change
Although there is residual controversy surrounding the issue of global warming, three basic propositions can be accepted:
1. There is a natural greenhouse effect that warms the earth’s surface by some 33°C. Without this human habitation would be impossible.
2. Since the onset of industrialization, some 150 years ago, the amount of CO2released into the atmos-phere has increased markedly. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas – that is, it traps the long-wave radiation emitted by the warming of the earth’s surface by the sun and, in doing so, heats up the atmosphere. Industrialization has also increased the amounts of other greenhouse gases, e.g.
methane and nitrous oxide, and has introduced new compounds such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which promote global warming and, in some instances, deplete the ozone layer.
3. Land-use change, particularly deforestation, has reduced the earth’s ability to absorb CO2 through the process of photosynthesis.
These processes are promoting an increase in the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a time when the earth is experiencing a natural warming trend. While natural processes account for some of the warming trend, it is now accepted that elevated levels of CO2in the atmosphere are a major cause of global warming. The single largest anthropogenic source of CO2is the burning of fossil fuels (for details on global warming see O’Riordan 2000, Chapter 7).
Solutions to the problem of global warming lie in reducing fossil fuel combustion in transportation, industry and power generation. The question is how?
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) was signed at Rio in 1992 (visit the UNFCC website at www.unfcc.int for further details). The ultimate objective of the UNFCC was to
‘stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmos-phere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthro-pogenic interference with the climate system. Such a
CHAPTER 6 VALUING THE ENVIRONMENT 145
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level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threat-ened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner’. Conferences of the parties (COP) are attended by all the states that have ratified or acceded to the Convention (over 194 by February 2004) every two years. The third COP held in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 saw agreement on the ‘Kyoto Protocols’, the first actions to address greenhouse gas emissions.
The breakthrough at Kyoto was due to a flexible approach that allowed individual countries to set their own targets, while aiming at a 5 per cent global reduc-tion in CO2over 1990 levels. The target date for indi-vidual countries was set as some time between 2008 and 2012. In addition, the developed countries agreed to reduce emissions in 2000 to their 1990 level, a target few have met. The European Union has an emission reductions target of 28 per cent, the USA 27 per cent and Japan 26 per cent. The transition economies of Central Europe and the former Soviet Union were granted concessions; for example, Russia has a zero-change target. Countries seeking admis-sion into the European Union – such as Poland – accepted reductions. Not surprisingly, a complex set of rules and regulations surrounds the targets, making it possible to trade ‘emissions reductions’ between states. Thus, for example, if Japan helped Russia to reduce its emissions below the 1990 level, that reduction would be set against Japan’s target.
For the protocol to come into force, the countries responsible for 55 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions in 1990 have to ratify it. A total of 164 coun-tries had ratified the Kyoto Protocols by July 2006, their total emissions amounting to 61.6 per cent of 1990 emissions (http://unfccc.int/files/essential_
background/kyoto_protocol/application/pdf/kpstats.
pdf). However, the USA and Australia have refused to ratify, and in 2005 the USA was the largest single emitter of CO2.
In Britain there has been mixed leadership. On the one hand we are likely to meet our Kyoto pledge and on 15 November 2006 the Government announced plans to introduce a Climate Change Bill which poten-tially will enforce a yearly CO2reduction of 3 per cent.
The Government has pledged to reduce carbon diox-ide emissions from 1990 levels by 20 per cent by 2010 and 60 per cent by 2050. However, at the same time the Government continues to subsidize air travel, allow airport expansions, and fails to promote change at an individual level. This was exemplified by Tony Blair,
Prime Minister at the time, in January 2007 when he said ‘I’m not going to be in the situation of saying I’m not going to take holidays abroad or use air-travel. It’s just not practical . . . it’s like telling people you shouldn’t drive anywhere’. Blair’s lack of commitment to setting an example was seen as further evidence of a lack of commitment to tackling climate change. Air travel is the most environmentally damaging form of travel (Whitelegg 1993). The Netherlands Centre for Energy Conservation and Environmental Technology has calculated that ‘One long-haul return flight can produce more carbon dioxide per passenger than the average UK motorist in one year’. Yet a Government White Paper The Future of Air Transport (December 2003) predicted that by 2030 UK airport passengers would triple and thus there was a need for national and regional level airport expansion. Planned expansion includes a third runway at Heathrow by 2015/20, a second runway at Stansted to open by 2011/12, new runways at Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and considerations of runway extensions at Bristol, Leeds/Bradford, Liverpool and Newcastle. This expansion is inconsistent with government’s own policies on CO2reductions.
At the same time as the developed world commit-ted itself to emissions reductions, the developing world was persuaded to accept the concept of the clean development mechanism (CDM). The developing countries feel that emissions reductions in the developed world should be on such a scale that would compensate for increased future emissions because of economic growth in the developing world.
CDM is aimed at enabling economic growth without a commensurate increase in greenhouse gas emis-sions. However, this will require transfer of consider-able amounts of capital and technology. In other words, the developed world will have to help the developing world implement the CDM. It is unclear how this will happen. It is proposed that developed countries can earn credits towards their own reduction targets by assisting in the implementation of CDM in the developing world. O’Riordan (2000: 202) notes that ‘the CDM mechanism denies the right of Third World nations to select their own CO2future. This is
“ecological colonialism” by another name. While the developed world has access to the capital and tech-nology to achieve the Kyoto targets, it still requires the political will. In the developing world, political will amounts to little without the material requirements to balance the economic growth with environmental needs.’
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Although a few governments have found it difficult to ratify conventions and make efforts to achieve tar-gets, the implementation of sustainable development actions by local administrations – Local Agenda 21s – has been far more successful. The International Coun-cil for Local Environment Initiatives (2002) reported that 6,416 LA21s were underway or committed to in 113 countries, that national campaigns were underway in 18 countries, and that formal stakeholder groups had been established in 73 per cent of administrative units with LA21s.
The problem of scale can make it hard to determine how to take the best action. Not only do we need to un-pack the causes of environmental change and identify likely solutions, but also ‘those making decisions cerning global environmental problems need to con-sider the ramifications for national economies and local populations’ (Harris 2004: 13). In other words, we (individuals, business, nations etc.) need to take responsibility for our environmental impacts and understand the consequences of mitigating these prob-lems for other people (local populations, the economy etc.). For example, if we want to reduce the negative consequences of driving cars we reduce individual use, encourage companies to design more fuel-efficient vehicles, and encourage governments to increase the price of petrol through tax rises, subsidize eco-alternatives and introduce road pricing. However, in practice, governments of countries like the USA have argued in the past that it would damage their economy, making them less globally competitive (leading to job losses). It was only in 2007 that US President George Bush began to make pledges to tackle climate change.
In his State of the Union Address, January 2007, he argued that the USA must ‘reduce gasoline usage in
the United States by 20 percent in the next 10 years . . . increase the supply of alternative fuels . . . reform and modernize fuel economy standards for cars’ (Bush 2007). It is obviously too early to judge the success of these promises and China and India argue that they should be allowed to benefit from economic develop-ment through the use of fossil fuels, just as the USA already has (see Chapter 5).
All these complexities are shaped by how we value the environment, at what scale we view these problems, and thus whose responsibility we believe it is to make changes. It is clear, then, that we all need to take responsibility for our actions but that a solely localized approach by some of us will allow the harmful envi-ronmental consequences of others to go unchecked.
Multi-scalar action is required, from local to inter-national, involving all of us in the processes of change.
But how have people sought to make such change happen and how does it work in practice?
6.5
Strategies for change
There is a wide variety of ways in which action is taken, through international agreements, the legislature (i.e.
formal party politics), lifestyle changes, community living, and through direct action (Dobson 2001). We can broadly conceive of these as a continuum between reformist and radical approaches (see Table 6.4). A reformist approach advocates working within the cur-rent political and economic system. It reflects the shal-low green perspective that it is possible to modify our actions to reduce environmental impacts. The radical approach advocates major changes to how we act,
There is an alternative on the table: this is known as contraction and convergence (C&C). At COP9 in Milan many representatives admitted privately that
‘C&C [was] what [they] had been waiting for’
(Pearce 2003: 6). Contraction means that green-house gas emissions would be reduced globally, resulting in dramatic cuts during the next half century.
Convergence would see each country’s emissions reduced, until by 2050, according to authorities in the United Kingdom and Germany, everybody in the world would have an equal right to pollute – the amount being 0.3 tonnes C per person. Carbon trading permits would help the heaviest polluters to reduce
their emissions rapidly. C&C also overcomes the USA’s objection to Kyoto, which is that their Asian economic competitors such as China have no emis-sions reductions targets. Some environmentalists and politicians are now beginning to regard Kyoto as an obstacle, not a solution; it remains to be seen whether they say the same about C&C if the world adopts that route.
What will it take for all developed world countries and elites everywhere to cast aside their domestic concerns and privileges in favour of the global and collective good?
Q
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CHAPTER 6 VALUING THE ENVIRONMENT 147
Table 6.4 Reformist and radical approaches to environmentalism
Reformist Radical
1. Modified sustainable economic growth/ Ecological Modernization.
1. Limits to, and undesirability of, economic growth.
2. Large role for technological development as a provider of solutions for environmental problems.
2. A distrust of scientific and technological fixes.
3. Environmental solutions can co-exist with existing social and political structures.
3. Radical social and political change necessary: either authoritarian or decentralized and democratic political organization.
4. Anthropocentrism and a commitment to intragenerational and intergenerational equity.
4. Intrinsic value of nature or, at least, a weaker version of anthropocentrism; a commitment to social justice within human society and between humans and non-human nature.
Source: Garner (2000: 11)
which cannot be accommodated within the current system: a deeper green world-view; ‘the most radical [green aim] seeks nothing less than a non-violent revo-lution to overthrow our whole polluting, plundering and materialistic industrial society and, in its place, to create a new economic and social order which will allow human beings to live in harmony with the planet.
In those terms, the Green movement lays claim to being the most radical and important political and cul-tural force since the birth of socialism’ (Porritt and Winner 1988: 9). Both approaches are part of the broad and diverse environmental movements. We can use some examples to explore these strategies in practice:
in national party politics (the German Green Party), political lobbying (Friends of the Earth UK), direct action (Earth First!), individual actions and finally business responses.
The West German Green Party (now the German Green Party) – Die Grunen – made its entrance into formal politics in 1983 with 5.6 per cent of the national vote and 27 seats in Federal Parliament (Doyle 2005).
The party emerged from a vibrant environmental movement that was particularly active on anti-nuclear issues. When it was first launched the party was closely aligned to those seeking radical change. Petra Kelly, an early leader of the party, described Die Grunen as ‘half party and half local action group – we shall go on being an anti-party party’ (Kelly 1984: 21). Thus the party sought to be part of formal politics but simultaneously subvert the process by seeking to practise more participatory democracyand pushing for fundamen-tal change. They did this through the legislation they sought, funding for environmental groups and organi-zations, and structurally by rotating their representatives
sitting in parliament by limiting the length of time to two years, limiting the length of office of their lead-ers and practising participatory decision-making processes.
However, over time ‘the party has been colonized by the demands and temptations of parliamentary activity’
(Dobson 2001: 127). The party has dropped many of its earlier commitments (environmental sustainability, disarmament, social justice and democracy) and aban-doned ‘their experimental attempt at institutionalising direct democratic structures within the framework of representative democracy’ (Poguntke 1993: 395). The radical faction lost out to those in the party who believed in reformist change. This approach led to the party forging coalitions with other parties, eventually forming an alliance with the Social Democrats to form the national government in 1998, consequently weak-ening their stance on war and nuclear power, and taking a stance against those undertaking environmental direct action (Doyle 2005). The German experience is a cau-tionary tale about the potential for environmental action to take place through formal political arenas.
However, just as a party might become institutional-ized, this acts as a stimulus for other non-political party action; ‘the very fact that social movements tend to be absorbed by the system provides a motive for the radi-calisation of other groups’ (Rucht and Roose 1999: 91).
So although forming a political party might not be the most effective strategy for action (and in countries like Britain and Australia without proportional represen-tation, it is almost impossible for Green Parties to gain any form of power), in practice few environmentalists follow such a singular path: rather they will be involved in and support other forms of action simultaneously.
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Environmental NGOs and related groups serve two key roles in society: they often identify environmental issues and, importantly, they seek to translate environ-mental concern into practical strategies for change.
In 1971 Friends of the Earth (FOE) was launched in London; it has become one of the biggest and most influential of the British environmental NGOs, and is part of an international FOE network. Its formation reflected a frustration with the staid conservation movement’s lack of action against those perpetrators of environmental degradation (Rawcliffe 1998). They have a five-pronged strategy: to lobby those in political power and industry, often using legislative activity to press for change; to generate scientific research and publish it in accessible formats; to employ the media to attract attention to particular issues; to mobilize the public through local groups; and to coordinate and cooperate with other groups to run large-scale campaigns.
By the early 1990s however, FOE had evolved from a radical group to one that seemed less keen to press for far-reaching change. In effect it had become reformist – pragmatically seeking inclusion of environmental con-cern within the current political and social system.
Many saw this reformist approach as being ineffectual, slow and hierarchical. Drawing inspiration from other movements and other countries, smaller, more radical environmental groups (or informal networks) began to proliferate. The visions they espouse are often idealistic and the steps to realizing their dreams often challeng-ing, such as dramatically reducing consumption, aban-doning the use of cars, or changing our eating habits.
They pose a systematic challenge to existing societal practices, often rejecting ‘representative’ democracy and formal politics and promoting grassroots participa-tion in environmental decision-making and a ‘do-it-yourself ’ (DIY) approach. The tactics employed reflect their belief in the need for radical change and often in-volve the use of non-violent direct action. Direct action is ‘intended to have an immediate effect on a situation, as distinct from political activity which might have a roundabout effect through representatives, or demon-strative activity whose effect was to get publicity’
(Rooum 1995: 27). Examples include destroying GM crops, road blockades and office occupations. Earth First! (EF!) formed in the United States in 1979 and spread to the United Kingdom in 1991. Based upon an-archist ideology, it is a network of autonomous groups that eschew formal membership and hierarchy (and thus leadership) and espouse consensus decision-making structures. It is based on the belief that actions
speak louder than words, and has become synony-mous with (often illegal) non-violent direct action and the DIY approach: one of their slogans is ‘If not you, then who?’ (Wall 1999; Doherty 2002). EF! has been influential in British anti-roads protests, e.g. Twyford Down (1992), Newbury (1995–6) and A30 Devon at Allercombe and Fairmile (1994–7). They used protest camps with tree-sits, tunnels and lock-ons with the aims of (i) physically preventing road construction;
(ii) generating media publicity; (iii) educating the public; and (iv) acting as a catalyst for mass mobiliza-tion. EF! activists have expanded actions against issues such as GM crops and the arms trade. The defining characteristics of such activism are the continuously evolving creativity in tactics coupled with a broad concern for a variety of issues, for example ‘they see exploitation of the Third World, the global poor, women, animals and the environment as a product of hierarchy, patriarchy, anthropocentrism, racism and, most prominently, capitalist economic relations’ (Seel and Plows 2000: 114).
Plate 6.3 An anti-car stunt calling for radical environmental activism.
(Jenny Pickerill)
CHAPTER 6 VALUING THE ENVIRONMENT 149 Such actions have been influenced by many others
and replicated worldwide. In Australia, environmental-ists have employed direct action since the late 1970s.
Actions at Terania Creek (New South Wales), Daintree (Queensland) and surrounding the Franklin Dam (Tasmania) all focused on preventing the logging of old-growth trees. Activists set up protest camps and
Actions at Terania Creek (New South Wales), Daintree (Queensland) and surrounding the Franklin Dam (Tasmania) all focused on preventing the logging of old-growth trees. Activists set up protest camps and