Global Citizens: Campaigning for Environmental Solutions

Abstract

This chapter deals with three linked issues. First, the nature of modern campaigning, with particular reference to the work of Greenpeace and the solutions they offer. Second, the role of Greenpeace and other nongovernmental organizations from the not-for-profit sector. Third, the challenge and opportunities created by ‘globalization’ and what this means for global governance from an environmental point of view. For some years Greenpeace has argued that ‘solutions’ have moved to centre stage in the work of pressure groups, as they used to be known. The formative role of environmental campaigning organizations was to draw attention to problems, but by the 1990s, finding and demonstrating solutions, and getting them applied, became much more important (see Yearley, this volume). This has proved a long and hard road. Indeed, the gap between what can be done and what is being done has, if anything, widened. This is mainly because the technical potential has improved while, in Britain at least, implementation has moved much more slowly. It was once famously said of an incompetent British government that this is an island built on coal and surrounded by fish, but still it manages to run out of both. Similar things could be said today. The government has patently failed to protect fish stocks but that can be conveniently blamed on the EU Common Fisheries Policy. But no such excuse will wash on energy. Britain’s wave energy resource is more than 70 times the UK electricity demand. Britain’s wind resource is also vast. Offshore wind could meet Britain’s entire electricity demand three times over. Against this, the government’s unattained target of 10 per cent for renewable electricity is simply pathetic. Contrast Britain with Denmark, which is phasing out fossil fuel use in electricity generation and is on course for generating 50 per cent of its electricity from wind alone by 2030. Little wonder Denmark is reaping the benefits in terms of engineering jobs in wind turbines, an industry in which it is world leader. The story in Germany and the Netherlands is similar: yet Britain is far, far windier.