Tiempo Climate Newswatch
The Challenge for the Climate Action Network
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Featured sites
The United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight Against Desertification website provides information, news and resources concerning action to protect the world's drylands from further deterioration and degradation.
The Corner House website makes available a series of thought-provoking reports and presentations, published by themselves and by and other organizations, on climate issues.
News of weather events and climate affairs from around the African continent.
And finally,
Brazilian artist Nele Azevedo discusses her work Melting Men, a series of installations that has been adopted as climate change art.
About the Cyberlibrary
The Tiempo Climate Cyberlibrary is a co-production of the Stockholm Environment Institute and the International Institute for Environment and Development. It is sponsored by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.
Tiempo Climate Newswatch is a weekly on-line magazine with news, features and comment on global warming, climate change, sea-level rise and development issues. The news stories carried by Newswatch are updated weekly. Comment, features, interviews and other sections of the magazine are updated on a weekly to monthly basis.
The Tiempo Climate Portal is a listing of selected websites covering climate and development and related issues.
The Tiempo Climate Cyberlibrary is maintained and edited by Mick Kelly and Sarah Granich. The cartoons are created by Lawrence Moore. The site was developed by Mike Salmon and Mick Kelly.
While every effort is made to ensure that information on this site, and on other sites that are referenced here, is accurate, no liability for loss or damage resulting from use of this information can be accepted.
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Astrid Westerlind Wigström tasks the Climate Action Network with becoming more responsive to developing country interests at international negotiations. |
| The author is a researcher with the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. | |
Developing countries have always been under-represented in the official climate change negotiations. This can be explained by a lack of resources, including the financial means to attend, but also a lack of knowledge of the process and the issues discussed and a lack of capacity to organize themselves and to be acknowledged.
This state of under-representation was the same for both Southern non-government organizations (NGOs) and official negotiators when the Climate Action Network (CAN) was established in 1989. Sixty-three NGOs from 22 countries, under the guidance of Greenpeace International and Environmental Defense (now the Environmental Defense Fund), decided to establish CAN as a network for NGOs who share a common concern for the problems of climate change. Today, CAN claims to be the main speaker on behalf of environmental NGOs, and increasingly also development NGOs, in the international climate change negotiations.
For the least developed countries, adaptation is inevitable and, therefore, emphasized as a priority by CAN’s Southern members. This view is not, however, reflected in CAN’s agenda nor in its activities in the negotiations. The Network claims to speak on behalf of all its members, but there is an observable lack of responsiveness to the interests of Southern NGOs.
This problem traces back to structural and agency-level barriers within CAN that complicate Southern inputs and, therefore, Southern demands. Barriers at the structural level include a lack of internal funding to invite Southern NGOs to negotiations, poor quality internal communication that often leads to ignorance of Southern demands, failure of coordination at and between negotiations and, finally, the fact that time dedicated to regional node activities has particularly benefited Northern CAN nodes.
At an agency level, unequal experience and knowledge of the climate change process often puts Southern NGOs in the background at negotiations. A history of powerful and charismatic leadership and informal ties within the network also inhibits Southern involvement and the possibility for Southern NGOs to influence the agenda.
Many of these issues can be overcome in order to increase Southern representation. One suggestion would be to invest in internal capacity building, crucially strengthening the regional nodes. CAN must be self-critical and aware of the deficiencies within its network. Awareness and criticism of one’s own institutional assumptions is key towards ensuring a successful and sustainable future.
Further information
Astrid Westerlind Wigström, Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, United Kingdom. Fax: +44 1865 275850. Email: astridww@googlemail.com. Web: www.eci.ox.ac.uk.
Bright Ideas
A prize-winning nation-wide biogas programme takes Vietnam's human and animal waste and turns it into clean, renewable energy, improving smallholders' quality of life
Schools for Intelligent Energy Use builds a bridge between intermediate vocational schools and civil societies to increase involvement in the field of energy saving and renewable energy
HANGER 4 LIFE produces a stylish range of ecofriendly, carbon-neutral adjustable garment hangers
Toronto Zoo is deploying green roof technology, solar hot water heating and solar and geothermal energy and plans to use dung from elephants and other large animals in a biogas plant
The Tokyo Electric Taxi Project is trialling battery-switch technology that could provide the optimum solution for electric vehicle fleets
The Far Eastern Group has built the EcoARK, a three-story exhibition hall, using 1.5 million plastic bottles (video)
SmartTrips visits different Portland neighborhoods every year with activities aimed at reducing drive-alone trips and increasing biking, walking and public transit use.
Zipcar provides flexible car sharing, by the hour or by the day and in many cities
Hydrogen-powered buses are carrying passengers on the streets of Reykjavik, Iceland (video)
The Esprimo P7000 Series of desktop computers from Fujitsu supports 0-Watt technology
Progressive Lighting and Energy Solutions makes companies green, one light bulb at a time
Ghent, Belgium, has declared Thursday a Veggie Day, promoting a meat-free, climate-friendly diet for one day of the week
Tiempo Climate Newswatch
Updated: August 29th 2010