Worlds-in-Transition

COP15 – Copenhagen has ended, but the task of analysis has only just begun. The assessments we have been offered – a “meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough” (Obama), "Copenhagen ends in failure” (Guardian), “a crime scene with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport” (Greenpeace activist) convey little of the complex significance of COP15 and its outcomes.

The accord, adopted by the major emitters, included a commitment to keep temperature rise within 2 deg C (but no actual targets), a three way proposal to provide $30 billion a year, rising to $100 billion a year in 2020, to assist developing countries to adapt and move towards low-emissions technologies, and a reference to the need to share information about emissions whilst respecting national sovereignty.

But the significance of COP15 hardly lies in these relatively modest and vaguely defined goals. COP15 is a key indicator in the contemporary evolution of human governance. What we have seen these last two weeks is the blurred reflection of a world in transition, where the new tantalisingly coexists with the old.

The new world may or may not prove adaptive.  Even if its trajectory towards innovative low-carbon approaches limits temperature rise to only 2 deg C, this may still entail highly unpleasant and even catastrophic consequences.  The scientific evidence presented at numerous COP15 ‘side events’, notably that by Dr John Holdren of the US Office of Science and Technology, showed just how dangerous temperature rise is in the present, let alone in the future. As IPCC Chair, Pachauri put it, whilst the IPCC does not advise any temperature, “as a man, my soul says 1.5 deg C”.

But there was more to COP15 than the crisis of temperature rise. What we have witnessed is the deepening crisis of governance. Several trends are worth noting.

First, the world, viewed geopolitically, is now mutlicentric. The United States, in the person of Obama, sought to lead, but it lacked the capacity to do so. Instead, we saw the deepening tensions between Europe and the United States, Beijing’s refusal to bow to Washington’s dictates, the assertive presence of the emerging economies (not just China, but India, Brazil and others) and the inability of the rich and powerful to silence the voices of the weak and the poor. In highly symbolic fashion, little Tuvalu, seemingly impotent, provided the ultimate benchmark for assessing the legitimacy of the decisions taken (or not taken).

Secondly, the old world represented by national governments, presidents and prime ministers, seemed singularly ill-equipped to devise a response equal to the challenge of climate change the scale of which was no longer in scientific doubt.

Ministers and their advisers, however well intentioned, had relatively little room to bargain given economic and political realities at home. They seemed, for different reasons and to different degrees, constrained by patterns of production and consumption which they scarcely understood and over which they had relatively little control.

Thirdly, and as a consequence of the other two trends, the policy void was visibly filled by other actors: by the unprecedentedly broad and energetic presence of different tiers of governance – from cities, to state or provincial governments, to international organisations (regional and global); by the vibrant diversity of NGOs and other voices in civil society, visually reflected in the exhibits inside and outside the conference; and importantly by innovative corporations large and small.  

By the second last day some 29,644 delegates had taken up their credentials (although progressively less were actually allowed in in the final days). Of these, national governments accounted for one-third, whereas NGOs (local, national and international) accounted for 42%.  Media, UN and other international agencies, and the sub-national tiers of governance made up the remaining 25%. One INGO, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, registered some 1200 delegates.

This leads us to the fourth observable trend. Even when it came to conventional statecraft, national governments seemed increasingly dependent on the assessments and initiatives of other actors, to empower them to make decisions, to assess success or failure of their decision-making processes, to assist them to implement such decisions as they had made, and generally to pick up the pieces and set a new direction for the future..

COP15 was a key moment in this complex and still rapidly unfolding story that is the evolution of human governance generally, and atmospheric governance in particular. Whether we like it or not, we are all caught in the midst of a powerful “challenge-response” dynamic that spans across society, politics, economy and culture, and across all boundaries.

For better or for worse we are passing through a social and physical transition unique in the history of the human species.

Jim Falk and Joseph Camilleri

December 2009