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Governing Our Planetary Emergency

Project Note

Contributed by Climate Governance Commission

Posted 15 September 2023

   

Statement of the Climate Governance Commission (CGC)

September 2023 (UN General Assembly High-Level Week & Climate Week)

Charting a Safe Path for a Workable Future

The world faces a deepening planetary emergency – and is on a reckless path toward catastrophic climate change – having already over-stepped six of nine scientifically-identified planetary boundaries. A continued failure to address the underlying causes of this emergency—such as fossil fuel-based economies, resource waste/overconsumption and the destruction of nature—will have further devastating effects for all of humanity, triggering potentially irreversible tipping points, with dangerous consequences for planetary stability, both social and ecological. A system-wide approach to solving the climate crisis is required now, ensuring reliable climate and planetary boundary governance for the Earth as a whole.  

The Climate Governance Commission (CGC) aims to address this crucial gap by developing, proposing, and building partnerships that promote feasible, high-impact global governance solutions for urgent and effective climate action to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C or less. A premise of the Commission is that new perspectives on global governance — deploying new levels of collective wisdom and political courage — are required to tackle current existential planetary risks. Informing the upcoming COP-28 meeting in Dubai and September 2024 Summit of the Future in New York, solutions recommended by the Commission aim to move the Planet toward a global just transition,  leap-frogging beyond carbon based energy to renewable technologies, jobs, and holistic economic and social well-being, with a special focus on those most vulnerable to climate change. 

At this unique juncture in human history, the world may have as few as six-to-seven years to catalyze the unprecedented action needed to shift course and to avert the worst of the emergency. The current crossing of planetary boundaries has already caused intense suffering and heightened inequality. Employing existing governance levers in new and more robust ways, and creating new levers and management systems, are necessary now to meet our shared, unprecedented ecological challenges. The Climate Governance Commission, in its forthcoming (November 2023) report, Governing Our Planetary Emergency, will recommend bold and concrete steps to catalyze a shift in global governance, for the benefit of all, and with suggested pathways to address the planetary emergency. The Commission’s full report will provide practical global governance innovations for sound yet ambitious climate governance and planetary stewardship.

Working proposals of the Commission – some of which can be implemented on a near-term time horizon, and some which would take more time to establish –  are listed in brief below.

Join the Global Online Launch of the Climate Governance Commission Report on November 28

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