Hello, and welcome to the second edition of From a Climate Correspondent.
As mentioned in last week's opening, we’re keen to bring in more voices and perspectives, so please do get in touch if you’re reporting on the climate crisis and this has sparked thoughts you’d like to share.
This issue focuses on Hong Kong, where India Bourke has been mulling the common threads between two protest movements that have shaken the world in 2019.
Thanks for reading!
From a Climate Correspondent team - India, Jocelyn, Lou and Mat
Hope against the odds
Letter no. 2 by India Bourke in Hong Kong
Image credit: India Bourke
It’s a Friday afternoon in a Hong Kong coffee shop and students are typing away on laptops. So far, so normal. Except that many are here because they can no longer work inside their universities after campuses became the latest battleground in a city fearful of encroachment by Beijing.
The vast and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests have bled into daily life in countless ways since I arrived in June, so it only feels right that they seep into this letter too -- not least since the echoes with the climate movement are increasingly on my mind.
On the surface, the two issues may appear to have zero in common. And it would be easy to dismiss climate protest here as a non-starter: that pressing for planetary stability has to take a back-seat when your democratic rights are under threat.
However the more time I’ve spent talking to those in the tear-gas-filled streets, or reporting on the human-chains stretching up the city’s highest peaks, the more I’ve been struck by the sense that the two endeavours are linked: in their shared currents of fellow-feeling, in the effort to stand up for future generations, and in the pursuit of hope against the odds.
"We burn, you burn with us"
One night that these connections particularly struck me was a November vigil to commemorate the death of student Alex Chow Tsz-lok, who fell from a multi-storey car-park near where protesters clashed with police.
Thousands turned out to mark his passing, standing for hours in lines of condolence that snaked around the empty, concrete floors. Many were carrying white flowers and votive cancels that filled the air with a sweet, vanilla scent -- as if we weren’t in a carpark but a cathedral.
"When you ask me what I want to do next, I want to die; I think it’s a tragedy to live in Hong Kong right now," said a 23 year-old recent sociology graduate I met in the queue, fighting back tears.
"I can already see and feel the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) encroachment," he added, reeling off a list of things that he fears will be further eroded, from independent thought to faith in the police.
This sense of hopelessness is common -- summed up by the protesters’ ominous Hunger Games catchphrase: "We burn, you burn with us".
It is one that reminds me of the deep, existential dread felt by many in the climate movement: of Greta’s "we probably don't even have a future anymore", and of the imagery of grief woven into Extinction Rebellion’s blood-red robes and mass “die-ins”.
"One thing I can hope for”
Yet far from leading to a loss of energy, these acts of mourning also seem to encourage a renewed will to resist.
In Hong Kong, they are usually followed by an up-tick in protest action and by a hardened resolve to stand firm with all those in need. In Madrid, climate activists have gathered afresh this week to pressure world leaders, after a year that has collectively grieved losses in human and natural worlds alike.
"I never want to become someone who only cares about what’s happening in his own home," the 23-year old in car-park told me before we parted ways, “that is one thing I can hope for."
This shared upswell of empathy among young people around the world doesn’t feel like it will fade anytime soon. And I keep wondering, walking through this transforming city, whether their causes might yet weave together in even closer ways.
Must reads from the region
EU burn with us: SCMP, 11 Nov A key China headline going into COP25 is sadly not an optimistic one. The country is set to add new coal fired power plants equivalent to the EU’s entire current capacity, a study in November showed. It is also backing vast coal expansion outside its borders. This piece by Melissa Brown and Ghee Peh from IEEFA raises the concern that the outcome will not be “clean”.
Powering through: Inkstone, Sept 2018 Photographer and miner Song Chao’s portraits of Chinese mine workers explores the human side to the story. (video by Xinyan Yu)
“Not as scary as I imagined”: SCMP, 10 November China may be the world’s biggest emitter, but there is as yet no widespread public demand for change. There are many reasons for this, including the government’s tight control over all forms of dissent. Yet, some young people are making a stand. Laurie Chen spoke to two of them.
Fire chickens and inhaling cats: BBC, 21 October One of the joys of moving to a new country is seeing familiar things through the lens of new words. Frankie Huang’s drawings dive into this idea and sends splashes of new connections flying out in all directions -- a useful reminder that thinking is a creaturely thing. Interviewed here by Yvette Tan.
And when words feel not enough: New York Times, 26 November If you read one thing on the Hong Kong protests, I recommend you make it this incredible portrait of city transformed by Karen Cheung. Nothing for me has yet captured so well the many layers of emotion hanging in the air.
What else I've been watching...
“Not a dictator”? - Michael Bloomberg interview on PBS, 27 September
Michael Bloomberg made some controversial comments in September during a discussion of President Xi Jinping's success in reducing air pollution. As he joins the Democratic field for president, they are worth watching again. And asking: as emissions reduction becomes a tool of soft power, what wrongs might it be used to hide?