NGOs and climate change: shall we all just go home? Alex Evans

August 28, 2009 | More on Climate and resource scarcity, Influence and networks | 5 comments

And so to TckTckTck.org, the most pointless NGO campaign of the year, upon whom I heaped ridicule earlier this month for their fabulously vague policy position that Copenhagen should produce “an ambitious, fair and binding climate change agreement”. After a period of silence, TckTckTck have now been in touch via email, and have explained that

We’d been waiting for our site to officially launch so that we could point you and your readers to a resource that specifically addresses your questions. The site launched earlier this week, and we’ve put this page together for that purpose.

And so (drum roll), here’s the real policy platform.

Fair

- Reduce developed country emissions by at least 40% by 2020.

- Enable and support poor countries to adapt to the worst consequences of the climate crisis, reduce their emissions and ensure technology sharing including through the provision of sufficient public funds.

- Protect marginalized communities in rich and poor countries.

Ambitious

- Ensure that global greenhouse emissions peak no later than 2017.

- Create a pathway to clean jobs and clean energy for all.

- Establish necessary conditions for a sustainable and prosperous future for people, flora and fauna.

Binding

- Agree to a legally binding international agreement that can be verified and enforced

Saints preserve us - that’s the detailed policy position?

OK, we do have two pieces of specificity here in the 40% 2020 target (though they forgot to stipulate 1990 as the baseline – a schoolboy error that the Japanese and others will have immense fun with in a few months’ time), and the 2017 peaking date. But where the hell is the global context – the definition of some kind of overarching objective, like a ppm stabilisation target? Where is it explained how we will achieve stabilisation at any level without quantified targets for developing countries – a subject not even alluded to here via the usual unspecific platitudes about common but differentiated responsibilities?

This “policy position” is no more specific than what we had before; instead, it’s simply more verbose. We have a call for “sufficient public funds” for developing countries, but no number attached to it. A reference to “a pathway to clean jobs and clean energy for all”, but no tests so that policymakers or members of the public can determine whether any given set of actions is adequate. The motherhood and apple pie of “necessary conditions for a sustainable and prosperous future for people, flora and fauna”, followed a moment later – with no discernible sense of irony – with calls for an agreement “that can be verified and enforced”.

Um, guys, this isn’t any better. TckTckTck will doubtless say in their defence that they’re trying to communicate a highly complex area in a way that will resonate with the public. But the obvious rejoinder to that is that surely the point of this campaign – if there is a point - is to influence negotiators at Copenhagen. And if the policy asks are so vague that negotiators themselves can’t tell whether they’re meeting NGOs’ headline asks, then you can bet your bottom dollar that those NGOs are failing to influence the process in any meaningful way.

I wasn’t the greatest fan of the Make Poverty History campaign. But at least MPH made damn sure that politicians were aware at every stage exactly what they wanted. Yes, their headline asks were broad brush narratives (“more and better aid”, etc.) – but beneath those headline asks were detailed papers with highly specific, concrete demands. All of us understood that if the Government failed to deliver them, then that fact would be crystal clear to everyone – which, in turn, gave the NGOs’ mass mobilisation real leverage.

If, by contrast, MPH’s policy platform had been this vague, then there would have been nothing to stop any government from doing exactly what it was planning to do anyway, all while claiming to be delivering MPH’s asks. Which, alas, is exactly what will happen at Copenhagen – and why policymakers think the NGOs are irrelevant. Sure, ministers will meet campaigners to accept their petitions and have their photos taken with them. But let’s not for one second mistake that for influence.

5 comments »

Dan Smith on August 28th, 2009 at 3:20 pm:

I didn’t get it at first. I thought TckTckTck was your attempt to put in printed form the tetchy expression of irritation you felt as you wrote. Silly me! It’s their name. Good choice.
Rob on August 28th, 2009 at 4:07 pm:

Alex

I think some of this is fair, some of it not. There’s no excuse for tck tck tck not mentioning the baseline year. And I am surprised they do not articulate a headline figure for public climate finance. Climate Action Network, which coordinates climate advocacy across NGOs, has certainly managed to achieve sufficient consensus among its members to do so.

Whilst getting your asks right should be easy, specifying a single over-arching objective is difficult. MPH didn’t have one – unless you consider Make Poverty History sufficiently specific – which, judging from your post above, I’m guessing you do not. To focus, as you suggest, on a mitigation objective would exclude adaptation, just as to focus only on debt would have excluded aid and trade from MPH. And 350ppm, whilst certainly appealing, runs into trouble further down the line: whilst most NGOs would support such an objective in principle, the fact that there has been no emissions pathway calculated for this stabilisation level makes it impossible to articulate consistent, robust asks for mid-term emissions targets – which of course is where the negotiations are at.

And to be fair to them, the NGOs behind tck tck tck have extremely detailed policy positions of which policymakers are well aware. If you want to see how nose-bleedingly detailed, check out Treaty 1.0 at http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/?uNewsID=166281. It includes a draft legal text with NGO asks on all aspects of the negotiations and represents a more comprehensive policy position than those of many parties to the convention. There has certainly been a tremendous amount of lobby into negotiators and policymakers on the back of this document and others like it.

As you may have guessed by now, I work on climate at an NGO. And myself and my colleagues have regular meetings with negotiators, policymakers, special advisers and ministers across whitehall, and not just to hand over petitions. Over the course of these meetings, whilst I have certainly at times felt that I am an irritant, I’ve never felt that I’m considered an irrelevance!
Alex Evans on August 29th, 2009 at 8:48 am:

Hi Rob

I’m not saying that *individual* NGOs don’t have credible policy positions on climate and energy. As you say, WWF’s legal text is a case in point: it’s extremely specific, a superb piece of work, and if it were only TckTckTck’s position too, then I woulnd’t be writing tetchy blog posts like this one. Similarly, among the development NGOs Tearfund’s pioneering work on climate comes immediately to mind (as I’ve said here before – http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/03/26/come-on-ngos-raise-your-game/); Oxfam has been way ahead of the game on biofuels, to take another example.

My critique is instead about the collective positions that underpin coalitions. TckTckTck is falling into the same old trap that Stop Climate Chaos fell into before it – the NGOs involved can’t agree their position, so they go for verbiage instead, and forfeit their policy edge in the process. And whatever you say, no-one thought SCC was relevant on international climate policy; how could they, when no-one (least of all SCC itself) could articulate what it wanted?

So take for example the question of a stabilisation target (which is what I meant by an overarching objective). You refer to the methodological difficulties in translating 350 ppm to a medium term emissions target. But what you don’t say is that after lengthy dust-ups on this, TckTckTck members were actually unable to agree on one – because 350.org and various others wouldn’t back down on 350ppm, whereas another faction felt that only 450ppm would be seen as credible by policymakers.

And if the main global NGO coalition on climate can’t even agree on the level at which we should be aiming to stabilise the climate, then it’s hard to see how they can claim to be holding policymakers to account on same.

A
C. Ellis on August 31st, 2009 at 11:23 am:

Wonder what the male:female ratio is at TckTckTck?
Alison on September 7th, 2009 at 1:17 pm:

I completely disagree that the point of TckTckTck is to have the policy edge.

It should be the main coalition for mobilising the voices of the public – it should mobilise grannies, families, young people, and people many who have never demonstrated before into saying that we want urgent and ambitious action. That is what MPH did, it is what the Stop the War coalition did, it is what the Democracy for Scotland alliance did. Each of these were principle based, non-exclusive and made a big noise. They opened a space for many voices to be heard – all building to one bug voice for action.

The more detailed the policy, the more you alienate much of the public. I am not saying the policy as stated is perfect, but he in-fighting between NGOs to have their specific issue included or arguing over small detail are counter productive for such alliances.

As stated already, behind the TckTckTck campaign are a number of NGOs who are working together to put the policy detail to the people who need to hear it. In the UK the BOND Development and Environment group does a fantastic job of co-ordinating NGO voices to government. There is a great deal of coherence in the UK NGO messaging (largely in line with CAN messaging) to government, but also space for individual NGOs to get their points across. The NGOs are developing policy red lines against which the Copenhagen outcome will be judged.

TckTckTck should be the rallying cry, opening space for many voices. Not the dictator of policy.

The Green movement has failed so far to bring the public out together in force on climate change – I am not yet sure if TckTckTck will either but I hope to goodness that it does.

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