This is my last day working at Greenpeace so I thought I’d write up a few thoughts on Sign On. Apologies in advance, this blog is really long, but hey this is a pretty BIG campaign. For those who don’t know me, I’ve been  the Sign On “mobilisation” campaigner, which essentially means I’ve been in charge of getting people active on the issue of climate change. I’m leaving today to enter Parliament. With Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fizsimmons stepping down, there is a place in Parliament for the next Green MP on the list. That’s me.

When I first arrived at the Greenpeace office in February last year, there was a genuine buzz in the air and anxious anticipation for what was ahead in 2009. Greenpeace had some pretty big plans and boy, did we need something big, with one of the most important climate change meetings in history set to take place in Copenhagen in December.

Considering world leaders failed us at Copenhagen and being fearful for the world my son is growing up in, I could easily feel a little despondent about the very disappointing outcome, but I’m not. What we achieved both in New Zealand and around the world changed history with the biggest global climate mobilization ever and I have no doubt we will get a fair, binding, and ambitious international treaty and ‘knock the bugger off'.

Much of my early work for the campaign was planning, researching and meeting various people to get their ideas on how we could run the most effective campaign possible. Approaching high-profile New Zealanders to become Sign On ambassadors and the face of the campaign was interesting, exciting, and a little daunting too. I was pleasantly surprised by the level of enthusiasm immediately demonstrated by the budding faces of  Sign On, and we ended up with a great, large team of trusted, high profile Kiwis from really diverse backgrounds. Actors, business people, mums, sports stars, a scientist... they all contributed hugely, from writing opinion pieces in newspapers, to dressing up as nurses at climate emergency stalls, to school visits, to meeting climate impact victims, to giving speeches, lobbying politicians, using their voice to speak up in the media and of course appear in a TV ad that brought the urgency of the issue direct into people’s homes. They all stuck their necks out. Some even very nearly got them chopped off. Lest we forget John Key’s politically dense comments about how Keisha Castle-Hughes should stick to acting.

I was pretty anxious when we officially launched the campaign at Lucy Lawless’ house - what reception would we get in the media? Would people get the campaign? Would people actually Sign On? And would we be able to actually get that beautiful, antique and heavy-as-hell boat into Lucy’s pool for a photo shoot? It all went well: got the boat in (despite Rhys Darby trying to tip it over) and the reaction from both the public and media was overwhelming.

The Sign On number quickly skyrocketed past 0 to 50,000, then 100,000 to the more than 200,000 who have Signed On to date. I admit to being a bit of a geek – every day, often hourly I’d check the ticker on the Sign On website to see how many and who had Signed On. Watching it when a TV ad was showing was great fun, with the ticker jumping by hundreds in minutes. I think one of the reasons why so many Kiwis Signed On, was of course because they want a safe climate future for the kids and a prosperous green economy, but also because we were able to say: “This is the most effective thing you can do for the climate in 2009. Changing light bulbs is important and needed, but to save the climate we need to change the laws, and to change the laws we need a target based on the science: 40% by 2020.” A simple, clear message was a mantra of the campaign team. However Lucy Lawless said it best: there is no Planet B.

A personal highlight was working closely with ordinary people prepared to get stuck-in and do something about this climate crisis. In the office I managed around four interns at any one time and all of them: Karen, Keith, Emily, Umesh, Gina, Karl, and Erica were awesome. The campaign worked with hundreds of dedicated volunteers across the country.

Straight after the launch I hit the road and organized meetings in twelve cities to spread the Sign On message and set up regional Sign On teams. Wellington was the best and worse of the all meetings. We had the biggest turn-out of any of the meetings but the council gave us the wrong key for the venue and we started very late, and they hadn’t also told us there was a pretty major sewage leak in the building, so we all had to suffer a pretty bad smell. At least it was a great metaphor for the NZ Government’s climate policy.

John Key’s new Government really didn’t rate climate as a big ticket item. He’d made some silly statements in the past on the science and despite arguing for balance ‘between the environment and economy’ proceeded in 2009 to scale-back, un-fund or slash numerous climate and environmental initiatives at the same time investing billions in new motorways and delivering a crap Emissions Trading Scheme. We didn’t have high expectations for a good 2020 target to come out of the Beehive, especially considering Treasury were arguing for a 15% increase in emissions by 2020! Climate Change Minister Nick Smith hastily organized a consultation road show over June to discuss targets with the people, which was one of the first big opportunities to really hammer home the science-based target message.

I was a bit of a consultation groupie and was lucky enough to follow Smith around the country attending the meetings. He was definitely in for a shock when at the first meeting 500 people turned up (all supporting 40%) and they had only put 100 seats out. All over NZ he got the same message. People waved 40% signs, wore Sign On stickers, gave impassioned pleas for NZ to take a good target to Copenhagen and a few even gave rousing hakas as challenges to the Minister. You can read some of my submissions here, here and here. Interestingly, at almost every meeting he quoted the exact numbers of Sign Ons. Sounds like someone checked out the website daily – must have been for Kathy’s blog posts.

The Government eventually came out with a weak and disappointing target, a highly conditionally 10-20% by 2020. But we have it on good authority that if Sign On had never been born, it could have been way worse (word on the beltway was a PLUS 8% by 2020 based on 1990 levels, rather than minus anything). In response Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change head Rajendra Pachauri said, “We clearly need a much greater level of ambition” from New Zeasland, and we picked up another Fossil of the Day Award at the international negotations (we got three of these ignoble awards this year at various international meetings) weakening our clean, green brand and international climate standing.

Once the 10-20% target was announced on it was game on and the campaign intensified. We hosted the Age of Stupid film premiere, introduced the John Key blue cast motif, (which eventually saw blue casts placed on iconic statues in countries all over the world) organized climate emergency stalls and school talks, took part in the amazing 350 Day of Action, and began to prepare for a massive Sign On 2009 climax on December 5th.

A major campaign success was finally convincing Key to go to Copenhagen. He’d previously ruled it out saying it was little more than a photo-op, and then he said there was a 5% chance, then after a bit of creative fundraising with BBQs and cakes sales across the country we raised $5000 to go towards his airfares to Copenhagen, which we delivered to him at Parliament. Eventually, he caved in and agreed to go. Ultimately 120 world leaders made their way to Copenhagen and while they didn’t achieve much, simply getting so many leaders in one room to talk climate change in itself showed the massive impact of the global climate movement.

If there is one image that for me sums up the campaign, it’s the photo of thousands of people marching in Auckland on the Planet A march just days before the start of the Copenhagen talks. It was incredible to see up to 5,000 marching in Auckland and 2000 marching in Wellington making the day the single biggest climate event ever in NZ’s history. It’s so empowering to be walking shoulder to shoulder with other people calling for a positive solution – C’mon John the climate needs us. The Planet A march was followed by a concert in Myers Park with Opshop, Midnight Youth, Don McGlashan, Lucy Lawless and Band, the Sami Sisters, and the irrepressible Rhys Darby as MC. For me, it truly was a moving experience when everyone got on stage and sang John Lennon’s Instant Karma, with reworked lyrics, “…and we all Signed On, like the moon, and the stars and the sun.” There was little more we could do to influence the talks in New Zealand, now it was up to the delegates at Copenhagen.

In a cool NZ-first the concert was streamed live to the net (you can still see it here) and this wasn’t the only innovation the campaign rolled out over the year. Scoop Editor Alistair Thompson said of the campaign: “In online campaign terms, the Sign On website is an example of online social media at its very best.” What with massive data projections, innovative emails, like the one addressed from themselves from the future, the ability for people to Sign On via the web, SMS text message, from Facebook or most interestingly by filling in a swing tag from a Huffer-designed t-shirt that people could purchase from The Warehouse - we set a high bar for 2010.

Ultimately Copenhagen was a failure, but the road to Copenhagen was most definitely a success. Never before in NZ or internationally had so many people mobilized for climate action. In NZ from 350.org.nz to Oxfam to the churches, unions, universities and businesses everyone got the need for action and succeeded in getting 120 leaders to Copenhagen. Now with the spotlight well and truly on world Governments they can’t complain the people aren’t with them on taking action on climate change. The science over 2009 only got stronger from previous years; we only have a matter of years to seriously start reducing emissions to give us any sort of  chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. As Nobel Prize-winning climatologist and Sign On ambassador Jim Salinger says “The science is bloody obvious.”

So I’m leaving Greenpeace to become New Zealand’s youngest Member of Parliament and whilst I’m sad I won’t be around for Sign On 2010, I’ll be working my hardest to represent those voices demanding 40% by 2020 in the House of Representatives. For my two-year old son Arlo, and everyone’s kids and grandkids I wish I could change the science of climate change, but I can’t, so I’m off to change the politics.