Australian population has supported strong action to address the threat

posed by climate change, this support has proven fickle and transitory, in
particular in the face of campaigns from countervailing forces or in the
context of unsupportive political environments. This suggests that environ-
mental NGOs, concerned as they are with raising public awareness and

concern about climate action, are failing to mobilize public climate concern

effectively.
Here, I explore the ways in which Australia’s largest environmental
NGOs have engaged in climate politics, and examine the drivers of that

engagement. In exploring the how and why of environmental NGOs’

approach to climate politics in Australia, I illustrate some of the limitations

of these approaches –both in terms of the sites of climate politics and their
narration of climate change and climate action. On the former, I reflect on
the apparent tension between engaging policy makers on one hand –a
development reflecting the professionalization of mainstream environmen-
tal NGOs in particular –and broader public debate on the other. On the
latter, I identify a tendency for these organizations to engage in high-
profile, national-level campaigns with a conservation focus, an approach
that may militate against connections with the grass-roots climate move-
ment and is potentially a less effective framing of climate change.
The significant variability of public opinion on climate change in
Australia has been a key obstacle to effective climate action. It has enabled
not only policy retreat or recalcitrance, but also change of both government
and opposition leaders at Federal level. This raises questions about the
extent to which environmental NGOs (and others concerned with promot-

ing climate action) have mobilized as effectively as they might have. If

debates about climate policy can be viewed as sites of contestation between

competing actors, Australia’s prominent environmental NGOs have found

it difficult to compete against countervailing forces.
In addressing how and why prominent environmental NGOs have
engaged climate politics as they have, I draw on the political sociology of

Pierre Bourdieu, a sociologist with an interest in the dynamic and consti-

tutive relationship between structures and agents. Bourdieu’s work is parti-

cularly well-suited to a multifaceted analysis of forms of political

engagement, the drivers of that engagement, the structural factors that

militate against political mobilization, as well as avenues for more effective

agency in response to those impediments. At a general level, Bourdieu’s
concept of ‘structuralist constructivism’helps us acknowledge the possibi-
lity for effective forms of climate mobilization, even in the context of
powerful countervailing forces and structural constraint. More specifically,
his concepts of fields, doxa, and habitus allow us to come better to terms
with the drivers of political engagement by environmental NGOs, while the concept of symbolic
power has particular utility in identifying possibilities
for effective forms of political mobilization.
I proceed in three stages. The first provides a brief account of the politics
of climate change in Australia, examining changing public attitudes to
climate change and briefly exploring the drivers of public opinion on
climate change. This provides context to the analysis to follow.
The second focuses on the role of the environment movement generally,
and prominent environmental NGOs specifically. Using the examples of
Australia’s largest NGOs –the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF),
the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and Greenpeace –it explores
both the sites of climate politics they have engaged and the narratives of
climate change they have employed, before reflecting on the limitations of
this engagement. The third section points to the utility of Bourdieu’s
sociology in making sense of the drivers of existing climate mobilization
undertaken by these NGOs, the limits of that engagement, and possibilities
for more effective climate campaigns.
The politics of climate change in Australia
Few political issues have been as volatile as climate change in Australia.
While not always pivotal to electoral outcomes, climate change has featured
prominently at times in Federal elections, particularly since 2007 (see
Rootes 2008, 2014). Then, Labor’s Kevin Rudd emphasized action on
climate change as a point of difference with the conservative coalition
government of John Howard and, on winning the election, proceeded to
ratify the Kyoto Protocol as the first act of his government. If Howard was
in part brought undone by changing public sentiment on climate change, so
too was Rudd as he struggled to translate support in 2006–2007 to sub-
stantive policy (a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) in 2009–2010
(Crowley 2013). By some accounts, climate policy was also central to the
demise of conservative opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull in late 2009
and of Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 2013, as public opinion, swayed by a
relentless campaign by conservative politicians and the Murdoch press,
moved away from support for a domestic carbon pricing scheme (see
Beeson and McDonald 2013).
Aside from the apparent dangers to political leaders, this volatility is also
consequential for climate policy itself. This was most evident in the context
of carbon pricing, which Rudd proposed in the form of an emissions
trading scheme before abandoning it in 2010, the subsequent Gillard
minority government enacted in the form of a carbon pricing scheme in
2012 before progressively watering down the legislation, and the Abbott
government repealed in 2014. In the process, Australia became the world’s
first country to abandon an emissions pricing scheme, even in the context
1060 M. McDONALD

of indicators suggesting it was functioning to drive down emissions from

electricity power generation (O’Gorman and Jotzo 2014). The conservative
government’s 2014 announcement of a review of the Renewable Energy
Target, headed by climate-change denier Dick Warburton, also indicated a
likely abandonment of the goal of 20% of Australian electricity generation
from renewable energy sources by 2020 (Arup 2014). These developments
contributed to significant uncertainty in both the fossil-fuel and renewable-
energy sectors, an uncertainty lamented by many business leaders keen to
see clear policy and pricing signals from government (see Mikler and
Harrison 2013; O ’Gorman and Jotzo 2014). More consequentially for
Australia’s greenhouse-gas emissions, these developments have served to
drive a significant reduction in investment in renewable energy projects
(Flannery et al. 2014), and a significant increase in Australia’s emissions in
2014, particularly from electricity generation (Hannam 2014).
In its international engagement with climate change –its climate diplo-
macy –Australia has shifted from leader to laggard and back since the
emergence of climate change as an international political issue in the 1980s.
Since then, the Australian government variously argued for stringent and
binding reductions targets in the lead up to the UN Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, obfuscated interna-
tional agreement at Kyoto in 1997, engaged in significant diplomatic efforts
to secure an agreement in Copenhagen in 2009, failed to send a Minister to
the Conference of the Parties meeting in Poland in 2013, and played a
constructive role in Paris negotiations in 2015 (see Eckersley and
McDonald 2014, Parr 2014, McDonald 2016). While Australian foreign
policy is broadly characterized by a tradition of bipartisanship and con-
tinuity rather than change (see McDonald 2013), climate diplomacy has
witnessed significant shifts over time.
Ultimately, inconsistent climate policy is reflected in, and for some is
driven by, the significant volatility of public opinion on climate change.
Annual Lowy Institute surveys on Australians’attitudes to the world
demonstrate the extent of this volatility. In 2006 and 2007, Rudd rode a
wave of public support for action on climate change, with 68% of
Australians in the 2006 survey indicating they felt climate change was a
significant problem warranting action, even if it entailed significant costs
for Australia (Oliver 2014). By 2012, this figure had collapsed to just 38%,
reflecting the contentious passage of carbon pricing legislation and the
mobilization by the conservative opposition, led by climate skeptic Tony
Abbott, against carbon pricing. Support for climate action in Australia in
2006–2007 broadly followed an upsurge in international concern1 and
rising concerns about drought in Australia. After this high point, the
costs of action in the context of the global financial crisis, the ultimate
success of mobilization strategies against climate action, and the eventual
ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 1061
collapse of key UNFCCC talks in Copenhagen in 2009 all fundamentally
served to undermine an apparent public consensus on the need to act
urgently on climate change.
A range of accounts have been put forward to explain the apparently
fickle nature of the consensus to act on climate change that existed in 2006.
Certainly, this collapse in support appears a puzzle in the context of
growing scientific certainty regarding the realities and impact of climate
change generally, the significant impact climate change would have for
Australia specifically (see Christoff2014, Millman 2015), and steady move-
ments toward policy responses such as pricing mechanisms internationally.
A case could be made that the failure to sustain public support for action
on climate change reflects the realities of the costs of climate action and the
nature of Australia’s contribution to the problem, a view emphasized by
conservative governments in particular (see Hamilton 2001). High per
capita emissions (among the highest in the world) reflect life-style choices
that need changing, but they also reflect the ready availability of coal for
electricity production. The nation’s reliance on the mining boom in driving
its wealth and protecting it from the worst effects of the financial crisis was
an idea that gained particular currency in 2008–2009, and could easily be
translated into the view that resource extraction, exploitation, and export
constituted an economic necessity for Australia.
The clear flipside of this view was that mitigation action risked under-
mining Australia’s economy and jobs. This position tapped into powerful
and resonant discourses in the Australian context. In Bourdieu’s ( 1991,
p. 169) terms, a discourse is a ‘structured and structuring medium tending
to impose an apprehension of the established order as natural through the
disguised imposition of systems of classification and of mental structures
that are objectively adjusted to social structures.’The relevant discourse
here was one suggesting an inherent tension between economic growth and
environmental preservation, defined by Peter Christoff(2013) as the central
obstacle to strong action on climate change in Australia (see also McDonald
2005).
Policy variability, public opinion shifts, and the central role of represen-
tations of climate action serve to remind us that many of the ‘realities’of
climate-change action for Australia are contestable and have been highly
politicized. The conservative opposition under the leadership of Malcolm
Turnbull supported action on climate change for much of 2009, while the
idea that Australia should hold offon pricing carbon can be contested on
economic grounds. Incremental movements toward a low- or no-carbon
economy will reduce future costs of infrastructure overhaul, while moving
away from reliance on coal use and export will help prevent a future
economic and energy shock associated with an international collapse in
the fossil-fuel energy market (see, e.g., Green and Finighan 2012, Christoff
1062 M. McDONALD
2013). This scenario is more imaginable after the climate agreement
reached in Paris in 2015.
In these contexts, dynamics of contestation are crucial, and it has been
the effective mobilization by forces opposed to action on climate change
that has been most significant. As opposition leader, Abbott recognized the
political value of opposing climate action in 2009. This clearly undermined
a political consensus in Australia, but was also important in building public
opposition. As research has illustrated, individuals’viewers of climate
change in Australia are heavily influenced by the positions taken by leaders
of the political parties they support (see Fielding et al. 2012, Tranter 2013).
Abbott was clearly supported in this project by the Murdoch press and
outspoken radio personalities such as Alan Jones, both of whom cam-
paigned against climate action (Manne 2011, Head 2014). Together, these
actors variously questioned the realities of climate change, pointed to the
prohibitive economic costs of climate mitigation, and of course undermined
the sense of a political consensus on climate-change action.
These dynamics of counter-mobilization, and the role of actors under-
taking them, are clearly important in making sense of the failure to sustain
public concern and fracturing what appeared in 2006 to be a national
consensus on the need to act on climate change. Yet, what of the political
actors attempting to promote strong action on climate change in the
Australian context? If climate policy constitutes a site of contestation
between different political actors regarding the costs of action versus inac-
tion, the question of whether Australia was doing its part on climate change
internationally, and the extent of Australian vulnerability to climate change,
how can we make sense of the inability of voices supporting action on
climate change to guide policy or develop and maintain public concern?
Australian NGOs and engagement with climate change
Among the many paradoxes of climate (and environmental) policy in
Australia is the coincidence of a powerful extractive, developmentalist
ideology with a significant environment movement.2 Traditionally, this
environment movement in Australia has oriented around conservation –
an agenda reflected in both the focus of key environmental groups, as well
as the ways in which governments have approached environmental issues
(see Hutton and Connors 1999, Burgmann and Baer 2012). As will be
noted, however, the growing priority accorded to issues such as climate
change, which require coming to terms with dynamic processes of change
(rather than preservation), has created challenges for organizations still
more comfortable working within a conservationist agenda. This is one of
a number of challenges for larger and more popular environmental NGOs,
including those identified and examined here.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 1063
An analysis of the mobilization techniques of those actors promoting strong
climate action, and with an interest in creating and sustaining public consensus
on such action, could readily focus on the activities of pro-environmental
political parties such as the Australian Greens, climate think tanks and aca-
demics, and more grass-roots climate movements. Indeed, these have all
achieved increasing prominence in Australian politics. The Australian Greens
have become a significant force, particularly at the Federal level, and their
support for the Labor minority government after the 2010 election saw them
play a key role in national politics. Indeed, this role was crucial to the passage of
the (subsequently repealed) carbon tax in 2012. For their part, a number of
prominent climate think tanks, such as the Climate Institute, the Australia
Institute, and Beyond Zero Emissions, have emerged in recent years, and have
responded to the dual problems of climate scientists’failure to communicate
climate science effectively to the Australian public and the disinformation
regarding the costs of climate action and benefits of the fossil-fuel sector
(Burgmann and Baer 2012, pp. 164–171, Green and Finighan 2012, Lamberts
2014, Moss et al. 2014).
Finally, grass-roots climate movements in Australia have also grown
significantly, a development Burgmann and Baer (2012, p. 234) attribute to
scepticism about the willingness of institutionalized components of the cli-
mate movement to argue for radical mitigation measures and their capacity
to apply sufficient pressure on governments to apply these.
It is precisely these concerns, particularly as applied to established
environmental NGOs, that have encouraged my focus here on the ques-
tions of how and why Australia’s largest environmental NGOs have
engaged with the politics of climate change. Given their relatively estab-
lished status, the size of their membership, their expertise, and media
profile, these organizations should be key actors in the climate-change
debate in Australia, and significant in building and sustaining a domestic
consensus on climate change. Yet, by most accounts, they have been
unsuccessful in genuinely influencing government policy (Hall and
Taplin 2006; Pearse 2011), and they have manifestly failed to turn the
tide of public opposition to climate-change mitigation action in
Australia.
Below, I examine how Australia’s largest NGOs –the ACF, Greenpeace
Australia Pacific, and WWF Australia –have engaged climate politics in
two key senses. First, I examine the sites of climate politics that have been
prioritized and utilized by these organizations –where they have focused
their activities. Second, I explore the narratives of climate change they have
developed in their attempts to mobilize or sell climate action at the indivi-
dual and national levels If the ACF enjoyed particular access to the Labor government in the late
1980s and early 1990s, it was WWF Australia that apparently had the ear of
the conservative Howard government from the 1990s. The second-largest
environmental NGO in terms of membership after Greenpeace, and with a
similar conservation focus to the ACF, WWF Australia developed a strong
relationship with a government suspicious of the close connections between
the ACF and the previous Labor government. In a scathing assessment of
the relationship between WWF and the Howard government, the Australia
Institute pointed out that the organization had been consistently supportive
of government environment policy, far more than other NGOs (Hamilton
and McIntosh 2004). WWF was included in federal government environ-
mental advisory committees, contracted to disseminate information about
environmental policy to other NGOs, and was the recipient of significant
increases in financial resources from the government at a time when other
NGOs’government funding was significantly reduced (Hamilton and
McIntosh 2004, p. viii).
For these organizations, the key sites of climate politics were the corri-
dors of power: influencing policy makers through lobbying and searching
for incremental gains and concessions in the area of climate policy (Pearse
2013). As will be noted in the discussion of Bourdieu’s work in the
subsequent section, such an approach reflected a particular understanding
of the political ‘field’and the distribution of capital therein. In broad terms,
however, there are at least three key dangers or limitations of this strategy.
The first is the danger of being ignored. Dedicating significant time and
resources to engaging policy makers does not necessarily produce tangible
results. This is even more likely if these organizations are seen as out of step
with public attitudes. In their analysis of the success of environmental
NGOs in influencing policy makers, Hall and Taplin (2006) interviewed a
number of policy makers across the political spectrum before concluding
that there was little evidence of genuine policy change or take-up on the
back of direct input into the policy process. The possibility of time lobbying
being time (and resources) wasted was also acknowledged by the ACF in
2014, with incoming CEO Kelly O’Shannassy noting that the organization
‘wanted to change tactics, because there’s not a lot of point lobbying for
policy in Canberra now’(in Seccombe 2014).
The second key danger is that of being co-opted. There is an inherent
risk here that governments will use environmental NGO endorsement or
even perceptions of their participation to legitimate policy, which may be a
negative outcome for both the environment and the perceived integrity of
the organization (see Christoff2016). This is precisely the point Hamilton
and McIntosh (2004) make with regard to WWF Australia’s close relation-
ship with the Howard government. Such a strategy becomes particularly
problematic if organizations become accustomed to pushing for limited
1066 M. McDONALD

incremental change. As Star (2012, p. 13) argues, ‘many ENGOs have been
too content to engage governments on their terms and their turf and to
accept small, incremental policy change in the face of the clear scientifically
determined need for large, radical policy change on this issue.’This criti-
cism, directed specifically at mainstream NGOs, was articulated by a num-
ber of less prominent Australian NGOs in interviews with the author at
Paris climate talks in 2015. One representative argued bluntly that ‘the
NGO movement can get caught up in looking at what government policy
is rather than what it should be.’3 And of course, there is also the danger
that close relations with government, while potentially financially beneficial,
will undermine relations with subsequent governments, as the ACF
experienced.
Finally, the focus on professionalized lobbying can also serve to discon-
nect the work and operation of environmental NGOs from the broader
climate movement, especially at the grass-roots level, and the Australian
public. Guy Pearse (2011) derisively referred to the professionalization of
environmental NGOs in the climate movement as providing a space for
‘neo-liberal minded corporate greenies chasing incremental results based on
what’s possible.’In the process of focusing on this site of politics, less
attention was paid to the broader question of how to develop and sustain
public concern about issues such as climate change. For some, the contin-
ued growth of grass-roots movements in Australia precisely reflects the lack
of trust in mainstream environmental NGOs (Burgmann and Baer 2012).
Again, the tendency to prioritize this site of climate politics reflects a
particular conception of the climate-politics field and the distribution of
political and social capital within it.
If professionalization has encouraged a focus on lobbying and access
to policy makers rather than building public support for climate action,
the increasingly managerial and corporate nature of large environmental
NGOs has also encouraged a focus on fund generation and donations as
an end in itself. While these organizations’‘key performance indicators’
emphasize donations and membership numbers, they simultaneously
neglect substantive policy outcomes and even broader public support.
Indeed, Christoff(2016) notes that few organizations employ polling or
consultation to indicate whether campaigns are genuinely influencing
public attitudes.
It also encourages large, symbolic, and high-profile events, such as
WWF’s Earth Hour. While generating funds through corporate sponsor-
ship, such campaigns have been criticized for their failure to follow through
to sustained changes in individual behavior, shifts in public attitudes, or
impact on policy (see Burgmann and Baer 2012, p. 157). In these senses,
NGOs may judge the success of their campaigns not by the extent to which
they have led to policy change or helped build public support for climate
ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 1067
action, but to the extent that they have generated funds for the organization
itself.
Narratives of climate politics
While focusing significant attention on influencing policy, the three orga-
nizations noted here have all undertaken climate campaigns aimed at
building support for action on climate change or at least encouraging
responsible individual behavior. In the process, they have made choices
about how to depict climate change, what forms of environmentally dele-
terious or desired behavior to discourage/encourage, the geographic scope
and size of the problems they depict, and whether and how to tie their
campaigns to particular sets of values or beliefs. While the question of how
to depict environmental issues to ensure maximum impact of campaigns
applies to every campaign, the range of possibilities presented by climate
change –a multifaceted, complex, and dynamic issue –renders these
choices particularly difficult.
Climate campaigns undertaken by the major environmental NGOs have
generally been on the national rather than local scale, and targeted at the
broad Australian population rather than sectors of it. This particularly
applies to ACF and WWF, with campaigns such as ‘Save the RET’
(Renewable Energy Target) and ‘Earth Hour’attempting to mobilize public
awareness across the country. While some of Greenpeace Australia’s actions
have been site specific or targeted at particular institutions (such as the
University of Sydney divestment from fossil fuels campaign, for example), it
has also retained a predilection for national-level campaigns such as the
‘Say Yes’campaign (encouraging Australians to support a carbon price) and
‘Don’t Pull the Plug on Solar’(in support of the Renewable Energy Target).
While a national level, blanket campaign arguably reflects the size and
scope of the organizations themselves, research increasingly suggests that
localized campaigns, or campaigns tailored to the particular values of key
population sectors, are more likely to be effective in altering behavior and
attitudes (see Morrison et al. 2013, Hine et al. 2014, Lamberts 2014). The
argument for segmentation strategies builds on social psychological
research that suggests individuals are most likely to respond positively to
particular messages if those messages are effectively located in their beliefs
and value systems (e.g., Graham et al. 2011). Such strategies may not
necessarily encourage national civic responsibility with regard to climate
change (e.g., Corner and Randall 2011), but they could serve to challenge
the highly politically divisive nature of climate debates and perceptions.
Whelan (2012, p. 3) has argued that mainstream environmental NGOs in
Australia have over-invested ‘in mass communication to the detriment of
tailored (and deeper) communication.’
1068 M. McDONALD
Aside from the effectiveness of more targeted campaigns, the national-
level focus of mainstream environmental NGO campaigns has also furth-
ered the perception that these NGOs are disconnected from grass-roots
movements aimed at changing attitudes and practices at the local level (see
Star 2012, Whelan 2012). The centralized and hierarchical nature of these
organizations hasn’t helped this perception, but relatively limited involve-
ment in significant localized protests combined with large-scale corporate-
sponsored events such as WWF’s Earth Hour has further disconnected
mainstream NGOs from the broader climate movement. 4 This potentially
challenges the extent to which these organizations are viewed as genuinely
speaking for the communities they claim to represent, a dynamic relevant to
Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power.
A second identifiable trend in narratives of climate change is the focus
on the protection of national heritage, and in particular the Great Barrier
Reef. Greenpeace Australia Pacific has pushed this agenda, reflecting its
concern (and origin as an international organization) with the preservation
of marine environments. Yet, all the major organizations have focused on
the Great Barrier Reef, pointing to the fundamental threat that climate
change and/or the functioning of a fossil-fuel economy has for the reef and
the animals who live there (e.g., WWF Australia’s ‘Fight for the Reef’and ‘I
am Real’campaigns; Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s ‘Save the Reef’and
‘One Million Reasons to Save the Reef’campaigns).
There is little doubt that the Great Barrier Reef is profoundly threatened
by climate change and by the expansion of mining and shipping activities
near it. Schweizer et al. ( 2013), for example, suggest that place-based
climate-change engagement may be particularly effective in mobilizing
public concern, especially if those places are iconic or have symbolic
value. Yet, this focus also points to the tendency these organizations have
to emphasize the importance of preservation and conservation rather than
grapple with the difficult and dynamic questions associated with environ-
mental change. As Christoff(2016) argues, while an understandable area of
emphasis for environmental NGOs comfortable with the conservation
agenda, such a focus risks working with a problematic distinction between
wild and transformed nature (particularly in the context of the
Anthropocene), and often fails to grapple with the challenges of degrowth
and the changes necessary in contemporary forms of consumption and
development.
Bourdieu, climate politics, and environmental NGOs in Australia
Given apparent limitations to existing forms of engagement with climate
politics undertaken by prominent environmental NGOs in Australia, how
do we make sense of their approach to climate politics? I proceed to
ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 1069
illustrate the utility of Bourdieu’s political sociology in coming to terms
with why environmental NGOs have come to approach climate politics as
they have, and indeed what possibilities there are for more effective climate
politics in Australia.
Bourdieu’s work (e.g., 1977, 1991, 1998) was particularly concerned
with understanding the relationship between context and action, struc-
ture and agency, and the ways in which agents act and give meaning to
those actions. While his work has been long been employed in sociology
at the level of theory and empirical analysis of the social organization of
particular societies, it has been more recently embraced in political
science and international relations (e.g., Adler and Pouliot 2011, Adler-
Nissen 2013), as well as environmental politics (e.g., Horton 2003, Jones
et al. 2009).
Bourdieu’s ( 1990, p. 123) ‘structuralist constructivism’enables an inte-
grated approach to the relationship between structural contexts and agential
capacity, and reminds us of the need to take seriously the structural
contexts in which actors must operate without writing offtheir capacity
for agency through effective forms of action. For Australia’s environmental
NGOs, structural impediments to the development of public concern about
climate change through their action include: changing and restrictive fund-
ing arrangements for these NGOs that render public criticism of govern-
ment financially risky (see Hamilton and Maddison 2007); media
ownership laws that enabled the concentration of national media in the
hands of countervailing political forces (Manne 2011); the short-term
benefits of a fossil-fuel economy for Australia and the broader discourse
of economics versus environment that encourages a societal view of envir-
onmental stewardship as inconsistent with wealth creation (Christoff2013);
and the institution of the Australian Parliament itself, which has encour-
aged a highly adversarial form of politics, minimizing the possibilities for
political consensus even around the science of climate change (Niemeyer
2013).
However, Bourdieu (1977, 1991) also argues that structures do not
determine outcomes or practices. Indeed, in the Australian context, we
have seen campaigns and action by organizations that have effectively
challenged these discourses, bypassed the restrictions of traditional media
or broken down traditional distinctions to mobilize concern in non-
traditional sectors.5 Central to the capacity for effective strategic action,
however, is an understanding of the ‘fields’and distribution of capital
within those fields that condition the possibility for success, and in parti-
cular the capacity to accumulate and wield symbolic power. It may also
require overcoming what Bourdieu described as ‘habitus’: unconscious sets
of dispositions that encourage actors to engage (in this case in climate
politics) in particular ways.
1070 M. McDONALD
For Bourdieu, a ‘field’is a social context within which agents act.
Different fields (from the political to the intellectual or economic) encou-
rage different sets of practices, dynamics of interaction, and forms of power
or ‘capital.’The political field, for Bourdieu (1991, pp. 171–202), is char-
acterized by contestation between actors to speak and act for the commu-
nities they claim to represent, and capital within that field is significantly
related to resources to advance particular messages or, crucially for our
purposes, connection to policy makers.
This conceptualization of the role of fields and distribution of capital
within them potentially helps us come to terms with how NGOs came to
embrace a role for themselves as government lobbyists rather than opinion
drivers, a characterization particularly applicable to WWF Australia and the
ACF. It also, potentially, allows us to make sense of the emphasis on
financial capacity and membership growth as key indicators of success in
and of themselves. Clearly, the determination to secure donations and
funding came to be viewed also as a central objective in ensuring these
organizations could continue their operations and fund campaigns
(Christoff2016). Yet, while successful on these terms, it has arguably
encouraged abstracted and symbolic campaigns aimed at generating expo-
sure and funding rather than building sustained public concern or engaging
with localized climate movements. This is particularly applicable to
Greenpeace Australia Pacific, but applies too to WWF’s Earth Hour initia-
tive. Finally, the emphasis on professionalization within the NGO sector
can be seen as a manifestation of the view that success in the ‘field’of
(climate) politics required internal, bureaucratized, and hierarchical orga-
nization more reminiscent of formal political parties, and indeed requires
engagement with the formal political system.
If the nature –or even the perceived nature –of the political field and
the distribution of capital within it has encouraged particular sets of
calculations about how to achieve ends, Bourdieu also emphasizes the
potential significance of unconscious assumptions in guiding practice.
This applies to the closely related concepts of doxa and habitus, the former
referring to taken-for-granted knowledge generally accepted as axiomatic
within a given situation, the latter to sets of dispositions that encourage
agents to act and react in particular ways based on their feel for the game
(Bourdieu 1977, pp. 78–87). As Bigo (2011, p. 241) has argued, habitus
entails ‘an anticipation of the actions of other agents of the field which does
not necessarily imply conscious thinking.’This potentially helps us make
sense of the continued commitment of environmental NGOs to particular
forms of engagement with climate politics, even in the face of evidence that
it hasn’t been effective in changing public attitudes or driving policy
change. Unconscious and even habitual actions may help us to account
for the accepted wisdom among the environmental NGOs discussed here
ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 1071
that effective climate politics meant engaging policy makers or generating
revenue for these organizations.
Finally, if the above concepts and insights potentially help us under-
stand why environmental NGOs have engaged climate politics as they
have, Bourdieu’s ( 1991) concept of symbolic power points to possibilities
for environmental NGOs to engage in more effective climate politics.
For Bourdieu, symbolic power refers to the capacity of actors to articu-
late –and secure social endorsement for –a compelling vision of the
world, a community’s role within it, and/or particular actions that
advance them. Australian environmental NGOs have failed to build
and sustain strong public support for climate action in the face of
countervailing forces, and some of this failure may be attributed to the
narratives of climate change they have deployed. The potential utility of
Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power is illustrated by existing research
on the mobilizing potential and capacity of climate campaigns and
strategies tailored to specific sets of audiences. As noted, audience
segmentation strategies are increasingly emphasized in literature on
climate communication but have not been central to the work of envir-
onmental NGOs (see Corner and Randall 2011, Whelan 2012). More
specifically, various accounts have pointed to the potentially vastly dif-
ferent mobilizing effects of similar climate representational strategies in
different settings (Hayes and Knox-Hayes 2014), while others note the
importance of ensuring that representational strategies resonate with the
values and beliefs of individuals in specific cultural contexts (Schweizer
et al. 2013). Narratives of climate change in Australia could be more
effective in mobilizing and sustaining public concern if they were more
tailored to specific audiences, less abstracted, and potentially located in
prevailing conceptions of community values.
Conclusion
Prominent Australian environmental NGOs have tended to engage climate
politics through the prism of what, in Bourdieu’s terms, could be under-
stood as the distribution of capital within the Australian climate-politics
‘field.’The idea that capital is defined either literally (in terms of donations)
or in terms of access to policy makers has been central, as was the concep-
tion that this was more important than attempting to build a robust social
consensus for the need to act on climate change (Princen and Finger 1994).
This in turn, Bourdieu would suggest, encouraged habitual approaches to
climate politics that continued long after it was clear that these strategies
had failed to bring success either in shifting public opinion or indeed
genuinely influencing policy makers. So fundamental have these failings
of mainstream environmental NGOs been that analysts have openly
1072 M. McDONALD
discussed the ‘death’of the environment movement in the context of
Australian climate politics (Christoff2016).
It is crucial to acknowledge, however, that large environmental NGOs
such as ACF, WWF Australia, and Greenpeace Australia are one part of the
climate movement. Indeed, in recent years, potentially in response to some
of the limitations noted above, the Australian Greens have come to occupy
a prominent place in Australian politics, while a range of other NGOs have
emerged and grown steadily in profile. These newer organizations –ranging
from so-called ‘clicktavist’groups such as GetUp, to youth-led organiza-
tions such as the Australian Youth Climate Coalition and organizations
focusing on climate research communication such as the Climate Council –
have created genuine diversity in Australia’s climate movement, and engage
in different sites and narratives in climate politics. This is particularly
evident in their online presence, especially through social media (see
Karpf 2012).
While at some level a challenge to established environmental NGOs,
there is evidence that this development is increasingly pushing prominent
NGOs to embrace new approaches and to engage more effectively with
other organizations within the climate movement. The Climate Action
Network of Australia (CANA), for example, has involved mainstream
organizations such as ACF and WWF Australia taking a lead role while
cooperating with newer and smaller Australian NGOs to share information,
and to coordinate both public messaging and engagement with policy
makers and negotiators. This was particularly evident in CANA activities
at climate negotiations in Paris in December 2015, with daily meetings
updating members on negotiation progress and coordinating plans for
communication. The diversity of the climate movement also suggests that
organizations might be content to focus on elements in which they have
specialization. One response to criticisms of the manner in which
Australia’s largest environmental NGOs have engaged climate politics
would be to make the case that this is only problematic to the extent that
the focus on policy influence, funding, and national-level campaigns cap-
tures the climate movement as a whole.
Environmental NGOs of course confront difficult circumstances and
difficult questions in the Australian context. Whether to engage policy
makers and the policy process is a difficult ethical, political, and strategic
question with potentially significant costs. There are also obstacles asso-
ciated with the continued power and resonance of a discourse of economics
versus environment in Australia, the power of countervailing forces, and
the acutely complicated nature of climate change, which together make a
simple mobilization strategy difficult to either imagine or enact If Bourdieu’s political sociology
sheds light on why prominent environ-
mental NGOs have approached Australian climate politics as they have, his
ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 1073

work also gives insights into the way forward for these organizations.
Reflection on the nature of the political field and the distribution of capital
within it is crucial here, as is genuine reflection on the forms that messages
might take to speak best to particular sets of audiences. In the process, the
latter should allow environmental NGOs to reconnect to grass-roots move-
ments and learn from the success of other civil society movements that have
built new societal coalitions (e.g., Lock the Gate) or bypassed traditional
media (e.g., GetUp!). There is some evidence already that this is happening.
But for far too long and in crucial years, Australia’s largest environmental
NGOs struggled to compete against countervailing forces to contest ‘busi-
ness as usual’effectively or contribute meaningfully to building and sus-
taining strong public concern about climate change in Australia.
Acknowledgments
An earlier version was presented at ‘The Future of Environmental Movements’
workshop, sponsored by the Environmental Politics section of the Australian
Political Studies Association, in Sydney in September 2014. Thanks to the organi-
zers, David Schlosberg and Adam Simpson, and to the attendees for insightful
feedback. Thanks also to two reviewers for their comments and suggestions, and to
Libby Feeney for her research assistance, funded by the University of Queensland’s
Summer Research Scholarship award.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Among other developments, this period saw the release of the influential
Stern review (Stern 2006) on the implications of climate change for the global
economy; an Australian equivalent in the Garnaut Review (Garnaut 2011) on
economic implications of climate change for Australia; the IPCC’s 4th
Assessment Report (IPCC 2007); the discussion of climate change in the
UN Security Council; the release of key films depicting the impacts of climate
change, Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth and the fictional
depiction of abrupt climate change in The Day After Tomorrow; and Al
Gore and the IPCC jointly receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
2. On the role of a frontier mentality and culture of developmentalism in
encouraging environmental destruction in Australia, see, for example,
Buhrs and Christoff(2006) and Walker (1999).
3. Interview with the author, Paris, December 6, 2015.
4. An exception here is Greenpeace Australia’s involvement in the blockade of a
coal mine in the Leard state forest in New South Wales, which has involved
cooperation with local residents and other grass-roots organizations.
1074 M. McDONALD
5. This applies, for example, to organizations such as Lock the Gate, which
constitutes an alliance between environmentalists and farmers to prevent
mining operations from accessing farming land. It has received unlikely
support from popular right-wing political commentator, and outspoken critic
of carbon pricing, Alan Jones.