The two presidents of China and the United States have reached a number of consensus, two of which are very important to accelerate efforts to address the climate crisis and establish dialogue and cooperation between governments on artificial intelligence. During the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), Xie Zhenhua, China's Special Envoy on climate change affairs, stressed that in addition to the role of the government, dealing with the climate crisis needs the support and participation of the whole society. Non-governmental forces such as social organizations are playing an active role in changing consumption and lifestyle.
A major agreement was reached on the opening day of COP28, with pledges of $400 million to open up loss and damage funds to developing countries. According to other data, the global asset management scale of the alliance that has participated in the action initiative related to climate change is close to 60 trillion. At present, in order to achieve China's vision of carbon neutrality by 2060, China needs an additional public financial investment of at least 130 trillion yuan, but this is far from enough, and a large amount of social capital is needed to enter this field.
According to CEGA Report, climate change-related funding has steadily increased in recent years. However, compared with international environmental donations, environmental charity donations in China account for less than 1% of the total social donations, while the United States accounts for about 3%. There is much room for progress. At the closing ceremony of this year's Foundation Development Forum, Xu Yongguang, honorary chairman of the Narada Public Welfare Foundation, mentioned that climate change and the disorderly development of AI may lead to the destruction of mankind, and called for more industry institutions to participate in the joint response to climate change.
In such a context of global concern, national encouragement, industry appeal, and large space, climate change issues will likely become a growth point for charitable sector donations.
How do you get involved as a social organization? Combined with the expert views of the parallel Forum on Climate Change of the Foundation Development Forum, we will sort out the views from government departments, research institutes, industry platforms, foundations and local implementation agencies.
Chai Qimin, Director of the Strategic Planning Department of the National Climate Strategy Center: Global climate governance is not only the responsibility of the government, but also requires all subjects of the whole society, including cities, regions and communities to jointly promote the transformation of sustainable development. Climate governance is a complex subject with a large span, and problems may occur in various industries and fields. A lot of knowledge needs to be better educated and disseminated, especially through public participation and awareness, in order to reach a consensus of the whole society and promote systemic change. Therefore, public participation plays an increasingly important role in the process of climate assessment and governance. In terms of public participation, forms and mechanisms such as carbon inclusion, digital empowerment, and green housekeeping can guide the public to realize the transformation of life consumption.
Wang Mou, Researcher at the Institute of Ecological Civilization, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: In the context of ecological civilization construction, it is inevitable and necessary for China to carry out climate action. The journey to carbon neutrality is a profound economic and social transformation that will involve the development of industries, cities, communities and people. Some emerging industries will grow, and some traditional industries will gradually shrink. After China's carbon peak, traditional energy, steel, cement and other industries will face greater pressure for transformation and development, these pressures will be concentrated in the relevant capacity gathering areas, cities, how to promote the sustainable development of regions, cities and transition communities and transition people, is the key issue that needs attention in the future.
Huang Haoming, Executive director of Hainan Asia Public Welfare Research Institute: You can participate in international voices, call for advocacy and promote the participation of multiple forces. For example, the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) can showcase the relevant practices of China's civil society organizations in responding to climate change.
Amity Foundation: Secretary General Ling Chunxiang said that he hoped that social organizations could "focus on the big picture and work on the small", and work together to form a natural disaster risk management model with Chinese characteristics of "the state manages the big risk and the community manages the small risk", and create a more complete natural disaster response pattern.
Vice Secretary-General He Wen mentioned that coping with climate change is actually a two-part process, which is to reduce or prevent such changes from occurring, or to adapt to reduce the impact of such changes on all our human and biosphere activities. In terms of mitigation and mitigation, forest, grassland and community development, rural biogas and solar energy utilization, wetland and river water protection can be carried out. In terms of adaptation and impact reduction, climate adaptation and community development, community risk management, disaster emergency relief capacity building, and low-carbon life promotion can be carried out.
Inner Mongolia Lao Niu Foundation: Secretary-General An Yaqiang shared that cooperation should start from the demand side, promote cooperation in mechanisms, strategies and capabilities, and innovation should start from the supply side to promote innovation in scientific research institutions, governments, society and enterprises. At the same time, the concept of "port forward, center of gravity downward" was shared, and it was believed that climate adaptation should not start to respond to disasters as in the past, but should be defended in advance, and the work should sink to the community and empower the community.
Assistant of Secretary General and Senior Program Manager, Lanke Qi, shared the foundation's five major concerns on climate change: Firstly, strive to solve the root causes of social problems and identify solutions through scientific research; Secondly, long-term concern, because the complexity and complexity of environmental problems require long-term sustained attention; Thirdly, multi-faceted cooperation, joint funding, government, scientific institutions, local implementation agencies and other forces; Fourthly, keep pace with The Times and constantly change, such as exploring new technologies and ideas on the issue of "carbon neutrality"; The fifth is the Blue Ocean strategy of public welfare, which invests resources in areas that have not received/received little attention.
He Xin, Director of Environmental Projects at Qianhe Community Foundation: Compared with other climate change projects that indirectly affect "people", Qianhe's projects directly serve people in the community, so the focus of risk assessment is on exposure and vulnerability. The impact of climate change on most people is small, but the impact on vulnerable people, especially those with chronic diseases and disabilities, is prominent. Because of its characteristics of serving people, Qianhe has established the working framework of "scanning - assessment - identification - decision - action" in long-term practice. Through years of research and pilot projects, Qianhe chose to cooperate with the social work station because the social work station has a broad and good community foundation in the Pearl River Delta region. Qianhe also realized that climate risk is important in disaster prevention and mitigation, so he set up an emergency response team for climate risk. When the government's disaster relief system has no time to take care of the grassroots, the grassroots can rely on their own strength to make up the last kilometer.
Zhang Ruiying, Executive Director of China Environmental Grantmakers Alliance (CEGA) : She pointed out the importance of promoting the industry to pay attention to climate adaptation, and social organizations can tell the story of China's private climate change issues through the Environmental Funders Network platform and international climate conferences. In the future, CEGA will continue to lead the direction of funding, including holding salons and publishing reports to promote the industry's attention to "cold spot issues".
Zhang Hongyan, Founding Director of Shende Consulting: He shared the ecological picture of climate issues in China's public welfare sector and the changes taking place in the industry. He said that foundations outside the climate circle need to consider four issues when considering how to enter the climate issue. First, what is the strategic positioning and impact of foundations? Second, what are the advantages of foundations? Third, what kind of strategic actions to take; The fourth is how to cooperate, linkage of multi-party resources. In the process of transformation, the Head Foundation needs to be enlightened by climate issues and focus on climate issues from the human perspective; There is a strong appetite in the environmental community for climate change, but a clear roadmap is needed; At the same time, we need to pay attention to local hubs, guide hub organizations to get involved in climate issues as soon as possible, and encourage more local NGO partners to join us. The climate community needs to focus on strategic communication to bring together more stakeholders and reach more people.
Du Ling, director of Shuguang Community Development Capacity Building Center: She mentioned that the impact of climate change is very direct for the people, and their feelings are also very strong. With "community self-management of small and micro disasters" and "community-based sustainable management of natural resources" as the main entry points, Shuguang promotes the active participation of communities in the framework action of global joint response to climate change - communities become the main body of action, and adopt collective action and adaptive practices to effectively cope with changing risks. The main implementation steps are: providing tools and methods for communities to identify and prioritize risks; The community will formulate action plans for focusing on risks, integrating traditional wisdom, cultural customs and community management, etc., to increase operability; Encourage communities to implement action plans, reflect on actions, and strengthen the sustainability of actions from the management, institutional and financial aspects.
Shen Dingfang, Director of Mengnanshe Sustainable Development Service Center: He focused on sharing how social organizations should integrate various external resources when participating in climate change action. Meng Nanshe summarized two ways, one is to promote the joint action of rural communities and public welfare organizations, to form a network through culture, or to form a cross-regional exchange network under the guidance of the issue. Another way is to collaborate with different types of organizations and leverage the strengths of relevant parties such as research institutions, government departments, and enterprises.
Zhao Xiang, Director of Shanshui Nature Conservation Center: Director Zhao Xiang talked about the relationship between human and nature through the case of climate change. Through quantitative research, Shanshui analyzes the spatial distribution of people's production and life and wild animals in a region and the relationship between them. Shanshui also participated in community development and construction, such as supporting local women's cooperatives to develop Tibetan fox felt products, which brought more than 100,000 yuan to the village.
Climate change mitigation and adaptation has always been the focus of the Lao Niu Foundation. To achieve "common happiness" on the issue of climate change is our pursuit. In the future, we are willing to work with more people to deal with climate change and protect the beautiful homeland of mankind.
