Community Action and Climate Change

Jennifer Kent

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317416951
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

The failure of recent international negotiations to progress global action on climate change has shifted attention to the emergence of grassroots sustainability initiatives. These civil society networks display the potential to implement social innovation and change processes from the 'bottom up'. Recent scholarship has sought to theorise grassroots community-based low carbon practices in terms of their sustainability transition potential. However there are few empirical examples that demonstrate the factors for success of community-based social innovations in achieving more widespread adoption outside of their local, sustainability 'niche'.

The book seeks to address two significant gaps related to grassroots climate action: firstly the continuing dominance of the individualisation of responsibility for climate change action which presupposes that individuals hold both the ability and desire to shift their behaviours and lifestyle choices to align with a low carbon future. Secondly, the potential for community-based collectives to influence mainstream climate change governance, an area significantly under researched. Drawing on empirical research into Australian Climate Action Groups (CAGs) and related international research, the book argues that grassroots community-based collective action on climate change holds the key to broader social change.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, citizen participation, environmental sociology and sustainable development.

1 Introduction

Future weather will not be like past weather; future climates will not be like past climates.

(Hulme 2010, p. 1)

Contemporary societies are faced with many challenges to a sustainable future: broad-scale environmental degradation, economic crises, poverty and climate change. Human activity now breaches the Earth’s ecological limits across many areas vital to continued human existence. While top-down policy, science and engineering responses continue to dominate, there are questions whether such approaches can meet the scale and pace of transformative change required. Increasingly there are calls for forms of radical innovation that can shift global social-ecological systems away from crisis. Such innovations should not be limited to science and technology but social institutions and practices should play a fundamental role.

Climate change represents just one global crisis in a series of accelerating and interlocking ‘bads’ threatening the ability of the Earth’s systems to sustain human life (Leach et al. 2012). The anthropogenic impact on the Earth’s atmosphere, which has been accelerating since industrialization began, is disrupting global climate systems (IPCC 2014a). This is creating complex and uncertain impacts, defining climate change as a ‘wicked problem’ (Rittel & Webber 1973), that is, one which defies simple solutions and cannot simply be addressed by the same type of thinking that created it.

The ‘super wickedness’ (Levin et al. 2012) of climate change is defined by the following four features: ‘time is running out; those who cause the problem also seek to provide the solution; the central authority needed to address it is weak or non-existent; and, partly as a result, policy responses discount the future irrationally’ (Levin et al. 2012, p. 124).

The complexity of climate change is evident as increasing levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions released into the atmosphere cause differential impacts to the Earth’s climatic systems. The uncertain and long-term extent of climate change that impacts both spatially and temporally creates impacts that are distant from its causes. The inequitable nature of climate change can be seen in how it is effecting often the poorest and most disadvantaged who have contributed least to the problem. Each of these defining characteristics represents an area where existing moral prescriptions are inadequate, contributing to what Gardiner (2006; 2011) describes as a ‘perfect moral storm’. Who should bear the responsibility for the costs and burdens of responding to climate change is unclear as there is no single causal agent that can be identified as responsible for the problem. This positions climate change ‘as the moral challenge of our generation’ (Ki-moon 2009) as it throws up ethical contestations not only between nations but also between each government and its citizens; and between present and future generations.

Addressing the ‘super-wicked’ problem of climate change therefore demands an unprecedented level of global cooperation.¹ However, despite more than 20 years of concerted international effort to lessen the probability of catastrophic warming, no effective global treaty has been reached that would deliver a safe temperature target² (Climate Analytics Ecofys and PIK 2013). In order to resolve the ‘super-wicked’ problem of climate change we need to accomplish the following: first, we need to rapidly shift away from our currently unsustainable trajectory, which is based on a politico-economic system that embeds continued high use of fossil fuels; second, such a transition won’t be achieved through the same way of thinking that got us to this point – we need new ways of thinking and doing to achieve such a transformation; finally, we need to move beyond relying purely on scientific and technological innovation to include social innovations as central to our future aims for long-term sustainability and a liveable planet. Traditionally, economic and technological innovation driven from the top down has been favoured by governments and policy makers. However, as complex global crises such as climate change require us ‘to modify, or even transform existing ways of life’ (Giddens 2009) social innovations are becoming of even keener interest than economic factors or technical innovations (Howaldt et al. 2010, p. 22). As the focus of governments and policymakers shifts towards involving and empowering citizens within local communities to resolve social challenges, governments are eager to foster social innovations from the ‘bottom up’.

Climate change

The hottest year since records began in 1880 was 2014.³ The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declares that the ‘warming of the climate system is unequivocal’ (IPCC 2014a, p. 1). It is human influence, through anthropogenic emissions of GHG, that is the driving force behind this climate heating. Despite the growing number of climate change mitigation policies and reduced carbon intensity of energy supply, total global GHG emissions continue to rise, now exceeding 400 ppm CO₂eq – the highest level since human existence began (Robinson et al. 2011).

This post-industrial climate forcing⁴ (Butler 2010; Lacis 2010) is largely the result of a build-up of GHG, mainly carbon dioxide (CO₂) created from the burning of fossil fuels. These gases act on the Earth’s climate system, producing complex and uncertain impacts. These impacts spread spatially, so that the source of greenhouse gases can be distant from their greatest impact, and temporally, so that greenhouse gases can take up to 100 years or more to break down (IPCC 2007). Their effect is not only cumulative but also delayed. While global warming is ‘unequivocal’, the actual impacts remain unclear. For example, the IPCC reports refer to modelling that shows a range of potential temperature rise by the year 2100 based on different action scenarios. The two degree ‘cap’ to prevent dangerous levels of climatic disruption equates to approximately 450 ppm CO₂eq in the atmosphere and the IPCC scenarios model predictions between 430 and 720 ppm CO₂eq. This puts us in a temperature range of between 1.5 and 5.8 degrees before the end of the century depending on what technological, economic and behavioural changes are enacted (IPCC 2014b, p. 13). The uncertainty of impacts is further complicated by the complexity of the Earth’s climate systems along with the potential for reaching ‘tipping points’ (Hansen 2008; Robinson et al. 2011) that would lead to more sudden and catastrophic disruption.

According to the IPCC’s latest report (2014b), the Earth’s vast oceans are the primary sink for this amplified warming, causing: increased acidity; the loss of ice sheets, glaciers and snow cover; and rising sea levels. The impacts of climate change range widely across natural systems effecting migration patterns, geographic ranges of species and shifting crop growing seasons. Most notable is the rise in extreme weather events such as droughts, heat waves, floods and wildfires. As temperatures continue to rise these are predicted to worsen, risking ‘severe, pervasive and irreversible’ impacts on both people and ecosystems (IPCC 2007, p. 8). People from less developed countries, the poor and disadvantaged, are likely to bear the brunt of these impacts. Climate change creates unequal impacts, falling most heavily on the poorest and future generations that are least responsible for creating the problem (World Bank 2014).

Limiting global temperature rise below two degrees by 2100 is the widely accepted climate change mitigation policy target. It remains the benchmark for GHG emissions reduction despite the continuing dislocation between ambition and reality (UNEP 2014). Meeting the target has a particular significance for the current global energy system. Setting a defined limit on GHG emissions or a ‘carbon budget’ means decarbonization of energy supply must proceed rapidly and requires known fossil fuel reserves to remain in the ground (McGlade & Ekins 2015). Yet the increasing use of coal to fuel the world’s energy requirements has overtaken mitigation efforts (IPCC 2014a, p. 4). There is, in fact, a perverse race to explore for and exploit the Earth’s remaining fossil fuel reserves despite the clear knowledge that such actions will hurtle global temperature rise above the supposed safe level of two degrees (McGlade & Ekins 2015, p. 187).

The governance of climate change

The complex and uncertain scientific evidence that underpins climate knowledge has co-emerged with the global governance of climate change. Global governance systems are characterized by their increasingly complex, networked, multi-scale arrangements in response to the ‘widening and deepen ing’ (Newell 2008, p. 511) range of concerned actors. The current climate governance regime represents one such system bound by the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, informed by scientific discourse through the IPCC, and enacted, principally, through nation states.⁵ Beyond these sites of international cooperation there has emerged a complex array of climate governance arrangements, consisting of non-state actors that operate to influence the existing regime, fill gaps where the regime has failed and ‘open political spaces’ (Biermann et al. 2009; Bulkeley 2005).

The Copenhagen climate change talks held in 2009 intended to secure a binding agreement to slow and ultimately reverse the trend of growing GHG emissions with the ultimate aim of preventing a global temperature rise of two degrees before the end of this century. However, despite 20 years of international negotiations under the UNFCCC, Copenhagen failed to achieve an effective policy response to secure this aim (Parks & Roberts 2010). Recent international negotiations have reinforced the necessity for a new global agreement to halt the Earth’s temperature rise to below dangerous levels (for example, Cancun 2010, Durban 2011, Doha 2012, Warsaw 2013, Lima 2014, Rio+20 2012).⁶ Consecutive annual UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COPs) have made small advances, especially in relation to financing the least developed countries for climate change adaptation; however, national pledges to reduce GHG emissions sit well below what is needed (IPCC 2014b, p. 4). The complexity and scientific uncertainty that underpins climate change tends to favour governments delaying action (Meadowcroft 2009) and this is evident as nations are failing to meet their stated commitments for GHG emission reductions (Climate Analytics Ecofys and PIK 2013). The current climate governance regime has thus far proven incapable of addressing what is becoming a deepening, more urgent and ‘diabolical’ (Garnaut 2008) global dilemma.

Role of the state and civil society in climate change governance

While effective means of governing climate change at the international scale have thus far proven elusive, the emergence of multiple actors operating transnationally – public and private, state and non-state, across varying scales from the local to the international level – has drawn attention to the respective roles of the state and civil society in the climate change regime.

States play a central role in the spatial hierarchy of climate change governance. States act as a party to international negotiations, formalize agreements, and on the domestic front set national policy on climate change, as well as engage citizens in their climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts (Meadowcroft 2009). However, states can only indirectly influence or control the multiple, decentralized and independent decisions made by the public and corporations that generate greenhouse gas emissions (Bulkeley & Newell 2010). In response, there is growing interest in the actions made by local institutions, communities and individuals to reduce their carbon emissions (Agyeman et al. 1998; Meadowcroft 2009).

The status of civil society, in terms of its relationship with climate change governance, remains less clear. Civil society engages in the formal governance processes at the international scale. The United Nations formally recognizes civil society representatives as valuable actors in environmental decision-making. Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration states that ‘environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens’.⁷ However, while civil society participation may be encouraged in theory, in reality there are practical and structural limitations that prevent ‘all concerned citizens’ from engaging discursively with the formal United Nations negotiations on climate change, or even from attempting to ensure that their individual or national interests are represented (Saward 2008).

Civil society also participates in more informal ways through the public sphere where opinion formation and protest plays a role in countering entrenched political ideologies and business-as-usual pathways. Following Copenhagen, the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth was held in Cochabamba, Bolivia with the aim of challenging the dominant ecological modernization discourse (Hajer 1995) under the UNFCCC and to propose an alternative, grassroots and indigenous-focused ‘green radicalism’ (Stevenson & Dryzek 2012). More recently at COP19 in Warsaw, 800 civil society representatives walked out in protest at the lack of ambition of states as well as the deliberate blocking of advances towards a global agreement and the overt influence of the fossil fuel industry (Stevenson & Dryzek 2014). These examples demonstrate the fractious nature of civil society’s relationship with the formal processes of the climate regime.

Civil society interventions that can shape and transform institutional structures (Gupta et al. 2008) face the inherent inertia of climate governance institutions, such as the UNFCCC processes described above. These institutions tend to be reactive and conservative, locked in to varying temporal scales and rates of change, such as: political and electoral (democratic) cycles; established patterns of production and consumption; and cultural and social norms. Yet, unanticipated events may provide ‘powerful external shocks’ (Meadowcroft 2009, p. 11) that can shift institutional inertia and open up opportunities for change.⁸ However, in discussions on climate change governance, rarely does the grassroots warrant attention as a site of potential power, democracy or innovation. The focus remains largely on international developments under the UNFCCC and the central role of the state (Archibugi & Held 2011; Meadowcroft 2009). While there have been efforts to translate the views of citizens (as representatives of their states) directly into the wider formal debate, these have been largely unsuccessful in terms of shifting the political agenda (Riedy & Herriman 2011). The inherent difficulties of ensuring civil society participation in global talks, harnessing representative citizen views across the globe and bringing diverse peoples together in fruitful deliberation (Lids...