Climate Advocacy: Civil Society Strategies in the UN Climate Change Negotiations

This paper will analyze the advocacy strategies of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the UN climate change negotiations. In the climate change regime, civil society and NGOs enjoys far-reaching consultation and participation opportunities. The activities of NGOs, however, can range from protests in the streets and alternative people’s summits to highly professionalized consultations in closed circuits and decision-making fora. In order to improve our understanding of climate advocacy, the paper will address three questions: First, what advocacy activities are pursued by NGOs in and around UN climate change conferences? Second, how do NGOs balance their participation in the empowered space of international climate negotiations with other more contentious activities in the public space such as mass demonstrations or publicity stunts? Third, what implications do these choices have for the legitimacy of the UNFCCC negotiations and for the accountability and influence of NGOs? To answer these questions, data is drawn from participant observation of the 2011 UN climate change conference in Durban, South Africa, and from a set of semi-structured expert interviews with NGO activists. Additional empirical material is compiled from primary documents, media sources, and secondary analysis covering the conferences in Copenhagen (2009) and Cancún (2010). If NGOs are understood to become a core element of the emerging architecture of global environmental governance, we must better understand what advocacy strategies they pursue, why they do so, and which normative implications arise from them