Role of Friends of the Earth in Developing Organizational Policies - Essay Example

Role of the Organization in the Development of Organizational Policies in UK Friends of the Earth: A Case Study Date of Submission Executive Summary: Global Environmental Crisis is a huge issue, however the policy responses are either vague or completely absent. The need for a global paradigm will only be followed by policy responses at state level, since that would highlight the issue and place it on the global agenda. Yet, even on state level in the most advanced states, environmental issue isn’t being considered even close to what may be referred to as a political issue. In fact, the most advanced nation even like the US consider this as a non-issue, and instead imply that policy development on these lines may impede their economic growth (Richardson 2009). Thus, one can easily relate Climate Change to the Global Financial Crisis, as the latter seems to be the deterring point behind the ignorance on the former. However, this isn’t the point where it can be established that Climate Change is a lost cause. Instead, a few examples can still be narrated where government involvement led toward policy responses, and that too legally binding in context to the state legislation. The scholarship on climate change indicates that government involvement with the issue is very critical to resolving the crisis at hand. Also, the efforts that are already being done must be rocketed by taking the crucial stakeholders into confidence. In other words, theoretical paradigms in climate change studies indicate that the social interest groups or volunteer organizations can play a positive role in bringing the issue on agenda, and once the issue transforms into a political one legislations are bound to be designed. However, certain steps need to be followed which includes; developing or identifying non-environmental leadership, initiating action in the community, changing lifestyles and lastly transforming it into a global effort. Policy responses on the issue of climate change will only result after the intermingling of three actors; normative rationale on part of government, citizen`s will to take action and accurate consultation designs by organizations/individuals having expertise. To prove the point, a critical analysis of the organization functioning actively in the UK, the Friends of the Earth can be quite insightful. The organization reached a huge breakthrough in 2008, when after many concerted efforts; they were able to incorporate the Climate Change Act of 2008 in the UK, with binding legislations aiming at controlling the environmental damages via limiting carbon emitting gases. The organization i.e. Friends of the Earth initiated their campaign by publishing white papers and engaging MPs from all the parties, then mobilizing the civil society for the cause and offering all kinds of consultancies to the government for reaching sound policy responses. Thus, on November 26, 2008, the UK Parliament finally passed the Climate Change Act, which focuses on legally bound targets for 2025 to reduce carbon emissions in compliance with EU pledges similar in nature and other institutional commitments. The Paper will critically evaluate the role of the organization in evolving the policy perspective to such an extent that a sound environmental policy was designed to achieve definitive targets. Introduction: The world is encountering a range of crisis posing a serious challenge for the Global Community to prioritize policy making agendas at hand. The foremost topic of discussion amongst intellectuals and the policy makers around the world revolves around the economic crises hitting the world, alongside other socio-political issues at hand. Resultantly, the Global Environmental Crisis, especially with context to the Climate change is often ignored. Though Globally the efforts haven’t brought much fruit, yet a few governments are found making some alterations to their policy texts in this context. The concept of global governance doesn’t apply, at least in context to the climate change issue taking over the world. Yet, there is some hope that the gradual changes at state level may take the form of a global effort to conserve the environment for future generations. Thus, for policy paradigms to be applicable in the state legislature, it is important that governments are involved because unless authority is imposed, the issue won`t acquire much seriousness. A few governments have taken an initiative, yet the progress is slow. Thus, research in the area is required to reach the point where all necessary steps are taken to control the situation. Current research on the subject indicates that there are various issues which stall progress in the area. Firstly, Climate Change is treated merely as an environmental issue while it must be taken as a political issue as well, given its impacts and consequences which may be worst than those of the economic crises. Secondly, there is much focus on behavior whereas the political impact must be on the agenda for individuals. Thirdly, the social foundations which will act as catalysts to charge political action is missing. Lastly, community or group effort lags far behind in context to Climate Change. Thus, the solution seems to be simple, i.e. enhancing public support by mobilizing the networks within civil society and triggering them toward driving political campaign to being the issue on the government agenda. Hale (2010) suggests that the “third sector” can act as a crucial agent of change which may bring about the policy responses aspired. This third sector inherently is constituted by various voluntary and other kinds of interest group which must lobby for the case. Hale (2010) also signifies four ways to achieve the desired; firstly, identification of sound leadership which is essentially non-environmental to highlight the seriousness of the issue, secondly, action groups at various levels for instance schools, religious organizations, health groups e.t.c who will further mobilize others. Thirdly, trending low-carbon lifestyle as a mainstream fashion amongst the individuals within a community and last one being the international transformation of the cause. To illustrate the point, a case study can be taken with the most accurate one being the efforts of the organization, The Friends of the Earth, which followed the steps identified by Hale to bring about an apparent yet a very significant change in the politics of the UK. It didn’t only succeeded in mobilizing a mass effort in the form of mass campaigning but also provided research papers and sound consultancy to the Parliament of the UK to present a legislation (Friends of Earth 2008). UK saw a climate policy revolution on November 26, 2008, when the Climate Change Act was passed and legally binding targets were set to significantly reduce the carbon emissions i.e. the greenhouse gases evidently by 2025 (Carbon and Climate Law Review 2007). Moreover, an independent committee, advisory in nature, was also formed to constantly evaluate and monitor the government and consult them to achieve the maximum possible output regarding the legislation (Scheer and Hoppner 2010). Friends of Earth – Historical Evaluation of Climate Change Law The Climate Change Act didn’t just come into being on its own, rather much thought was put into the process to coincide various stakeholders and being every actor on the same page to finally develop the policy. Prior to the legislation, a lot of effort was incorporated by the Friends of the Earth into mitigating the framework behind the legislation, the work for which was started back in 2000 (Climate Change, The UK Programme 2000). The mitigation was materialized in the form of a small-scale programme i.e. the national climate change programme which was later modified according to the needs and response in 2006 (Hollo, Kulovesi & Mehling 2013). In addition, the organization released white papers first in 2003, and later in 2007 to illustrate the seriousness of the issue, and to signify the goal of reducing the carbon emission. These publications were high-profile in nature and their main focus was the risks involved with the climate change for the future generations to come, and the need for action now to protect from the dangers posed in future. Also, reports published indicated that human activities like burning of fossils and other such activities led to about 90 percent of the global warming (Lyster 2010). At this point, the targets imposed weren’t legally binding as they now are, in fact it wasn’t even intended to be of binding nature as that was a long shot back then. However, later when the organization was successful in bringing the issue on to the public policy agenda, the push for binding legislation for climate change was initiated. Campaigning by Friends of Earth Since non-environmental leadership`s involvement was crucial to bringing about real change, the organization felt the need to involve some political personalities to add seriousness to their otherwise disconcerted efforts. Thus, three Members of the UK Parliament were engaged who actively sought the crisis and even managed to present the model bill for climate change targets. The first MP, John Gummer, belonged from a conservative background and had a history of environmental campaigning as well. The second MP was Micheal Meacher who was from the Labour Party and was also an environment minister in the past. Norman Baker, however, who was the third MP was an environmental spokesperson and belonged from the Liberal Democratic party. They began campaigning for legislation in the House of Commons and the effort ended up opening the floor for motion on legislation which was signed by 412 MPs in the House. Later in May 2005, the organization Friends of the Earth officially launched the campaign for Climate Law in UK which they referred to as the Big Ask Campaign. It gained a lot of momentum eventually after interfacing within its local network and having organized around a hundred public meetings all around the UK to mobilize support for the law. The main breakthrough during the campaign was the inclusion of the conservative segment into the idea of legislation for the cause. Owing to the efforts and aggressive campaign of the Friends of the Earth, the then Environment Minister quoted the organization for helping in bringing forth the Bill for motion. Thus, the organization clearly understood the idea of involving the leadership along with the civil society to add seriousness to the issue. Also, it just didn’t stop there, in addition it continued to offer sound research and consultancy to all actors in the process and persistently made an effort to fuel the movement in every possible way. Other organizations and groups around the group are making similar efforts, however, they have been failing due to issues with direction and absence of a paradigm. Legislation & the Role of Friends of Earth The government draft for the Bill on Climate Law was first published in March 2007 by DeFRA ( Dept for environment, food and rural affairs). The Bill was then forwarded for scrutiny amongst the parliament and various other stakeholders to be debated. This was where the Friends of Earth again activated its efforts to consolidate the various actors and bring them into sync. It was due to their active communication strategizing that the public and the interest groups responded to the Bill with dire interest, and a mass movement was initiated in favor of the Bill (Robinson 2007). The Bill was closed for further consultation of June 12, 2007 after which around three committees of the parliament held consequent meetings and further point out the flaws and errors in the Bill to be discussed further. Entitled ‘Taking Forward the UK Climate Change Bill’ the government further published the response to the scrutiny and public reaction. It was then that the Bill got introduced to the Parliament, and was thus introduces into the House of Lords, and then to the House of Commons in 2008. The Parliamentary debates were much heated, sometimes even more intense than expected. Differing and conflictual views on various aspects of the bill created deterrence and even deadlock at various points. The main issue, however, was the inclusion of emissions from shipping corporations and international aviations in the legislation (McAdam 2012). It posed issues of transparency and accountability; however, since the pressure from the interest groups was quite intense, an agreement was reached later where the parliament was empowered to oversee all accountability issues. Friends of Public consistently advocated for the cause and insisted their lobbyist and specifically the MPs to maintain the pressure. Also, the persistently encouraged the public to write to the government expressing their intense attachment to the issue, to ensure that the government doesn’t back out of the legislation. Not only did the Friends of the Earth made independent efforts to engage the public and stakeholders, rather they managed to form an interface of network amongst other such national and international organizations working on similar issues. Other pre-legislation efforts on part of Friends of Earth involved capacity building and community developed with reference to lifestyle changed required for the Climate Change Law to be effective. Also, since the organization has a deep network even at the grass-root level, they ensured that the message reached to the lowest possible level of the community, at the same time keeping the MP`s engaged to keep the inspirations high. Later when the Bill was transformed into Law, the government itself acknowledged that consistent backing by the leadership on Climate Change, public`s will and interest in the issue and persistent consultation on the Bill by experts from the organization were crucial factors in materializing the contents of the Bill and turning the dream into a reality, though many further efforts still need to be made in this subject. Conclusively, on one hand where there is an agreement over the fact that Climate Change is a Global issue, on the other hand no one is ready to take responsibility for the cause. Also, there are many other causes like the world economic crises and social movements like feminism which are still the most dominant issues for the global community. However, this doesn’t mean that there are no future perspectives for the cause. Some efforts at the State level are being made, which implies that a blueprint is available for others to seek advice from. For the purpose, Friends of the Earth, which is an organization working aggressively for the cause is taken as a case study to understand how it was able to generate enough moment in UK to incorporate an entire binding legislation to reduce emissions by 2025. The organization acted wisely in the respect that it first highlighted the significance of the issue by publishing white papers and indicating factual data implying that something needs to be done. Then, it gathered the support of leaders in the UK, and that too from various parties to illustrate how serious the issue is, also to being the issue on to the agenda of the government. Later when the Bill was in motion, and for public scrutiny, it utilized all its resources to mobilize not only the grass-root level citizens but also various lobbyists and interest groups to maintain pressure on the group. Thus, the Bill was the result of leadership and government involvement, mobilization of civil society and active consultation by various national as well as international organizations working for the cause, and with further research in the field, paradigms can be established which transforms this effort into a global one. References (2007). Carbon & climate law review CCLR. Berlin, Lexxion. http://www.lexxion.eu/cclr/. GREAT BRITAIN. (2000). Climate change: the UK programme. London, Stationery Office. FRIENDS OF THE EARTH. (2008). Friends of the earth. 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