NGOs in the Climate Crisis

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Barbara Unmüßig

Processes of Fragmentation, Lines of Conflict, and Strategic Approaches

The debate is overdue. For many years, the belief has survived that we are one global civil society, which – in a historic mission – will save the world in light of the universal failure of state policies. This position is experiencing a renaissance, particularly following the disappointing United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009. At the same time, the international climate negotiation process highlights how large the conflicts of interest among civil society climate actors have now become in terms of geography, positions, and ideologies. There can no longer be any talk of strength through unity, of harmony of positions. The political conflicts of interest are further joined by numerous internal institutional principles and constraints on civil society work – especially with respect to access to resources and financial aid and to (media) publicity.

Click here to read NGOs in the Climate Crisis (10 pages, pdf, 502KB)