The Guardian view: help us to help those on the climate frontline | Editorial

In August 1965, the German-born, Oxford-educated economist EF Schumacher published an article in the Observer. Titled “Help them to help themselves”, it criticised the prevailing model of aid to the developing world and proposed a new emphasis on regional planning and “intermediate technology”. If the west would give up trying to impose the latest production methods, he argued, it could instead unleash the “power of self-help”.

That article led to the creation of a charity today known as Practical Action. The approach it pioneered, of supporting local people to make incremental changes to improve their lives, lies at the heart of the Guardian and Observer’s 2021 charity appeal. All over the world, as our recent “Living on the frontline of global heating” series showed, climate breakdown is having disastrous consequences for the people and communities who (along with their ancestors) have contributed least to the problem of global heating. Practical Action and the other three charities that we are supporting cannot stop carbon emissions. But they can, and will, help people in some of the hardest-hit areas and communities to adapt, survive and thrive.

Practical Action does this by supporting farmers – for example, by supplying climate-resilient seeds and helping them to develop new practices. It also funds schemes that provide flood warnings, repair damage and develop clean energy. The Global Greengrants Fund UK, with whom we have partnered before, has overlapping aims, but a different focus: it identifies grassroots climate projects, including those led by indigenous people and focused on their rights, and awards micro-grants. In 2019, it channelled £250,000 donated by Guardian and Observer readers to rainforest protection groups in the ecologically critical Amazon basin.

The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) campaigns for climate refugees, who lack status and protection in international law. In rich western countries, particularly those with temperate climates, we have so far been relatively protected from the most dangerous effects of the climate crisis. But all over the world, people are brutally exposed by environmental degradation, including deforestation, overfishing and water shortages. In the two decades since it was formed, the EJF has worked in some of the world’s least-accessible countries, using film and other tools to shine a light on human rights abuses linked to environmental insecurity.

Finally, Kew is famous for its stunning gardens and botanical collections – one in London, another at Wakehurst in Sussex. But the Royal Botanic Gardens also has an important presence in Madagascar, one of the world’s diversity hotspots, where Kew scientists have worked for 40 years. The island is experiencing terrible droughts and cannot afford to build the pipeline that it needs to protect both nature and livelihoods, as was highlighted by its environment minister in Glasgow. The Kew charity will use its share of this year’s fundraising total to develop agricultural systems and restore denuded land (sometimes called rewilding) in such a way as to support people and protect their country’s extraordinary nature.

The shortfall in the climate finance package promised by rich countries to poor ones is among the many grave failures of climate diplomacy. Our appeal cannot, of course, fill that huge gap. But thanks to the generosity of our readers, and despite the cancellation of last weekend’s telethon, we can make a meaningful difference to the lives of some of the people on the frontline of the climate crisis.

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