Back Issue - August 2002
Getting Governments to act on Climate
Change
Governments are meant to serve their people. But it appears
increasingly they do not. Democracies are no exception - with
the added complication of their pretending to do so, and thus
spreading confusion. Since we are all dependent on 'news'
of various kinds, and that is increasingly managed, we can
never be sure what is really going on. Governments know this,
and appoint 'spin doctors' in order to 'massage' what they
want the public to believe - other that what is really happening.
Unfortunately for them, and for the integrity of the democratic
system of electing governments, the public gets wise to an
ever-widening gap between government words and action, and
ends up disbelieving everything their governments say. So
where do we go from here?
Anyone who wants and needs a more reliable guide to what
is going on, has to become their own detective. If you study
a subject area long enough, read as many and as varied reports
as you can, check them against personal accounts (for which
the Internet and e-mailing can be invaluable), consider the
likely interests and motivations of all the authors, use your
own perceptions and what makes sense to you - you can finally
end up with a degree of consistency in which you can trust.
You
can also provide a service to others by keep stating your
consistent truth, because, if it does nothing else, it lets
your government know you are watching all its twists and turns
and will not let it get away with outright whoppers. I hope
I am right in believing that the UK newspaper-reading public
is holding its government to account better than in, say,
the USA by being that much more alert to being deceived. This
is also a reason for our writing frequent letters for publication,
from Save our World, and copying them to an increasing circle
of e-mail groups, the UK Prime Minister and other ministers,
and posting them on our Yahoo Group - despite hardly any of
them getting published in the press.
What
we also do, with an increasing number of non-governmental
(and mostly voluntary) organisations (NGOs), is to let one
another know about our current campaigns, establish means
of reciprocal support (at the simplest level by exchanging
links between web-sites) and exploring ways of forming joint
alliances or coalitions around shared concerns and issues.
This is precisely what Save our World is exploring now with
respect to demanding that all governments collectively commit
themselves to radical reductions in greenhouse gases in order
to stabilise the world's climate - while there is still time
to do so. The previous Boiling Point: '60% in 50 years by
means of C&C' spells out the need.
NOW WE WANT TO KNOW, FROM YOU, WHICH OTHER
ORGANISATIONS WILL SUPPORT SUCH AN ALLIANCE OR COALITION
in order to achieve a critical mass of public awareness and
demand on governments to commit to the essential greenhouse
gas reductions
So how will this get governments to act on climate change,
and is it the best or only method? We cannot be sure, but
have reason to suppose public pressure was very influential
in: stopping Shell sink the Brent Spa oil platform; throwing
out the corporation-serving Multilateral Agreement on Investments;
halting the sale of genetically modified food in the UK; and
getting Michael Meacher reinstated on the UK government's
delegation to the World Summit. On the other hand, fuel tax
protests also 'destabilised a secure if not serene government,
persuading Gordon Brown to junk all his lofty talk of green
taxes and resource efficiency', according to Jonathon Porritt,
writing in the special 50 page Earth Supplement in The Guardian
on 22 August. So, even public pressure requires constraints
of some kind, if mutually conflicting protest movement are
not to end up in civil strife.
Jonathon
Porritt, in the same article, advocates 'compelling companies
to go green and ethical on behalf of consumers' whom he believes
are so wedded to consume that they 'won't do it for themselves'.
But who, other than representatives of civil society, will
ever apply enough pressure on governments to bring such an
unlikely eventuality about? Geoge Monbiot, writing in the
same supplement, calls for 'a world parliament, perhaps, with
the moral authority and democratic legitimacy all other global
bodies lack'. This is an aspiration that many of us may share
- but that can only come about through extensive citizen action,
directed effectively through altruistic alliances and coalitions.
There
are other methods, and they also can be used,
but I have not yet found one that, on its own, avoids compromise
of one's bottom line: to get these greenhouse gas concentrations
down to a level that can stabilise the climate. Previous Boiling
Points (now Back Issues) have addressed institutional as well
as personal denial, and the culture of 'scientific reasonableness'
that assumes 'if only people knew they would act' and objections
of 'political realism', and governmental 'suppression' of
information by 'downgrading those issues upon which little
progress has been made' - see the Back Issue on Creeping Denial
- and Facing it Head On.
Underlying
these areas of compromise are conflicts of interests, intentions
and motivations, which were reviewed in their supposedly detached
scientific expression in one controversial publication, in
the Back Issue entitled Denial, Justification and Deception
about the Climate Crisis, (whose deceitful trickery is repeated
by the author, Bjorn Lomborg, in the same Earth Supplement
of The Guardian). This Issue incidentally contains sections,
early on, about the most authoritative and reliable data on
Climate Change and its impacts. The same subject area was
also central to the next Back Issue, entitled It all comes
down to what you care about most.
That
Issue ended with a personal illustration of the difficulties
faced in trying to present a candid assessment of hindrances
besetting the UK Government's efforts to increase public awareness
of climate change. Although this assessment was carried out
for a UN stakeholder working group it was declined presentation
at the organisation's own conference, for reasons which I
can only conclude were to avoid 'rocking the boat' with the
Government or 'making waves'. Although it was 'too hot to
handle' for that organisation, it nevertheless forms the original
item on our Challenge page.
Reference
has already been made, in the Issue on '60% in 50 years by
means of C&C', to the failure of 'reasonable' methods
to get climate change adequately addressed at the World Summit.
It now appears that the conciliatory agreements with the US
Administration not to raise climate change on the agenda -
have come unstuck, with President Bush staying away in any
case! The obvious response is to stick it back on, as expressed
in our letter to The Guardian of 19 August (Yahoo Group message
101), but it appears that only an independent campaigning
organisation, such as Save our World, has the freedom of action
to make this demand immediately. The same is true of our prompt
response to Michael Meacher's eventual reply to our letter
of 22 February (also on the Challenge page), which I am told
will catch up with him on his way to the Summit.
Although
our independent position may make us freer to act than most,
this situation is in almost inverse relationship with our
public standing and influence. Our having 'nothing to lose'
but our integrity, indicates our lack of public standing,
undertakings, agreements and commitments. The opposite position
probably explains the cautiousness of the UN stakeholder body
mentioned above, and why the larger environmental NGOs did
not refuse to be party to the conciliatory agreements not
to raise climate change at the Summit. We are not the 'rescuing
knights' of the process, but representative of a role with
particular advantages and drawbacks.
Occasionally
an unpredictable turn of events can suddenly provide unique
opportunities for official delegates to act with the same
spontaneity as we can in our role. Such an opportunity could
be provided at this World Summit, by the current 'string of
climate-related disasters that are being reported almost daily,
of which the 'Asian brown cloud' and severe floods in Prague,
across Europe and in other regions are among the latest, at
the time of writing' (to quote from our latest response to
Michael Meacher). Let us hope that someone like Tony Blair
at least lays our climate-specific challenge on the table
for all countries later to address, in sudden fear that the
citizens of the world will otherwise judge the politicians
at this Summit like Emperor Nero, as "fiddling while
Rome burns". And we can, and do, support non-governmental
representatives to take full advantage of such opportunities.
Much
as we might like to think otherwise, we have to deal with
governments, at the other end of the freedom-to-act --- public-influence
spectrum from ourselves. So there is no avoiding the title
of this Boiling Point issue: Getting Governments to act on
Climate Change. We can and do try shaming them, as in our
USA Petition. We can and do try the carrot-and-stick approach,
by flattering Tony Blair to make the grand gesture at the
World Summit, and then hint, in our next letter, that it could
be up to any world leader to do. We can try embarrassing them,
by pointing out their conflicts of interest in promoting public
awareness of climate change et al. We can try goading them,
with the support of the insurance industry, which needs governments
to anticipate and prevent what has been termed 'terrifying'
consequences of climate-related disasters (forecast to cause
world bankruptcy by 2065). We can and do expose their hypocrisy,
when it comes to following major environmental speeches with
petrol-tax reductions the following day. And we can and do
try persuading them - to include our greenhouse gas proposal
via the UN stakeholder group representatives at the preparatory
meetings for the Summit. What we do not do is back down or
give way. And that is where developing our compassionate determination
and other qualities play a vital part.
I
have not dealt, in this Boiling Point, with the published
claims that the corporate sector is usurping governments and
the UN and hijacking this Summit (see Tony Juniper's article
'Smoke Screen' in The Guardian on 31 July, and George Monbiot's
'Corporate Capture' on 20 August). George may be right to
assert that the Summit will not only fail to tackle the ecological
crisis but make it worse. But neither authors indicate what
we can do about it. We are in the business of stating what
'must happen', not weakening our stance by accepting others'
views of what 'will happen'. That would be to adopt the role
of victim.
I
do not think it helps to develop a block mentality, which
treats those in particular roles as all the same, despite
the institutionalised pressures which tend to support such
a view. Instead I believe we have to focus just on what needs
to be done, and doing it, and not being put off by those who
try to persuade us it is 'unrealistic'. The only reality,
to state it once more, is that climate change is happening
and will continue to accelerate until commensurate action
is taken to halt it. And for that purpose, by far our best
bet is our starting point, for it addresses the activities
of both corporations and governments.
This is to point out the extreme urgency of campaigning
and coalition building, as the only way yet with a chance
of creating an effective demand on governments to commit to
essential greenhouse gas reductions. Come and get involved!
Use the feedback facility below.
(C)
Jim Scott 23/8/2002
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If you prefer, you can email
your comments directly to Jim Scott, Chairperson of Save
Our World.
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