Book Review: The Price of Climate Action: Philanthropic Foundations in the International Climate Debate by Edouard Morena

Abstract

Edouard Morena The Price of Climate Action: Philanthropic Foundations in the International Climate Debate, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016; 140 pp.: ISBN 9783319424835 (pbk), 37.99 [pounds sterling] We know how corporate-funded right-wing think tanks and foundations have embarked on a crusade to deny the very existence of climate change--for the greater benefit of capital invested in the fossil economy. It should thus be a relief to find out that major liberal US-based foundations (such as the Oak or the Rockefeller foundations) have embraced, since the 1980s, progressive action on climate change--seeking to expand knowledge, awareness, policies and (to a lesser degree) mobilisation around greenhouse gases reduction and climate action. Well, argues Edouard Morena in his new book The Price of Climate Action. Philanthropic Foundations in the International Climate Debate, maybe this is not an unmitigated good. In his well-researched--and concise (140 pages)!--book, Morena argues that philanthropic foundations have had a crucial, even defining, influence on recent climate negotiations, but that their agenda-shaping power (through grant-making and organisation) has also reduced the pluralism of strategies for civil society, and has even marginalised or silenced more radical voices. The worldview of the foundations, especially their visions of top-down elite led technocratic social change--as opposed to more confrontational and mobilisation-driven transformations from below--fits quite well with the general trend of'liberal environmentalism' (a concept coined by Steven Bernstein in 2001) that has dominated international environmental politics over the last 20-30 years. The first chapter gives an overview of the book and the social science literature on philanthropic foundations. The engagement of large liberal US foundations (especially the Rockefeller Foundation) with climate change, since the 1980s, is described in Chapter 2. The author gives a cursory overview of the period and I felt that a larger understanding of the political and economic background would have helped: for instance, the Foundations' involvement in neo-Malthusian population scares in the 1970s or their decisive action in the so-called 'green revolution' could have been more developed, as these episodes have substantially shaped subsequent environmental and climate policies--and cemented US imperialism. Chapter 3 traces the strategic transformation that foundations have operated in the 1990s and 2000s, characterised by 'collaborative, proactive, outcome-oriented and evaluation-driven grantmaking methods with pro-business, market-centred and bottom-up understanding of social change' (p. 41). Indeed, Morena shows how the type of management implemented by these foundations parallels that of business organisations --even the language they use is indistinguishable from neoliberal managerial newspeak. And their overall approach has been to promote market-based, business-friendly, modes of environmental regulations--rather than a radical opposition to capitalist development. …