Earth needs all the friends it can get

Andy Atkins, BBC The Green Room 17 Nov 08;

After years of being a lone voice in the battle to save the planet, environmental NGOs now find themselves being joined by politicians and businesses, says Friends of the Earth's Andy Atkins. However, he argues, green groups are just as relevant as they were 30 years ago.

These days it can feel as though the environment is holding us to ransom.

Floods, storms and droughts across the world are attributed to the global rise in temperatures, and as we run short of fossil fuels, price rises are affecting our transport, heating and even food bills.

Small wonder, then, that the environment has moved from a minority passion to a hot topic in today's world, with politicians and businesses competing to be seen to be green.

So what role can non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like Friends of the Earth play in driving forward today's environmental debate?

Over the last 30 years, environmental NGOs have played a lead role in speaking up for the environment when few others were doing so.

A key role has been to raise the alarm about damaging activities - including deforestation, GM crops, futile road schemes and spiralling waste - that most threaten our planet's life support systems and the resources we all depend upon.

Back in 1971, Friends of the Earth marked its UK launch by dumping 1,500 non-returnable bottles on the doorstep of Schweppes HQ to raise awareness of the extra waste destined for landfill because of the switch from reusable to throwaway products.

Today, the UK has a major landfill problem - but we had the foresight to predict this, and in 2003 Friends of the Earth led the campaign to bring doorstep recycling to most homes in Britain.

Leading the way

So NGOs have also been in the vanguard of advocating practical solutions to specific environmental problems, and implementing them through political action.

Many environmental NGOs have funded practical projects to conserve the environment in this country and abroad.

Without this, there's no doubt that more species would already have entered the history books.

During the decades when most people and politicians did not rank environmental concerns high on their priority list, green NGOs fought a long and hard battle protesting, protecting and proposing ways forward.

In 2008, the emerging reality of climate change has forced environmental issues to unprecedented prominence in public awareness. Now, environmental NGOs have to share the airwaves with businesses and political parties.

So what roles can NGOs best play now? The need for protest and protection remain, but vital roles for the future are:

Communicating solutions : while the public and politicians are much more aware of environmental problems, there remains an urgent need for clarity on the best practical solutions, and innovation on the policies which will drive these.

This is a challenge for those whose view of the political landscape has been shaped by years of protest, but we can do it.

The UK's Climate Change Bill, which is set to become law in the coming days, is one example.

It will make the UK the first country to introduce legislation to commit the government to legally binding reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.

This was a policy solution initially conceived and proposed by Friends of the Earth.

Encouraging public support : understandably, busy politicians with competing demands tend not to adopt far-reaching policy solutions on complex subjects just because they're a good idea.

Public backing, indeed a groundswell of public pressure, is vital.

And as climate change and other stresses on the environment intensify, we will increasingly need ambitious, far-reaching proposals to prevent catastrophe.

Individual NGOs can mobilise significant numbers of grassroots campaigners.

They can further multiply public support for a proposal by forming alliances, or backing each other's campaigns, in a way that is simply not possible for business.

We've already seen potent examples. Friends of the Earth's own local groups and activists were at the vanguard of The Big Ask campaign for a strong climate change law.

Crucially, the idea was taken up by the Stop Climate Chaos coalition which counts other major environmental organisations and development NGOs amongst its active membership. More than 200,000 people took action to persuade the government to deliver the world's first national climate change law.

Building international agreement : as a species, we are bringing upon ourselves two tightly linked global catastrophes - climate change and the rapid loss of biodiversity.

Solutions are out there, but it will require international, as well as national, action to apply them fast enough.

Critically, agreement is needed between rich and poor countries where issues of fairness will be central.

NGOs can help here too; environmental and development organisations have easy access to the experiences and perspectives of people in developing countries, as a result of projects they fund and the international networks they belong to.

They also have a critical role to play in forging international civil society agreements and putting co-ordinated public pressure on governments.

This will be vital if we are to achieve workable global political agreements, especially when it comes to hammering out the future shape of the international agreement to tackle climate change in Copenhagen in 2009.

Critical times

The seachange in public, political and business awareness of environmental issues is a dream come true for many environmentalists.

But it has not reversed the dire environmental trends that have led to the extreme weather and economic problems we are now seeing.

It simply provides a critical opportunity for NGOs now to drive much more urgent and substantive change.

Communicating real solutions, mobilising public support and forging international agreements will be critical to achieving this.

Andy Atkins recently took up the post of executive director with Friends of the Earth UK

The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website