The Powers That Be (TPTB) or the Establishment
receives June 5, 2007 – a blunt assessment of the business operating context in year 2027:
.
* “defining characteristic of tomorrow’s successful global businesses”
* “Plan for the unexpected”
* “governance vacuums”
* “Radical approaches to catalyze breakthrough solutions”
* They are aware of the “Earth’s immune system” has been activated.
Being AWARE of how greed, profit, control, hierarchical command structure, centralization and Orwellian “newspeak” are characteristics of the establishment we can expect their efforts to take control or nullify effectiveness of these events, social and civil movements to forward their Agenda.
However, I found the omission of Energy alternatives interesting.
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New Study Forecasts to the Year 2027, Asks – Are Globalization and Sustainable Development on a Collision Course?
Submitted by: SustainAbility
Categories: Corporate Social Responsibility, Research, Reports & Publications
Posted: Jun 05, 2007 – 11:59 PM EST
http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/16945-New-Study-Forecasts-to-the-Year-2027-Asks-Are-Globalization-and-Sustainable-Development-on-a-Collision-Course-#
June 5, 2007 – In a blunt assessment of the business operating context in 2027 – sponsored by Shell, Ford, Novo Nordisk, Vodafone, The Skoll Foundation and others – SustainAbility, Ltd., reports that not only will there be new rules for sustaining business success over the next twenty years, but that “the game itself is poised to change profoundly. There will be winners and losers; but there is no more business as usual.”
More than two years in the making, Raising Our Game: Can We Sustain Globalization was released in London and D.C. last week and in Berlin today, and will be discussed at upcoming events in Sao Paolo on June 12, and New York, June 26-28.
The authors are from SustainAbility, widely known as the leading consultancy to the world’s major multinationals on corporate responsibility and sustainability. It exposes the interplay of sustainable development and globalization that will define the future. “Navigating this terrain will challenge the global business community like nothing previously experienced,” said co-author John Elkington.
The study depicts four alternate scenarios for the year 2027 in a card game format, where clubs, hearts, diamonds, and spades represent various combinations of environmental and societal wins and losses.
“Grounded in the hard realities that business and policy leaders face now and through 2027, Raising Our Game is neither a starry-eyed look at a rosy future, nor a “chicken little” prediction of inevitable calamity,” said Jonathan Halperin, SustainAbility’s Director of Research and Advocacy in Washington. “It is about the hard choices we face, and what they mean for us all down the road. As the stakes rise, innovation, entrepreneurship, and effectively sourcing ideas and talent from emerging economies will be essential to managing the worsening divides that now threaten global stability.” These threats are catalogued in section three of the report.
The executive summary of Raising Our Game is below, and for the full report visit the following link: http://www.sustainability.com/raising-our-game/.
Raising Our Game: Can We Sustain Globalization?
Executive Summary
Interactions between the complexities of globalization and the evolving sustainability agenda will define markets and politics in the 21st century. This report reviews some of the key recent trends driving – and driven by – globalization. It looks at where these processes are likely to take us over the next two decades, and their implications for the corporate responsibility and sustainable development agenda.
Globalization – that is the freer movement of goods, services, ideas, and people around the world – is not a new phenomenon but has massively accelerated over the last two decades with 20% of the world GDP now being contributed by global trade. This acceleration has been driven by the opening up of new markets, the rapid evolution of technology and global connectivity, the growing prominence of developing countries, and the great surge in the number and reach of multinational businesses.
Today’s globalized world has particular attributes: interconnected global financial markets with positive and negative consequences; unprecedented urbanization reflecting powerful underlying trends associated with the way people earn a living; growing divides and potentially explosive disparities between the rich and poor; challenges to diversity – in its biological, ecological, human, and social forms; climate and environmental insecurity; governance vacuums; and blessed unrest – the proliferation of networks dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice.
New players are surging onto the globalization field. China and India with their impressive growth rates are powerfully influencing commodity markets and global trade, and catapulting new South–South trade relationships onto the global stage. Other emerging economies – like Brazil and South Africa – although not in the same league, are playing ever important regional and global roles. As their economic influence grows, developing countries are also trying to shift the rules of globalization in their favor. The economic growth has major sustainability consequences. China, India, Brazil, and Russia are collectively already responsible for 30% of global CO2 emissions.
While opportunities flourish, divides based on demographics, wealth, gender, nutrition, health, environmental resources, education, information, security, and governance continue to persist and in many cases worsen.
How will these trends play out? The report outlines a set of scenarios to visualize how the future might unfold.
As with most scenarios, it is likely that elements of each of them will emerge in different regions at different times, but together they point to six dimensions of the G.A.M.B.L.E. agenda:
- Economic growth will continue but will need to be contained within a ‘one planet’ agenda.
- There will be a continued acceleration in the scale and speed of events and decision-making – from business cycles to environmental impacts.
- The sustainable development agenda – or at least key components of it such as climate change and human rights – will continue to be mainstreamed into market and political systems.
- But the agenda will continue to encounter a bewildering array of social, cultural, ecological, and even psychological barriers.
- The importance of leadership will be further emphasized and will likely emerge from unexpected directions including from newly emergent city-states, NGOs and companies.
- Finally, equity will re-emerge as a fundamental principle, and a precondition of a more sustainable world.Finally, the report concludes with seven recommendations to business and the wider sustainability movement:1. Plan for the unexpected – in a world that is accelerating and becoming more complex, it will be vital to build in flexibility whether in technology platforms, supply-chains, or human resource policies.2. Find true South – the extent to which the interests of the emerging economies will clash with those of the developed North can scarcely be exaggerated. So focus sustainability efforts and investments on regions and cities where the population is booming and development needs are highest.3. Don’t expect nice companies to come first – Even the best corporate citizens can be damaged by scandals, controversies, and economic discontinuities. Over time the capacity to create true blended value will become a defining characteristic of tomorrow’s successful global businesses.4. Co-evolve Earth’s immune system – Social and ecological shocks are already catalyzing the development of a civil-society-led ‘immune system’ for the Earth. Be part of this to help accelerate its development and serve as a source of market intelligence – and creation.5. Think opportunity – and innovation – Reframe social and environmental issues not just as risks but also as sizeable market opportunities.6. S-t-r-e-t-c-h – The scale of the challenges is immense and will require radical approaches to catalyze breakthrough solutions. Business and other leaders will need to reach beyond their comfort zones in finding new models, new technologies, and new partners in sourcing – and scaling – solutions.7. Do the politics – This agenda is now political. Get involved and take stands. The time has come for the vision, courage, innovation, and enterprise needed to leapfrog into a different world.The time has come for us all to raise our eyes, our ambitions, our game.
To see full copy of the report, visit the following link http://www.sustainability.com/raising-our-game/.
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U.N. Conference Slyly Introduces Resolution to Gain Control of Internet—in Middle of Night
Daniel Halper
December 12, 2012 10:48 PM
http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/blogs/middle-night-un-conference-slyly-introduces-resolution-gain-some-control-internet_666391.html
In the middle of the night at a U.N. conference in Dubai, the presiding chairman of the International Telecommunication Union conference surveyed the assembled countries to see whether there was interest in having greater involvement in the U.N. governing the Internet. A majority of countries gave their approval.
With a sufficient majority supporting the U.N. becoming more active in controlling the Internet, the chairman put forth a resolution. The chairman, though, insisted the survey “was not a vote.”
The resolution was supported by Cuba, Algeria, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia; the United States opposed it.
The proposed resolution resolves that the secretary general of the U.N. “continue to take the necessary steps for ITU to play an active and constructive role in the multi-stakeholder model of the Internet,” according to a draft of the text.
“While it is our understanding that the resolutions made at the WCIT are non-binding, the Secretary-General might treat them as binding, which effectively creates a dangerous mandate for the ITU to continue to hold discussions about internet policy into the future,” accessnow.org writes, responding to this proposed text.
The pro-digital freedom blog writes, “Further, although minor in scale compared to the impact that defining internet in the ITRs and giving control of it to member states, as Russia proposed, this resolution problematically opens the door to further debate over internet policymaking within ITU fora, and away from multi-stakeholder bodies. As Access has made clear, the ITU is government-centric, lacks transparency, excludes key stakeholders including civil society, and fails to promote a multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance that was embraced by the world’s governments at the 2005 World Summit on Information Society (WSIS). And in a similar vain as this resolution’s recognition of the WSIS Outcome Documents and Tunis Agenda before it, future ITU documents will undoubtedly cite to this resolution as approving the ITU as a forum for discussing internet governance and justifying a further expansion of its role.”
The preliminary draft resolution also states, “To foster an enabling environment for the greater growth of the Internet … that, as stated in the WSIS outcomes, all governments should have an equal role and responsibility for international Internet governance and for ensuring the stability, security and continuity of the existing Internet and its future development and of the future internet, and that the need for development of public policy by governments I consultation with all stakeholders is also recognized.”
Accessnow.org explains the concern with this article:
it gives governments primacy in the development of internet-related public policy, which is contrary to Paragraph 35 of the Tunis Agenda – a provision cited twice in this resolution. Provision e’s wording could also be read to give preference to discussing internet policy in UN fora, because these are the only institutions that explicitly give “all governments… an equal role and responsibility…”
Provision a of the resolution further invites Member States to discuss internet policy issues in other ITU fora. While this provision is caveated to only refer to internet-related issues that are within the ITU’s mandate, which lessens the impact somewhat, Access does not believe that the ITU is an appropriate institution to discuss internet policy.
Given the shady nature of the middle-of-the-night introduction of the resolution, it’s unclear how ITU conference will proceed.
Nevertheless, they are expected to meet again early Thursday morning (local time), and will need to have the resolution finalized, if they decide to go further, before the conference concludes on Friday.
Here’s the full text of the proposed resolution:
PRELIMINARY DRAFT NEW RESOLUTION
To foster an enabling environment for the greater growth of the Internet
The World Conference of International Telecommunication (Dubai, 2012), recognizing
a) the WSIS Outcome Documents including Geneva (2003) and Tunis Phases (2005);
b) that the Internet is a central element of the infrastructure of the Information Society, has evolved from a research and academic facility into a global facility available to the public.;
c) the importance of Broadband capacity to facilitate the delivery of a broader range of services and applications, promote investment and provide Internet access at affordable to both existing and new users.;
d) the valuable contribution of all stakeholder groups in their respective roles as recognized in paragraph 35 of the Tunis Agenda to the evolution, functioning and development of the Internet.;
e) that, as stated in the WSIS outcomes, all governments should have an equal role and responsibility for international Internet governance and for ensuring the stability, security and continuity of the existing Internet and its future development and of the future internet, and that the need for development of public policy by governments I consultation with all stakeholders is also recognized,;
f) Resolutions 101, 102, and 133 of the 2010 Plenipotentiary Conference.,
invites Member States
1 to elaborate on their respective position on international Internet-related technical, development and public policy issues within the mandate of the ITU at various ITU fora including, inter alia, the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum, the Broadband Commission and ITU-T and ITU-¬D Study Groups.;
2 to engage with all their stakeholders in this regard.,
resolves to instruct the Secretary-General
1 to continue to take the necessary steps for ITU to play an active and constructive role in the multi-stakeholder model of the Internet as expressed in § 35 of the Tunis Agenda;
2 to support the participation of Member States and all other stakeholders, as applicable, in the activities of the ITU in this regard.
For more, read this post at accessnow.org.
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