Philanthropic Foundations and the International Climate Regime

Morena, Edouard

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-42484-2_2

Cited by 6 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…To accomplish these goals, the Energy Foundation channeled grant resources on behalf of its supporting donors, avoiding waste and redundancy. For their grantees, the ability to “shop at one source,” rather than pitch multiple funders for money saved on time and resources, and streamlined approaches (Morena, ). During the 1990s, the Energy Foundation helped shift the conversation about climate change away from the need for systemic political and policy reforms toward a focus on market‐driven engineering solutions, relying on appeals to scientific evidence and economic benefits to persuade elected officials and industry leaders (Faber & McCarthy, ; Morena, ).…”

Section: Establishing a Common Roadmapmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Far from being passive supporters of actions to address climate change, major U.S. foundations for several decades have played an active role in defining a common roadmap for their grantees and partners. By framing the challenges, defining the priorities, and promoting specific ideas, philanthropists have actively shaped common ways of thinking that have bound together otherwise disconnected organizations and leaders into shared approaches and strategies (Bartley, ; Horvath & Powell, ; Morena, ; Nisbet, ). During an era of political dysfunction and polarization across levels of U.S. government, philanthropists are able to mobilize vast financial resources to alter the public conversation relative to complex problems like climate change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Strategic philanthropy in the post‐Cap‐and‐Trade years: Reviewing U.S. climate and energy foundation funding

Nisbet¹

2018

WIREs Climate Change

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For several decades, philanthropists in the United States have played a behind-thescenes role in framing climate change as a social problem. These foundations have defined climate change primarily as a pollution problem solvable by enacting a price on carbon and by shifting markets in the direction of renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency practices. Funding has favored "insider" groups that push for policy action by way of negotiation, coalition building, and compromise, rather than "outsider" groups that specialize in grassroots organizing. Philanthropists have also placed less priority on funding for other low-carbon energy sources such as nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, or natural gas, nor have they invested in actions intended to boost societal resilience, protect public health, or to address questions of equity and justice. But in the years following the failure of the 2010 Federal cap and trade bill, a review of available grants from 19 major foundations indicates that philanthropists responded to calls for new directions. Funding shifted to focus on state-or municipal-level mitigation and adaptation actions and to the needs of low-income/minority communities. Significant funding was also devoted to mobilizing public opinion and to opposing the fossil fuel industry. Nearly a quarter of all funding, however, remained dedicated to promoting renewable energy and efficiency-related actions with comparatively little funding devoted to other low-carbon energy technologies. The review of past funding trends provides implications for assessing philanthropic strategy during the Donald J. Trump presidency and beyond.

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Section: Establishing a Common Roadmapmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategic philanthropy in the post‐Cap‐and‐Trade years: Reviewing U.S. climate and energy foundation funding

Nisbet¹

2018

WIREs Climate Change

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“…Since the turn of the millennium, a new 'transnational climate governance landscape' (Bulkeley et al 2014) progressively took root through the emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility schemes (Bulkeley and Newell 2010: 119), transnational city networks (Betsill and Bulkeley 2004) and corporate carbon trading systems (Bernstein et al 2010). In the climate diplomacy space, this evolution was closely scrutinised and promoted by a well-experienced and well-connected group of diplomats, NGO, foundation and business representatives, climate policy and communications experts in close contact with the UNFCCC Secretariat and key Parties to the Convention (Morena 2016 For participants in IPPI, the failure to reach an agreement in 2009 was a direct consequence of stakeholders' disregard for wider political and non-state actor dynamics and their influence. Experts from the think tank Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G, founded in 2004), for instance, suggested that the Copenhagen collapse had shown that 'climate diplomacy has shifted from a relatively narrow focus on the UNFCCC process, to a more complex and wider discipline that now engages new constituencies and embraces broader geopolitical discussions' (Mabey et al 2013: 6).…”

Section: Non-state Actors As Brokers For a Bottom-up Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To succeed, the Paris conference therefore had to send 'unambiguous signals that the world will shift its economic and social activity toward more climate-friendly and sustainable pathways' (Oberthür et al 2015: 1). To do this, a range of individuals were mobilised and tools were created to ensure that stakeholders in the climate debate sent the right message to the right audience at the right time (Morena 2016). Communications efforts were orchestrated by discreet 'unbranded' initiatives such as the Global Strategic Communications Council (GSCC) or Climate Briefing Service (CBS) whose communications experts '[coordinated stakeholder] voices at the national and international levels to help shape the national offers as they are being drafted and the thinking around the international agreement'.…”

Section: Crafting and Circulating The Grand Narrative Of A 'Planetarymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There, we studied the circulation of people and documents, practices of text production and editing, the role of diplomatic rituals and political performances, as well as civil society mobilisations, scientific events and business happenings . We also analysed how philanthropic foundations and think tanks shaped the 'road to Paris' and the discursive context surrounding COP21 (Morena 2016). In this paper, we connect the findings of these different lines of research.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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‘Incantatory’ governance: global climate politics’ performative turn and its wider significance for global politics

2020

Self Cite

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The 2015 Paris agreement represents a deep-rooted change in global climate governance. While existing scholarly assessments highlight central institutional features of the Paris shift, they tend to overlook its symbolic and discursive dimensions. Our analysis shows that the Paris architecture combines two core elements: an iterative pledge and review process to stimulate global climate action, and a 'performative' narrative aimed at aligning actors' expectations on the prospect of a low-carbon future. We therefore suggest calling it an incantatory system of governance. We then examine the origins of the new approach and find that the rise of 'soft law' approaches and communicative techniques in global climate governance are both indicative of a broader process: the entry of management culture in international organisations. Against this backdrop, we examine the prospects, limitations and caveats of the new approach and discuss its wider implications for global politics.

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Conceptualizing contexts or contextualizing concepts? On some issues of the modeling of relational spaces in the study of collective action

Siméant-Germanos

2019

Social Movement Studies

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The growing attention paid to the relational spaces of collective action is good news. It owes a lot to the legacy of interactionism, and allows a more accurate attention to the relevant contexts of protest, that cannot be subsumed only under big contexts such as political opportunity structure, economy, etc. One can however worry about the never ending succession of paradigms -more often acronyms -in the subfield of in social movement studies. "Context" issues are in fact linked to the very status of explanation in social sciences, and to the unequal nomological (or conversely more historical) ambitions of social sciences -a debate that is far from being settled. The article insists on this underlying epistemological debate, before splitting different aspects of what is at stake in the way relational contexts of collective action should be considered: relational understanding of strategies, link between mobilizations and transformations in and between social spaces, the role and types of differentiation of society. Here, the classical (but barely translated) work of Michel Dobry appears as particularly useful to pay attention to contexts considered at the same time through interactions and the differentiation of society. But far from pleading for a new magic bullet, the article intends to support a more historically contextualized approach of social movements, less interested by the establishment of laws than the understanding of the consequences on specific forms of social differentiations, the understanding of which being a good definition of what a relevant context of collective action might be.

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Philanthropic Foundations and the International Climate Regime

Cited by 6 publications

References 12 publications

Strategic philanthropy in the post‐Cap‐and‐Trade years: Reviewing U.S. climate and energy foundation funding

Strategic philanthropy in the post‐Cap‐and‐Trade years: Reviewing U.S. climate and energy foundation funding

‘Incantatory’ governance: global climate politics’ performative turn and its wider significance for global politics

Conceptualizing contexts or contextualizing concepts? On some issues of the modeling of relational spaces in the study of collective action

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