See beyond a blaming game

Half way through the climate negotiation here in Tianjin, China and the U.S. are once again caught in heavy bickering and finger-pointing. Both have made damning accusations of the other side for negotiating unfaithfully, publicly and informally.

Meanwhile, a group of Chinese intellectuals and NGOs put together an open letter to the US government regarding its failure to take actions on climate change, while highlighting China’s domestic efforts in contrast to the US, through a comparison chart. It was delivered to the head of the US delegation in Tianjin at an NGO briefing and a meeting was requested to discuss the substance of the letter. Here are some highlights from the letter:

“… we want to emphasize that China is not and must not continue to serve as an excuse for continued inaction by the United States, especially as China is moving forward with serious efforts. The United States, as the world’s richest country and its greatest historical polluter, must fulfill its obligations under the UNFCCC and Bali Action Plan. We call upon the United States to respect and contribute to the UN process, instead of undermining it and becoming a shield for other Annex I countries to hide behind.”

“It is time for the United States to stop using China as a scapegoat, and to move forward with whatever honest efforts it can come up with..”

Although I personally find the overall tone of the open letter a bit nationalistic and defensive, it contains important facts that shed light on how behind the US is on the issue of addressing climate change given its historical responsibility.

” The United States is and remains the world’s largest contributor to climate change. With less than 5% of global population it accounts for 29% of global cumulative emissions (between 1850 and 2006) that are causing climate change; China accounts for a mere 8.62% with 20% to 22% global population.

Today, average citizens in the United States continue to pollute about four times as much as people in China – at 19.2 versus 4.9 metric tons per capita in 2008.

China set up a comprehensive National Climate Action Program in 2007; the United States continues to have no comprehensive national climate legislation.”

It also offers an important alternative to a U.S.- favorite media narrative that was beginning to dominate the news on the climate negotiation in the last several days. However, I want to caution that while delegates of governments from around the world converge in Tianjin to negotiate important elements of the climate treaty, most if not every delegate will likely already be speaking on behalf of national interests. The climate movement should not resort to similar approach or potentially further fan nationalistic flame. We have to accept that this is, after all, a negotiation between nations. There should probably be no illusion that countries will be negotiating on behalf of national interests and nothing more, or less.

With delegates of both countries already lashing damning and insinuating remarks on each other at their respective final press conferences today, and other countries beginning to take the “wait and see” backseat approach to see how the “spat” plays out between the two major emitters, I believe our job as civil society is not to take side with governments, but with the planet.

The US’s inability to move forward on climate legislation has to do with its peculiar political system and the lack of political consensus on the ground in the US. It’s also a failure on our part as U.S. NGOs. We have failed to educate and mobilize enough ordinary Americans across political spectrums and convince them to believe in the urgency for actions and push our Congressional representatives to legislate accordingly.

In order to win comprehensive climate legislation in the US, we need to wage a campaign that reaches across race, class and gender; and brings together the environmental movement, the labor movement and the social justice movement, much like the 2008 Presidential campaign that brought Obama into the White House. We have managed to put climate change on the agenda and in the public discourse, now we need a real movement to push for sustained and long-term actions to address it.

Join the 10/10/10 Global Work Party to address climate change and start talking to people who never wanted to listen to us and explain to them why climate change affects all of us. Think about Hurricane Katrina, the Gansu mudslide, the Pakistani flood. Poor people will be the hardest hit, be them in China or the U.S. .

FAIR USE NOTICE. This document may contain copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making this article available in our efforts to advance the understanding of environmental and social issues. I believe that this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Green Camel, tirelessly protecting the Yellow River in Gansu, China

Green Camel Bell (GCB), is a Non-Profit environmental protection organization in Gansu, formally established on 4th, November, 2004. It aims to protect and to restore the continuing deteriorating ecological environment in Western China.

I have the honor of working with Green Camel Bell for almost two years now. They are some of the most dedicated, inspiring people in China’s environmental movement, working to protect China’s mother river, the birth place of Chinese civilization – the Yellow River.

China’s Environmental NGOs: Perspectives from a U.S. NGO – by Leigh Billings

This post was written by Leigh Billings and originally published in the China Crossroad, now Collective Responsibility on April 28, 2009

Last month I got to talk with Pacific Environment’s Xiu Min Li, about the organization’s work in China and the general situation for Chinese environmental NGOs (ENGOs).

Pacific Environment’s China program provides small grants, capacity building support and networking opportunities to environmental grassroots across China. After a year of conducting my own research on international support for China’s ENGOs, I came to the conclusion that Pacific Environment offers the best and most comprehensive support for China’s ENGO movement.

Crossroads: What are some of the biggest challenges facing China’s environmental NGOs?
Xiu: The biggest challenges I see include unstable funding, lack of direction and staff turnover. There is a lot of foreign funding available to environmental NGOs in China, but many have no clue how to get it. This is partially because many groups are lacking a strategic plan in terms of how they want to position themselves as an environmental NGO in their region. In order to survive, they chase after funding and their staff and resources can’t keep up with all the projects they take on. This is causing burn out amongst lowly paid staff who are enthusiastic but lack guidance.

Crossroads: Why are you visiting China? What environmental groups did you meet and why did you meet with them?
Xiu: This is a site visit with four organizations that we work with including Green Oasis, Green Camel Bell, Green Eyes and Green Anhui. As a part of our capacity support efforts, we visit these organizations to find out how their water projects are going and how their organization is developing in their respective regions.

Crossroads: What are some of the projects these groups are working on?
Xiu: These groups are involved in many projects. The ones that are directly funded by Pacific Environment are usually related to water pollution. Green Oasis is building a water pollution monitoring team that will approach polluting enterprises and try to convince them to do a third party audit based on the fact that they are on the IPE’s Pollution Map.

Crossroads: What are the challenges Pacific Environment faces when working with Chinese NGOs?
Xiu: The challenges we face are: 1) balancing our expectation with our own capacity, 2) guiding these organizations to a shared vision of how environmental NGOs ought to operate in China.

Crossroads: What are some success stories?
Xiu: The 3 groups we support are some of the only NGOs in their respective regions and deal with a lot of responsibilities. Many have developed great relationships with stakeholders in their regions; such as government, media and various academic institutions.

Green Eyes recently saved a gray nurse shark from being killed and eaten in Guangdong through an organization they established a few months ago, called South China Nature Society.

Green Anhui successfully shut down 3 chemical factories in a small village on the outskirts of Bengbu city. The case was widely reported in the national media.

Crossroads: In your opinion, what is China’s biggest environmental problem?
Xiu: Resource scarcity due to pollution and excessive consumption.

FAIR USE NOTICE. This document may contain copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Pacific Environment is making this article available in our efforts to advance the understanding of environmental and social issues. We believe that this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.