Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Half-hearted measures no longer suffice, and it is up to the global community to ensure that the summit rises to the huge challenges facing us, taking a global crisis as an opportunity for the regeneration of both ecosystems and human communities across the world.
The failure of the UN Food Systems Summit to adequately engage civil society is one key reason why hundreds of civil society organisations have decided not to participate.
But by playing host to COP26, the movement has a chance to push for the country to redefine its relationship to the rest of the world in the post-Brexit era. Those who refuse to let imperial nostalgia become the accepted goal for the UK can and should put forward an alternative vision of international solidarity and cooperation…
International climate policymaking has failed to avoid a path of catastrophic global warming. Two often-overlooked causes of this failure are how climate-science knowledge has been produced and utilised by the United Nation’s twin climate bodies and how those organisations function.
A recent report from the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) confirms that the current food system isn’t sustainable neither for the environment nor for our health. Organic agriculture, conservation farming and agro-ecology are key technologies for a transition to a sustainable food system, which also has to shun artificial nitrogen fertilizers.
If multilateral institutions are going to adjust to the new world unleashed by distributed apps and digital technologies, they should begin by exploring the great promise of commons in meeting urgent needs, giving people some genuine control over their lives, and compensating for the inherent limits of bureaucratic state systems and markets.
It isn’t that we expect the parchment won’t get inked, but rather that the document won’t actually accomplish its task even if the conference is a complete success.
The layers of delusion in which members of society have wrapped themselves, so as to not have to face up to the hard choices that face us, are seemingly endless.
Over two decades have already been wasted on an ineffective approach which is simply not up to the task of driving the fundamental societal changes needed to foestall dangerous climate change.
