A green deal needs everyone's input

Civil society must work with big business and science to create a global climate change deal – or risk losing its influence

Tan Copsey
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 May 2009 17.30 BST

In Copenhagen this week, the great and not so good of the corporate world gathered to discuss what they wanted from a global deal on climate change. Chief executives of American energy companies spoke in southern drawls to their European counterparts and a few Chinese and Indian executives. Two months ago, the world's top climate scientists held a summit in the same place where they compiled their latest, frightening research and demanded policy-makers pay attention. But in Copenhagen, among the comfortable global elite, I was struck by an obvious absence. Where were the environmentalists? For that matter why is there no global gathering of civil society in Copenhagen which articulates what people, rather than just business, want from a global deal?
The business and scientific communities have had their say. A fair climate treaty needs more input from the environmental groups who helped put climate change on the international political agenda. Ideas they promoted frame the, admittedly imperfect, Kyoto protocol and ensure that concerns of equity and fairness shape efforts to reduce emissions.
Next week negotiators in Bonn, Germany will begin whittling down a draft negotiating text for a new global treaty, to be agreed in December. It may already be too late for a grand global peoples' congress – so why not a series of inter-connected, rough-and-ready national events, linked using the web? It would probably be easier than trying to get Danish visas for representatives of the Organisation de défense de l'environnement au Burundi on short notice and use considerably less carbon. Noisy, diverse and messy – multiple gatherings of environmentalists, religious leaders and representatives of indigenous people would be something to behold and would impart a very different message to world leaders. Of course it is not easy to influence global political elites. But some politicians, at least in this country, have actually asked for more action from environmental groups. At global climate negotiations in Poznan last year Ed Miliband, secretary of state for energy and climate change, suggested that "we need a mass movement – like Make Poverty History".
As well as getting their own message out, civil society also needs to get better at engaging with other communities, particularly business. This week, attendance at the lavish world business summit was free for civil society organisations. But only a few showed up and an opportunity to confront and engage with global elites was missed. If you're not there, then people speak for you. In Copenhagen I lost count of the number of jokes made about the silly, immature left and references to stereotypical environmental views.
But engagement doesn't have to mean compromise. When executives discussed how to make money from poorer countries adapting to climate change, there should have been strong green voices challenging the surreal notion that western corporations should profit from a problem they helped create.
Environmental groups also need to campaign smarter. 350, an innovative global campaign for stabilising emissions at 350 parts per million, provides a case in point. They plan to hold a global day of action on 24 October this year. But by then any reference to their desired target will probably be negotiated out of the treaty.
Between now and December the United Nations and the host Danish government must do all they can to allow representatives of civil society as much input as scientific, business and political communities. More than that, members of civil society must demand access. It is worth remembering that an agreement will only succeed in reducing emissions if it is fair, just and equitable, and promotes global participation.