Guest post: Be the voice for climate in your council meeting room

On how to effect climate action by simply showing up

This guest post is by Pierre Marasti, a member of Extinction Rebellion Queenstown.

Kia ora! I’m Pierre, a member of Extinction Rebellion Queenstown. We formed our group four years ago and were ecstatic that we very quickly made our council declare a Climate and Ecological Emergency. 

We were excited to see this happen, but it didn’t change everything overnight.

Did they really have a plan? Did they know what it meant to declare a climate emergency? Or did they think it meant they were done? 

After that, we needed a way to keep our council focused on taking action. To do that, we tried out a new idea – and we’d love your help to roll it out nationwide.

Be the voice for climate in your council meeting room

We set out to remind our council of the seriousness of the situation.

We all need to be reminded of things at times! I would happily forget to go to the dentist if it wasn’t for these pesky text reminders. We need to keep our council focused on the climate crisis, so we decided to turn up at the public forum of every single council meeting to talk about climate and environmental issues.

Our concept wasn’t to be angry, or shout, or anything. We simply started showing up. Each month, we give them simple, calm updates about what is happening. We constantly remind them that we are in a climate emergency.

In short: we made the climate and ecological crises very hard to ignore.

Spot the climate signs!

It’s super accessible

Did you know that at a local government level, public forums are open for people to speak at every meeting?

Local governments do not have as much power as the central government, but they are much closer to us and councillors are influential members of their communities. This is why these public forums are a powerful opportunity for us to increase climate awareness.

You don’t have to have all the answers

We didn't have a list of specific demands or any complete idea of policies and actions we wanted them to take.

Each month we would plan what we’ll say, and then go to the meeting. Usually, we give our councillors an insight into how these crises are unfolding around the world. We remind them that it’s not a future issue, it’s happening now, here and around the world. 

So many people still think of this crisis as a future issue - yet we’re already at the stage which demands immediate action. If anyone needed further proof, this week’s floods in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland are another urgent sign that the climate crisis is already here and urgent.

When we have the opportunity, we do suggest some local actions that they could take, but our main goal is for councillors to be aware of the situation and to incorporate considerations about the climate and the environment into their decision making process.

There is no silver bullet to climate change, which is why we prefer to focus on enabling change rather than on any one specific demand; but laying this groundwork made our councillors much more receptive to other groups, who have more targeted environmental campaigns.

Consistency is key 

The key aspect of changing minds is to give people time. We are present at every full council meeting, every month.

And we’re seeing results! There’s a concept which is key to climate activism and human psychology more generally: we are only aware and aligned to ideas we hear regularly (“recency bias”) and accept as truth (“confirmation bias”). Also, the “Overton Window” is the range of ideas which are socially acceptable in a community. Over time, this approach has opened the window and shifted our councillors’ and our community’s perspective on the level of urgent actions that they find acceptable. For example, when we started campaigning, some of our councillors were still considering the term “emergency” to be alarmist. But at the last local body elections, every single elected councillor stated during their campaign that they agreed we are in a climate emergency.

Slowly slowly catchy monkey

Climate action isn’t happening as fast as we want it to, but now our council has set up a Climate Action Plan (which is progressively improving). The community also recently had a referendum asking if we would accept an increase in rates, to finance more climate action. The community voted yes! The knowledge and the acceptance of the situation has started to spread.

We need you

One of the perks of this approach is that it doesn’t require many people to participate. We don’t need to coordinate thousands of people to march on the streets, or to sign petitions. 

It really just takes one speaker with the right moral support per meeting. It is an easy action with large returns.

Of course, what we have done in our local community down in Queenstown Lakes is not nearly enough to halt climate change and single-handedly remove greenhouse gases from our atmosphere. So we’d love your help to expand this concept nationwide. If every council meeting across Aotearoa started with a story of the environmental collapse we are living through, the awareness will accelerate and the pressure will climb up the ranks of the government.

We are looking for groups or individuals willing to speak at their local councils. It is a very easy, safe, rewarding action to do, and to make it even easier, we are creating a network to share our speeches, our research and some practical support to take part in public forums.

If you are interested, we have created an information sheet that you can read here. 

There are 77 councils in the country who need help. So find your council, fill in this form and we’ll be in touch!

Thanks for reading this post and thank you for being part of this great community, by doing so you are already part of the solution.

Ngā mihi

Pierre Marasti (Extinction Rebellion Queenstown Lakes)