Naturally, Vietnam’s democracy is a socialist one, which makes the express commitment to link democracy to sustainable development somehow all the more interesting. Liberal democracies in other parts of the world might also reflect on this.

The particular emphasis on expanding ‘direct democracy’, linked as it is to a stern reference to ‘discipline and rule’, is intriguing.

I don’t know Vietnam well (having last visited in 1992, just a couple of months after the Rio Earth Summit). If anyone reading has reflections on the Vietnamese approach to linking democracy and sustainable development – particularly on what it could mean in practice and whether there are any lessons for other countries – I’d be very glad to hear from you.

I hope that the Government of the Socialist Republic will forgive this lengthy quote from the article, which can be found in full here.

“….The socio-economic development strategy 2001-2010, approved at the 9th Party Congress, reconfirmed “Rapid, effective and sustainable development and economic growth must go together with social progress and equality, and environment protection.” The 10th Party Congress continued to draw the lesson on rapid and sustainable development, the content of which was enriched with the demand for comprehensive human development and democracy, apart from socio-economic development and environment. The overall goal of the five-year plan 2006-2010 was “To strive for economic growth of rapid tempo, high quality and higher sustainability, attached to human development….

…To realize the stance on rapid and sustainable development, it is necessary to enforce orientations enshrined in the draft Strategy comprehensively, focusing on the following tasks….

Fifth, to bring into play people’s mastership, execute democracy, especially direct democracy, and build a society of openness and consensus.  ệt Nam’s development under the Party’s leadership. Democracy functions as the goal and the impulse too. All these three pillars must be strong enough and compatibly developed. Any weak pillar can block the movement of other pillars and affects the development.”

Democracy is a factor of sustainable development, as clearly stated by our Party at its 10th Congress in order to perfect and enrich the content of sustainable development. This comes from a vital point: Man is the target and also the subject of development. Human resource is a long-term competitive advantage and a decisive factor for the development of a country. By executing democracy, we will bring into play creativity of each and every individual, contributing to the country’s rapid and sustainable development. The higher democracy is, the greater social consensus becomes, and the more the aggregate strength of the whole-nation solidarity is solidified.

To promote democracy and make it a resource for development, it is necessary to secure two conditions: (1) offering chances for people to study, building up a study-based society for higher intellectual standards of people; and (2) ensuring people’s mastership through institutions which guarantee democracy in all fields of the social life and expand direct democracy. Democracy must be associated to discipline and rule.

It is possible to say that, law-ruled state, market economy with social welfare and security, and socialist democracy are three main pillars of Việt Nam’s development under the Party’s leadership. Democracy functions as the goal and the impulse too. All these three pillars must be strong enough and compatibly developed. Any weak pillar can block the movement of other pillars and affects the development.”.

Sustainable development has long been inextricably linked to the idea of ‘intergenerational equity’, that is, fairness as between generations alive today and those yet to be born, whom philosopher and green party politician Rupert Read dubs ‘future people’.

The underlying challenge is one which we and our co-signatories identified in an open letter to Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg (we await a reply). And it has also received Select Committee attention in the UK, with a 2007 report of the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee,  Governing the Future.

Here at FDSD, we have in the past pointed to institutional innovations such as Hungary’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations as possible inspiration. But the challenge of ‘intergenerational thinking’ is a systemic one.  

We wondered about what experiences; and what existing areas of policy, can trigger long-term thinking. For Ian, the spatial planning systems of democracies are an example of long-term thinking. And indeed, here in the UK, the principle of sustainable development underpins the entire planning system.  

In the past, since the establishment of the welfare state after the Second World War, there was an implicit social contract (a compact, perhaps) in the UK that citizens would accept an obligation to pay sufficient National Insurance to secure a basic state pension for all – now and in the future. But with a rapidly ageing population that may now be breaking down. And that breakdown may be accompanied by a risk of conflict between generations alive today as younger people turn on the Baby Boomers who put home ownership and much else beyond their reach.  (On that, see David Willett’s book “The Pinch” or reports of intergenerational conflict in Italy).

As we talked, we mulled over the UK’s Climate Act 2008 as another example of leadership in long-term thinking, well beyond the short-termism of a five-year electoral cycle.

The problem, of course, is that if bold steps are taken by politicians without broad public debate and explicit buy-in, they can be vulnerable to attack subsequently as governments change.  We need leadership plus long-term vision, but we need decision-making genuinely to be by the people too. The current government, which is desperately trying to sell the idea of a ‘Big Society’ as a basis for social cohesion in the face of massive public sector cuts, knows this.  

Far-reaching policy change calls for widespread deliberation and consent from the electorate. And yet when that consent is implicit, rather than explicit, it may provide a less stable foundation for intergenerationally-regarding policy.

At a Global Dashboard brainstorming session a couple of weeks ago, Alex Evans reminded me of the story of the huge oak beams in the great dining hall of New College Oxford. When at last they needed replacing several hundred years after the hall’s construction in the fourteenth century, it emerged that a stand of oak trees on the college lands had been carefully looked after by generations of foresters to provide replacement timbers.  

The New College story is particularly heartening because it emerges out of the UK, rather than as a too-easily-dismissed insight from some distant community living “romantically” close to nature in what is still referred to as ‘the developing world’.

In the UK, Kew Gardens’ Millennium Seed Bank is another great example of an institution that has been designed with the long-term in mind. The Bank now houses ten percent of the world’s flora, and almost the entirety of the UK’s native plant species. Yet around the world, botanic gardens that are a repository of ex situ genetic diversity are coming under threat from development or for simple lack of funding (see generally www.bgci.org).

These are just a few examples. There are many, many more from around the world that could be added. The challenge is systemically to find ways of enabling people around the world to express regard for the long-term in their decisions today; particularly those decisions that could mean using scarce non-renewable resources (fossil fuels among them) or that that irreversibly alter the options or reduce the opportunities available to future generations.  

In our work, we’re interested in looking at the kinds of institutional innovations that can equip democracy to deliver sustainable development. Intergenerational thinking is part of that. Some institutional innovation will almost certainly be needed in the realms of parliament or representative democracy. But we should not expect that we must find inspirations from existing systems of representative democracy alone.

Perhaps a cluster of ‘intergenerationally regarding’ initiatives and spaces could be joined together as a new tourist trail, or a suggested one-day teambuilding retreat for politicians or policy-makers? Their capacity to inspire could be part of efforts to equip democracy to deliver sustainable development.

Do get in touch if you’d like to take that idea forward.  

PRESS RELEASE

Civil society call for a ‘new politics of the future’

In an open letter dated 1^st June 2010 to Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg, a group including chief executives of ten civil society organisations calls for the two to ensure that the government goes beyond ‘New Politics’ to adopt a “New Politics of the Future”.

In their letter, the group warn that short-termism in contemporary politics on issues including climate change, changing demographics, youth unemployment, and environmental and social injustice, could endanger not only the UK’s ability to achieve meaningful progress in these areas, but even democracy itself.

The open letter calls on the Prime Minister to commit to an annual ‘State of the Future’ speech and asks  Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg fully to investigate the potential to adopt other mechanisms that could better equip and encourage Members of Parliament to consider the long-term interests of future generations in policy decisions.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

The following signatories to the letter are available for media interviews and comment:

 
Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development Director Halina Ward (email: press@fdsd.org; Tel: +44 (0)20 7022 1848; Skype: halinaward) Involve Director Simon Burall (simon@involve.org.uk; Tel: +44 (0) 20 7920 6470), and Capacity Global Director Maria Adebowale (email: maria@capacity.org.uk; Tel: +44 (0) 20 3117 0102). 

The full text of the open letter to Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg and a list of signatories, embargoed until 00:01 BST on 1^st June 2010, follows.

 The following organisations’ Directors or Chief Executives have signed the open letter:

Capacity Global
Community Sector Coalition
DEA
Environmental Protection UK
Environmental Regulation and Information Centre (Eric) Ltd
Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development
Gaia Foundation
International Institute for Environment and Development
Involve
National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (NAVCA)
The Samosa

General media enquiries: press@fdsd.org; Skype: halinaward; Telephone: +44 (0)20 7022 1848

—————————————————————————————

Right Hon David Cameron MP and Right Hon Nick Clegg MP
c/o 10 Downing Street
London SW1A 2AA
 
1^st June 2010                     

OPEN LETTER

Dear Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg

Towards a new politics of the future

We write to endorse your concern to tackle ‘short-termism’ in the nation’s democracy and to urge you to go further; to initiate a new “politics of the future” in the UK.

As a group of researchers, advocates and campaigners for sustainable development, we well understand the importance of aligning short-term democratic decision-making with long-term benefits to society as a whole, and with consideration for the interests of future generations both in the UK and abroad.

We fear that short-termism in contemporary politics on issues including climate change, changing demographics, youth unemployment, and environmental and social injustice, could endanger not only our ability to achieve meaningful progress in these areas, but even democracy itself. For when social injustice and inequality become more pronounced and natural resources more scarce, the real risk is that democracy itself may be sacrificed as the need for action becomes more urgent.

You have the power to take simple and cost-effective steps now to guard against that risk. 

You would not be alone in taking steps consciously to ‘future-proof’ UK democratic processes. On the contrary, your Government would join a handful of progressive leaders around the world. In 2007, the Hungarian Parliament appointed the world’s first ‘Green Ombudsman’; a Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations. And in Finland, a cross-party parliamentary Committee for the Future has been operating since 1993, preparing statements and reports on ‘futures’ issues affecting Finland’s development, and responding to the Government’s annual  Report on the Future.

Here in the UK, we urge you immediately to commit to an annual, televised, ‘State of the Future’ speech and public debate, starting in 2010. That speech should describe how your Government has taken steps, and plans, to take account of long-term threats to our environment and our society, and to the interests of future generations.

Finally, we urge you to initiate an effort fully to investigate whether there are other innovations in the parliamentary and policy process that could better equip and encourage Members of Parliament to consider the long-term interests of future generations in policy decisions.  We would be delighted to work with you in such an endeavour.

We welcome your commitment to tackle short-termism in the nation’s governance, for political short-termism is one of the chief causes of unsustainable development. But we believe that that commitment must be backed by demonstrable institutional and procedural innovation.

In this era of new politics, Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, we call on you to adopt a New Politics of the Future.

Yours sincerely

Maria Adebowale
Director, Capacity Global (www.capacity.org.uk)

Anwar Akhtar
Director, The Samosa (www.thesamosa.co.uk)

Simon Burall
Director, Involve (www.involve.org.uk)

Tony Colman, Councillor, UK
Alice Vincent, Assistant to the Management Board UK, Research Assistant Future Justice
World Future Council Foundation (www.worldfuturecouncil.org)

Kevin Curley
Chief Executive, National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (NAVCA) (www.navca.org.uk)

Begonia Filgueira
Solicitor and Director, Environmental Regulation and Information Centre (Eric) Ltd (www. eric-group.co.uk)

Lukas Köhler
MA student, University of London

Liz Hosken, Director

Carine Nadal, Legal Researcher

Sulemana Abudulai, Head of Strategic Partnerships

The Gaia Foundation (www.gaiafoundation.org)

Jen Lowthrop, Steering Group Chair
Sydney Fleming-Gale, Steering Group Member
Andrew Johnston, Steering Group Member
Sian Ryan, Steering Group Member
Climate Squad (www.globalactionplan.org.uk/climate-squad)

Philip Mulligan, Director
Environmental Protection UK (www.environmental-protection.org.uk)

C’llr. Dr Rupert Read
Green Party Councillor, and Reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, Norwich

Matthew Scott, Director, Community Sector Coalition (www.communitysectorcoalition.org.uk)

Hetan Shah
Chief Executive, DEA (www.dea.org.uk)

Paul Spray
Director of Policy, Traidcraft (www.traidcraft.co.uk)

Dr Kaihsu Tai
Advisory Member, Green Economics Institute

Camilla Toulmin
Director, International Institute for Environment and Development (www.iied.org)

Halina Ward, Director
Ian Christie, Vice-Chair
John Lotherington, Trustee
Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development (www.fdsd.org)

The draft International Guidance Standard on Social Responsibility has gradually been taking shape over the past five years. ISO is a private nongovernmental body, headquartered in Geneva. And it is also the world’s largest developer of international standards.

The final plenary of the working group in Copenhagen yesterday marked a major milestone: agreement on a revised final draft of the guidance standard. That means that the development of the standard now moves on to the final stages of the process. The next step is to hand a revised draft to ISO’s members (standards bodies from more than 160 countries) for a two-month voting period. There can be no more than 25% of the total ISO member voting body voting ‘no’ if the standard is to be adopted and published as an international guidance standard late in 2010.

It was good news all round in Copenhagen as more than 400 delegates from over 80 countries (dubbed ‘experts’ rather than ‘representatives’ in ISO parlance) agreed on a final draft of the international guidance standard.

This post isn’t about all the good things that were agreed: the agreement of the Chinese delegation to text that everyone could live with; the resolution of concerns from participants from Gulf and Arab states about the use of the term ‘sexual orientation’ (resolved in favour of the term ‘personal relationships’); or how the 1500 outstanding comments and 15 ‘Copenhagen Key Topics’ were satisfactorily resolved.

Instead, this post is about how the private standards-setting process of ISO 26000 has triggered heated debates, and lasting concerns, on the content of the so-called ‘precautionary approach’ and how it should be applied by organisations other than governments. And those debates and concerns raise some basic questions about how ISO’s private processes bump up against public policy and the international legal commitments of states. That, in turn, raises a whole host of issues about the state of global governance and the confused state of distinctions between ‘private’ and ‘public’ global governance.

There are two basic problems.

First, a number of government representatives came to the ISO 26000 negotiating process with worries about how the potential trade impacts of the standard could interact with their obligations under the World Trade Organization. For example, the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade requires WTO Members to use relevant international standards as a basis for national technical regulations. A technical regulation that is based on a relevant international standard and created to address a legitimate objective benefits from a ‘rebuttable presumption’ that it does not create an unnecessary obstacle to trade.

Second, some government participants have the additional concern that their position in these talks could potentially have an impact on their international legal obligations more widely, or that working group participants are effectively re-interpreting delicately balanced intergovernmental agreements. Non-governmental participants do not have to confront these issues.

In the final plenary session in Copenhagen yesterday, three participants from the so-called ‘government stakeholder group’; those participating on behalf of the governments of the United States, India and Canada; expressed their concerns with two references to the ‘precautionary approach’ in parts of the proposed new standard that set principles for organisations to apply in pursuit of social responsibility in the fields of environment and consumer issues respectively.

The positions of these three experts at the talks can in many respects be seen as an inevitable consequence of the current unjoined up link between ISO and public policy. They mean bringing the political positions of governments to a voluntary and private standard where, in contrast to intergovernmental or national policy processes, they are less likely to be negotiable. This in turn causes frustration on the part of many participants who are committed to the ISO principle of ‘consensus’ decision-making across experts, regardless of how representative they might be, or how accountable to others.

The draft social responsibility standard does not apply to governments in their capacity as policy-makers. But it addresses other kinds of ‘organisations’ of all sizes, wherever they might be found.

Yesterday, in a concluding plenary session of more than 400 participants from more than 80 countries, a representative of the US government made it clear that the US government has ‘sustained opposition’ to a key part of the 100-page text which asks organisations of all sizes to take a ‘precautionary approach’. Canada and India also expressed their concerns about the text. The three have differing views on the content of the precautionary approach and how it should be applied, at the level of principle, to organisations.

Whilst it is beyond the scope of this post to explain in any detail the precise sources of the different positions, a brief explanatory diversion is probably useful.

The precautionary approach has been developed in a series of international agreements since the 1990s. As an approach, it proposes that lack of full scientific certainty in the face of risks of serious or irreversible damage or harm to the environment or human health should not be an excuse for postponing cost-effect preventive measures. The precautionary approach has also been adapted for application by other kinds of organisations, including businesses

The idea of a ‘precautionary approach’ is a central part of international talks on the global issue of climate change; controversial in part because of the global distribution of costs and benefits of tackling climate change in line with precaution. Now, the precautionary approach has properly been included in the global guidance standard on social responsibility because it reflects the reality of good social responsibility practice in many organisations.

The concerns of the three governments whose policy positions might reasonably be assumed to lie behind the representations of the three experts are not critical to progress with the standard at this stage since voting is ultimately based on votes from standards bodies.

Governments take part in the standard-setting process along with other groups including consumers, trade unions, and non-governmental organisations in so-called ‘stakeholder groups’. However, their objections to the text are an indication of a potential mismatch between a) political positions that arise out of government policy on issues such as climate change, science-based policy, or the management of risks from genetically modified organisms in the Capitals of the three countries and b) the reality of good social responsibility practice in markets and economic sectors around the world.

As ISO’s involvement in key issues of public policy action such as human rights, environment and labour (all addressed in the draft standard) gets deeper and broader, the tensions will only get worse unless governments themselves find a way to deal with the wider implications of ISO under the WTO and in international law.

Holding back progress in the world’s largest and most inclusive social responsibility negotiation, as these and other government positions risked (but did not eventually end) doing, is not the right way forward to ensure progress with social responsibility around the world. ISO 26000 shows that not all stakeholders can properly be treated as ‘equal’ in a process that takes effect through markets, not government ratification, and that is built around the principle of consensus.

One part of the way forward should be for both ISO and governments to clarify how governments might be ‘different’ to other stakeholder representatives in future ISO talks with public policy reach.

The ISO 26000 process has internally been relatively ‘democratic’ as a hermetically sealed process; but it is one with an impact on other ‘democratic processes’ that are not yet reflexively recognised within the ISO process.

The second part of the way forward needs to be for governments to go to the WTO to find ways to reduce the impact of ISO on their ‘policy space’ at national and international levels.

The third, and potentially trickiest area for action is to find a way to ensure that, where appropriate or necessary, government participants are freed up to be able to participate genuinely as ‘experts’.

For those whose governments see them truly as representatives of governments, (irrespective of the  fiction that they participate as ‘individual experts’), there are real concerns that their positions and views in such talks potentially has an impact, through evolving international law, on the content of their governments’ international obligations as states. ISO 26000 cannot be treated as a process that is subject to the Chatham House Rule, as ISO itself would like, because for some participants the positions taken have implications for public policy and hence accountability of governments; a key element of democracy itself. 

We must hope that in the meantime ISO 26000 is adopted by ISO members over the summer, and that it begins to generate its promised positive impacts on the social responsibility practices of organisations and their contribution to sustainable development around the world.  

FDSD’s Halina Ward was in Copenhagen during the Summit, and she took the opportunity to ask a range of people their views on the relationship between democracy and climate change.

You can download and listen to the interviews by clicking on the links below.

We will be incorporating some of the ideas from these interviews into our project on the Future of Democracy in the Face of Climate Change to 2100.

Teresa Fogelberg, Global Reporting Initiative, Netherlands
3minutes, 12seconds; file size: 3.69MB

Professor Dr Atiq Rahman, Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies 
2minutes, 3seconds; file size: 962KB

Baboucarr Mbye, Stay-Green Foundation, Gambia 
1minute, 19seconds; file size: 619KB

Steve, medical student from Leeds, UK 
4minutes, 32seconds; file size: 2.07MB

Hannah Reid, International Institute for Environment and Development, UK 
5minutes, 40seconds; file size: 2.59MB

Marco Baravalle, Venice 
2minutes, 41seconds; file size: 3.10MB

Member, Democratic Alternative, Sweden 
5minutes, 15seconds; file size: 2.40MB

Varaidzo Dongozi, Zimbabwe 
1minute, 52seconds; file size: 877KB

Jody Boehnert, UK 
5minutes, 24seconds; file size: 6.21MB

Bolivian Klimaforum Participant 
4minutes, 45seconds; file size: 5.47MB (NB: Interview recorded in Spanish)

Give Your Vote is an offshoot from the campaign group Egality Now. The campaigners argue that:

“We think we can do better than a world where politicians from the strongest countries decide for everyone else.

The UK makes decisions about climate change, migration, poverty and war that directly affects millions around the world. There is no democratic means for those outside the UK to have a say in how these decisions are made.

Giving your vote is an act of solidarity with those who do not have a say in the decisions that affect them.

Decisions taken across borders should not mean decisions taken without accountability.

Give your vote is a call for a fairer and more equal world.”

Now I’ve often wished that I had a say in the election of the President of the US. And the campaign prompted me to think some more about my conflicted views on the importance of voting in a liberal democracy.

I admire the simplicity of the campaign message; and I’m pleased that the ‘partner’ countries have been chosen on grounds of their emblematic connection to some of the key challenges of sustainable development (Bangladesh to climate change; Afghanistan to human security and armed conflict; Ghana to poverty) . But in this coming UK general election, Give Your Vote encourages me to view my apparently legally unfettered ability to vote as a proxy for unenfranchised stakeholders as implicitly a more valuable choice than any other that I could exercise at the ballot box of my own free will.

Perhaps this doesn’t matter? After all, as the Hansard Society’s newly published 2010 Audit of Political Engagement points out, currently 25% of the public do not trust politicians at all and 62 “admit that they know ‘not very much’ or ‘nothing at all’ about the Westminster Parliament.

And yet… and yet… is there not a risk that promoting the idea that we can and should give our votes to deserving non-voters could further erode the regard in which collectively we hold representative democracy?

The Give Your Vote option isn’t about non-engagement though. Far from it.

Giving a vote calls for a high degree of pre-election public involvement on the part of the UK proxy. A look at the detail of the process makes this clear:

“Step 1. Finding out what the UK parties’ policies are on global issues

We are currently gathering questions from people in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana that they would like to put to the UK election candidates.

We will be putting the most popular questions directly to the main political parties, while also asking our UK participants to ask them at candidate hustings events.

For the month of April, people in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana will be able to text their questions directly through local FrontlineSMS-enabled hubs.

Step 2. Sending out the manifestos to Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana and holding an election.

The questions and answers from the parties will be translated into local languages and be available online as well as broadcast on local radio and TV networks.

Global UK vote day will be held in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana five days before the UK election.

Participants in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana can vote by sending an SMS to a local number registering their preferred vote. There will also be one or two physical polling stations in each country.

Step 3 . Pairing up voters and vote-donors

We will do our best to pair people up individually. However, it’s more than likely we won’t have exactly the same number of people on both sides of this project. If necessary, we will calculate the proportions for each party, randomise who to send which result to, and fire out the emails/texts.

Step 4. Sending out the votes

On the eve of the UK election, participants in the UK will receive an SMS or email, indicating which party their partner in Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Ghana wishes them to vote for.

Step 5. Casting of the global vote

They then go to the polling booth, tick the relevant box and, if they wish, take a photo on their mobile phone to confirm the vote”.

My colleague Ian Christie recently argued in an email that “democracy is a social ritual as much as anything else – given the unlikelihood of your personal vote making any difference. If the social norms supporting this weaken, democracy has little to offer by way of benefit compared to [for example] consumerism…”

What could it mean to change the nature of the ritual in the way that Give Your Vote proposes?

For all that UK citizens complain about its health, we have a tendency to be rather complacent about the idea that we live in a democracy; however flawed. In contrast, people who know what it is to live in countries that are very far from democratic might take less for granted. For example, a close relative who grew up in Communist Poland sometimes reminds me that casting a vote in a general election is the supreme responsibility and expression of citizenship; one which must never be taken lightly. And indeed, 76% of the UK public believe that it is their ‘duty’ to vote.

When I once (I’m ashamed to write) forgot to vote in a particularly dull UK General Election, the first person I confessed to at work the following day was a dual-nationality UK/Zimbabwean citizen. With no discernable schadenfreude save for a slightly suspect glimmer in his eyes, he told me how he had once, at considerable time and some expense, temporarily given up and then reclaimed his UK citizenship to ensure that he could vote in a Zimbabwean election whose rules disenfranchised dual nationals.

But democracy is about much, much more than voting; a fact which many people fail to recognise. If the Give Your Vote campaign helps to highlight that fact by pointing to lack of fairness in global decision-making, perhaps I should stop being so precious about the idea that a few hundred or a few thousand pioneers are prepared to make a sacrifice to promote a more inclusive, more equitable, system of global democracy; a system of global democracy that is less rooted in outmoded ideas about the boundaries of the sovereign nation state and its citizens and more connected to the realities of Flawed Democracy’s impacts around the world.

Give Your Vote conclude their case for proxy voting with the argument that “with your help for the first time anywhere, ever, we will be taking democracy beyond borders”. Here, finally, they lose me; for I see clear signs of ‘democracy beyond borders’ in the countless transnational non-governmental decision-making processes that set expectations for behaviour in the public realm; the ‘global public policy networks’; the unusual partnerships and all the informal, multistakeholder setting of social or ethical norms that are a feature of our interconnected world. 

Give Your Vote is certainly thought-provoking. But the breadth of its vision of a fairer and more equal world has so far (so far…) delivered up a curiously narrow palette with which to paint the future of democracy across borders.

More prosaically.. there’s a lot to think about as I start work on Paper Three in our project on the Future of Democracy in the Face of Climate Change; which aims to review some of the existing literature on ‘the future of democracy’ and ‘the future of sustainable development governance’ respectively.

You can already download Papers One on ‘climate change and democracy: why and what matters’ and Paper Two on ‘what is democracy’.

Oh – and this time, I’m fairly certain I’ll remember to vote.

In this first paper from FDSD’s project on ‘The Future of Democracy in the Face of Climate Change’, Halina Ward outlines the range of links between democracy and climate change. The paper explores the range of reasons why it is important to explore the project’s central question: How might democracy and participatory decision-making have evolved to cope with the challenges of climate change by the years 2050 and 2100?”. 

Separate sections address democracy; the sustainable development challenge to democracy; climate science; the Copenhagen Climate Summit, and climate change and the wider challenges of preparing for resilient democracy.

The paper lays the ground for FDSD’s work throughout 2010 to develop scenarios for the future of democracy in the face of climate change.

download
(771kb)

The seminar will focus on the central question: what innovations are needed in democracy and participatory decision-making, if we want them to deliver the actions required to mitigate and adapt to climate change?

Priced at £75/Euro 85 for the one and a half day seminar, the programme has been designed for leaders and change makers in central and local governments, businesses, non-governmental organisations and communities, and anyone concerned with mobilising democracy to tackle climate change.

Places for the event are likely to fill soon so please book early to avoid disappointment.

You can read more about the programme, speakers and booking information on the Schumacher College  and Salzburg Global Seminar websites.

To whet your appetite further, you can also now download Halina Ward’s new paper Democracy and climate change: why and what matters.

As we start work on our project here at the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development on ‘the future of democracy in the face of climate change‘, we’ll be reflecting on the big question: what next?

We’ll be looking, not just at the critically important coming twelve months, but beyond, to 2050 and 2100.

So in this blog post I highlight some of the ‘democracy and climate change’ themes that emerged in Copenhagen.

Public protest and climate change

One of the most headline-grabbing issues in Copenhagen concerned the methods used by Danish police to manage very largely peaceful protest.

The images of (mostly police) violence and mass detentions on the streets of Copenhagen run the risk of deterring many concerned citizens in Europe and North America from exercising their right to protest. That would be great pity, for it could stifle the birth of the kind of mass movement that politicians such as Ed Miliband say is needed  to support government leadership on climate change.

But those same images are just as likely to radicalise others, fuelling further scepticism over the political will of elected national leaders to take seriously the wishes of citizens who favour ambitious action to tackle climate change.

It’s clearly not just Danish police who worry about and cooperate on climate protest. There were plainclothes police officers at Harwich Port on Sunday to meet the ferry from the Danish port of Esbjerg; and there were dogs and lengthy searches on the overland border between Germany and Denmark when I travelled out on a coach organised by a UK-based action group.

Alliances between vulnerable countries and civil society

Another striking feature of the overall dynamics in Copenhagen was the strong links forged between global civil society present in Copenhagen and leaders of some of the most immediately vulnerable countries. The adulation and standing ovation given to President Nasheed of the Maldives when he spoke to a packed meeting at the ‘alternative’ climate venue, Klimaforum, and the chorus of tweeting that surrounded his public speeches during the conference, are a case in point.

Shifting negotiating dynamics

Then there were the visible shifts in the negotiating dynamics between the world’s richest countries and the so-called ‘emerging economies’ whose carbon emissions are set to rise rapidly as their economies grow. The EU was strikingly not one of the countries mentioned by President Obama when he announced in a press conference in the evening of 18th December that a base deal had been reached. It emerged that the core parties to the non-binding accord that was subsequently merely ‘noted’ by the UN were the US, Brazil, South Africa, India and China. 

Many of the world’s poorest countries remained politically marginalised in the official climate talks; but it was clear both that important shifts had taken place. New patterns of alliances are emerging within and out of the G77.

The decision of African group leader, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, to stand with France to support the EU-backed maximum two degree temperature rise (making a regional 3-3.5 degree rise the suggested likely reality for Africa) together with a ‘quick-start’ finance package of USD 10 billion fell far short of prior African demands. It was greeted with consternation and charges of a sell-out by many Africans including the Sudanese chair of the G77/China group, Ambassador Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping as well as African civil society groups.

Business gets on with it

Meanwhile, an entirely different tone was evident in reports of business events in the city.  These were abuzz with talk about the positive green business opportunities generated by the climate change agenda, and the technical detail of measurement, accounting, green technology and much more.

In contrast, the interests of those businesses that stand to lose from tough climate mitigation actions were far less visible. Yet these made themselves felt in cautious speeches from some government officials and politicians and, most fundamentally, in the failure to reach intergovernmental agreement on emissions targets during the conference.

City mayors talk positive

City mayors from around the world met at an event organised by the City of Copenhagen during the official talks; the Copenhagen Climate Summit for Mayors. According to an informal email from one participant: “This looked and felt like a team! They listened to each other’s plans, they openly encouraged plagiarism and replication, they fostered support for each other in a way that was uncontrived, open and positive. They discussed technical fixes, finance and resources, education and engaging citizens: they discussed mitigation and adaptation, economic opportunity and necessity: and they recognised they need to be leaders of substantial cultural change.”.

Official talks mirror wider international development concerns

In contrast, other events, more closely linked to the themes under discussion in the official talks, replicated core concerns of the overall international development agenda. International donor agencies such as the UN Environment Programme, for example, lobbied for their organisations to be home to funds committed to help countries to adapt to climate change.

Intense discussions over how the funds should be managed; and about capacity-building and ‘good governance’ for climate adaptation in developing countries (long part of the jargon of the international development agenda) took place; and longstanding arguments about the lack of transparency in global negotiations linked closely to economic interests and about the huddles of influential states in so-called ‘green rooms’ were aired; and aired in ways that were not markedly different to an international trade negotiation. 

Divide between ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ solutions

But one point above others stands out: the huge political and psychological distance between the key issues and solutions debated during the official negotiations at the Bella Centre (where the formal talks took place), and the belief in bottom-up locally owned and self-managed solutions that characterised many of the ‘unofficial’ side meetings for civil society at the Klimaforum  space and in a variety of other meetings spaces around the city.

Indeed, with the slow pace of progress in intergovernmental talks, it has become apparent that much more emphasis will now likely be placed on local level innovation to deliver climate solutions.

Already in the UK, commentators are paying renewed attention to the groundswell of community-based activism that has sprung up over the last couple of years away from the formalities of ballot-box decision-making or the stifling bureaucratic decision-making of some town halls. 

This renewed call to ‘community-based local solutions’ is both valuable in practice and laudable as prescription; the more so when it builds community ties and hence the ability to remain resilient in the face of climate change.

And yet, a note of caution must here be sounded on two grounds. First, because it was noticeable in Copenhagen that the vision of ‘bottom-up’ decision-making that was articulated in many side events was not accompanied by a seamless vision of the role of national government; or of the much-vaunted national level ‘leadership’ that became a war-cry of campaigners during Copenhagen (e.g. in statements of the ‘politicians go to fancy dinners; leaders act’ sort).

Related to this is the real-world fact that any failure of global democracy resulting from negotiating inequality between nations is necessarily also a failure of national government.

In the run-up to the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, governments encouraged so-called ‘Type 2′ agreements to be tabled and to become a formal part of the Summit’s outcomes. These were essentially voluntary agreements or partnerships between different stakeholders to tackle different dimensions of sustainable development. But there was a backlash from some potential ‘Type 2 agreement’ signatories, who accused governments of passing the buck to non-governmental actors instead of getting on with reaching a deal themselves.

There must be a risk that the same will happen now on climate change: that governments will seek to bring citizen and business-led voluntary action into a bigger intergovernmental tent at the expense of much-needed national level leadership.

That is not in itself a bad thing, but must not become a substitute for effective action at the national and international government levels.

Second is the reality that politics is nowhere more personalised; nowhere more exposing, than at the local level. Any move formally to institutionalise a prioritisation of local level decision-making needs also be accompanied by efforts to tackle marginalisation and social exclusion in local level decision-making; to ensure that minority views are given due weight.

Localism must not become a banner under which marginalisation or ‘business as usual’ decision-making by vocal elites become entrenched in public policy.

The apparent distance between local and global level solutions – a canyon or a rift at best – was made all the deeper by the Copenhagen organisers’ unforgivable failure, over at the official Conference of the Parties at the Bella Centre on the outskirts of the city, adequately to make provision for non-governmental observers of the Conference (including this one, who lacked the stamina of some to stand in a freezing queue for 6-9 hours on the last day that non-governmental organisations without ’secondary’ badges were allowed to exchange their pre-registration for entry badges to the venue. To add insult to injury, a later invitation to join an alternative venue for those Observers who had been excluded from the latter part of the event was itself only extended to those who had passed the initial hurdle).  

Civil society and climate change

It is now an established (and hard fought-for) maxim of environmental policy that environmental decisions – including at the international level – are best made with the full participation of  interested citizens.

At international level, this maxim (which goes further than any globally agreed text but nonetheless builds on Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration) has for some time supported participation of non-governmental organisations and civil society groups as observers in intergovernmental negotiations; briefing negotiators, adding technical expertise, and bringing transparency to otherwise obscure negotiations between civil servants as often as elected politicians.

This civil society participation has not been without its problems; there has on occasion been fear that the structures of non-governmental organisations around the world and the potential dominance of larger groups simply reflect wider imbalances of bargaining power between nations. But in the climate talks, there is a remarkable coincidence of interest between the calls of civil society for climate justice and ambitious emissions targets, and the headline interests of more vulnerable nations.

When the ejection of impressive news source Avaaz and of Friends of the Earth and Tcktcktck from the official talks coincided with the ‘Reclaim Power’ climate justice march on Wednesday 16th December, it appeared that an entire army of officials had just scored an own goal.

Battles that many NGOs considered fought and won may now need to be fought and won again.

Beyond Copenhagen, there is renewed pressure on civil society around the world to make its voice heard above the non-voting views of economic interests and politicians limited by short-term political priorities or (in some countries) crude opinion poll data. This is precisely the message that is emerging from the larger non-governmental organisations: “we don’t have a real deal, and we’re not done yet”, is the essential message.

To put it another way, ‘we’re all eco-warriors now’.

One thing is certain: action based on this insight will undoubtedly shape both the course of democracy, and the course of climate change, in the coming months and years. 

[A version of this post will also be cross-posted on the Local Democracy blog over at http://blog.localdemocracy.org.uk/]

In this paper written following an NGO Leaders meeting on democracy, environmental justice and sustainable development held in October 2009, participants reflect on an emerging agenda on democracy, environmental justice and sustainable development, and their potential role in shaping its course.

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Leading sustainability campaigner Charles Secrett sets out a possible pathway for achieving revolutionary change towards democracy, environmental justice and sustainable development.

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As Charles explains: “Currently, we have no visionary text explaining the intersect between (those heavy but crucial concepts) democracy, environmental justice and sustainable development.  The task now upon us, as chaos increasingly bites the world over, is to find a development path that can sustain and improve life, without chasing the chimera of perfect answers to all problems. 

With no convenient scripture to hand, is there another way to bring about the kind of revolution that is needed?   Can we find that transformative, non-violent route-map that can lift us out of the mess we have created and toward a more fulfilling society, moulded by the principles and practice of democracy, environmental justice and sustainable development?”

We invite your comments. Feel free to post thoughts via the Comments function on this blog post or by sending an email to Charles at the address given at the top of his paper. 

Future of Humanity grants are awarded following an annual competition for proposals from scholars undertaking research at a macro level that is directly related to better understanding the factors affecting the long-term future of humanity.

The 12-month FDSD project will develop scenarios around the question: “how might democracy and participatory decision-making have evolved to cope with the challenges of climate change by the years 2050 and 2100?”

The Foundation for the Future award comes as the relationship between science, democracy and climate change enters the media spotlight as never before.

With the UK public bombarded with a media and internet storm over the stolen emails and the scientific evidence at the heart of what has been dubbed ‘climategate‘, the risk is that public trust both in scientists and politicians will plummet. 

But what could this mean for democracy in the UK and elsewhere, and how could it shape the next stages in the relationship between democracy and climate policy? 

Climategate brings even greater unpredictability to the Copenhagen Climate Summit, already beset with challenges as governments such as that of the US struggle to get public and political backing for measures to decrease the carbon intensity of their economies. 

We welcome your views on ‘the future of democracy in the face of climate change’. And we’ll be at the Climate Summit in Copenhagen to talk to participants about how they think the issues could play out.

If you’d like to let us know your views, please post a comment or drop us a line at info@fdsd.org.

There was a moment, back in September 2001 (but only the days that followed the 11^th of the month), when people active in the environment and development movements thought we might, just possibly, be about to have our day.

The common ground for proponents of ‘sustainable development’, which links environment to development concerns, is that as nations and societies we need to develop in ways that take account of economy, environment, and society in an integrated way.

Motherhood and apple pie? Apparently not, because wherever you might be reading this, it’s fairly clear that we’ve failed to tackle poverty and inequality on the scale necessary to ensure that we are able to meet the needs of the present generation. And we are clearly compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs as collectively we deplete resources, grow the world’s population to levels that threaten our ability to feed ourselves, and alter the climate in ways that could prove profoundly harmful.

Like many others, the sustainable development movement was dazed (shocked and awed even) by the events of 9/11; and we were too weak for our shouts to rise above the din of invading forces in either Afghanistan or Iraq. And this despite the fact that many of us spent much of the next nine months or so following 9/11 engaged in preparations for the first ever World Summit on Sustainable Development, a once-in-a-decade milestone held in Johannnesburg in the summer of 2002.

Shout we did, though. Here, for example, are the words of the UK’s independent sustainable development watchdog, the Sustainable Development Commission, in a press release issued one year after 9/11:  “In many parts of the Middle East, the kind of ‘nothing to lose’ despair brought on by chronic poverty, a degraded environment and the oppression of human rights, provides an all too fertile seed bed for the cultivators of terror”.

However correct this might be, the sustainable development movement wasn’t helped by the real world fact that Osama Bin Laden, member of a prominent Saudi family, could not be said to have been materially underprivileged.

This was an inconvenient truth for many of us as we prepared our narrative about the sinister outcomes of marginalisation, and the need to direct the world to a more sustainable future. Bin Laden’s apparent wealth got in the way of stories that sought to link marginalisation, deprivation, and social injustice to the extremism of terror.

And this brings me to the links between democracy and sustainable development. For however tempting it might be to suggest that authoritarianism or even benign dictatorship could allow for more rapid progress on issues like climate change, the messy reality is that democracy, with all its flaws, is so far the best system devised for respecting the dignity and rights of all human beings and allowing the insights and skills of all to shape society.

But it’s also a system that will need to evolve rapidly to stay resilient in the face of the kinds of environmental and social challenges that are now emerging: climate change, population growth and resource scarcity, to name but a few.

To use a rather culturally specific metaphor, the core problem is that ‘turkeys don’t tend to vote for Christmas’. Current debate over climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen Climate Summit shows that there are many people who believe that sustainable development makes a turkey of them. There is a perception that sustainable development compromises material wellbeing and therefore wider quality of life too.

And this brings me to diasporas. Diaspora financial remittances feed a great many feeble economies around the world. They can play an immensely important role in investment and rebuilding of communities, as in Afghanistan, where many ‘mainstream’ investors fear to tread.

Diasporas also act as political forces. Here in the UK, many activists were impressed and humbled by Sri Lankan Tamil protests, day in and day out, outside the Houses of Parliament during the Spring of 2009. Then there are the political roles played by Kurdish exiles, or Uighurs, or any number of disenfranchised or politically marginalised groups around the world. In 2008, Armenia, a country of 3 million or so with a diaspora of 6 million, created a Diaspora Ministry.

If there is something particular to diasporas in our interconnected world, what could be the role of diasporas in the pursuit of sustainable development in ‘mother countries’? How can the fact that diaspora citizens have feet in at least two nations be harnessed for development that is economically, environmentally and socially sustainable?  And how could this be done in ways that allow democracy – real democracy – to flourish and evolve?

The point of course isn’t to suggest that diasporas should interfere improperly in the internal policy processes of other countries (though some do); rather that any kind of democratic vision of a global community working towards sustainable development ought to contain a distinctive vision of the role of diasporas.

In Britain alone, for example, there are almost a million British Pakistanis. How to hitch that fact to the sustainable development of Pakistan in the current time of rapid urbanisation, political instability and human insecurity?

There is a question about the role of diasporas in the struggle for environmental and social justice and the fight against inequality lurking in the shadows of The Samosa (if you’ll excuse the imagery) and in its pieces on social injustice and on environmental issues.

So I want to suggest that it might be useful to work through and shape a contemporary sense for how the UK’s diaspora communities could help to drive sustainable development; retaining a distinctive cultural role and contributing to sustainable development here in the UK whilst contributing with legitimacy, responsibility, and accountability to the sustainable development of other countries with which they carry a strong connection.

Fine words – but quite a task.

I hope that the pages of The Samosa will provide a space from which such a conversation could take root and flourish.

It is clear that established systems of citizen participation and democracy will struggle to cope with the multiple challenges and trade-offs of climate change management; but how they might evolve or what might emerge to replace them is unclear.

Less democracy, more incursions into individual liberties, and a rise in autocracy are certainly one possible trend; but so too is experimentation at the grassroots with a variety of decision-making processes that have potential to strengthen social capital. 

We are therefore interested in looking at the possible evolution of democracy and participatory decision-making. From both sustainable development and human rights perspectives, the essential elements of democracy (understood as governance by the people for the people) make it the only political system that is capable of respecting human rights on the scale ethically necessary to preserve the dignity of humankind.

Our core concern is to ensure that democracy is resilient in the face of climate change.

Leadership event on mobilising democracy to tackle climate change: Goodenough College, London, 19-20 April 2010

The Foundation for Sustainable Development is pleased to announce a collaboration with Schumacher College- the International Centre for Sustainability, Dartington Hall Trust,  Salzburg Global Seminar and Goodenough College in London to present an international leadership seminar in the centre of London from 19-20 April 2010.

The seminar is now open for bookings. It will focus on the central question: what innovations are needed in democracy and participatory decision-making, if we want them to deliver the actions required to mitigate and adapt to climate change?

Priced at £75/Euro 85 for the full one and a half day seminar, the programme has been designed for leaders and change makers in central and local governments, businesses, non-governmental organisations and communities, and anyone concerned with mobilising democracy to tackle climate change.

You can read more about the event here, including further background and information about confirmed speakers and bookings. Or contact Caroline Carpenter at Salzburg Global Seminar with your name, affiliation, contact details and nationality to book your place.

Places for the event are anticipated to fill soon so please book early to avoid disappointment.

Scenarios for the future of democracy in the face of climate change to 2100

Over the course of 2010, with the support of a Future of Humanity Grant from US-based Foundation for the Future, we will be working to develop scenarios on “The Future of Democracy in the Face of Climate Change”.

By generating stories about the future we aim to deliver messages about how we need to act and organise ourselves now.

Our research aims to answer the central question: How might democracy and participatory decision-making have evolved to cope with the challenges of climate change by the years 2050 and 2100?

The research will draw on a series of background research and opinion papers. These will be published as working papers on this website as they become available.

Paper One: Democracy and climate change: why and what matters, Draft 1, March 2010, is now available for download

Paper Two: What is Democracy? Draft 1, March 2010, is now available for download

Paper Three: The Futures of Democracy and of Sustainable Development Governance, available in April 2010

Paper Four: Review of Climate Impact Scenarios, available in May 2010

Over the summer of 2010, we will convene a series of conversations and brainstorming sessions in the UK and internationally to help us develop and test draft scenarios on the future of democracy in the face of climate change. Please contact us if you would like to take part.