Sunday, February 5, 2012
Global scale collective action requirements
Though collective action is preached a lot, often at the level of action it is failure. That is what we are seeing when the issue of climate change is being discussed by world leaders and negotiators again and again. As RIO+20 is nearing, this short video reminds us about the challenges ahead to embrace collective action in new ways to tackle global challenges.
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25 comments:
Any collective action comes into picture only if there is a collective crisis attached to it and global earth summits are no exception to it. Global climate summits are held every year to come up with solutions for reducing the impact of ecological changes faced by the entire world. However like any other movement the success of these climate summits depends upon the proportional benefit which the members of collective receive. The inequality in terms of socio-political and economic benefits to the developed and developing nations with the proposed C-caps, is the reason behind its failure.
Shipra Sharma
(32092)
To achieve the goal of sustainable development for the world economy, it becomes imperative that a collective action takes place by all the countries. In absence of such an effort, concepts like green economy which are much needed for overcoming the triple fold crisis situation, viz. socio-political, economic and ecological; cannot be overcome. Moreover, such concepts require a change in the perspective of the people at the authoritarian positions and unless they all come together, the world does not benefit.
Jainee Nathwani
32071
When everyone is responsible, no one is responsible. One of the major concern with global issues is we have not been able to define neither the commons nor the boundaries for these issues. There is an old saying that good intentions don’t move mountains; but bulldozers move. The frequent discussions could only be categorised as good intensions unless they are followed up by strategies and implementations (bulldozers), which demands four things; plan, effective marketing of ideas, people and money. The world has the first and the last component and the remaining two could only be through collective action.
Tijil Thomas -32045
The success of any collective action depends upon the level of synergy among the members. In case of climate change, there is huge inequality in socio-economic condition of member state which is a major reason of conflict of interest among them. In this type of crisis both the side have to compromise but how much is matter of debate for all. The success of ASEAN, NATO and failure of WTO level talk and many climate talks indicate the need of common understanding of issue which brings synchronisation in the approach of all countries.
Rabindra Kumar (P32085)
It’s true that collective action has failed in some climate change negotiations, but we also have examples of success like Montreal protocol which is hailed as an example of exceptional international co-operation. Present failures in negotiations are mainly because each nation is looking the matter of climate change from its economic point of view. As we see in villages, the group in power resists sharing of power with others, same thing is going on global scale as they have to sacrifice their economy to make these negotiations successful.
Sandesh N A
32090
Climate change is a issue which not only requires immediate global attention but also strong measures.To do this all the countries of world have to cooperate on economic,political and ecological level.There are summits held and discussions also but till now no concrete step has been taken this could be because of inequality in the condition of member countries.This leads to a disparity in benefit which is a cause of failure.Till this issue is not resolved collective action on climate change cannot succeed
MAYANK KASHYAP
P32023
Recognising that climate change is an issue to be addressed, a number of summits have taken place but the progress is very slow. Bone of contention is between developed and developing countries. It is important to note that climate change will affect every one of us sooner or later and that makes it imperative for a collective action to happen. So the leaders of the countries must rise above rhetoric and dogma and must consider new ways of tackling the issue. The RIO+20 conference’s concept of ‘Green Economy’ can be embraced following conscience from members.
Varun
32046
Agreed, climate change is a global issue, but for policies and plans to be implemented effectively, action has to be undertaken at the grassroots. Intellectuals across the world use forums like RIO+20 to generate collective sentiments about the problem, but what is missing is the action at the lower level. Thus, people at the bottom of the pyramid need to be sensitized about this global issue and a collective has to be formed amongst them to mitigate the problem locally. Many local actions would subsequently arrest the problem at the global level.
Arshia Gupta (32057)
In case of Climate change, the actors belong to different categories. There is no consensus among them due to huge social, economic and ecological gap. Poor countries who are main sufferers from it, say that they can’t slow their pace of growth. Whereas rich countries on other end who are not much suffered from it, consider industrialization and modernization as necessity. Both of the sides are not willing to come to a solution. Science has created the problem but has no solution now. Only solution is collective action among nations rather than their vested interests.
Rohitash 32088
With global divergent interests, readily and freely available resource, over exploitation because of no incentives for sustainable use, tragedy of the commons in climate change is a no brainer. Initiators of the collective action for climate change could take cue from a reasonably successful global collective action – nuclear arms control. Strong national leaders and powerful nations played a part with Dynamic obligations and legally-binding consequences for noncompliance. More over the true actors in action – individual citizens should be given incentives to play. The public will support collective action if given focused direction from leaders and understandable ideas like ‘Green Economy’.
Jeevan Krishnakumar -32073
A green economy is based on sustainable and ecological development for all, but this statement seems to be utopian, history has been its evidence and so we are forced to disbelief that the approaching RIO+20 would be different from the other summit, such as that of the failure of the Kyoto protocol that targeted to reduce emissions an average of 5% against 1990 level by 2012. USA is the largest emitter of CO2 and it had backed from the Kyoto Protocol. Hence obstacle to such collective action seems to be personal economic interest on the cost of poor nations.
(32037)
Collective Action can only get success if appropriators get benefit out of it. Same is the case with actions on Climate change. The video talks about 'sustainable' growth but Ecology being the CPR, everyone wants to maximize its utilization. Developed Countries like US have large industrial base, so these are not willing to go for carbon-cuts and developing countries are reluctant to take any initiative because of indifference attitude of developed countries. So such initiative has got a severe blow. Such problems can only be solved with initiation of ‘DIALOGUE’.
Gurpreet (32066)
I might partially agree with the statement. The negotiations regarding climate change seem a different ideology to me. The developed nations seem to thrust the other nations with the responsibility of emission cuts while they get away by buying those credits while the developing nations do not resist much because they are at the receiving end. I do not see a motive for the developed nations to join till they can sustain.
It is a tendency of people to view conflicts as undesirable elements in a collective process. Some view collectives as forms of organization where consensus on all matters is a norm. But conflicts represent actual concern and interest of people in the collective. A conflict only arises when certain individual or group is unhappy with the current situation. Appreciating such conflicts can lead to a more stable and accepted collective.
Arpit Bansal
32009
Climate change is a collective action problem where the developed countries do not want to cut down carbon emissions( as it will slow down growth) and developing countries argue that they are still in developing state. Every country wants a bigger share of carbon concessions and expect others to make sacrifice on their own. Thereby making collective action impossible. However collective action has to take place “in the form of adoption of green technology” ,as the situation will become serious and then the countries will adopt to greener measures as it become a condition of “NOW OR NEVER”
Rahul (32032)
Different nations have different strengths,different abilities to fight climate change and different ways of doing it in which they believe. It is difficult to build consensus among them as these nations accord different priority to climate change based on how much impact it might have on their country. Then, there is the contentious question of burden-sharing. The developed nations that are in financial doldrums now do not want to bear this burden while the developing world avoids it since they do not use much of pollution creating resources. Only when things become unavoidable will any collective action be taken.
The copenhagen summit held some time back embodied a famous quote- 'Power flows from the barrel of the gun'. The big and powerful economies of the world were the ones who did not agree to cooperate and control emissions and were equivocal on opposing the carbon credit. In global scenario it is evident that the heads would not easily cooperate and actively participate in any collective move until they discover that the gap in the profit received by them and the tails is optimum. Huge disparity between the economic status of members triggers failure of collective action.
Mayank Gupta(32022)
The collective action among the different countries specially between developed and developing countries is the need of an hour to attain the sustainable developement across the globe.Despite being every country is going to be affected by the climate change in the near future, the countries specially developed ones are not ready to agree upon the regulations drafted in the different conventions, in fear of these regulations will hamper their economic growth and subsequently loose superpower status.Therefore strong collective action at every level right from the civil society groups,businesses and governments should arise to combat the climate change issue.
P32081
Various country heads can be seen encouraging global trade and reducing tarriffs eg during Doha round, but when these heads go back to there respective states/countries they forget there commitment and again focus on there local issues of inflation and employement.US can be a good example where on one hand it is a global economy but on the other hand it raises concerns for outsourcing and imports from China.So Collective action requirements seems to be an important issue only during the Summits but working and accepting the conditions take a back seat when one has to implement it.
Manas MIttal(P32020)
Various country heads can be seen encouraging global trade and reducing tarriffs eg during Doha round, but when these heads go back to there respective states/countries they forget there commitment and again focus on there local issues of inflation and employement.US can be a good example where on one hand it is a global economy but on the other hand it raises concerns for outsourcing and imports from China.So Collective action requirements seems to be an important issue only during the Summits but working and accepting the conditions take a back seat when one has to implement it.
Manas MIttal(P32020)
This is a classic example where collective action has failed to bear any fruits till date. The issue gathers a big momentum and front page articles in newspapers when the negotiations happen at Climate Change Summits with heated round table discussions among representatives coupled with protests, rallies, and slogans from protestors. But ultimately at the end of the day, no concrete plans as developed nations shy away from committing and taking the lead. A similar event happening in Kerala is that of the row over Mullaperiyar Dam where both the States are just politicising the issue without finding a solution.
Kamal Rangan (32075)
Issue of climate is in an interlock of political and economic situation of a country. On one side there is competition among few countries for higher growth and there are also inequalities among different countries. Addressing climate change issues without much importance for these may not yield the intended output. Recent example of Canada, turning back on the Kyoto protocol.
Ankith Reddy(32054)
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