The New Politics of Climate Change

In this report, Green Alliance director Stephen Hale examines why the existing plethora of Government climate change initiatives and commitments are failing to achieve the progress required in climate change mitigation. Hale suggests four major flaws in the current political approach to climate change: First, climate change is seen primarily as an environmental problem; secondly, there is too great a focus on behaviour as the key issue for individuals, rather than their potential political impact; thirdly, there has been a failure to secure political action in many vital areas, because we have not yet created the social foundations for political action; and finally, individuals are urged to act alone, yet in reality people act only when those around them do. Hale sets out a new approach to achieve the progress required, central to which is the mobilisation of the broad range of organisations that make up the third sector.