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There is a reason that so little progress has been made in climate negotiations: no decision making entity has the required power. The Paris agreement negotiations and other conventions on climate change might be the closest we have come so far to a decision making forum for global issues (a world parliament). But these consensus based forums are quite obviously ineffective. Why? Let’s have a look at who is in charge at these forums of life dependent importance? Not the majority of the global population for sure, but the single nation or small group of nations with the lowest ambitions in climate politics. The voluntary participation makes it this way. Not so democratic.
Tackling climate chance, means lowering emissions, which inevitably means altering processes with great importance to economy, security, food production etcetera. Therefor any progress in climate stabilizing measures will be accompanied by tough negotiations in all these other areas of politics. Hence a successful global decision making forum for climate change action must include decision making in other major fields of global magnitude – it requires nothing less than a democratic world parliament.
Yes, it can be frightening to give away control that one possess. And a common counter argument to a world parliament is that power would be taken away from sublevels in the system and that too much power would be concentrated to one single authority. But that is a misconception of what a functioning world parliament will be. It is very possible to be an individualist, a nationalist and at the same time pro global decision making. It is probably a fruitful combination too. That decisions should be made at the lowest level possible is a fundamental principal of a democratic society. This is called the subsidiarity principle. Only global issues should be dealt with in a global decision forum.
Today the international arena of decision making is a lot better described using the word “anarchy” then words like “structured”, “effective” or “efficient”. Imagine this situation at a national level; well functioning municipalities, regions and states, but anarchy at the national or federal level – a nightmare! And business as usual on todays international arena.
Right now the struggle for balancing climate change needs Greta Thunberg, her courage and the fantastic movement that puts pressure on politicians world wide. At the same time it needs a democratic global decision-making forum with mandate – a world parliament – so that motivated and responsible leaders have an arena where to decide on productive climate action.
/Joachim Elevant