Alternative global visions

At the very same time the World Summit on Sustainable Development – focused mainly on alleviating world poverty and dealing with global warming - was under way in Johannesburg, the man who seems to be the actual President of the United States, Dick Cheney, laid down the Bush doctrine regarding military intervention in other countries by the United States.

In essence it appears that, in direct contravention of the usual bases of international relations, the US claims the right to use military force anywhere it sees a possible threat.

It is rare that history offers such obviously contrasting visions of the future simultaneously, but we should be aware that what is being presented is two alternative visions of the reconstruction of society at a global level - otherwise known as globalisation.

Johannesburg is the spiritual child of Rio and Kyoto. At these meetings a completely new form of social development on Earth was proposed, built on the realisation that humanity’s problems are now global in character and have to be dealt with on a global basis, through global cooperation.

Nations could no longer pretend that only their own interests mattered.

So, just as this principle of social change is becoming established with the most profound implications for the future, along comes the most ideologically defined US administration in decades. Which, starts talking as if the world has shifted back to the ‘bad old days’ before World War Two, when military power was the final arbiter of world events.

Although there is still debate about the specifics, the vast majority of the world’s climate scientists agree the planet faces critical pressure due to global warming. Unless it is dealt with, projections suggest that any hope of economic progress will be wiped out within decades; due to the costs of climate change and subsequently human civilisation. Then life itself will be threatened by out-of-control global warming.

Unlike previous problems of international urgency, such as the arms race, this problem cannot be negotiated away. It will not disappear if we stop thinking about it.

The Rio summit in 1992 was the first time that the world’s nations met under the new concept of global responsibility for a global problem. Later the Kyoto Protocols were developed in 1997 to begin action to deal with global warming.

Critics (such as Australian environment minister, David Kemp) have pointed out that the Kyoto regime – which basically aims at lowering greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 to 1990 levels - will make little actual difference to the progress of global warming. Of course they are right. There are estimates that it will take up to a 50% cut in current greenhouse gas emissions to actually prevent serious global warming.

But this misses the point. Kyoto is in fact, what is called in international relations, a confidence building measure. It is a framework in which countries act, and in so-doing show that cooperation can work.

This is particularly important these days because the growth of globalisation has emphasised the competitive relationship between nations. Attempts at remedying climate change must therefore deal with the free rider problem, so an overarching regime of cooperation must be put in place to share the costs.

Let us now consider the alternative form of globalisation put forward by the Bush administration. This model places a heavily militarised United States as the core of a process of globalisation, dominated by the developed nations; and in particular transnational corporations, global finance markets and global commercial governance structures, notably the World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

While the forces of economic liberalisation reconstruct all social, economic and political relations under this logic, the US acts as global policeman, keeping in check dissident societies, including nation states like North Korea and Iraq, and social movements like Islamic fundamentalism.

There are two problems with this vision: Firstly, it is doubtful that even the US can sustain the politico-military forces required to do the job, especially if Europe shifts out of the US sphere and China challenges US power in Asia.

Secondly, this vision has no obvious answers to the chronic problems of environmental degradation and uneven socio-economic development. The combination of challenges to US hegemony, from nations like China or movements like Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, and the growing awareness concerning the costs of environmental crisis and poverty, will sooner or later be too great for the US to deal with unilaterally.

The only medium to long-term response to emerging global crisis of governance, is to build and improve global frameworks for sustained negotiation of all problems; whether they be those facing the species, such as global warming, or those relating to conflict between nations or ways of life.

This is the other meaning of the Kyoto protocols. They are the most serious attempt yet, to organize a sustainable global order with genuine negotiations about costs and benefits. Because they are focussed on a specific goal [dealing with global warming], success can be measured and the lessons learned (in contrast to that other great global hope, the United Nations).

It is highly likely that the next US government will begin to shift towards greater accommodation with the negotiated globalisation model. Indeed, if Al Gore were President, they would probably be agonising over it right now.

From Australia’s perspective, either this government or the next will have to join the Kyoto protocol sooner or later. Let us hope they do so before the Americans - to save some international face.

This is one of those times in history when paradigms are in clear conflict, and stark alternatives for social development are apparent. It would be an understatement to say that there is a lot riding on the decisions being made by world leaders right now.