A new climate for NGOs

We keep spying culture wars and cultural dialogue where none is taking place and then miss those happening under our very noses on the TV screen.

The G8 summit in Japan is a case in point. Police keep the anti-globalisation protestors far away from the meeting place and they protest that their voices must be heard. But if they were, what they say would just go past the politicians.

Meanwhile, the politicians, faced with soaring oil and food prices, at first shifted attention away from discussing and signing up to climate change targets. Instead, they spoke of "embracing" them. The international civil servants know a politician embraces a target the way he kisses a baby - involved but not committed. But they also know that targets for 2050 sometimes go right past a politician facing an election in one, two or four years. Meanwhile, the politicians complain about civil servants who are unaccountable to voters. The anti-globalisers challenge the very basis of the current economic systems, accuse the international civil servants of being complacent and the politicians of being in the pockets of robber barons. Meanwhile, the professional coalition builders - the civil servants and politicians - see the protestors' tactics as so apocalyptic as to discourage any meaningful change from taking place.

See what I mean by a culture war? The assumptions are so different that it appears that policy cannot take all perspectives on board.

A minor version of this appeared in an early skirmish between the former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern, an international civil servant par excellence, and Bjorn Lomborg, of the Copenhagen Business School.

The Stern report, commissioned by the British government, called for spending one per cent of GDP each year to cut carbon emissions. Mr Lomborg said this will cause more harm than good by trying to solve a 100-year-problem in five years. Like many entrepreneurs, who are suspicious of stringent regulation, he puts his faith in new technologies and building up economies so that they can be more robust in facing challenges.

There is no neutral point from which to judge these claims. The science of something as complex as climate change is never going to be definite. Calculations will vary widely. Thinking can only be done in terms of scenarios.

Moreover, the science is not just "hard" natural science. If it is true that climate change is man-made, then the science needed to address it must include the human sciences - social, economic and political capacity building.

There are millions of people at risk of starving to death because of drought and loss of arable land - people in countries like Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan (Darfur), where many of Malta's irregular immigrants come from. Their risk is increased because the devastations of drought bring about conflicts, mass displacement, disease, migration of the talented, etc., which cripple the economic capacity to recover.

Estimates vary about what weight to give climate change in the causation of these droughts. But the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has said that between 25 and 40 per cent of Africa's natural habitats could be lost by 2085 while rising sea levels could destroy about 30 per cent of Africa's coastal infrastructure. Africa itself contributes the smallest amount of greenhouse gases associated with climate change.

With scenarios like these, there are two possible courses of action. One is to continue to have conversations of the deaf between politicians, international organisations and NGOs.

Some progress is likely to happen but without abating a three-way feeling of frustration and injustice.

Another course of action is to bring the views into dialogue and to maximise the possibilities for constructive action for all sides.

The seminar on climate change and regional economic development organised by AŻAD and the Centre for European Studies (Brussels) aims for just this. We want to bring the government, civil servants, business and NGOs together.

We especially hope that the seminar will help initiate a new phase in the story of Maltese engagement overseas. Phase 1 saw Maltese commit charity contributions, individual careers in private service or their lives to missionary work.

Phase 2 is where we are now. Some of the service overseas has been secularised. Individuals take a break from their careers to put in voluntary service.

We do not just hear of the work, we even see the results on TV (for example, the recent series on Ethiopia).

Phase 3 should see some Maltese NGOs think of their Maltese mission (say, in addressing the needs of immigrants or of the environment) as involving work overseas. This phase would dissolve the sharp distinctions between Malta and overseas.

It would also involve a new understanding of time. In Phase 1, time was a personal odyssey; in Phase 2, a sabbatical. Let Phase 3 usher in a time of civic involvement in a world that we share with others.

The seminar will be held tomorrow at the Hotel Phoenicia, from 9 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. For further information, telephone 2124 7515 or write to admin@azad-malta.com.

The writer is chairman of Ażad, the academy for the development of a democratic environment.

ranierfsadni@europe.com