Most of the governments of the rich world now exhort their citizens to use less carbon. They encourage us to change our lightbulbs, insulate our lofts, turn our TVs off at the wall. In other words, they have a demand-side policy for tackling climate change. But as far as I can determine not one of them has a supply-side policy. None seeks to reduce the supply of fossil fuel. So the demand-side policy will fail. Every barrel of oil and tonne of coal that comes to the surface will be burnt.Or perhaps I should say that they do have a supply-side policy: to extract as much as they can.

That’s an angle that probably won’t have been debated much in Bali this week, where…

…the biggest NGO delegation in Bali is the lobbying group, the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA). With 336 representatives including lawyers, financiers, emissions traders, consultants, certifiers and emissions trading experts from companies like Shell, the IETA makes up 7.5% of the 4483 Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) delegates registered to attend the UN climate talks.The IETA totally dwarfs even the largest environmental groups like WWF (2%), Greenpeace (1.6%), Friends of the Earth (1.52%) as well as big development organisations like Oxfam (1.31%).

Remember, NGO doesn’t stand for Cuddly Loveliness For Everyone, just for Non-Government Organisation. Though it wouldn’t be the case from a literal reading of the definition, this category does seem to exclude profit-seeking corporations, but it may as well not do. Buying a stake in the Third Sector is the easiest thing in the world to do, if you have the money, and organisations that aren’t working for any profit of their own may well do wonders for the profits of their benefactors. Tony Vaux’s book The Selfish Altruist contains many great examples of how the well-meaning NGOs can still end up ill-doing – it’s only a matter of time before someone draws up a theory analogous to the Propaganda Model – and as for those who mean ill in the first place…

No, there’s no reason to expect the armies of politicians, lobbyists and journalists in Bali to do an especially sincere or thorough job of representing us. We have to represent ourselves, and the best way we’ve found of doing that has been through taking to the streets: I was there this weekend, one of 10,000 people trudging accross London in the freezing rain. This was by no means the biggest environmental protest we’ve ever seen, but it’s a step in the right direction.

But – and don’t get me wrong – I can’t stand environmental protests. I mean, we need to have them, we need to have them now more than ever, but they just don’t seem to be remotely angry. A good bit of fury is a carthatic way of getting over the hassle of marching, as well as getting the point accross a little more convincingly, but this doesn’t happen with the climate like it does for, say, the war. It’s good, yes, that environmentalism is reaching the mainstream, but it needs more than just numbers: it needs teeth.

“What do we want?” someone always yells, but at environmentalist marches the question rarely seems all that rhetorical. There was a muted chant of this, with the answer “global action”, and I tried again at one point for “climate justice”, but it didn’t take off. Whether that’s because the silent majority didn’t care for all this shouting spoiling a nice day out with the kids or whether, as I suspect, they’re not sure exactly what they want but they don’t like the sound of “global action” or “climate justice” one bit.

I realise that when I rant it’s often unpleasant and unconstructive, so I’ll stop here. Well, I’ll finish with a little reminder: environmentalism is no longer about hugging trees (not that there’s anything wrong with that, per se) but about our survival as a species. If that’s not worth getting a bit worked up about I don’t know what is.

Update: In addition to the above vitriol, I’ll point you to the emergency Avaaz petition against attempts from to sabotage a strong agreement.

Climate negotiations in Bali are in crisis. Things were looking good till now: near-consensus on a delicate deal, including 2020 targets for rich countries, in return for which China and the developing world would do their part over time. IPCC scientists have said such targets are needed to prevent catastrophe. But Japan, the US and Canada are banding together to wreck the deal, and the rest of the world is starting to waver…

We can’t let three stubborn governments throw away the planet’s future. We have until the end of Friday to do everything we can. Please sign our emergency global petition below — we’ll deliver it through stunts at the summit, a full-page ad in the Financial Times in Asia, and directly to country delegates to stiffen their nerve against any bad compromise. Add your name to the campaign below now!

“We call urgently for the US, Canada and Japan to stop blocking serious 2020 targets for emissions reductions, and for the rest of the world to refuse to accept anything less.”

h/t The Coffee House