| Multilateralism for an Age of Scarcity |
|
Building international capacity for energy, food and climate security Resource scarcity issues – above all climate change and soaring prices for energy and food – are uniquely integrated. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the multilateral institutions and processes charged with managing them. This paper sets out a route map towards the more integrated and effective multilateralism needed for the transitions ahead. Part 1 of the paper begins by exploring the links between scarcity issues, and discusses why it is necessary to see them through a single lens. Part 2 then assesses how the multilateral system is placed to cope with scarcity issues, and finds that it often falls into one of two traps – fragmentation or over-centralisation. In order to move towards a more distributed approach, policymakers need to focus on the function of multilateralism rather than its form. In particular, multilateral policy should focus on the need to produce shared global operating systems to manage global issues over the full term of their life cycles; the shared awareness needed to envision and agree such systems; and the shared platforms needed to build coalitions to open up political space in pursuit of them. Part 3 of the paper explores the shared operating systems that will be needed to manage global scarcity issues, and sets out five illustrations of the kinds of framework likely to be needed, including a global deal on climate change that manages the problem over the full term of its lifecycle; integration of energy and food security of supply concerns into world trade rules; agreed principles for sharing the investment and adaptation costs implied by scarcity issues; more effective treaty compliance systems; and better systems for crisis management, social protection and resilience. Part 4 of the paper concludes by setting out a range of proposals for how the international system can proactively build shared awareness in order to start imagining and working towards such operating systems in earnest. It emphasizes that while much more shared awareness between leaders and officials is the right starting point, a much fuller engagement of constituencies outside governments and international agencies is also essential in order to tackle the highly distributed challenges of the 21st century. Multilateralism and Scarcity Get your own at Scribd or explore others: Politics |
| Last Updated on Tuesday, 27 January 2009 22:13 |