Camp for Climate Action

I've just got back - by coach, thanks for asking - from meeting campaign groups opposing expansion at Frankfurt airport. The authorities want a fourth runway, and expansion is justified on the same sort of grounds as our third runway: Frankfurt's financial centre will collapse; it will bring jobs; flights will go to other airports; passengers will choose to change planes at other hub airports, etc.

The owners have already cut down a million trees to make way for it. This is a travesty of the highest order, and stirring up some emotional memories. Over thirty years ago the woods were the scene of some of the fiercest and most famous protests in German history, as tens of thousands of people fought to stop a third runway being built. There was virtually civil war when the authorities tried to remove the protestors. The protest had a profound effect in Germany, helping radicalise a generation and kickstarting the nascent green movement.

But it also left many campaigners dispirited. They had fought – and lost – the biggest and most dramatic campaign against airport expansion ever seen in Europe. This time round they have concentrated on legal challenges, but so far without success. And while the woods were occupied again, it was largely by younger environmental activists. They held out for nine months but were evicted earlier this year. There still is a small camp, which we visited, but is not on the site of the new runway.

This summer the young activists are planning a Climate Camp, like there was at Heathrow two years ago, in the woods near the airport to which activists from across Europe will be invited. The local residents are pursuing their legal challenges. There are major campaigns against airport expansion in other German cities - notably at Munich and Stuttgart where last year 15,000 people marched against a new runway - and a burgeoning direct action movement. If the Frankfurt campaigners can persuade these other campaigners to join them this summer, they have a fighting chance of success.

Check out my photos from the trip on our Flickr photostream.

Although the decision on Heathrow has been delayed until later this year (so that Ruth Kelly and her lackeys can pretend they're reading our submissions to the consultation) the mobilisation against the runway continues. Next weekend the Camp for Climate Action and local residents groups will meet to discuss where next - i.e. what they're prepared to do if (and when) the decision to expand goes against us.

The conference will build on the solidarity between greens and residents, which culminated in last year's occupation of BAA's car park and a week of action against aviation industry targets. There'll be speakers from a number of anti-expansion groups, and the aim of the day is to face up to the enevitable decision to expand.

So get yourself down to Harlington Baptist Church on Saturday the 26th of July, 12-5. Let's show the Government that whatever the decision, the struggle against airport expansion goes up regardless. For more info see the Camp for Climate Action website - and see you there!

The spirit of the Climate Camp lives on. I was at two public meetings this week, in the villages which will be destroyed if BAA's plans go ahead, to make way for tons and tons of tarmac: one in Sipson, the village that would be completely wiped out; and the other in Harlington, the adjoining village.

When local MP John McDonnell praised the Climate Camp as the most important event to have taken place for decades in the fight against Heathrow expansion, both meetings, packed with local residents, burst into spontaneous applause.

The mood of the meetings was so different to those held here just a year ago. The general mood then was downbeat: a feeling that the airport and the authorities always get their way and that the fight would ultimately be in vain. People here had given up, conceded that the runway was inevitable, and were now just protesting to make a point, not to win.

But now feelings have changed. Where people once felt resigned, now there was a belief that we might, just might, win. That against the might of BAA, of industry, of Government, we stood a chance. Make no mistake; the Climate Camp was the reason for their change of mood. John McDonnell, who had spent time at the Camp, said it had turned Heathrow into an international iconic struggle against climate change. Heathrow residents now know they are not alone.

You could sense that the people of the villages felt, probably for the first time, that they were part of a worldwide movement that even the power of the aviation industry cannot stop. It's going to be one hell of a fight...

Steve Dunne, the director of The Brighter Group in Britain - which advises the aviation industry on communications strategy – has warned that the aviation industry that it risks sinking to pariah status akin to cigarette manufacturers in the U.S.

Dunne cited the Camp for Climate Action as an example of how climate activists are winning the PR war, saying, “The next generation will be unbelievably green ... (and will) end up hating us if we don't do something about it."

Tom Ambrose, director general of the European Regional Airlines Association, claimed that although airlines only produce 2 percent of global CO2, most people think the figure is up to three times that figure. Unfortunately he forgot to factor the radiative forcing multiplier of 2.7 times into his calculation - making 'most people' a damn site closer to the mark than his figure was.