The Sandbag campaign

Sandbag was set up to improve the way in which emissions trading is working, helping to reduce the threat of climate change.
We do this in different ways:

• By lobbying to make sure the rules that dictate future levels of pollution are in line with what the science of climate change tells us

• By campaigning to reduce current pollution levels by cancelling the legal permits currently in circulation.

• By increasing public awareness of the scheme, scrutinising how it is operating and making information more easily accessible.

Over the coming weeks we will be encouraging our members to get involved in the following actions to further those aims.

Reducing Future Pollution Levels

The rules that dictate how much industrial pollution of carbon dioxide we are prepared to allow in the future are currently being debated. Last year, a deal was reached in Brussels that commits Europe a 20% reduction in the EU´s emissions (from 1990 levels) by 2020. However, this decision will be re-opened again after the UNFCCC meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 – if a global deal is reached there the reduction target will be increased to a 30% reduction. But even this isn’t ambitious enough.

The latest science and Europe’s moral obligation to show leadership on this issues tells us that we have to reduce faster than this. In addition, if Europe’s economy remains in recession for a period of time the level of targets will need to be adjusted to reflect this - otherwise if emissions are dropping anyway the trading scheme will become redundant.

We will be building our campaign throughout the year to ensure that by the time decisions are re-opened there is an overwhelming case for tougher action. We will be centring our efforts around the European Parliament elections in June and in making sure that we influence the agendas of the new Commissioners, MEPs and Committees.

We have also developed a clear and easily measurable demand for what needs to be agreed at Copenhagen at the end of the year: a rapid decarbonisation of the global power sector in order that global emissions peak and decline well within a decade. We’re very pleased that NGO colleagues at Operation Noah have also adopted the same campaigning ask.

Reducing Current Pollution Levels

Last year we began contacting companies with more permits than they need to cover their emissions, to suggest that they voluntarily cancel them rather than sell them. Unfortunately the timing could not have been worse as the current economic climate means companies such as car manufacturers and steel companies are very unwilling to give up any potential sources of income and strongly defend their allocations.

Undeterred we will continue to make the case and will be consulting our campaigning members about how they would like to assist us in this task. We are also developing plans for policy changes that will help to strengthen the case.

Firstly, we would like to see the rules that allow spare permits to be ‘carried over’ into future periods changed. This will prevent ‘hot air’ from polluting the next phase of trading and make it more likely companies will cancel at the end of the phase.

Secondly, we believe there should be tax incentives for companies who do decide to cancel rather than sell their surpluses.

Thirdly, we think it is wrong that individuals who take action to reduce their own emissions by saving electricity cannot capture the environmental benefit of their actions. At the moment their savings simply release a spare permit for the power company upstream who can sell it to someone else. We will be developing ideas for how to correct this so people are incentivised and rewarded for taking action themselves.

Making information available

In April/May of this year new data will be released that will make it possible, for the first time, to accurately compare what companies have been emitting against their allocations of permits.

To mark this occasion we will be updating our map of emissions and adding new features. We will also make the raw data available for other people to play with and develop their own visualisations, tools and campaigns.

We will also prepare reports showing how the scheme is currently working and use this information to counter act industry lobbying.