Download Civil Society Organizations, Climate Change Politics and Policy

Civil Society Organizations, Climate Change Politics and Policy – Global, International
and National
Chair: Ian McGregor,
Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney (UTS)
Panel:
Ian McGregor,
Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney (UTS)
- Global Climate Policy Coalitions – NGOs and Networks in the Global Climate Change Policy
Process
Jennifer N. Brass,
Assistant Professor, School of Public & Environmental Affairs, Indiana University
- Collaborative Power for Development: NGOs and the governance of distributed electricity
programs in Africa
Rosemary Leonard,
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia
- The importance of trust in environmental organizations for promoting environmental action in
civil society
Climate change is not just another emerging issue requiring a simple technical adjustment or
minor managerial reorientation; in order to address it effectively requires a total reorientation of
socio-political structures, technological and economic systems. This is why it is an extreme
wicked problem because it combines a ‘badlands’ problem with high technological complexity
and high socio-economic and organisational complexity (Berdish 2001) and a problem which can
best be understood by ‘post-normal science’ (Ravetz 1999) – one that acknowledges both high
systems complexity and the politics of high decision stakes.
Climate change has become one of the major economic, political, moral and social challenge
of our times. With the latest scientific data suggesting dramatic changes in climate, declining
biodiversity, and growing resource scarcity (Richardson, et al 2009), climate change has
profound implications for all organizations and forms of organizing. However, long-term and
systemic changes to our environment are difficult to comprehend, let alone solve. The
complexity and scale of the situation suggest that dealing with climate change involves not only
considering the science but also imagining what the future might hold and organising in order
tom make that future more ecologically and socially sustainable. The response to climate change
is fundamentally affected by the way organizational actors (governments, corporations, scientific
communities, lobby groups, the media and religious and community organizations) imagine and
communicate a present-day image of future climate changed worlds and seek to bring these
worlds into reality.
The objective of this panel is to provide a forum for insights into how various civil society
organizations seek to influence climate change politics and policy. This complex policy process
takes place at a number of levels, global, international, regional and local. This panel looks at
civil society organizations as one of the many policy actors involved in this process and how
they interact with other policy actors.
This panel looks at the process at the global, international (Africa) and the national (Australian)
level and employs a number of theoretical approaches to provide insights to the process.
The panel will begin by focusing on civil society organizations at the global level and how they
seek to influence the policy process. Dr Ian McGregor will present his research on Climate
Action Network, a global collaborative network NGOs with over 600 environmental, climate and
social justice NGOs participating as member through national and regional nodes.
The focus will then move to Africa where Dr Jennifer Brass and her colleagues have researched
the role of NGOs in collaborative governance in relation to energy and climate policy. The focus
will then move to the national level within Australia where Dr Rosemary Leonard and
ZoeLeviston have conducted an extensive survey which assesses the trust in environmental
organizations and its impact on climate change action in civil society.
Paper Title
Global Climate Policy Coalitions – NGOs and Networks in the Global Climate Change Policy
Process
Author
Ian McGregor, [email protected]; University of Technology, Sydney (Presenter)
Abstract
For more than 25 years, the complex process of global climate change governance has failed to
develop an effective global policy response to the challenge represented by the scientific
evidence on man-made global warming. One major reason for this failure is the nature of the
climate change problem in that it is a “super wicked problem” (Lazarus 2009) as it combines a
“badlands” problem with high socio-economic and organizational complexity (Berdish 2001)
with “post-normal” science – high systems complexity and high decision stakes (Ravetz 1999).
The aim of this research is to contribute, through empirical research to a theory of international
interorganizational collaboration by NGOs for the purposes of influencing public policy
outcomes in a global context. Similar interorganizational collaboration has been identified in
other global public policy contexts (Price 1998). By focusing on a particular case study of the
global climate change policy process and the role of Climate Action Network (a network NGO)
within that process, it highlights how interorganizational collaboration has been particularly
important, despite the challenges of achieving successful collaboration in an extremely complex
context. Other research has highlighted the complex challenges and difficulties faced in
achieving successful interorganizational collaboration (Hibbert & Huxham 2010). Although this
research also highlights some of the complex challenges in achieving interorganizational
collaboration, it also highlights how the global institutional context makes interorganizational
collaboration to form policy coalitions a necessity.
The research also develops and applies a theoretical framework in order to show how through
collaborating within global policy coalitions, governments, businesses and third-sector
organizations seek to influence the outcome of the global climate change policy process. This
framework is used to illustrate the importance of two major types of interorganizational
collaboration in the global climate policy process. The first type is interorganizational
collaboration between non-governmental organizations (both not-for-profit and for-profit). The
second and even more important and influential type is interorganizational collaboration between
governments and non-government organizations (including corporations) in order to influence
the policy outcomes through these global policy coalitions. These collaborations represent a
strategic approach to achieve each government’s or organization’s preferred outcome within this
extremely complex global climate policy process. Power in this process is widely diffused so
collaboration is needed to build more powerful policy coalitions.
The global climate change policy process had been unable to successfully resolve the
contestation between the competing global policy coalitions. This is needed in order to develop
and implement an effective global agreement on the fair, ambitious and binding policy actions
and measures needed to address the risk of dangerous climate change. This paper reviews the
importance of interorganizational collaboration between a wide variety of geographically
dispersed organizations, including NGOs, in forming these competing global policy coalitions.
This represents an important gap in the research on interorganizational collaboration within the
processes of global public policy.
These interorganizational collaborations are therefore needed to build policy coalitions; however,
as there is more than one major global policy coalition. Each coalition therefore competes within
the global climate change policy institutional context to influence the policy outcomes towards
its preferred outcomes. Acosta (2011) recently published some related re research focusing on
the role of Advocacy Networks across a range of issues.
The political battles using power and ideas between the policy coalitions take place within the
institutions of climate change governance at a national, supranational and at a global level
(McGregor 2009; Schreurs & Tiberghien 2007). Climate change is clearly an issue which
involves multi-level governance (Lidskog & Elander 2009). The focus of this research, however,
is on global interorganizational collaborations to form global policy coalitions and the outcome
of the contestation between these policy coalitions at the global level. Each member of the policy
coalition generally shares common or similar goals for the outcomes of policy processes or is
encouraged to adopt similar goals as in order to have an impact on the global climate policy
outcome (Sewell 2005). More limited contestation occurs within policy coalitions on major
policy issues, for example, over preferences for carbon taxes or emissions trading or other
policies and measures (McGregor 2009). The research also indicates that there is some
ideological underpinning of these policy coalitions which assists in achieving the level of
interorganizational collaboration needed to form a policy coalition.
While much theorizing remains to be done in this emerging view of the importance of
organizational collaboration in building policy coalitions in global climate change policy, this
research represents an important step forward by highlighting the importance of policy coalitions
in the global public policy process.
Paper Title
Collaborative Power for Development: NGOs and the governance of distributed electricity
programs in Africa
Author
Jennifer Brass, [email protected]; School for Public & Environmental Affairs (Presenter)
Abstract
According to the International Energy Agency [1], approximately 20% of the world’s population
lacks access to electricity. Furthermore, nearly 40% relies on traditional biomass, mostly wood,
to cook. In Africa, the problem is more severe, where over 65% of the population lacks access to
electric power, and 80% use biomass for cooking. This lack of access to electricity and clean fuel
sources has several negative consequences. Entrepreneurs cannot develop certain types of
businesses; students can only read in daylight hours; and, women inefficiently spend hours
walking increasingly longer distances to collect firewood [2]. Cutting and burning wood,
moreover, degrades air quality and can contribute to long-term health problems in the
community. More broadly, forests shrink, and deserts expand, aggravating poverty, land disputes
and food insecurity while spurring global climate change [3].
While efforts to increase access to electricity through the expansion of national electric grids
continue, in many parts of Africa, a new localized electrification strategy is being pursued [4].
Sometimes, organizations act individually to bring energy; but more often programs are initiated
through partnerships, bringing donors, governments, NGOs and communities into collaborative
efforts with energy businesses. This type of collaborative governance is particularly common for
the provision of small-scale, decentralized energy technologies, referred to as “distributed
generation,” or DG. For example, a DG program might power an entire village in Ghana by
installing solar photovoltaic panels on one central building, such as the elementary school in
town.
This new type of small-scale energy program has proliferated in Africa and across the
developing world over the past decade, yet the successful implementation of these distributed
generation projects has been uneven. While a few dramatic success stories have been popularized
in bestselling books [5] and journalistic reports [6, 7] the conditions for positive impacts and
sustainability have yet to be investigated. Scholarship on the political economy of energy policy,
moreover, lags behind. Literature from the field of energy development focuses on the
relationships between energy and poverty, health, and environmental change, but does not delve
into the political actors or governance processes of these new solutions. Meanwhile, the literature
on co-production and NGOs examines the role of multi-level partnerships and non-state actors in
service provision generally, but has yet to address these dynamics in the energy sector.
This paper begins to remedy the gap in scholarship. It first provides an overview of the ways in
which NGOs are engaged in DG programs, including a typology of collaborative partnerships
and the roles most commonly pursued by NGOs in them. Then, drawing on both original
research and existing case study analysis, we present an analysis of conditions for successful
NGO engagement in collaborative distributed generation efforts. In so doing, we see to
understand how and why NGOs engage in small-scale electrification programs, their contribution
to development, and why some programs succeed and others fail. This paper therefore
contributes to literatures on collaborative governance, NGO roles in international development,
and energy policy. It also has significant applied relevance for policymakers, NGOs, donors and
businesses operating in Africa.
Methodologically, the paper draws on quasi-meta analysis of over 50 existing case studies of
distributed generation programs in the global south. It also makes use of our original,
comprehensive database of NGOs currently undertaking DG programs in Africa, and analysis of
internal documents and interviews with a representative sample of those NGOs.
Paper Title
The importance of trust in environmental organizations for promoting environmental action in
civil society
Author
Rosemary Leonard, [email protected]; University of Western Sydney (Presenter)
Zoe Leviston, [email protected]; CSIRO (Non-Presenter)
Abstract
Discussions of Third Sector legitimacy have led to the recognition that there must be multiple
definitions and strategies to be applicable to a diverse sector (eg Bernstein 2010; Brinkerhoff,
2005; Leat, 1990) but failures of legitimacy can affect the whole sector (Brinkerhoff, 2005). In
the context of the environment, the international global governance is seen to be transparent,
participatory and accessible (Bernstein, 2010) while international ENGOs such as Greenpeace
operate as “complete regimes in the sense of having the capacity to set standards, to monitor and
enforce without the intervention of other organizations.” (Scott, 2002) The legitimacy of ENGOs
may be under attack in the climate change debate which has become highly politicized in many
countries. In Australia, the current Federal Labor government is collaborating with the Greens
political party to introduce a carbon tax while the leader of the opposition is frequently seen with
outspoken climate skeptics. In this paper we ask how environmental organizations are faring in
light of this highly charged political atmosphere and whether it makes a difference to people’s
willingness to take action on climate issues.
In particular we examined the relationship between trust in environmental organizations and
people’s reports of both their personal environmental actions and their actions in the public
sphere. Further, we examined people’s belief in the efficacy of action on climate change.
People’s perceptions of their efficacy have been shown to be a significant predictor of their
ability to intervene effectively on social issues (Stajkovic, et al, 2009; Sampson, 2009). It is,
however, possible that attitudes are being overwhelmingly determined by the political debate,
and that any relationship between trust in environmental organizations and behaviors is an
artifact of political loyalties.
A survey of 5030 Australians was undertaken in mid-2011 to understand how Australians think
about climate change. The survey was administered online using a representative group of
respondents from across metropolitan, regional and rural Australia. Respondents were drawn
from a research-only panel of 300,000 individuals with the demographic profile of respondents
corresponding closely with the population characteristics of Australians (ABS, 2010).
The survey asked about the level of trust in a variety of sources of information about climate
change. These included environmental organizations, governments, friends, community, and oil
companies. Five items formed a scale measuring ‘Reduction in Personal Consumption’ in power,
water etc and four items formed a scale related to ‘Actions in the Public Sphere’ such as joining
an environmental organization, voting, conservation activities or donating money. The Efficacy
Scale contained items 5 items related to making a difference individually and as a nation, having
a sense of purpose and community spirit. The political dimension was assessed through a
question on Voting Behaviour in the last national election and a continuous measure of Political
Views from left to right. The analysis controlled for four demographic variables: age, gender,
education and location.
The results showed that the level of Trust in Environmental Organizations was similar to the
level of Trust in Government, much lower than Trust in Universities but higher than other
organizations. Trust in Environmental Organizations, however, was by far the strongest predictor
of both Reduction in Personal Consumption and Actions in the Public Sphere, even after the
effects of the political and demographic variables had been taken into account. However, when
the Efficacy Scale was added to the models, the effect of Trust in Environmental Organizations
was markedly reduced, though still significant. The change was most dramatic in the model
predicting Actions in the Public Sphere. Parallel analyses were conducted with trust in four
groups of scientists: those from Environmental groups, Universities, Industry and Government.
The results for Trust in Environmental Group Scientists followed the same pattern as those for
the environmental organizations.
The results can be interpreted as providing evidence that environmental organizations have a
significant role in influencing environmental behaviors both in the private and public spheres in
Australia. Further, the effect is not merely a by-product of the political divisions around climate
change. A major factor in the level of influence of environmental organizations, particularly in
the public sphere, appears to be their ability to foster a sense of collective efficacy within the
wider community; the idea that collectively we can make a difference to climate change. To
maintain their level of influence, environmental organizations will need to safeguard the
perception that they are trusted sources of information and to do so, they may need to clarify the
sources of their legitimacy and ensure their wide communication.