Amsterdam: half a century after a small group of radicals created Greenpeace, the head of an environmental organization warned that it was still far from the climate crisis before it could really celebrate it.
Made on September 15, 1971 when the boat with the same name tried to stop the US nuclear test, Greenpeace was one of the most famous action groups in the world with the title.
But the 50th warning of the organization is expected to be a calm affair, Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, told AFP.
“There isn’t much that can be celebrated at this time.
We are in an emergency climate,” Morgan said in an interview at the Group Headquarters in a simple office block on the outskirts of Amsterdam.
Morgan said he was “very worried” that the world’s response would fail at the crucial COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in October.
“Everything we have done for 50 years, we have to gather together now and spread it to create truly radical and deep changes.
Time runs out.” Greenpeace’s journey starts idealistically, if it doesn’t work, with the first sailing from the port of Canada Vancouver.
The offer by the “Greenpeace” ship to stop the nuclear test from Alaska Beach was cut when the police intervened.
Since then, the achievement of the organization includes helping to stop the hunt for commercial whales, targeting fossil fuels of companies, working to stop toxic dumping and protect Antarctica, Morgan said.
Surrounded by memorabilia of the history of Greenpeace including a colorful campaign posters and ship doors kicked by Russian officials in 2013, Morgan said the core principles of the organization remained the same today.
“Greenpeace starts as an illustration that individuals can change the world with ideas and a little hope,” Morgan said, who took the group’s leaders in 2016.
“I think more than 50 years old Greenpeace has achieved things that are truly magical.” There is also a tragedy between victory.
In 1985, the French Secret Service bombed the seed Greenpeace “Rainbow Warrior” temporarily docked in Auckland, New Zealand, killing Portuguese photographers Fernando Pereira.
Greenpeace activists “mark that date every year” and the organization remains alert to the government, with activists in Brazil, Indonesia and China, especially facing personal risks.
Greenpeace has been greatly expanded from the start and now has from 3,500 staff operating around 55 countries – almost the amount of several targeted multinational companies.
But Morgan insisted that the group was still “radical” despite the emergence of younger rivals such as rebellion rebellion, which had gathered great attention to activists who attached themselves to buildings or blocked roads and bridges.
Known in the past for their own action, Greenpeace is now increasingly embracing other strategies including climate-based legal actions against the government and pollutants.
Morgan said Greenpeace was also more cooperating with other environmental groups and with indigenous peoples – the things he said the group should do more often.
It will also be involved with the 26 COP summit, “fundamental moment for planets” that are feared by countries may not seize.
“I am very worried, what I see today is the government that almost acts as if we are back in the 1980s” in terms of their urgency level in the climate, he said.
He also called for the summit to be postponed if developing countries could not be present due to the lack of covid-19 vaccine.
For his birthday, Greenpeace has planned a small scale event in the office around the world on Thursday.
At the celebration in Germany in August, Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the group as “persistent, growth, steadfast, and persuasive”.
So what’s ahead for Greenpeace for the next 50 years? “I think the goal is that Greenpeace doesn’t exist anymore,” Morgan said.
But assuming the environmental campaign will face more battles ahead, he said he hopes Greenpeace can help create a “critical point where there is a movement to hope”.