|
Global Campaign
to Implement the National Strategies for Sustainability
Workshop
At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 in
Johannesburg all of the Governments agreed to create and
begin to implement a National Strategy for Sustainability by
2005. This was an important commitment because humanity is
seriously polluting the natural environment and rapidly
depleting our natural resource base. Unfortunately, however,
many of the governments have not taken this commitment
seriously and none are yet planning to make the transition
to full sustainability – which is in fact the fundamental
requirement upon which all of life depends.
  The
United Nations has drafted guidelines that if carried out
would lead us well on our way towards developing effective
strategy plans. Now we need to create a global network of
people and civil society organizations that support the
development of the National Strategy Plans. We need to take
the steps needed to ensure that all countries create such
plans, that they all focus on making a rapid transition to
achieving full sustainability, that specific means are
developed to finance the implementation and transition, and
that adequate processes are put in place to review,
evaluate, and improve the national plans so that they are
faithfully, effectively, and rapidly carried out.
Creating an
International Sustainable Energy Fund:
Civil Society has also developed a proposal for an
International Sustainable Energy Fund which was proposed to
the United Nations during the Commission on Sustainable
Development and the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
The governments have still not given serious consideration
to this proposal; though it would greatly increase our
abilities to make a rapid transition to renewable energy and
to avoid the problems that would come with Global Warming.
The fund would provide resources for Research, Marketing,
and Development of Sustainable Energy. The funds for the
program would come from reducing the existing subsidies for
fossil fuels. GRACE and the NGO Energy Caucus at the UN have
drafted a 20 page proposal or resolution which would
institute the Fund if passed. A serious campaign must be
launched by civil society in order to support this program
and ensure that we make the transition to renewable energy
while we still can.
Workshop and
Plenary Presentation
Proposal for a Peoples Global Action Campaign
There are many global problems that are still not being
seriously, or at least adequately, dealt with by our
national governments and intergovernmental organizations.
There is thus a huge opportunity for the Global Democracy
movement to develop a listing of global proposals that we
can support and work for AND once a World Parliament is
created that it would address.
One of the most
productive things that we could do to raise public awareness
and interest in World Democracy, would be to organize an
active campaign to support the various proposals for dealing
with our global problems - which will come out of the Global
Symposium.
Thus I am asking
the organizers of the Global Symposium to lay the groundwork
for this proposal before the Global Symposium even starts
and to organize the symposium in such a way that it will
support the development of such a campaign.
First, the Global
Proposals should be posted on the CMS and/or another
website, along with a web forum where we can discuss each of
the proposals and with a means to rank or indicate the
degree to which we would support each of them. The
discussion forum could also include a place to make
suggestions for strategy development, how each of the
proposals could be adopted and implemented, to report on
progress made to date, to ask for the help that is needed,
and to list how one can participate.
Then during the
Global Symposium we could schedule specific sessions to
discuss and create action/strategy plans both for the
overall Campaign and for each of the individual proposals.
We should also focus on developing specific plans for how we
can work together to ensure that each of the proposals will
over time be adopted and implemented. I can provide an
outline and make suggestions as to how these sessions could
be structured, facilitated, and organized if that would be
helpful.
Thus one of our
objectives could be to develop a Global Policy Board (or
other such coordinating body) and a process to promote and
work for the adoption and development of this platform of
Global Proposals or Peoples Agenda. We could invite
Simultaneous Policy, the Coalition for a World Parliament &
Global Democracy, the World Citizen Alliance, and City
Montessori School to help in designing and carrying out this
process both before and after the Global Symposium.
It was mentioned
to me that CMS is planning to publish and distribute a
booklet of the Global Proposals. Thus the booklet could also
tell people how they can support both individual proposals
and the overall campaign. We should work with the Alliance
for a Responsible, Plural, and United World; the World
Social Forum; UBUNTU; etc in order to develop Working Groups
or Activist Communities that would further develop, support,
and create strategies to encourage the adoption and
implementation for each of the primary issue areas and the
global proposals contained therein.
The development of
this campaign would lead directly to an outcome from the
Conference that the participating organizations can support
and promote for years to come. It will provide substantive
proposals that a World Parliament and Global Democracy can
work for and that will draw the interest and support of the
world’s people.
Workshop
SUPPORTING ALL OF THE EFFORTS FOR A
WORLD PARLIAMENT AND GLOBAL DEMOCRACY
This proposal is
to develop a matrix of proposals and initiatives for
establishing a World Parliament or Global Democracy, which
the world’s people can thus choose from and support. This
listing would be posted on the Coalition for a World
Parliament and Global Democracy website; and it would
describe how each of the proposals or initiatives can be
advanced and supported. It would thus make it easy for
people to get acquainted with the various proposals and to
decide which they like best.
The matrix could
thus include such initiatives as: the World Constitution and
Parliament Association, the World Parliament Experiment, the
Global Community Earth Government, the Peoples Congress, the
World Democracy Forum and Global Constitutional Forums, a UN
Parliamentary Assembly, and a UN House of the Peoples or
World Parliament. We would ask each of the organizations
that are organizing these initiatives to endorse and support
the Peoples Agenda or Platform of Global Proposals and to
use it as a platform of what they want to achieve through
their efforts for global democracy.
We could also
develop a strategy plan to register as many people as
possible in the World Citizens Registry and to use it as the
basis for electing people to the Peoples Congress in 2007.
We could then develop a plan to hold elections for the
Peoples Congress in as many regions of the world as
possible. This would thus make it possible for us to create
an actual prototype for a World Parliament and to put
pressure on the governments to take our initiatives and
proposals for World Democracy seriously. If we can gather
enough support, it will also make the idea of World
Democracy seem both more practical and appealing.
We should also
develop a plan for the Peoples Congress to focus on the
passage and implementation of the Global Proposals or
Peoples Agenda as one of its primary goals and objectives.
Then we can ask all of the organizations that are supporting
or participating in the Peoples Global Action Campaign to
help organize and participate in the elections and
proceedings of the Peoples Congress. |
