Global Governance - First things first

A proliferation of crises of all kinds shakes our consciousness every day and creates perplexity as to how to deal with large and small problems. Ultimately, each person arranges the order in which problems are to be dealt with. It is different with global crises; They require global solutions, even beyond national borders. But striving for political networking with other nations could weaken one's own national politics and so major threats fall by the wayside for the time being.

Crises without borders
In our society, personal worries such as unemployment, lack of money, relationship conflicts or illness initially plague us. A clear assessment of the situation, in which the difficulties are dealt with in order of importance and urgency, certainly provides a remedy. It should also work according to the same principle in cross-border crises, if global citizens around the world see themselves not only as individuals of their homeland, but also as citizens of all crisis-ridden countries that are at the end of their rope. Global Citizens are already making valuable contributions to reducing hunger, war, CO2 emissions and the destruction of biodiversity. But the eradication of diseases as a whole and at the same time on all continents still seems almost insoluble.

The United Nations
The United Nations has long been trying to take global paths for common crises. After initial successes, it has become clear that such international agreements are not democratic and hardly manoeuvrable. Geopolitical decisions fail due to disagreement among allies, as the report of the UNPA: UN Undemocratic reveals. For example, as far as biodiversity, energy and greenhouse gases are concerned, solutions for such issues would be within reach; To do this, however, the UN would have to set up an independent, freely elected parliament and empower it to take on the environmental and climate crises of all nations as a whole. The world cannot rely on the lamentations and well-intentioned recommendations of the IPCC, either, because this institution is also under the dictate of the United Nations, ergo it is not a decision-maker. Unfortunately, the IPCC also lacks this insight and the legal means to implement climate framework conventions worldwide. However, a legally secure authority would be indispensable for climate change to receive more international attention from governments. In the book, Separating and Redistributing, I face the burden of proof that global geopolitics can lead to a secure climate solution.

Hunger, war, migration
All three together form a vicious circle. The history of Ukraine proves that wars, with 10,000 and more deaths per year, also lead to severe displacement crises and thus push the population to migrate. South Sudan is struggling in a horrific civil war as a result of a fallible government. Humanitarian crises, political instability or gang crime, as in Haiti and Congo, put a strain on the population, the health system and drinking water under enormous pressure.

The road to global governance is long. To this day, the UN consists of a hodgepodge of national governments of partly undemocratically elected and solely profit-oriented organizations, networks and bodies that face the threatening problems of the world powerlessly and unimaginatively. The weakness of the United Nations is well known and unfortunately there are still no solutions in sight. A World Council for Environmental Protection with global goals and strong leaders could finally resolve the borderless crisis.

Biodiversity, commons and the atmosphere with its global warming know no national borders. Crises in climate change could be solved as global problems in supranational governance in the interest of all nations. This does not necessarily require the United Nations, but an intergovernmental system is sufficient, where NPOs and citizens' movements are involved in geopolitical decisions. It is important to agree that geopolitical goals always take precedence over a country's national conflicts.

Global crises require global coalitions
There are already a considerable number of coalitions that are committed to "global governance": Coalition for the UN We Need, Democracy without Borders Switzerland, Democracia Global and the WFM/IPG. They are all seeking increased cooperation with nations that go beyond UN membership and advocate for justice and social rights for all 8 billion world citizens. Global environmental and climate issues are to be covered without delay by an intergovernmental system and brought to a supranational vote. This supranationalism becomes global governance and can now decide worldwide: First things first.

In search of environmental and climate solutions
Do we need more democracy in autocracy or more autocracy in democracy? No matter what we urgently need for climate and other crises are solutions in which everyone can participate. This is how it could work.

In addition to economic, health and social barriers, the world is still facing almost insoluble problems in dealing with crises. Global energy shortages are looming and the conservation and distribution of fossil resources (including the commons) are still determined by the rich nations alone. There is a lack of political strategies on how to stop rising global warming. And then climate targets would also have to be implemented. In view of the large number of global blockades, there is a danger that all crises will be dispersed. We swim in disorientation and powerlessness is strong everywhere.

What needs to be done, what comes first, and how to capture important things before urgent?
It is time for national governments and responsible citizens to form geopolitical priorities and solve them together as a national task. If we put the climate and the environment first, and we will have to do so, then there is no way around a solution that requires global society to work together. To implement global solutions, simple citizens of the world, right and left, northern or southern countries of the planet are just as sought after as market economists, scientists and politicians. When it comes to climate change, we must not ask about historical and political borders that have emerged over the last millennia. We would rather have to create an international ministry that steers climate and environmental concerns, including biodiversity, into feasible paths.

This does not mean that 244 nations have to globalize, because that would bring the cultures, idiosyncrasies and genetic make-up of nations to a standstill and condemn them to the plaything of international political forces. In the focus of climate and geopolitics, the choice of the national system is secondary. Whether democracy, autocracy or socialism determine the balance of power for the people does not matter to the climate and our planet. Nature simply wants to survive. That is why many activists, leaders and politicians in all countries already recognize that all our existence and continued existence depends first and foremost on a sustainable ecology of our own country and the interaction and understanding with other countries.

On the anniversary in Poland, John Biden said: "You can't satisfy the appetite of autocrats, you have to oppose it. An autocrat understands only one word: No!" (Biden invokes the West)

Whether Biden's words were right at that moment or whether he is provoking a world war, readers can judge for themselves. In any case, the politically anchored state system has no significance for the quality of the air, water and earth. They exist and there always will be: democracy, autocracy and socialism.

The primary goal of all countries is to exchange ideas with all groups of people and professionals in a value-free manner and to find sustainable solutions to global environmental and climate crises. And perhaps this will require a new "Ministry for the Future" Kim Stanley Robinson, who will first put us on an environmental course and then take the lead and responsibility there, completely detached from the type and form of the political leadership style.

Global Citizens can do more than cheer governments on ballots or loathe their decisions in protest; Members or activists in the West also have the freedom to actively participate in citizens' movements of one or more institutions*. They live in a free country that has little or no direct state repression. This is an opportunity that many people have discovered and used for themselves over the past decades. Even in self-sufficient nations, people are committed to a change in thinking and sustainable behaviour in everyday life with courage, competence and diplomacy. Just the creation of NPOs, non-profit and other climate-oriented institutions is not enough; It must also be possible for ecological societies not only to expose themselves as loners, but also to engage in discussions with other like-minded people around the world, perhaps also with those who think differently, and to seek common ground. Networking is the first step to growth. In any case, it must be a matter of building international connections across our borders. Mergers can be very convincing and lead to common goals: avoid CO2 everywhere and by all means and burden the world with fewer emissions.

All peoples can work towards these goals, whether democratic-liberal, autocratic or governed in a social structure. The world will survive the election of the state leadership, but climate change and its consequences will be rather poor.

*Institutions with potential for success: Democracy without Borders, Global Forum of Modern Direct Democracy, Global Solutions-the world policy forum, one shared world, Öbu/World Business Council for Sustainable Development, World Federalist Movement/IPG, Stimson Center, over 100 citizens' councils in many countries.

"A democracy in which there is no dispute is not"
HELMUT SCHMIDT

Coping with global crises - First things first

The question of which crises are harmful can only be answered by the viewer. He alone knows his personal worries and hardships best. Is it unemployment, perhaps lack of money, relationship conflicts or illness that torments him?

In solving and healing the problems, a clear assessment of the situation helps to work through the visible difficulties in order of importance and urgency. This is also the case with the transnational crises that burden all continents and countries. Hunger, war, CO2 emissions, the destruction of biodiversity, not least the eradication of diseases seem unsolvable as a whole and at the same time, but can be implemented by governing politicians with a meaningful prioritization of the problem areas.

The intergovernmental and international organizations (United Nations, WHO, International Monetary Fund, International Atomic Energy Agency, World Trade Organization, EU, African Union, World Bank, European Space Agency, NATO, OECD) have been trying to develop an understanding of globality since their founding. After the emergence of the United Nations (UN) with its initial successes, we have also learned that such international alliances are not democratic and hardly manoeuvrable. Global decisions continue to fail to this day as a result of the UN veto power.

A possible solution to the dilemma would be if the UN empowered an independent, freely elected parliament to take over environmental and climate issues of all nations as a whole. Unfortunately, it lacks this insight and the legal means to ensure that Framework Convention on Climate Change are implemented worldwide. The world cannot rely on the lamentations and well-intentioned recommendations of the IPCC either, because this institution is also under the dictates of the United Nations and is therefore incompetent. But an active legal authority would be indispensable for climate change to receive more international attention from governments (How Global Geopolitics Can Solve Environmental and Climate Issues, ISBN 978-3-347-05125-6).

The UN's notion that its various commissions can resolve country-specific crises in the interests of all nations has proven false and devastating in the history of recent decades; Hunger, water shortages, disease and armed conflicts are increasing. In many countries, there are large theatres of war (Wikipedia 2021) and claim crushing losses.

Global Governance is not a world government

If even the UN, as the largest community of states in the world, cannot prevent political, health and economic crises, who can? To this day, the UN consists of a hodgepodge of undemocratically elected and profit-oriented organizations, networks and bodies that are powerless and unimaginative in the face of the world's global problems.

But for crises in global environmental and climate protection, there is an obvious solution that can also be implemented; Because biodiversity, commons and global warming know no national borders, the interests of all nations come together in these areas of expertise and can be resolved in supranational geopolitical governance. What is needed is not a world government, but an intergovernmental system where NPOs and citizens' movements are indispensably involved in decisions to protect the planet.

If we start to focus first and foremost on protecting our planet, preserving natural fossils and the commons, then we will have come a great deal closer to solving global crises. First of all, it is important to understand that

Geopolitical goals must always be above all national conflicts of any country
From Ukraine's history, we learn that the war (with 10,000 and more deaths per year) is also leading to dire displacement crises, thus pushing the population to migrate. Or, for example, South Sudan is fighting in a horrific civil war as a result of a fallible government. But humanitarian crises, such as political instability and gang crime in Haiti and Congo, which place an enormous burden on the population, health and drinking water, are also among the unsolved problems of the world. Droughts and floods are decimating crops and livestock everywhere. Millions of people, in Ethiopia, Afghanistan, can no longer meet their basic needs. Hunger is spreading in Somalia. 340 million people worldwide live in humanitarian need and another 100 million are on the run. Not to be forgotten are the tragic economic crises in Syria. In this conflict, too, the UN seems powerless and offers no solution.

Unresolved global crises are easier to answer than to change
Humanitarian crises are either man-made (war), naturally occurring dangers (earthquakes, epidemics) or arise from complex emergency situations (ailing political, economic and social systems). Such humanitarian hotspots are multiplying across all continents. Corrections are always made only in one's own nation, instead of within the framework of a climate policy, where decisions have to be made globally.

For this reason, the environmental and climate awareness of all nations must be sharpened in the future in such a way that international organizations and international leaders put dealing with the planet at the top of the agenda and work out solutions as a geopolitical community.

The Swiss government councillor, Antonio Hodgers, from Geneva aptly put it in the daily:

"Climate change is making agriculture and world trade more unstable, driving people to migrate and causing such destruction that some states can no longer take care of protecting the population."

Now there are already a considerable number of coalitions that are committed to Global Governance: We the people, Earth Constitution, Democracywithoutborders, Democracia Global, Global Forum of Modern Direct Democray, Global Democracy & Justice, Global Solutions Initiative, Global Citizen, Global Policy Forum, World Federalist Movement of GP, World Federation of United Nations, etc. They fight for greater cooperation with all nations, beyond UN membership, and plead for justice and social justice for all 8 billion citizens of the world (G20 countries comprise 4.9 billion).

At the top of the international agenda must not be death, disease and destruction, but issues for coping with global climate change. This is also evident in biodiversity hotspots (Google 2020):

The map shows that only a few areas of the continents still have unpolluted soil. Unfortunately, the distribution of diversity in the world's oceans is less well known, but a high level of biodiversity can be found in coral reefs (up to 1000 species of fish can be found in one reef). For our existence, those areas where biodiversity is lived must be included in international geopolitics as particularly worthy of protection.

For the geopolitical world order, the community of states also has large natural resources (Google) and commons goods at its disposal. These are to be recorded and redistributed so that the world economy can resume its original fair-trade function (Separate & Redistribute, ISBN 978-3-347-05125-6). For human existence, natural resources and commons must be legally protected.

The importance of climate change should call all responsible managers to ensure the development of their own specialist area in the department or ministry of their country (state and governance, economic policy, laws and legal system, military and security, including police & IT, finance and taxation, religion and social services). Global environmental and climate issues can only be promoted and implemented through democratic governance. (A World Council for Environmental Protection, ISBN 978-3-658-34903-5).

Feasible solutions to climate change have only one assumption: first things first.

Globalize, but how?

The Internet describes globalization as a constant increase in worldwide interdependencies that have an impact on all areas of society. In particular, climate change, migration and species extinction are preoccupying people all over the world. Then the reader is faced with the question of how nations want to deal with globalization. Do transnational organizations of multilateral governments already exist and how great is their influence on existing, still unresolved global problems?

History shows that the UN, the United Nations, in its existing form, is inefficient or downright obstructive in implementing it to solve global problems for the following reasons:

• As a confederation, the members have full sovereignty, i.e., they are free to decide whether they want to participate in global issues or not.
• The largest member states are the G20 with the G7; These comprise about 60% of the Global population. What say do the remaining 40% have?
• China, with 1.4 billion people, is not a full member because Taiwan is missing.
• Hierarchically above the UN, there is no authority that has powers to comply with global contracts.
• There is no second chamber, as in real federations, so that decisions of individuals are represented and individuals can be granted rights and obligations.

In order to reform the world in this regard, the WFM (World Federal Movement) has developed a meaningful solution and is successfully committed to a quantum leap in human thought; Humanity is to move from legally weak confederations to global federations, to a World Federalism. In this way, it comes together as a confederation of states, with a constitution, a parliament with World Councils and with individual rights and duties at the global level. Member States could reorganize themselves into federations of mini-states. Power would shift upwards to the Federalist World Government as well as downwards to the state government. In principle, there would no longer be a centralized, all-powerful world order.

As a result of the justice demanded here in the distribution at the highest level of power and of the reasons outlined above, the largest confederation, the UN, is out of the question as a Supranational Government.

For example, when it comes to global issues of the environment and climate, a new form of institutional revolution is needed, even if the word revolution is not liked to be heard. A New Government should have to say to every polluter and destroyer: You cannot make decisions alone that go beyond your limits. These are part of the approval at a supranational level. The WFM speaks of a WP (World Parliament) and warns: No Emission without Permission - Global Democracy now!

It is still the case that we live in an anarchic system where the complete satisfaction of all needs and prosperity are paramount. We will say goodbye to this system and set new values:

• Giving a voice to all the people of the world, which indeed is possible.
• Make decisions at the right level, locally, nationally or globally.
• Create laws that are binding under international law.
• Set regulations for renewable energies.
• Introduce taxes on global air pollution and biodiversity.
• Create standards for industrial efficiency and sufficiency (construction technology, fuel, electrification).
• Determine resource sharing and redistribution for commons.
• Develop marine, atmosphere and land use policies.

Basically, these are all feasible laws that have long been demanded, are known worldwide and have already been fully formed, but should now be put into force as a matter of urgency. What are you waiting for? Globalization doesn't wait either.

12.06.23/cro