GLOBAL%20WARMING,%20%20GLOBAL%20GOVERNANCE%20%20AND%20EVOLUTION

1
GLOBAL WARMING, GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
ANDEVOLUTION
2
GLOBAL WARMING WILL DEMAND GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

• In the same way that World Wars evoked
  primitive forms of global governance
• World War I called forth the League of Nations,
• World War II called forth the United Nations

3
GLOBAL WARMING IS LIKE WORLD WAR IN RELATION TO
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE BECAUSE

• Its prevention requires the regulation of
  Nations
• to stop them pursing their interests at the
  expense of others.
• This requires a higher-level system that
  controls all Nations.

4
THE HIGHER-LEVEL SYSTEM MUST BE MORE POWERFUL
THAN NATIONS SO THAT

• it can impose binding constraints on Nations and
  on multi-national corporations
• it can act contrary to the interests of
  individual Nations
• and is therefore able to regulate in the
  interests of the planet.

5
SELF-REGULATION, AGREEMENTS THAT ARE NOT
INDEPENDENTLY ENFORCEABLE, AND WIN-WIN APPROACHES
ARE NOT VIABLE ALTERNATIVES TO GG

• Fundamental conflicts of interest between
  Nations makes consensus on details unlikely
• Compromises and trade-offs could be fatal
• Self-sacrifice by a Nation is likely to be
  temporary and politically unstable.
• and unilateral action cannot solve the problem.

6
GLOBAL WARMING CREATES FUNDAMENTAL CONFLICTS OF
INTEREST

• some Nations will be significantly disadvantaged
  by restricting emissions. Barring unforeseen
  technological developments
• the US will have to massively decrease its
  emissions, significantly reducing its standard of
  living
• developing Nations such as China and India will
  have to forgo the standard of living they see on
  US television.
• In the absence of global governance, the best
  strategy for many will be to free-ride on the
  efforts of others.

7
KYOTO EXEMPLIFIED THESE FUNDAMENTAL CONFLICTS OF
INTEREST

• only Nations that did not stand to lose much
  ratified Kyoto, such as
• European countries with declining industrial
  sectors that are effectively exporting emissions
  to China
• developing Nations that are unrestricted by the
  Kyoto agreement
• Nations that never intended to implement the
  targets.
• Nations that could lose significantly did not
  sign up (the US and Australia).

8
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE IS THE FINAL STEP IN A LONG
SEQUENCE OF DIRECTIONAL EVOLUTION ON EARTH

• The evolution of life on earth has progressively
  produced cooperative organisations of wider and
  wider scale.

9
EARLIER STEPS IN THIS LONG SEQUENCE OF
DIRECTIONAL EVOLUTION INCLUDE

• governed collectives of molecular processes
  produced simple cells
• governed communities of simple cells produced
  the composite eukaryote cell
• governed organisations of cells produced
  multi-cellular organisms
• governed groups of organisms produced animal
  societies.

10
THIS UNMISTAKEABLE TREND HAS CONTINUED WITH
HUMANS

• The next step is obvious the formation of a
  unified and cooperative planetary society.
• Once a global society emerges, the scale of
  cooperative organisation on earth will have
  increased over a million, billion times since
  life began.
• families teamed up to form multi-family bands,
  they teamed up to form tribal societies, and
  repetitions of this process produced agricultural
  communities, city states, nations, empires and
  now multi-national groupings such as the EU.

11
AT EACH STEP, GOVERNANCE ALIGNS THE INTERESTS OF
INDIVIDUALS WITH THE INTERESTS OF THE COLLECTIVE

• Governance ensures that an individual captures
  whatever effects it has on the collective.
• So an individual will be advantaged when it helps
  the collective, and will be disadvantaged when it
  harms it.
• Under these conditions, even a self-interested
  individual will treat the other as self (i.e.
  will apply the Golden Rule).
• Effective global governance will ensure it is in
  the interests of nations and corporations to
  mitigate global warming.

12
PAST EVOLUTION SHOWS THAT GLOBAL WARMING CAN BE
PREVENTED WITHOUT RELIANCE ON THE IMPOSSIBLE

• i.e. without reliance on the hope that all
  people, all corporations, and all nations will
  abandon their own immediate self-interest.

13
GLOBAL WARMING WILL DEMAND BROAD GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

• It will have to deal with the distribution of
  economic opportunities across Nations (these will
  be strongly influenced by the ceilings placed on
  carbon emissions).
• Effective global governance will require the
  implementation of effective governance at the
  National level.
• Global enforcement and dispute resolution
  processes will be necessary.

14
A KEY CHALLENGE WILL BE TO GROW FORMS OF GLOBAL
GOVERNANCE THAT MAXIMISE THE FREEDOM OF
INDIVIDUALS AND NATIONS

• The governance will need to be highly flexible,
  responsive (democratic) and evolvable.
• it must impose the minimum constraints necessary
  to prevent destructive competition and to enable
  cooperation.
• Noting that without global governance, global
  warming will severely undermine freedom.

15
EVOLUTIONARY AWAKENING WILL ENERGISE SUPPORT FOR
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE TO PREVENT GLOBAL WARMING

• Individuals will realise that by supporting the
  development of a sustainable and cooperative
  planetary society, they can consciously
  contribute to the advancement of the evolutionary
  process on earth
• and evolutionary knowledge shows us how to
  organise a planetary society successfully, and
  avoid past failures like the League of Nations
  and the UN.

16
FOR DISCUSSION

• John Stewart jes999_at_tpg.com.au