{"id":3087,"date":"2023-12-31T01:28:52","date_gmt":"2023-12-31T01:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3087"},"modified":"2024-01-05T16:21:23","modified_gmt":"2024-01-05T16:21:23","slug":"a-year-for-climate-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3087","title":{"rendered":"A Year For Climate Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blog at www.campaignstrategy.org<\/a> 31 December 2023 by Chris Rose<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s a proposal for using the opportunity of 40 countries going to the polls in 2024, to make the most of the climate framing reset brought about by COP28 and the global onset of \u2018angry weather\u2019<\/a>.<\/h3>\n
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As the UN climate conference COP28 ended, Faith Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, told AFP,\u00a0 \u201cTwo hundred countries have signed a document to say goodbye to fossil fuels\u201d.<\/p>\n

Petrostates, climate deniers and even OPEC itself<\/a> had fought to keep any reference to ending fossil fuels out of the \u2018decision statement<\/a>\u2019 and succeeded in surrounding it with a forest of caveats and a fog of qualifications but there it was, as item (d) in para 28, on page 5, Part II.<\/p>\n

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Hardly anyone will look at those caveats but Birol has helped ensure that millions already know that governments have acknowledged they should \u2018transition\u2019 away from fossil fuels, and crucially, to rapidly triple renewable energy.<\/p>\n

Many observers greeted this with a tired shrug: the world had known this was needed for so long, why hadn\u2019t it come sooner? \u00a0True enough it was decades overdue but it\u2019s a collective political confession with strategic implications.<\/p>\n

New Social Facts<\/strong><\/p>\n

In itself the statement cannot mandate a change in the facts on the ground but it does change the terms in which the world\u2019s governments now talk about climate policy progress, and so, as perception becomes reality, it changes the social facts, in this case the accepted reality of what ought-to-be-happening.<\/p>\n

In my view it\u2019s a big deal because it pairs the problem of fossil fuels and the solution of replacing them with renewable energy.\u00a0 This reframes the climate issue in terms that are much more tangible, practical and everyday political than those of earlier eras in the \u2018climate change issue\u2019.<\/p>\n

Previously the climate issue in COP-world has been framed as a question of science, and expressed in inscrutable terms of \u2018emissions\u2019, and since the 2015 Paris COP, through the obscure NDCs (Nationally Determined Commitments) and the hard to explain \u20181.5C\u2019.\u00a0 Those are all still important but they no longer have to act as metrics in tests of whether or not national governments are measuring up to their international obligations.<\/p>\n

Now UN climate political commitments can be expressed in a language understood, and in actions verifiable, at ground level. \u00a0\u201cIs my home village, street, city, farm or transport being powered by fossil fuels or renewables?\u201d \u00a0The global climate issue can become more \u2018relatable\u2019, \u00a0and connectable to domestic politics. \u00a0Too often the national and international have been badly disconnected.<\/p>\n

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From the previous post \u2013 Al Jaber Proves An Unexpectedly Good Choice For COP President<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Shortly before COP28 Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, former Environment Minister of Costa Rica, now CEO of the World Bank Global Environment Facility, argued that national politicians could fail in their international commitments with impunity because that was not a political issue at national level.\u00a0 It was, he said, an even bigger problem than the shortage of finance for positive climate action and misallocation of public subsidies to fossil fuels, in both developed and developing countries.<\/p>\n

Reframing the climate issue as an energy choice makes it not just easier to understand but more specific, like replacing non-specific or complex advice to \u2018eat healthily\u2019, with a specific diet instruction: \u2018eat this, not that\u2019. Of course many NGOs and businesses have framed the issue in those terms for years but the international political system has only now come into synch.<\/p>\n

That should help by removing one big obstacle to generating genuine political engagement with the climate crisis: communicability. \u00a0As does the fact, which many national politicians have still not caught up with, that new renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels.\u00a0 Solar is now the cheapest electricity in history<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That ought to remove another reason why many national politicians have been reluctant to seriously engage with climate action: fears that it might not be feasible and affordable.<\/p>\n

Finally, it\u2019s an unwelcome reality that every country in the world is now suffering the havoc wrought by angry weather, which an increasing number of people realise is caused by climate change. \u00a0This is making the issue increasingly urgent.\u00a0 As UN climate chief Simon Stiel said<\/a> at COP28:<\/p>\n

the political and economic logic is increasingly insurmountable: Human lives in huge numbers are being lost in every country, while fossil fuels hit household budgets and national budgets alike. Whilst there are vast benefits of bolder climate action.<\/em><\/p>\n

And polling not just protest shows that in country after country, the public supports climate action.\u00a0 So at least in theory, serious action on climate change meets the three default heuristic tests of political decision-making: is it urgent?, is it feasible?, is it popular?<\/p>\n

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In my view, the convergence of unaffordable climate impacts, affordable renewable energy and a new political default that fossils fuels must go, creates significant new campaign and advocacy potential to stimulate pro-climate action.\u00a0 Of course potential is one thing and realising it is another: how can it be done?\u00a0 There is one very obvious opportunity to at least make a start.<\/p>\n

40 Elections<\/strong><\/p>\n

As readers have probably noticed, this year is due to see national elections held in 40 countries<\/a> (more by some measures). \u00a0UK newspaper The Guardian<\/em> has called it \u2018Democracy\u2019s Super Bowl<\/a>\u2019, saying they \u2018represent more than 40% of the world\u2019s population and an outsized chunk of global GDP\u2019.\u00a0 Making these into \u2018Climate Elections\u2019 could be logistically convenient for campaign planners as a follow up to COP28, and a global signal from civil society would be noticed by the media.\u00a0 It\u2019s hardly a new idea and rather obvious but sometimes the obvious and the effective can coincide.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, it would be hard for politicians to avoid.\u00a0 The objective ought not be to try and displace other issues and pressing concerns, although many of them from food security and health to children\u2019s futures and economic prosperity, would also benefit from effective action to rein in climate change.\u00a0 Rather it should be to maximise greater serious engagement by national politicians on the new climate agenda which governments have, however reluctantly in some cases, committed themselves to at COP28.<\/p>\n

There would be no need for a one-size fits-all campaign ask, beyond action to ambitiously implement the agenda already agreed at COP28. \u00a0\u00a0That is already fully equipped with references to \u2018common but differentiated responsibilities\u2019, \u00a0\u2018respective capabilities\u2019 and \u2018the light of different national circumstances’.\u00a0 But as Carlos Manuel Rodriguez pointed out, \u00a0\u201cclimate change performance at the country level is not a political issue\u201d and there is a probably universal need for greater \u201cpolitical control\u201d by civil society.\u00a0 There are few better opportunities than around a national election. \u00a0National climate advocates and campaigners will know what works best and is most needed in their countries.<\/p>\n

Nor would it be a failure if some national efforts were much smaller or less successful than others.\u00a0 We are starting from a low base in many countries, and some governments, including the UK, have been sliding backwards.<\/p>\n

For instance UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made a short and embarrassing visit to COP28 in Dubai, spending more time in the large jet he travelled in, than he did on the ground, and avoiding contact with UK climate journalists.\u00a0 This followed an attempt in September to boost his flagging popularity with his own Conservative base by flaunting an agenda of delaying climate actions, falsely insinuating that fast implementation of green technologies would make households poorer, and promoting more oil and gas exploration.\u00a0 A member of his government even proposed to abolish a \u2018Meat Tax\u2019 which did not exist.<\/p>\n

The main reason for Sunak\u2019s \u2018bonfire\u2019 of green measures was a hope that it would frighten voters away from the rival Labour Party which is way ahead in the polls.\u00a0 That was based on a calculation, reportedly much debated amongst his advisers, that a bit of damage to the UK\u2019s international climate reputation would benefit rather than harm them at home.\u00a0 In the event his popularity and that of his party dropped even further, and it went down badly at COP28.<\/p>\n

Behind Sunak\u2019s calculation was probably the out-dated conventional wisdom in British Westminster politics that voters do not really care about climate change.\u00a0 The only systematic study of how UK Members of Parliament think and talk about climate change is by Rebecca Willis, a political scientist now at Lancaster University.<\/p>\n

Her work, recorded in her book on climate change and democracy, Too Hot to Handle<\/em><\/a> , included conducting off the record interviews with a representative sample of MPs in 2016. (It\u2019s quite instructive and worth reading, and may be one of only a few such studies anywhere in the world). \u00a0Willis found that even those who took climate change seriously felt they had to be careful because their colleagues saw it as marginal, \u201cniche\u201d or a \u201clunatic fringe\u201d as one said, while another wanted to avoid appearing like \u201ca zealot\u201d, and a third said they were regarded as a \u201cfreak\u201d.<\/p>\n

One said she thought that a search among Westminster\u2019s 650 MPs for those seriously engaged with ideas such as leaving carbon in the ground would \u201cstruggle to get into double figures\u201d.<\/p>\n

Political engagement with climate change has since improved in the UK Parliament particularly in the Conservative Party. The Conservative Environmental Network<\/a> set up in 2013, now has a caucus of over 150 Parliamentarians, out-numbering groups favoured by Conservative climate deniers by three to one.\u00a0 Even so, that attitudes like those revealed by Willis still exist, is attested to by Sunak\u2019s backfiring green bonfire experiment.<\/p>\n

This perhaps shows that it is in old industrial democracies where climate deniers have been most active, that national politicians are furthest behind the curve of public, scientific and business opinion on climate action. \u00a0All the more reason to press the climate case at election time, and make sure that was was signed up to in Dubai, does not stay in Dubai.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/p>\n

If you are interested, in this Political Studies paper<\/a> Willis applied sociological political analysis to the ways UK MPs made a \u2018representative claim\u2019 for taking climate change seriously.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the abstract:<\/p>\n

This article analyses interviews with UK politicians, through the framework of the \u2018representative claim\u2019 developed by Michael Saward, seeing representation as a dynamic interaction between politicians and those they claim to represent. Thus, politicians need to construct a \u2018representative claim\u2019 to justify action on climate. Four different types of claims are identified: a \u2018cosmopolitan\u2019 claim, a \u2018local prevention\u2019 claim, a \u2018co-benefits\u2019 claim and a \u2018surrogate\u2019 claim. The analysis shows that it is not straightforward for a politician to argue that action is in the interests of their electorate and that climate advocates need to support efforts to construct and defend claims.<\/em><\/p>\n

Students of motivational values<\/a> may also notice that the \u2018cosmopolitan\u2019 claim would tend to resonate with universalist Pioneer values, \u2018local prevention\u2019 (eg of loss of identity, safety or security) with Settler values, and co-benefits (eg better homes and jobs) with success oriented Prospectors.<\/p>\n

Willis also has things to say about the need for pro-climate narratives to be more about people and families, appealing to hearts and emotion and less technical.\u00a0 If you did consider taking climate into the 2024 elections, these might be food for thought.<\/p>\n

chris@campaignstrategy.co.uk<\/p>\n

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