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Environmental Governance and Managing the Earth
Could the COP 21 be our next Westphalian Moment?
¤ Arnaud Blin ¤ 5 December 2015
As the COP 21 is in full throttle, let me reflect briefly on a unique historical event that in some ways resembled the predicament we find ourselves in today. One might call it the “Westphalian Moment.”
To disparage any misunderstanding, let me first make a distinction between this and what has been known as the Westphalian Order, whose revival I am not advocating in the least sense. The Westphalian Order that came about at the end of the Thirty Year War in 1648 and died a century ago in (...) read more
Campaign for People’s Goals for Sustainable Development
¤ 28 June 2014
This grassroots and social movements’ campaign recognizes that sustainable development cannot be achieved without addressing the structural causes of inequality, poverty and environmental degradation. read more
Call to Multiply the Village of Alternatives
¤ Alternatiba ¤ 25 February 2014
As Stéphane Hessel said, one of the greatest challenges of our time was “climate change and environmental degradation due to the actions of man throughout the last three centuries. The disruption of the climate is worsening faster than ever, and threatening the poorest populations of the planet and conditions for civilized life on Earth.”
All the warning signs are here. Climate disruptions are multiplying, affecting the poorest populations of the global South, but also in the global North: (...) read more
Dialog of Chinese, European, and South American Civil Societies at Rio+20
¤ 19 January 2013
"Impossible ideas are fundamental to have and to dream about, but more importantly, to make them possible."
Civil societies from different parts of the world have been conversing and sharing ideas for more than 20 years. The purpose of these dialogs has been to contribute to the building of a global community, outside of governmental relations. The video here reflects exchanges among Chinese, South American, and European civil-society members. It is about how each society is facing its (...) read more
The Commons and World Governance
¤ Arnaud Blin,
Gustavo Marin ¤ 2 August 2012
It is only by moving from the idea of individual protection to the idea of protection of all that we can start to envisage the possibility of a global social contract. In other words, it is our global freedom, that is, our freedom to enjoy, thus to protect, what is common to all of us as a world community that will entice us to, and determine our will to extract ourselves from what is essentially becoming a global war on our planet, on our “commons,” and on ourselves.
But what does this (...) read more
Rio+20: Failed Diplomacy, Feeble Democracy
¤ Pierre Calame ¤ 18 July 2012
The Rio de Janeiro experience has left us with a planet-sized headache. It brought together tens of thousands of people and almost a hundred heads of state to adopt a 50-page, take-it-or-leave-it declaration that repeats commitments made long ago and not kept, taking care to include all the buzz words of a liturgy now emptied of all meaning: the role of women and civil society, rights, the importance of democracy and popular participation, not to mention indigenous people, some of whom were (...) read more
A new historical moment?
¤ Nicola Bullard ¤ 10 March 2012
We are facing a cynical response from the elites concerning the ecological and economic crises. What is being sold to us as green economy is nothing but an attempt to have a new round of expansion of capitalism. It is an extension of neoliberalism, a new green Washington consensus, attempting not only to commodify the life in itself, but also to monetize it. It is said that the financial markets and the new technology will solve all our problems.
The Rio+20 agenda has nothing to do with (...) read more
Rio+20 and Beyond. No Future without Justice
¤ Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development ¤ 22 January 2012
Over the last 20 years, little has been done to change patterns of production and consumption that pollute, erode biodiversity and lead to climate change, while commitments to human rights and gender justice have not been fulfilled. We are facing societal and ecological disaster. The State can respond quickly to this, if based on democratic legitimacy and accountability. In times of growing global interrelationship between societies, economies and people, universally agreed principles are (...) read more
Proposals for a Fair and Democratic Architecture of Power
¤ Arnaud Blin,
Cândido Grzybowski,
Gustavo Marin,
Jorge Romano,
Ricardo Jiménez ¤ 24 December 2011
Building new governance is not only an institutional or theoretical question confined to the political or sociological spheres. All governance proposals and plans depend on the action and mobilization of a huge majority of people, actors, movements and populations. This is a critical issue. And ideas and proposals play a crucial role in such action and mobilization. This is why we need to remodel governance architecture by incorporating it into the perspective of biocivilization for the (...) read more
Rethinking and Changing World Governance
¤ Gustavo Marin ¤ 30 September 2011
See also:
The Workshop
Video on the Workshop
September 3, 2011
following on from the
Biocivilization for the
Sustainability of Life
and the Planet
Rio de Janeiro, 10-12 August 2011*
Contents
Rethinking and changing world governance
Actors: their relations, their contradictions
1. Transnational corporations (TNCs)
2. The state
?dialectic between society and the state
? role of the UN
? China
3. People, communities, civil society, and a new (...) read more
"Biocivilization" for the Sustainability of Life and of the Planet. Video on the Workshop
¤ FnWG Team,
iBase,
Traversées ¤ 24 August 2011
Rio de Janeiro, August 10-12, 2011
A short video of the seminar
The purpose of this meeting was to add our bit to the construction of a citizens’ movement facing the challenge of Rio+20. Participants were asked to work on a citizen agenda, which will be different from the official agenda. This agenda starts with a fundamental question:
What ethical, political, and philosophical "biocivilization" basics are needed for the sustainability of life and of the planet?
Participants were (...) read more
Proposals for a New World Governance
¤ FnWG Team ¤ 16 July 2011
Working Paper for the International Workshop
Biocivilization for the
Sustainability of Life
and the Planet
in the run-up to the Rio+20 Conference
Rio de Janeiro, 9 to 12 August 2011
Which architecture of power is needed,
from the local to global level?
How should we organize? How can we organize in a fair and sustainable manner? How can we govern effectively? These deceptively simple questions have been troubling philosophers, jurists and theologians since the dawn (...) read more
Biocivilization for the Sustainability of Life and of the Planet - Workshop
¤ iBase ¤ 16 July 2011
IBASE International Workshop toward the Rio+20 Conference
Rio de Janeiro, August 9-12, 2011
With the support of the Forum for a New World Governance
Read also:
Proposals for a New World Governance
Recovering and Valuing Other Ethical Pillars. Buen Vivir
JUSTIFICATION
As part of the month of public activities to commemorate its 30th anniversary, IBASE will hold a workshop with national and international invitees on August 9-12. Since 1997, after the death of Betinho, one (...) read more
On the Road to Rio+20 - Proposals for a Citizen Project
¤ Arnaud Blin,
Gustavo Marin ¤ 3 January 2011
The upcoming UN Summit on Sustainable Development is to be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012, 20 years after the historic summit of 1992. According to its organizers, the summit’s objectives are: to secure renewed political commitment to sustainable development; to assess progress towards internationally agreed goals on sustainable development and to address new and emerging challenges. The Summit will also focus on two specific themes: a green economy in the context of poverty eradication and (...) read more
The Challenge of Environmental Governance
¤ Germà Pelayo ¤ 3 December 2009
The United Nations Climate Summit (Copenhagen, December 7-18, 2009) is our last chance to obtain an indispensable agreement to renew and deepen the Kyoto Protocol, which runs to 2012 and has turned out to be insufficient to deal with the disastrous evolution of climate change, with environmental deterioration now worse, in some cases, than the most ominous forecasts.
In the lead-up the summit, the heads of the main industrial powers, including for the first time China, have entered into (...) read more
What Amazonia Does the World Need?
¤ FnWG Team,
iBase ¤ 29 December 2008
Amazonia concentrates the essential contradictions of our era: our planet’s lung is being devastated by rampant deforestation, predatory mining, and chaotic urbanization. Its peoples may have been able to preserve the potential of their surrounding biodiversity, but Amazonia suffers from “bad” governance: it is deprived of a collective and rational management of its resources. Worse, it is an arena of recurrent Human Rights violations, with as primary victims its poorest, most humble (...) read more
Environmental Governance and Managing the Earth
¤ Germà Pelayo ¤ 24 September 2008
This file contains a series of discussions and proposals formulated in recent years around the environmental dimension of world governance. They have been categorized according to the following themes: reconstruction of the environmental balance; energy management, mineral and ocean resources; farming, food security, and sovereignty; sustainable development; and the relationship between humankind and the biosphere.
The crisis brought about by the accelerated pace and the probable (...) read more
Global Environmental Governance: Elements of a Reform Agenda
¤ Adil Najam,
Mihaela Papa,
Nadaa Taiyab ¤ 14 May 2007
"Elements for a Reform Agenda" is the third and last chapter of the e-book "Global Environmental Governance: A Reform Agenda," published in 2006 by the International Institute on Sustainable Development. In this chapter, the authors suggest that there seems to be a consensus around five main goals in relation to global environmental governance (GEG): (1) leadership by outstanding and competent institutions commanding the respect and support of high-profile world leaders; (2) knowledge, (...) read more
Earth System Governance - The Challenge for Social Science
¤ Frank Biermann ¤ 19 July 2006
This paper introduces the concept of earth system governance as a new social phenomenon, as a political program, and as a subject of research. It then sketches the key problem structures that complicate earth system governance and derives principles for earth system governance both as a political project and as research practice, namely credibility, stability, adaptiveness, and inclusiveness. The main part of the paper introduces five challenges that lie at the core of earth system (...) read more
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