Can you feel the heat of competition growing, coming in from all sides and pressing on the borders of the country you live in? Are you feeling helpless as your government makes political decisions that damage the global environment; repress your ability to speak out and act as you feel compelled to do; compete in the white-hot global economy whilst the basic needs of its own people are driven by profit-based consumption which just keeps turning up the temperature?

Welcome to the world we live in. This world that is run according to the boundaries that have been set by the imperialists, bankers and manufacturers who came before us, who took power from the divisions and subjugation they created, and whose tradition is continued by the politicians who govern today. Boundaries change, but the basic principles of power and economics still determine where they go; rarely do the people get a say.

Not only do we have a vast number of countries (200+ and changing every year) each with a different ruler and, additionally, thousands of fully or partially devolved authorities providing many different levels of local governance, we have the absurd position where different countries have different forms of governance entirely; from totalitarianism to constitutional monarchism to parliamentary democracy, we can't even decide which is the best way to rule or be ruled. This alone would be a good argument for the abolition of all existing countries.

But from an environmental point of view, what does it matter how many different countries we have, and how they are governed?


Breaking Environmental Boundaries

Pollution does not respect national boundaries. The gases in the atmosphere slip around the world quickly and unpredictably, be they carbon dioxide, methane or, in the tragic example of acid rain which devastated Southern Germany, Scandinavia and the UK in the 1980s; sulphur dioxide. Water borne toxins flow downstream, passing through countries that depend on rivers for clean water, and into the sea where the toxins are absorbed by plant and animal life which are progressively degraded and mutated. How can we expect individual countries to control their pollution unilaterally if they are, in turn, going to be affected by another’s?

There is no doubt that pollution control has to follow the pollution from source to impact, preventing the source leaking the pollution in the first place, cutting across the pathways that permit its movement and, if it gets to a point at which the damage takes place, reducing the overall scale of that damage. Most environmentalists would favour reducing the source of the pollution in the first place; many economists, and a great number of politicians and industrialists would favour reducing the eventual impact. But whatever the effort, where pollution is on a large scale, the effort required must not depend on a single country’s goodwill. And here is one reason why.

Whatever you think of air travel, no one can disagree that it is growing; and with it is growing the amount of carbon dioxide that is emitted into the atmosphere, where it will remain for anything up to 200 years. More worryingly, it is increasing its overall share of the amount of carbon dioxide that humans emit as a whole, and for that reason it has to be controlled more tightly than many other sources of greenhouse gases. However, in 1944, 52 states, including France, Germany, China, the United Kingdom and the USA, signed the Chicago Convention, which established the International Civil Aviation Organisation. Article 24 of this agreement reads:

Fuel, lubricating oils, spare parts, regular equipment and aircraft stores on board an aircraft of a contracting State, on arrival in the territory of another contracting State and retained on board on leaving the territory of that State shall be exempt from customs duty, inspection fees or similar national or local duties and charges.

(from  http://www.icao.int/icaonet/dcs/7300.html)

In other words, without international agreement to revoke this article, the potentially most effective instrument to fight air transport growth – air fuel duty – will remain illegal, under international law, for all but domestic flights.

And we are just starting to peek into the huge chasm of environmental opportunity.

Domestic energy resources and interests are key to a nation’s economic success. A developed country has the economic and political reach to exploit not only it’s own but in addition - or in the case of Japan with an absence of local resources, instead - can also exploit those of other countries. A developing country must exploit what it directly controls in order to grow economically in the current nation-state system. China and India’s huge and increasing use of highly polluting coal is a perfect example of how national boundaries are determining the type of energy used.

A de-politicisation of all natural resources would dramatically reduce this parochialism, allowing the more even distribution of cleaner fossil fuels, such as natural gas, and the technologies needed to both improve the efficiency of existing resource use and to generate energy from clean renewable resources on a large scale. In other words, Global Energy Democracy will occur.

I don’t use the phrase “Global Energy Democracy” lightly; this is about more than just managing pollution, it is also about reducing the likelihood of wars being fought over natural resources, and about permitting those areas which currently suffer from genuine energy poverty to just reach a level of subsistence.

It is no coincidence that the most powerful current tool for reducing our global greenhouse gas emissions – Contraction and Convergence - is totally dependent on international agreements to set in motion the reductions and then the systemic changes that need to take place for climatic stabilisation to occur. But while nations bicker over and refuse to sign up to the mere units of percent demanded by the Kyoto Protocol, what chance is there that the rich countries will get anywhere near the 80-90% cuts in greenhouse gases that are required of them?

If Global Climate Change is to be treated, rightly, as the most serious issue we face, then national divisions must cease to matter.


Cosmopolitan Global Democracy

The globalization authors David Held and Anthony McGrew like to use the phrase “Cosmopolitan Social Democracy” in describing a world in which systems of governance operate at an international level, whilst recognising the cosmopolitan nature of humanity – it’s beliefs, cultural differences, social mores etc. – and also a number of the existing structures, including nation states, and the current economic systems.

Such a system may be appropriate in the expansion of civil liberties and economic equality, but for the reasons given above, and as shown in a previous article on The Earth Blog, hold out little hope for ecological sustainability. This is why I prefer the less politically loaded term Cosmopolitan Global Democracy.

Democracy needs to be global even though this may be anathema to the current permanent members of the UN Security Council. Imagine China having one sixth of the representation for the whole world! This may seem absurd to those who have grown up in the Western world, but that the kind of power that Security Council Members and G8 members already have. Surely a system which provides representation based on population is far fairer, is it not? In a world partitioned into nation-states this could lead to artificial population growth; but in a country-less world there is no reason that representation should adhere to racial or traditional cultural groups; anyone could vote for anyone.

Cosmopolitan Global Democracy requires a global leadership on welfare, education, health, transportation, production and trade; and a set of generic and fair rules that all people can follow. This must be for the benefit of all humans and, by inference, must then benefit the global ecology; if the natural environment collapses, humans will suffer immeasurable losses. And where society leads, economics must follow. Rich economies will always fight such a plan - which may be sufficient evidence that it is the right one - but where profit and growth are incidental, and basic rights are granted to all, humanity and the global ecology as a whole will benefit : surely the only morally acceptable outcome.

But, to determine whether Cosmopolitan Global Democracy would be beneficial to the natural environment, we really need to know what the policy priorities of a globally democratic government would be; especially whether they would end up damaging all of the gains that come about from the simple sharing of responsibility for the planet. It is worth noting that, unlike the bizarre situation in the City of London where companies have around 75% of the votes compared to the, albeit small, local population, companies would not be represented on any “Global Parliament”. If corporate activities are beneficial to humanity, then they will be represented by the people by default, and the policies supporting corporate growth voted through.

The best guide we have to the core policies of a global government at the moment is in the form of the UN Millennium Development Goals; these may exist within the scope of the current economic system, and are not complete by any means, but are far more representative of global need than disparate national policies:

Freedom : Men and women have the right to live their lives and raise their children in dignity, free from hunger and from the fear of violence, oppression or injustice. Democratic and participatory governance based on the will of the people best assures these rights.

Equality : No individual and no nation must be denied the opportunity to benefit from development. The equal rights and opportunities of women and men must be assured.

Solidarity : Global challenges must be managed in a way that distributes the costs and burdens fairly in accordance with basic principles of equity and social justice. Those who suffer or who benefit least deserve help from those who benefit most.

Tolerance : Human beings must respect one other, in all their diversity of belief, culture and language. Differences within and between societies should be neither feared nor repressed, but cherished as a precious asset of humanity. A culture of peace and dialogue among all civilizations should be actively promoted.

Respect for nature : Prudence must be shown in the management of all living species and natural resources, in accordance with the precepts of sustainable development. Only in this way can the immeasurable riches provided to us by nature be preserved and passed on to our descendants. The current unsustainable patterns of production and consumption must be changed in the interest of our future welfare and that of our descendants.

Shared responsibility : Responsibility for managing worldwide economic and social development, as well as threats to international peace and security, must be shared among the nations of the world and should be exercised multilaterally. As the most universal and most representative organization in the world, the United Nations must play the central role.

( http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm)


There is nothing within the Millennium Development Goals that implicitly seeks to damage the environment, and there is clear direction towards ensuring the natural environment is cared for in perpetuity. Again, it seems that, unfortunately for the current system, the MDGs will only be achieved when countries are no longer fighting over leadership. Only in a world where national interests are no longer relevant, will any real progress be achieved.


Global Government

The United Nations suffers from a leadership that is skewed towards the wants of the developed countries, and little representation for the poorest parts of the world. It also cannot be said to be democratic, because the countries that are members of the UN are not all democratic in themselves. Any Global Government and its associated parliamentary system (if that is the system under which it will best operate) would probably have to be set up outside of the UN, along with a number of regional supervisory bodies at various levels, to ensure that the policies of the Global Government are being applied across the world. This is not going to be easy, but there is already something in place which - with some structural changes - could provide the basis for the Global Government, and has already grown to economically, politically and in many other ways, represent 460 million people and 25 countries. The European Union is seen by many as the enemy of national identity; given that national power seems to be the antithesis of global environmental and human welfare then the European Union may turn out to be the best starting point we have.

The bodies to set subsidiary policy and provide oversight of specific area, i.e. the Departments or Ministries, also already exist to a certain extent. The World Trade Organisation, if not allowed to be ruled by corporate interests, has the makings of a Trade Department; Interpol provides international law enforcement; the World Health Organisation, United Nations Environmental Program, UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, UNESCO and numerous other UN bodies have both the research base and experience to operate in an authoritative manner at a global scale.

Defence is the only real sticking point; there are so many vested interests in ensuring states of war perpetuate (variously referred to the Military-Industrial Complex or the Permanent War Economy) that a situation where peace is seen as a truly desirable human state will not be acceptable to some sectors of the economy. But this is a global democracy, and who exactly is going to fight who when there are no countries? Conflict will inevitably occur because humans differ in their beliefs, but - as has been seen in the case of the Troubles in Northern Ireland - where the interest in peacekeeping is international and genuine, conflict can be brought under control and eventually stopped.

So how on Earth are we going to move from a situation where we have most of the structures required for Cosmopolitan Global Democracy, but where national governments currently run the world on the basis of economic and military power, to one where the ideals of a Cosmopolitan Global Democracy can take shape and eventually take over?


How Can We Get There?

It is all very well proposing the structures to manage a globally democratic world and the rules under which to run such a world, but unless these structures and rules have popular support then they don't stand a chance of being put in place. There remains a standoff between countries and regions in such diverse areas as trade, freedom of expression, environmental protection and religious power; and there is little consistency between the various areas of difference.

The only likely candidate for creating the conditions for change is a general popular support for one or more of the basic principles of the new framework. Freedom of expression is a fundamental human desire; there are numerous examples in recent history of apparently helpless circumstances where the desire for basic freedom has created the conditions for dissent, even revolution. Protection for the environment is growing up across the world via global organisations, national and regional groups and thousands of community organisations, not to mention the millions of individual activists trying to speak for a planet which cannot speak for itself.

But there is no historical precedent for such a global popular change such as that which will create a completely new system. Cosmopolitan Global Democracy is only possible now because of the communication systems that have grown up in the modern era. The Bill Gates concept of "Internet for all" may, on the surface, seem like corporate idealism, but it can genuinely serve a social need through the dissemination of information and the potential for expression of thought. Ironically, it is the developments of the major corporations and the foremost defence strategists that have made the greater good possible; we must thank them and move on to something that is far greater than the sum of the individual corporations and governments' aims.

The desire is there and is gaining the tools to make this possible; the Internet for a start, but also other forms of communication and an upsurge in foreign support for changes to repressive regimes. The freedom created by all this activity is spreading, despite the tightening of controls in some countries as a reaction, such that the conditions for mass change may be very close.

Once the critical mass of freedom is achieved then the public will demand something else, something that will further the common good; for without this common good, conflict and competitiveness will return with a vengeance. There must not be a void that other interests, such as repressive religious orders or profit-hungry corporations can take advantage of. This is why the systems I have talked about must already be in place; working, protecting, building towards the eventual aim of ridding us of national boundaries.

So, what if there were no countries?

In the end, patriotism is just loyalty in whatever you hold dear. Pride in your country be damned! What about pride in your planet?