Dec 1, 2007, 12:24 GMT
Washington - Environmentalists have had a hard time of it over the years, and no more so than in the United States. Labelled tree huggers and scare mongers, their influence among politicians and with the public has at times been a hard sell.
Ten years have passed since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty which since 2005 has for the first time limited industrial nations' emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Yet this year, more than any other, has been heralded as a turning point.
Even in the US, environmentalists can finally feel some sense of vindication. Chris Miller, the US director of campaigns for Greenpeace, said that unlike other climate issues, global warming has now 'put environmental groups smack in the centre of the discussion.'
It wasn't always that way. To the chagrin of environmentalists, the United States has been notoriously behind the fold, refusing to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol and balking at calls to place mandatory limits on the greenhouse gas emissions of industries - the chief cause of global warming.
While much of the rest of the world recognized global warming as a threat, Miller says US activists were still focussed on 'educating the public.'
That included Miller's own father, he reflects, a conservative Republican and long-time sceptic of global warming, who is finally 'coming around on this issue.'
'We spent a lot of time trying to convince people that global warming is real,' he said. 'The debate has now changed in the US (and) it's changed the kind of work we do in a pretty fundamental way.'
Environmental groups have finally been able to turn their attention to policy, and think-tanks have suddenly found themselves sought after by politicians and opinion leaders.
The Pew Centre on Global Climate Change, a Washington-based think- tank, has witnessed an 'enormous upsurge' in requests for information and briefings, according to their communications director Katie Mandes. Journalists used to call only about five to 10 times per week - 'that's daily now,' she says.
The Pew Centre also holds monthly briefings at the US Congress, which have been better attended as 'appreciation' for the group's work has grown, according to Pew's congressional liaison, Manik Roy.
But the shift had little to do with environmental activists themselves. Roy says it took businesses and industrialists coming forward to provide 'validation' for the claims of scientists and environmentalists.
The Pew Centre launched an effort in the late 1990s to get businesses on board, starting the Business Environmental Leadership Council, which has now grown to some 44 companies representing 2.8 trillion dollars in market capitalization.
Imagine that, says Miller: businesses agreeing with climate activists on mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions.
'The idea that General Electric and Greenpeace have not so different targets is very helpful,' he says.
Politicians have credited that coalition with helping launch legislation in Congress last month that for the first time would cap emissions, via a trading system that effectively puts a price on the carbon dioxide emissions of each company. The bipartisan bill was welcomed by most environmental groups as a serious effort.
As the world's largest polluter along with China, the US has long been the chief target of environmental groups for not doing enough to curb emissions, but it is only in the past year that President George W Bush's administration has grudgingly come to accept that urgent action is needed. Before that, even those that highlighted the prevailing science were 'branded a crazy environmentalist,' Roy says.
That follows a classic pattern, especially in the market-driven economy of the United States where much of Bush's opposition to mandatory limits on emissions stems from their effect on the economy. For politicians to take action, businesses have to be convinced first.
'It always happens that industry manned a major attack on the science first,' Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, said in a telephone interview. With those industries now 'recognizing the hand writing on the wall ... (they) want to get ahead of the debate before it happens.'
Environmental action seems to come in ebbs and flows. Over past decades, the decay of the ozone layer and acid rain all became recognized phenomena that had to be dealt with, but only after a period of resistance.
According to environmentalists, that pattern is repeating itself once again - this time with global warming.
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