What can environmental social organizations do to deal with climate change?
Inordertoimprove the theoretical level and practical capabilities of environmental protection social organizations in institutional management, compliance and climate change response, from June 12 to June 14, the China Environmental Protection Foundation and Southwest University of Political Science and Law jointly held an improvement of environmental protection social organization capabilities. Training, relevant leaders of more than 40 environmental protection social organizations funded by the "China Environmental Rule of Law Public Welfare Platform Project" participated in the training.
What work have social organizations done to address climate change?
Social organizations have the advantages of flexibility, innovation and extensive contact with the masses. They can promote all sectors of society to pay close attention to climate change issues by carrying out publicity and education, promoting policy advocacy, and participating in project practice, forming a good atmosphere for joint efforts to address climate change, and helping achieve the "double carbon" goal and promote sustainable economic and social development.
Since its launch in 2018, the "China Environmental Rule of Law Public Welfare Platform Project" established by the China Environmental Protection Foundation has carried out 12 environmental law improvement training activities, training more than 1200 judges, prosecutors, members of environmental protection social organizations, lawyers, and personnel of ecological and environmental administrative departments. More than 1200 people have successively funded more than 40 environmental protection social organizations to carry out environmental law public welfare activities and implement capacity building plans in five phases, with a total amount of approximately 15 million yuan.
During this training, the China Environmental Protection Foundation invited experts in the fields of public welfare, climate and rule of law to give lectures on topics such as institutional regulation management, project management, climate communication, climate science, climate litigation, and climate law and policy.
During the training, participants shared their project experience on building capacity to deal with climate change. Hefei City Shanshui Environmental Protection and Development Center actively carried out policy advocacy, submitted 8 river management and wetland protection policy suggestions and two policy reports to the local government, and collaborated with the procuratorate to promote special rectification of solid waste encroaching on rivers and wetland damage; Shaoxing City Chaolu Environmental Protection Public Welfare Service Center employs full-time legal staff and invites environmental lawyers and legal experts to conduct special lectures on environmental law and climate every two months, and conducts low-carbon and green transportation research to explore how to incorporate health benefits and climate benefits into government decision-making: Green Travel Qilu StudiesXiUsing methods such as carbon emission management, legal policies, information disclosure, and public participation, we have promoted the development of new energy application demonstrations and projects closely related to addressing climate change issues such as pollution reduction and carbon reduction in the steel industry, and thus enabled them to obtain more project funding support.
"Previously, our organization had a blank on climate issues. Thanks to platform support, we learnedXiTraining, improved capabilities, summarized action strategies, carried out a series of activities, and submitted a number of policy recommendations to the government." Tang Ran, director of the Green Bank Qilu project, said.
What capabilities do social organizations need to improve?
Despite financial support and capacity training, social organizations still face many difficulties and problems that require continuous efforts to solve them.
The first is to improve the ability of social organizations to deal with government departments. During its work, a social organization in a certain place discovered that an ecological environment restoration project was illegally constructed and hoped that the procuratorate would initiate procuratorial public interest litigation supervision. At first, the procuratorate was more cautious and did not take action. Therefore, social organizations submitted clues to the Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment, and the Provincial Inspection Office characterized the illegal act of building the project without approval. The procuratorate immediately launched a litigation supervision process and required relevant functional departments to perform their responsibilities.
"Sometimes, when thinking turns a corner and changes ideas, the difficulties you encounter will be solved." said a person in charge of a social organization project.
Changing thinking, one rule is universal. Some social organizations choose to cooperate with universities to leverage each other. Social organizations provide clues to topic selection, schools organize students to conduct research, social organizations assist in topic research, and share research results.
"When advocating policies, social organizations cannot simply submit materials and reports, but must summarize experience, learn to tell stories, improve expression skills, and further improve communication capabilities." Zhang Xiaoqing, deputy secretary-general of the China Charity Federation, said.
"Existing ecological and environmental issues have multiple discourses in the dissemination, and there are obvious differences in public concerns at home and abroad. Environmental protection social organizations should actively participate in the dissemination of climate change, innovate discourse methods, and lead the issue from the perspective of professional communicators., disseminate the data learned from front-line climate change practices in English, and tell the world the story of China's ecological civilization construction." Li Ren, Secretary of the Party Committee of the School of Journalism and Communication at Southwest University of Political Science and Law, said that he would make suggestions during lectures.
The second is to improve the public interest litigation capabilities of environmental protection social organizations. At present, there are legal and institutional deficiencies to achieve synergy in reducing carbon, reducing pollution and expanding green. The "Climate Change Response Law" is under intensive formulation. Existing climate change legislation has scattered sources and low level. The "Interim Regulations on the Administration of Carbon Emissions Trading" are only provisions for individual systems. Most of the climate change regulations are normative documents issued by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the National Development and Reform Commission and other ministries. The implementation of climate laws and regulations is weak, and administrative supervision and enforcement faces the challenge of extensive and huge carbon emission sources.
"This makes it difficult to determine the source of environmental public interest litigation. Taking the fraud of monitoring data as an example, it is difficult for public welfare organizations to find connections with climate risks and to file public interest litigation on climate change." As the general leader of the expert proposal draft for the compilation of ecological and environmental codes, Wang Jin, a professor at Peking University and vice chairman of the China Environmental Protection Foundation, introduced the progress of the compilation of environmental codes. He believes that the compilation of the Ecological Environment Code should be taken as an opportunity to incorporate climate change legislation and build a legal system that achieves synergy. At the same time, the useful exploration of social organizations in air pollution civil public interest litigation can become a direct channel for future climate change litigation.
How to standardize project management?
Project management is crucial to every social organization.
"In the Principles of Charity Project Design (QQT), quantity, quality and time form an 'iron triangle' relationship. Any change will have an impact on the other two. The goal of project management balances the relationship between the three to achieve the best results." Li Jian, a professor at the School of Public Administration of Beijing City University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, introduced the concept of project quality management during his lecture.
In practice, many social organizations lack a set of standardized and systematic project management systems to guide business development, resulting in a mismatch between project progress and demand, project progress and contracts, and project delays, capital chain breaks, and results. Such phenomena as meeting standards have led to unnecessary questioning of the professionalism of social organizations.
"The revision of the new Charity Law will come into effect on September 5. Social organizations should carry out relevant business activities in accordance with the Charity Law, strictly abide by the" Several Provisions on Regulating the Behavior of Foundations ", put normative management of projects first, and adhere to the original intention and system, carry out public welfare activities in strict accordance with the business scope, strictly control project approval, and operate professionally. Foundations should monitor the flow of funds andopen letterInterest is subject to social supervision." Zhang Xiaoqing said.
During the lecture, Zhang Xiaoqing used typical cases to remind social organizations to strengthen risk prevention and control when cooperating with enterprises. For example, it is not allowed to designate the interested person of the donor as the beneficiary, and it is not allowed to designate a specific person's income without signing the return clause or engaging in related transactions, which harms the interests of social organizations.
In the end, he used the use of "adhering to the outline and focusing on the goals" to encourage environmental protection social organizations to improve system construction and strictly implement it in their work, use collective decisions to prevent risks, regularly investigate risk points, and carry out key rectifications. At the same time, we will establish prevention and control plans for major risks, and respond promptly and proactively to problems when they arise.
