But, while the Green 10 are cosying up to the EU, there is another transnational organisation which is rarely associated with environmental issues, but is in fact a major player. This is the OECD. Working through its
Environmental Policy Committee (EPOC), it claims to have agreed
75 legal acts on the environment with its member countries. Furthermore, its decisions are legally binding on all those member countries which do not abstain at the time they are adopted, little different in effect from EU directives.
Significantly the EEB
serves as a liaison between environmental NGOs in OECD countries and the OECD itself. This also allows the OECD to take advantage of NGO input, allowing the
it to claim that the participation of environmental NGOs is co-ordinated by the EEB. By this means, the OECD works with representatives of organisations such as WWF, World Resources Institute, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth. Thus is the circle closed.
Monitoring and implementing measures is the OECD Environment Directorate which, with the International Energy Agency (IEA), serves as the Secretariat for the Climate Change Expert Group (CCXG) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and undertakes studies of issues related to the negotiation and implementation of international agreements on climate change.
The Environment Programme as a whole is carried out in co-operation with international and regional organisation, e.g., the World Bank, UNEP, WTO, UNECE and Secretariats for UNFCCC and the
Convention on Biodiversity (CBD). The Basel Convention key research institutes are also important partners, as is Civil Society represented through business, labour and NGOs (stakeholder partners). EPOC, we are told, is also actively engaging with key emerging economies through Global Forums on Environment (GFENV).
Although OECD is outside Paris (offices pictured above), UNECE, UNEP, WTO, and the Secretariats for UNFCCC, the CBD and the Basel Convention are all in Geneva, alongside the largest European External Access Service office outside Brussels, where the EU is fully represented.
It is no coincidence that this is also the home of the
Geneva Environmental Network listing 110 green organisations in a subsidised office,
supported by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment and led by UNEP (office pictured below).
Such is the scale of environmental NGO penetration into the structures of governance, at global, regional and national level, that it is almost impossible properly to describe the degree to which they have become part of the fabric of government, their massive influence setting the agenda in a way that is scarcely realised.
But at least India has begun to realise the threat. After the initial broadside against Greenpeace and other NGOs, the ministry of home affairs
has served a show cause notice on Greenpeace, asking why its permission to get foreign funding under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA) should not be withdrawn. At least ten more NGO's are being targeted.
Dellingpole thus asks the
obvious question. If India's government can stand up to the "green bullies", why can't ours?
Part of the reason, of course, is that India is an independent nation. With these self-same NGOs having got their feet under the table in the EU and with all manner of international organisations, it is going to be very hard for the UK to root them out. However, leaving the EU and withdrawing our funding would be a good start.
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