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Last chance to avert climate change lies with third sector

Finance | Tania Mason | 13 Jan 2009

Civil society organisations hold the only remaining key to averting catastrophic climate change and must seize the opportunity now to mobilise their supporters and beneficiaries, according to an influential new report from Green Alliance.

The new politics of climate change - why we are failing and how we will succeed argues that the only way governments will be persuaded to overcome their current inertia on the issue is if public attitudes to the problem change.

And the only way the public will be persuaded to change their own behaviour and thus influence governments to take real action, is if they are mobilised to do so by the civil society organisations that they trust.

The report, by Green Alliance director Stephen Hale, says that until now pressure for action on climate change has been driven by environmental groups, but it is time the rest of the sector realised the impact that global warming will have on their constituents, and began characterising it as a problem that will directly affect them. "We must unleash the full power of the sector," he said.

Impact on wider social and economic issues

Hale said success would only come through establishing widespread understanding of the connection between climate change and many other social and economic issues - international development, poverty, security, immigration, young people.

"The prospect of lasting progress in these and many other areas depends to a great extent on whether and how we tackle climate change.

"The rapid growth of action by faith and development groups, trade unions and community initiatives such as transition towns, are evidence that this is beginning to happen. But far more is needed. The third sector holds the key to this....it has a historic opportunity, and responsibility, to mobilise on climate change."

The report explains why governments and businesses haven't yet delivered solutions to the problem and concludes that the one remaining hope is public concern and action, as it is this that will persuade governments to take the regulatory actions that are needed.

New model of leadership

Hale suggests a new model of third sector leadership on climate change driven by a much wider variety of motives than just environmental. This should come from four quarters: national leadership and action by the third sector; by community, local and regional groups; a mass movement of people living a low-carbon lifestyle and creating peer pressure, and lastly strong third sector networks at European and global level.

Hale's proposals seem to have found some favour with climate change minister Ed Miliband, who was quoted in The Guardian last month calling for a mass movement to put pressure on world leaders to finally act on the issue.

He suggested a campaign based on the Make Poverty History model, but Hale's report said this model was inappropriate, because it was based wholly on lobbying. "We will need both a much higher degree of political mobilisation and a greater degree of personal action in order to succeed," Hale said.

Sector mapping project now needed

He said a detailed mapping of the national third sector organisations that could be engaged on climate change, and the social and political effect of involving them, was now urgently required.

In conclusion, Hale said: "I do not underestimate the scale of this challenge. It will require a vast investment of leadership, imagination and money to make this a reality.

"But there is no other pathway to success. The third sector can and must rise to this."

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Who's Who: Tania Mason