OP-ED Svenska Dagbladet

There is good reason to feel real fear in the face of the planet’s emerging ecological imbalances. Having first heard a swift stream of presidents and prime ministers at the UN General Assembly last month and then more politicians, philanthropists, scientists and business leaders at the Clinton meeting in New York, I cannot help but draw the following conclusions:

They are beginning to see the seriousness of the problem
They are in general agreement about the scientific evidence
They will not be able to agree on how the burdens should be shared
They will continue to prioritize growth (Business As Usual) ahead of sustainability (Business As Sustainable)

The term sustainable development has become an abracadabra, an incantation. How to reach sustainability is evidently beyond our ken. The Heads of State from Micronesia, Mauritius, Bangladesh and the leaders of the Inuit nations were clear and concise: We stand on the threshold of Armageddon. In my view, the term ought to mean that all human enterprises and economic activities must be kept to within those boundary conditions of nature which preserve an evolution in balance.

We live with two inseparably mutual dependencies, that between nature and humanity, and that between human beings themselves. Both of these relations function poorly. On October 9th, Australian Tim Flannery leaked that the next IPCC report to be published in November, sensationally asserts that the level of carbon dioxide and equivalents (CO2e) crossed the threshold of what has been defined as dangerous climate change. CO2e was measured in 2005 at 455 ppm. The consequences are, to cite the newly awarded Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Al Gore at the Clinton gathering, that the Earth is in a “State of Emergency.” Nature follows its own laws, not the laws of man. Just try negotiating with melting ice or declining water tables! Man must, as Vaclav Havel has said, be able to rein in his arrogance.

At the UN debate everyone pointed to Bali, where the next round of negotiations will take place in December to ramp up towards a new Kyoto agreement. But the UN system is the format to solve problems betweens states. The UN builds on the principle of sovereignty. The UN exists to resolve conflicts of interest, not common cross-boundary systemic dependencies. The UN debate, therefore, is marked by the omnipresent power game and the customary contradictions of interests between rich and poor, North and South, culpable and innocent, super powers and small powers.

Humankind’s population increase as a species combined with its technical prowess to convert nature into material growth has destabilized critical ecosystems such as the carbon cycle, the water cycle, forests and wetlands, oceans, polar and land ice, deserts, and even insects’ capacity for pollination. All of these are mutually dependent and dynamically interactive. Disrupt the balance in one and you create effects in the others.

The 2005 UN assessment of the ecosystems’ bearing capacity and distributive capacity of “services” for humanity’s physiological and economic needs showed that 2/3 of the ecosystem has been harmed. Bottlenecks are multiplying. The prices for wheat, bread, pasta, corn and energy are therefore climbing. Consumers get squeezed and get angry, be they monks in Myanmar or villagers in Dalarna.

Yet most serious is the ongoing climate change. The current Kyoto process - under UN leadership – has so far failed to mobilize the nations of the world politically to act with common interest in the reduction of greenhouse gases. Since 1990 they have risen 35 percent. Scientists at Canada’s Victoria University just released their findings that we must reduce these gases by 100 percent below the 1990 level before 2050 in order to avoid crossing the two degree Celsius threshold to “a different planet.” Drastic measures, such as the immediate cessation of all new coal-fired power plants that do not sequester the carbon dioxide, should be implemented but will not be. A necessary carbon dioxide tax is still remote.

Today’s promise to voters, investors and consumers that even faster growth, new technologies and hocus pocus will pull it off, is wishful thinking without empirical foundation. Value creation and innovation are by nature risky and destabilizing. Everyone should clear about the fact that the technology and growth, in which we all had good faith, also generated the problem.

A few blocks from UN Headquarters another discussion was taking place at the Clinton Global Initiative. This forum, like the Club of Rome, The Elders, Kofi Annan’s newly started Global Humanitarian Foundation and the Tällberg Foundation are initiatives which to a start out more from the systematic nature of the problems than from the economic or hegemonic special interests of sovereign nations. These initiatives emerge as reactions to the new cross-boundary configuration of problems, which the aging multilateral institutions cannot master. We can be assured that the needs will continue to grow as the ecosystem and climate crises deepen and conflicts over limited resources multiply. Energy and climate are on the way to becoming global security issues.

The idea of the Clinton initiative is to mobilize social engagement and private capital to push through new technologies to solve the climate problem, as well as poverty and support for education. The Tällberg Foundation works from a wholeview systems analysis. We have to search for new concrete ways to assume the common responsibility for common solutions to common issues. The legitimate self-interest must be operationally linked to the legitimate interest of the whole. The Tällberg Forum is further developing a “experimental workshop” for new forms and processes for global governance.

The difficulty lies in taking the step from knowledge of the problem (which we have in part) to solutions (which we do not have) to super complex systems problems. Solutions presuppose leadership with an unwavering inner moral compass. It also demands a considerable measure of honesty, solidarity and a confidence that today is lacking in the international system. The European Union is the most hopeful constitutional innovation.

If we do not succeed in solving our relationship between people and people/nation and nation, we will neither be able to solve the relationship between human beings and nature.

Bo Ekman, Tällberg Foundation