Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
change lobbies.
60
In its range of proposals forwarded in September 2011 for a new
external energy and climate change policy, the Commission explicitly urged the
systematic involvement of industry and energy companies.
61
Some organisations like the IES have adopted the agenda and mobilised to raise
its pro
le. An IES event in the European Parliament at the end of 2012, for
example, focused on the fact that member states and the EAS had declined to
follow the UK
s example by appointing envoys for climate security.
62
The inno-
vative Earth Security Initiative has played a similar role. Its experts lament that after
the original hype of climate security, progress has stalled as it has become clearer
that climate security means very di
'
erent stakeholders and it
remains unclear how to give concrete substance to the agenda. Climate security
remains an abstract and
erent things to di
'
'
agenda as governments have failed to convince
electorates and parliaments that the issue of resource scarcity will be integral to very
tangible national interests in the future. Northern European countries remain san-
guine as they perceive they will be relatively una
u
y
ected; in many NGOs
'
view, this
has sapped the spirit of intra-EU solidarity. An agenda of
'
climate con
ict
'
must
make way for one of
'
climate peace
'
. This needs to move beyond concerns with
'
. Climate security should give way to a broader focus on
strategies to address resource scarcity. To make progress the agenda needs to be
presented as one of economic opportunity not a threat to be contained. Earth
Security Initiative experts lament that little has been done to back multilateral
regional fora such as those set up to manage cross-border water resources in the
Nile Basin and Himalayas. Governments have failed to develop a positive message
that the climate security agenda could help improve the earth
greening the military
'
'
s resilience and that it
is not a matter of holding-containment.
Such forward-thinking organisations have made an impact. However, civil
society organisations themselves remain divided over the climate security agenda.
Core bodies like the Citizens (London) Forum and Sustainable Energy (Buchar-
est) Forum created to engage civil society on e
ciency questions have not
embraced high politics security questions. The excellent and highly in
uential
European Climate Foundation has also eschewed an explicit security focus in its
targeting of the global climate agenda.
63
A trawl through Friends of the Earth
documents, press releases and statements reveals how the organisation studiously
avoids the standard lexicon of climate security; rather, it approaches the theme
extremely obliquely,
of climate change, food
security and health problems, an assertive campaign against EU support for bio-
fuels in developing states, critiques of the insu
focusing on the
'
human cost
'
ciency of the EU
'
s new energy
e
ciency rules and
'
environmental injustice
'
.
64
NGOs like Saferworld that have
pushed hard for con
ict-reducing initiatives to be built into adaptation pro-
grammes are criticised by development organisations. NGOs campaigning on the
