Title : The roles and capacity building of NGOs as agents responding to climate change
Abstract:
Climate change is one of the most serious environmental problems impacting on nature and humans at a global level. The major agents responding to climate change are government, enterprise, NGO, citizen, and UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). Each agent implements different role and strategy in responding to climate change. The objectives of this paper are to present the major roles of NGOs in responding to climate change and what capacity they should build in order to implement efficiently and effectively the major roles. In relation to the objectives, this paper will be composed of six parts as below.
Part I: The concept of climate change will be reviewed. This is because the concept of a reality is a thought or idea on the reality, and leads researchers to their direction and contents of the reality. This means what climate change is and we have to respond to climate change, etc. are different according to how to define the concept of climate change.
Part II: Although the concept of climate change is generally agreed upon, there are some hot debates on the reality of climate change. The examples include that climate change is a real reality or not, and what are the causes of climate change, etc. According to what side our perspectives are on the hot debates by person, the approaches to climate change are different. This is why we have to review the hot debates before we move on to the main theme of this presentation.
Part III: The roles of the four major agents in responding to climate change (government, enterprise, citizen, and UNFCCC) will be explained before the roles of NGOs. This is for improving better understanding about the roles of NGSs at a comparative basis with other agents.
Part IV: The major roles of NGSs as the agents responding to climate will be explained in terms of two dimensions. One is the role of pressure group towards government and enterprise, and the other one is the role of educator to citizen. And then, the contribution of NGOs’ roles to solving climate change at domestic and/or global level will be explained. Finally, desirable means for NGOs to perform the roles will be explained.
Part V: The major sectors for NGOs to build the capacity necessary for performing their roles will be examined. The examples include rational argument, improvement of professional knowledge, and cooperation with mass media, etc.
Part VI: The individual roles by the major agents responding to climate change will be effective as a response strategy to climate change. However, the cooperative activities among the major agents in an integrated framework would be more effective. In this contest, as the concluding remarks, the efficient and effective approach to the integrated framework will be discussed with all attendees at this conference.
Audience Take Away
- The hot issues being debated in relation to climate change
- The agents and their different roles in responding to climate change
- The major roles of NGOs in responding to climate change – pressure group to government and enterprise and and educator to citizen
- The capacities NGOs should build for implementing efficiently and effectively their roles
