieces of specificity here in the 40% 2020 target (though they forgot to stipulate 1990 as the baseline – a schoolboy error that the Japanese and others will have immense fun with in a few months’ time), and the 2017 peaking date. But where the hell is the global context – the definition of some kind of overarching objective, like a ppm stabilisation target? Where is it explained how we will achieve stabilisation at any level without quantified targets for developing countries – a subject not even alluded to here via the usual unspecific platitudes about common but differentiated responsibilities?
This “policy position” is no more specific than what we had before; instead, it’s simply more verbose. We have a call for “sufficient public funds” for developing countries, but no number attached to it. A reference to “a pathway to clean jobs and clean energy for all”, but no tests so that policymakers or members of the public can determine whether any given set of actions is adequate. The motherhood and apple pie of “necessary conditions for a sustainable and prosperous future for people, flora and fauna”, followed a moment later – with no discernible sense of irony – with calls for an agreement “that can be verified and enforced”.
Um, guys, this isn’t any better. TckTckTck will doubtless say in their defence that they’re trying to communicate a highly complex area in a way that will resonate with the public. But the obvious rejoinder to that is that surely the point of this campaign – if there is a point – is to influence negotiators at Copenhagen. And if the policy asks are so vague that negotiators themselves can’t tell whether they’re meeting NGOs’ headline asks, then you can bet your bottom dollar that those NGOs are failing to influence the process in any meaningful way. (more…)
