Tuesday 20 April 2021

Harnessing the power of public activism for European Climate Action

Public activism within countries been a strength of European climate action so far. But non-state actors are each driven by their own priorities—and the challenge will be how to harness their energies while focusing these coherently in support of national and global climate strategies.

This blog reports on the closing session of a virtual conference, European Climate Action: Political Economy Challenges, hosted by the European Studies Centre of St. Antony’s College Oxford, on January 21, 2021, which considered how to engage non-state actors most effectively in climate action.

The panel included Philip Lymbery, Global CEO of Compassion in World Farming; Nick Mabey, CEO, E3G and Alex Clark, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford; it was chaired by Sir David Madden, St. Antony’s College. The conference was then closed by Charles Enoch, ESC Fellow and Head of EuPEP. Click here for the podcast of session 4 and closing remarks.

 
Philip Lymbery             Nick Mabey            Alex Clark            David Madden

Background: how to shape energetic interest-group advocacy into effective support for climate strategy

Although global climate negotiations are a government-led process, some of the most compelling advocates for climate action are non-state actors—a wide spectrum of stakeholders stretching from single-issue interest groups, to business, to political parties, and subnational governments. There is widespread agreement that continued support for climate action by civil society groups and by concerned political parties will be a prerequisite for meeting 2050 goals. But inevitably there is a cacophony of voices with different agendas and passions that are not necessarily consistent.

The vocal advocacy of non-state groups inspired the establishment of the ‘climate action Champion’ function at the Marrakesh COP, to serve as an institutionalized link between the official climate negotiations and non-state players. COPs now have two facets: the official climate negotiations, and the engagement of the ‘big tent’ of stakeholders by the Champions. Other efforts to coordinate public activists include regional events such as London Climate Action Week, and Oxford’s network, Galvanizing the Groundswell of Climate Actions.

Philip Lymbery demonstrated the relevance of single-issue advocacy by presenting a powerful case for regenerative farming. He started with the point that food, as an issue, never makes it to COP discussions (which tend to focus on energy)—and this must change: nearly 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are produced by the livestock sector (more than all direct exhaust fumes). Moreover, the conversion rate from livestock feed to food is extraordinarily inefficient: the feed crops for factory farms could feed 4 billion people. At full efficiency, the global food system could feed 17.5 billion people, instead of in today’s world where 820 million go hungry, and food feeds livestock instead of humans.

Hence, factory farming should be stopped, since it wastes food rather than being a net producer. A shift to nature-friendly regenerative farming would store carbon from the atmosphere: it is estimated that regenerating half of farmland would sequester 10-20 percent of total emissions. It is a misperception that nature-friendly farms have to be small; some good large examples suggest scope for effective scaling-up.

The outlook is bad: meat consumption is at an historic high, and estimated to grow further by 78 percent by 2050—worsening greenhouse gas emissions significantly. There is a misconception that consumers’ switching from red meat to chicken and fish is solving the problem, but in fact this switch will just swap one set of problems for another.

The conclusion must be that it is vital to cut meat consumption: this should be put on the COP26 agenda. Doing so would be especially timely, since modern methods of replacing meat consumption are under development that now make it far more feasible to cut consumption. For instance, stem-cell meat is produced with 80-95 percent less GHG emissions; likewise, the use of microbes to produce proteins via fermentation is 100 times more effective per unit of protein; moreover, some proteins are already being made from ‘thin air’.

Lymbery concluded by reminding the audience that the demand for factory farming exists only because of the currently favorable economic setting, which does not price in the associated externalities and risks. This advantage will erode anyway, since the modern types of food described above will be 10 times cheaper by 2035. The EU should also facilitate the shift to this healthier food system by amending its agricultural policy and phasing out subsidies.

Nick Mabey explained the urgency of the case for involving the public, to achieve successful climate action. The transformation needed is too broad and deep (food, electric cars, type of heating, etc. etc.) to be feasible without a social and cultural shift. Unless the public actively assents to this—‘gives permission’—the behavioural changes will not occur.

Ironically, the pandemic is making the outlook more positive for such an unprecedented shift. It has demonstrated that the public can make difficult changes very fast in case of emergency.

Mabey called for a national agreement to combat climate change. To maximize cohesion, a number of elements would be important:

  • It should include a strategy to help losers—not only losers from climate policies (e.g., increases in carbon prices) but also those hurt by climate change (such as fishermen whose catch disappears as waters warm up). He recognized that any discussion of compensation will be controversial, but emphasized that society has to make that decision.
  • Policy design needs to take account also of the ancillary benefits from changes. For instance, shifting to electric cars would not only cut emissions but would make streets quieter and more livable; more sustainable land-use would imply healthier diets. A comprehensive accounting would allow the value of green reforms to be calculated more accurately than in current simple climate models, and would significantly strengthen the case for social buy-in.
Drawing on his experience with organizing the successful London Action Week, Mabey suggested several elements of a ‘Whole of Society’ approach to climate change, which he plans to bring to COP26.
  • Professional conversations will be needed and can be powerful. For instance, architects must confront the ethics of designing home dependent on fossil fuels (and they did so in London), and engineers must consider the costs of the combustion engine. Professional charters could articulate the role groups should be playing in climate change—how infrastructure should be built to be resilient, how educators teach the coming generation, etc. More broadly, all professional and social groups should be asked what climate change will mean to them (e.g., fashion, the arts); activism should not be outsourced.
  • The challenge of scale referred to also in the conference session on financing is another argument for a Whole of Society approach. Climate action requires many small-scale projects; this shift from big to small scale (e.g., from one nuclear power plant decision to many solar panel decisions) requires revisiting who makes decisions and how. It could be that place-based decisions, with greater direct citizen involvement, will be more legitimate, and therefore effective, than the UK’s current centralized approach.
Alex Clark agreed that wide involvement of civil society and subnational governments will be key to success, and discussed the coordination challenge.
  • For coordination of NGOs, a main challenge—difficult and not well-handled to date—is to balance the need on the one hand to streamline messages so that a clear, understandable policy emerges, and on the other, to avoid losing subtleties and suppressing minority voices.
  • The coordination challenge for corporations and financial institutions – which is now getting traction through a range of initiatives including Climate Action 100+ -- is the need for sustained coherent lobbying for regulation able to influence the direction of investment strategies. Standardization efforts such as the EU green taxonomy are now helping to identify truly green assets, but a more rigorous approach will be needed to prevent greenwashing.
  • Subnational governments will clearly play a vital role, but a challenge that has already emerged in several contexts is to avoid imposing national policies on subnational entities that lack the resources or expertise to carry them out (NDCs have not, by and large, paid adequate attention to this).
Clark offered some thoughts on how to improve coordination.
  • It could be argued that the UNFCCC’s observer structure itself contributes to coordination challenges (by separating governmental and non-governmental agencies). A sectoral approach to grouping might be more constructive; it would cut across boundaries.
  • He described the priorities of the Oxford-led network, Galvanizing the Groundswell of Climate Actions, for the coming COP. These include (i) supporting the Climate Action Champions, by reflecting on what worked with the Marrakesh process and what needs reform; (ii) engaging with African non-state actors to lay the groundwork for a possible COP27 in Africa and fill a clear gap in engagement of these actors with counterparts at prominent think tanks and research organisations, as well as UN processes, on climate; and (iii) track new developments in data collection—which may be key for influencing decisions and for persuasive communications.
  • He concluded by making the case for focusing more on another group, state-owned enterprises, which will also be critical for climate action, and have been less studied. These have almost never been involved in the COP process, but can be massive emitters (power plant operators, oil and coal companies, aviation, military), and with objectives other than profit-maximization—meaning that influencing their behaviour will require different incentives. Given the size and functions of some large state enterprises, their shareholders (mainly governments but also others) could play vital roles in the transformation—for instance by leading the adoption of new technology.

The discussion focused on how to effect change in the face of important entrenched interests. For land use, for instance, one powerful approach would be to reform the Common Agricultural Policy, and redirect the saved subsidies towards modern public goods. Taxing ‘bads’ such as meat from factory farms could allow vegetables to be subsidized. An alternative approach would be to start by influencing demand, since this would bypass entrenched supply-side interests and subsidies would be easier to eliminate if demand fell. The need to influence demand is another argument for a society-wide conversation—in this case a broad debate on how society wants to use land. It is also an argument for investing in good data—measurement that articulates the value of land and its uses would be key for an effective discussion. Panelists considered it unrealistic to bypass large entrenched interests; reformers would have to work with them since the smaller players would not have a strong enough voice at the table.

The closing reflections of the panel, and the final remarks of Charles Enoch, head of EuPep, were on the importance of COP26. Despite the cost of a year’s delay (‘we have already lost three-quarters of nature’), all agreed that a 2021 COP will be very different than if it had taken place last November, and mainly, much more positive. It will not face the burden of trying to craft a global strategy without the US, and it could be helpful that the UK and Italy will be hosts of the G7 as well as the COP. For the UK in particular, it is a huge opportunity to move on from Brexit, by demonstrating its global relevance and climate know-how.

The more positive setting in 2021 paves the way for the COP to move on from eliciting commitments to assessing the quality and credibility of elements of the global strategy. A main challenge for the Glasgow COP will be to signal that its outcomes are credible: that the Paris Framework is going to deliver the global objectives. If not, the public will withhold its support and give up the battle against climate change. This COP cannot afford to lose the trust of the public; doing so would in turn undermine the trust of markets and eventually the trust of signatory governments.

Adrienne Cheasty (Academic Visitor with EuPEP, St Antony's College, Oxford)

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