The Future of Global Governance: Decentralization, Cooperation, and Resilience in a Changing Climate
“Unlike in the past, when civilizations rose or fell often in a zero-sum game, in today’s interconnected world, all countries will rise or fall together.” – Kofi Annan
The decline of multilateralism has long been predicted by pundits and political theorists who point to the abandonment of WTO negotiations and the failure of the UN Security Council to stop the genocide in Srebrenica or Russia’s revanchist assault of Ukraine. Today, global confidence in the United Nations continues to decline amidst the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
On global climate action specifically, the picture is mixed; participation is up but effectiveness is down. The credibility of the UNFCCC is also trending negative thanks in no small part to the perceived conflict of interest in opening the doors to fossil fuel lobbyists and allowing petrostates to host the past three annual COPs. National climate commitments have thus far failed to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement and collective progress remains far off track. Once a major player at COP, the United States has again removed itself from the Paris treaty and dismantled its diplomatic climate team. It remains unclear if the U.S. will send anyone to COP30 in Brazil this year.
At the same time, we are witnessing the rise of pluralistic “minilateralism” organized around regional or like-minded coalitions looking to fill the void left by global institutions. Think The Quad or BRICS+. Minilateralism is also not a new concept but is becoming a more attractive alternative in an era of multipolarity. As U.S. dominance wains, this trend is likely to continue as countries seek to shore up alliances and insulate themselves from increased geopolitical instability.
Minilateral institutions benefit from their smaller size: they can be more agile, more decisive, and face fewer restrictions because their resolutions are usually not binding. They are coalitions of the willing. For this reason, they can also be seen as cliquish and myopic, and do not necessarily have the interests of non-member states in mind.
In the realm of resilience science, decentralization is often employed as a way to introduce more slack into the system and reduce the catastrophic failures that can arise in highly optimized or large, centralized systems. The decentralization of global governance can also have benefits in terms of reducing the transaction costs and high-stakes failures that come with multilateral negotiations. Regional coalitions can negotiate better finance packages for their member countries and help accelerate the development and deployment of locally-appropriate climate solutions.
And yet, when we are talking about complex, interconnected global challenges like climate change, minilateralism will not be enough. Even in resilience science, decentralization is not treated as an end state, but as a process for reducing (not eliminating) the load on individual institutions and infrastructure. The Amazon countries can reduce deforestation in the Amazon basin, the EU can eliminate coal fired power generation, the ASEAN Power Grid can be decarbonized, but without China taking similar steps these efforts will not be sufficient to arrest the climate emergency.
This is not to suggest that the current global governance system is not without serious need of reform. Their loss of credibility is well earned. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s Bridgetown Initiative is the latest effort to address systemic failures and injustices built into our global institutions. As she repeatedly notes, the Global South has never truly benefited from the Bretton Woods system, which was set up to redevelop post-WWII Europe, and the rest of the world is right to feel let down by the failing UN sustainable development agenda.
The era of the major global treaty may be on its way out, but international cooperation and negotiation remains critical. Even if there are fewer formal negotiations, and the ones that remain are mired in procedural or tactical delays, the UNFCCC is still the largest global convenor of both state and non-state actors trying to move the needle on climate change. That is important.
The former German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, famously invoked the term zeitenwende, a seismic turning point, to justify Germany’s military reorientation in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The current era of polycrisis provokes a similar zeitenwende for our global institutions. More information, not less; more talking, not less, is needed to address global pandemics, supply chain challenges, and the shocks and stresses of a changing climate. Nationalism and autocracy are seductive alternatives when uncertainty arises and we feel adrift. But it is precisely in times like these when we must redouble our commitment to one another. This is not naiveté, it is strength. We quite literally cannot do this alone.
Finally, a caveat. I do not believe that that UN system or the larger liberal world order will save us. I have sat through too many soul destroying high-level “dialogues” to remain sanguine on their ability to affect real change. But it’s not the speeches I’m defending. It’s the forum itself, although that too may need to evolve. Building resilience means we must learn how to pivot when necessary. We cannot rely solely on our existing institutions and norms. A new future is undoubtedly here and we must learn how to adapt and change. This learning takes place in our homes, our cities, our watersheds, and yes, in our institutions.
To return the words of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan: we rise or fall together. I’ll be in Bonn next month for the next UN Climate Change Conference because we are committed to the process of supporting those who are grappling with the challenges of building global resilience together. It’s not easy, but it is essential. I hope to see many of you there.
Ingrid Timboe
Portland, Oregon USA