Is social media making any difference in Copenhagen?

Taking a look at what the slew of social media initiatives have, and haven’t, accomplished for climate change.

The world’s most powerful leaders have convened in Copenhagen to reach an agreement that will help save our planet from rising seas and violent hurricanes. But millions of people around the world are doing some convening of their own. Social media initiatives in support of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) have exploded, inspiring tens of millions of regular people to do their part with just a few mouse clicks. But how big an impact can a few mouse clicks really have? Quite a lot, but it depends how you use them.

There are dozens of sites dedicated to getting people to demand an agreement be reached at the conference, but a few big ones are leading the way. Hopenhagen is one of the simpler efforts, asking people to digitally sign a petition by telling the world what gives them hope for the future. More than 1.7 million people have contributed so far.

Another 440,000 people have signed a similar petition on Seal the Deal’s site, an initiative run by the UN. In true social media fashion, the efforts are not being confined to websites – Kofi Annan’s Tck Tck Tck organization has a successful Twitter, Facebook and YouTube campaign to go along with the more than 10 million people who have pledged support through their website. Most of the other organizations can also boast multi-platform efforts.

YouTube itself is running a joint campaign with CNN called Raise Your Voice. It’s aimed at raising awareness by having people submit call to action videos and questions that will be answered during a debate broadcast live from the conference center. More than 4 million people have visited the YouTube channel.

ActiveBE is also using a video campaign to raise awareness of the climate change issue, which is noteworthy because they are using the COP15 hype to highlight the little know fact that the leading producer of CO2 isn’t transportation or industry, but buildings. Hundreds have signed the petition to shed more light on this issue and thousands visited the site to learn more.

The number of supporters is unquestionably impressive – all told it’s in the tens of millions. In terms of spreading knowledge, awareness and enthusiasm, the social media initiatives have been a resounding success, and those things are instrumental in garnering support on a global scale. But whether these efforts are having any impact on the proceedings in Copenhagen is another matter. Barack Obama officially stated a month ago that no binding agreement will be reached in Copenhagen, but rather they hope to reach an agreement that shows strong “intent.” The social media campaigns all state that they exist to unite people in demanding leaders come to a binding agreement with specific targets. It’s unlikely that particular goal will be met, and there is no mention of what will be done with these signatures and followers after the conference. Generating actual change has been a recurring problem with social media drives, as when Twitter helped Iranians subvert government censorship, but ultimately didn’t change anything.

That isn’t to say the climate change efforts have gone to waste. Pushing for an agreement is only part of the goal – creating widespread awareness of the problem and enthusiasm to do something is just as a big a part of these campaigns. Millions of people have taken an active interest where they would have otherwise been passive observers, if they had noticed the conference at all. But the potential impact of these communities has been far from reached. With a different focus, they could be petitioning local politicians with concrete demands, raising money for renewable energy research or organizing more demonstrations like the UK’s Wave project recently did. Without real world action, social media initiatives simply make people feel like they’ve done their part without actually accomplishing anything.

The most telling question will ultimately be: what will these communities do if world leaders fail to come through? If the answer is nothing, their level of success will be limited to a brief awareness campaign in connection to the conference. But if they continue to mobilize people and affect real change, then Copenhagen could go down as the launching pad of something much bigger, even if the politicians themselves accomplish nothing.

How effectively do you think social media has been used at COP15?

Jason
Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both
traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of
the ad industry.