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CIVITATIS INTERNATIONAL REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL
SECURITY
FROM BALI
TO POZNAN: NEW ISSUES, NEW CHALLENGES
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT,
BRUSSELS
December 2007
The conference was held at the European
Parliament and was the first such gathering
to assess the results of the United Nations
Climate Change Conference in Bali.
The conference was organised in the context
of the programme on Environmental Security
for Poverty Alleviation and for the Greening
Foreign and Security Policy Network by the
Institute for Environmental Security (IES)
in association with Fiona Hall, MEP,
European Parliament; Global Legislators
Organisation for a Balanced Environment
(GLOBE-EU and GLOBE-Europe); and
e-Parliament, with the support of The
Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The
report was written for IES by Civitatis
International. Nicolas Frankcom,
Research Associate of Civitatis authored the
publication, with conclusions and
recommendations for EU foreign policy for
environmental security by Nicolas Frankcom
and Jan Mortier.
The conference included a number of
participants who had taken part in, and just
returned, from Bali, members of the European
Parliament, members of national parliaments,
as well as experts from the European
Council, European Commission, and European
Social and Economic Committee, EU Member
States and other governments, the US
military, UNDP, OSCE, CFSP, businesses, the
Club of Rome and other prominent NGOs,
think-tanks, and academic and research
bodies. In all, over one hundred experts
took part.
The conference participants discussed issues
of concern to the international community
during the coming year in the lead up to the
next UNCCC in Poznan, 1-12 December 2008. In
particular, the Brussels conference included
presentations and debate on: The
implications of climate change for
international security; Escaping from fossil
fuels: The solar alternative; The impact on
environment, security and development of
illegal trade in natural resources; Climate
Change and the formation of European foreign
policy.
Speakers included:
Satu Hassi MEP,
Vice-Chair, Environment Committee; Ton
Boon von Ochssée, Ambassador for
Sustainable Development, Netherlands
Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Jan
Tombinski, Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary, Polish Mission to the
European Union; Olof Ehrenkrona,
Ambassador, Senior Advisor to the Minister
for Foreign Affairs, Sweden; Avril Doyle
MEP, Member of Environment, Industry and
Climate Change Committees; Steen Gade MP
Chairman, Environment Committee, Danish
Parliament / President, GLOBE Europe; Tom
Spencer, Former President, EP Committee
on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence
Policy; Colonel Alex R “Alpo” Portelli,
Chief, Europe Division, United States
European Command, Stuttgart, Germany;
Andrew Standley, Acting Director,
Directorate L: Strategy, Coordination and
Analysis, External Relations Directorate-
General, European Commission; Ikaros
Moushouttas, Policy Planning and Early
Warning Unit (PPEWU), Council of the
European Union; Fiona Hall MEP
Member, Temporary Committee on Climate
Change / Member, Committee on Development;
Michael Ryan, Defence Advisor, US
Mission to the European Union; Marc
Baltes, Senior Advisor, Economic and
Environmental Activities, OSCE Secretariat.
Margaret Brusasco-MacKenzie,
Former Head, International Affairs, DG ENV,
European Commission.
Download the report here:
http://www.civitatis.org/pdf/FBTP_Report.pdf
The conference page with background
documentation and photographs is here:
http://www.envirosecurity.org/activities/diplomacy/gfsp/climate/
CIVITATIS INTERNATIONAL REPORT ON FORCES FOR SUSTAINABILITY
FROM BALI
TO POZNAN: NEW ISSUES, NEW CHALLENGES
THE PEACE PALACE AT THE HAGUE
March 2007
Report by
Civitatis International of the first Peace
and Sustainability Session at the Peace
Palace, The Hague. Organised by the
Institute of Environmental Security and
sponsored by the
Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In many places
of the world today the environment is under
heavy pressure, affecting the security of
man and the community of life. In some
places environmental degradation has been a
factor causing violent conflict and in other
situations armed conflicts cause
environmental disruption, thus prolonging
and expanding the conflict. One of the
greatest environmental security threats is
posed by climate change. There is virtual
consensus at the moment that it ìs
happening, that it is in all probability
man-made and that whatever we do to stop
further change now, the impacts of a warmer
atmosphere will be with us for many decades
to come. While the ultimate answer to
addressing the security impacts of
environmental degradation and achieving
sustainability lies in diplomacy,
international cooperation and the rule of
law, there is a crucial role for the
military to play. This is especially the
case in weak or failed states, where there
is an absence of the rule of law, let alone
international law. Often the situation is
compounded by the extraction of minerals,
the logging of timber and the traffic in
endangered species, mostly illegal,
accompanied by human rights violations and
damage to the environment. If we accept the
model of conflict cycle prediction,
prevention, conflict management and
post-conflict recovery, then military
insights and intelligence could be used to
identify where conflicts resulting from
ecological degradation might erupt, and
timely military intervention may be part of
a preventative approach. When violent
conflicts do emerge, it is primarily the
military that is charged with peacebuilding
and creating the first conditions for
lasting peace, such as: disarming;
demobilisation; security sector reform; and
the reintegration of former armed groups
into civil society. This conference, Forces
for Sustainability, brought together
decision makers, opinion leaders,
professionals in peacekeeping operations,
environmental scientists, the private
sector, juridical experts as well as
international and grass root organisations
working in areas of armed conflict to find
solutions for sustainable development
challenges. The report was written by
Nicolas Franckom, Research Associate of
Civitatis International
Speakers
included:
Dr. Jamie
Shea, Director of Policy Planning in the
Private Office of the Secretary General of
NATO; Brigadier General (Ret.), Dr Chris
W. King, Dean of Academics, Command and
General Staff College, USA; Captain Niels
A. Woudstra, Counsellor, General Defence
Staff of the Armed Forces of DRC Congo.
A link to the report can be found here:
http://www.civitatis.org/papers.htm
The conference page with background
documentation and photographs is here:
http://www.envirosecurity.org/sustainability
Tribute to Benazir Bhutto
As a tribute to the late former Prime
Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto,
Civitatis republishes her speech to the
World Political Forum's founding conference
of May 2003.
Civitatis International
deplores the assassination of Miss Bhutto
and calls for peace within Pakistan and the
surrounding region, as well the end of
dictatorial rule in Pakistan and a return to
the rule of law.
Benazir Bhutto,
former Prime Minister of Pakistan
June 21, 1953, – December 27, 2007.
Speech to the World Political Forum Founding
Conference
Turin, May, 2003
Mr President, with Iraq
divided into American, British and Polish
control zones, we gather together in Turin
at an extraordinary and difficult time.
Whatever our own views on the path that led
to the recent Iraq war, it is now time to
look forward. It is time to reassess the new
world reality. The post-Iraq international
situation gives us an opportunity again to
look for ways to promote the cause of
democratisation, human rights and the global
community to which we are all committed.
Many in the international community felt
uncomfortable with a war without the United
Nation’s sanction. Demonstrations for peace
broke out in the heart of Europe and
sometimes these demonstrations were larger
than the demonstrations in the Muslim world.
No one likes war and no
one likes repression. Western societies have
learnt how to absorb dissent. Non-Western
societies are yet to deal with the challenge
of those who are victimized, persecuted,
imprisoned, tortured and exiled because of
their political views. This community of the
politically disaffected and politically
disenfranchised played a pivotal role both
in saving Afghanistan and Iraq. In Kabul and
Baghdad popular voices of the people were
denied political space by the dictatorships
there and it was these political dissidents
that formed the political front for a war to
reclaim their own land. I believe that
countries descend into the darkness of
international terrorism and state terror
when pluralism is disrupted, when diversity
is suppressed, when one man determines the
destinies of millions of people, be it a
Mullah Omar, Saddam Hussein or another
dictator.
America’s president, George Bush justified
war claiming: “Men and women in every
culture need liberty like they need food and
water and air. Everywhere that freedom
arrives, humanity rejoices and everywhere
that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.”
Post-Iraq, tyrants should fear. I find it
troubling that some tyrants still feel
little fear. In the case of Pakistan, a
repressive regime run by a sitting General,
a sitting Chief of Army Staff, exiles the
popular opposition, imprisons dissidents and
rigs elections. In the post-Iraq world that
dawned this April, the words “rationalizing
the Iraq war” can and should be used to
press all nations to make a consistent
application of democratic principles the
essence of internationalism in the new
millennium.
There were moments in recent history that
were squandered. When the hand of history
writes of the end of the 20th century, it
will write of the international community’s
failure to reinforce the democratic
breakthrough that the end of the Cold War
brought as the era’s greatest missed
opportunities. I recall speaking to the
European Parliament proclaiming that armies
all over the world had finally returned to
their barracks, that freedom had won on
every continent.
In retrospect, I fear, it was merely a
mirage. The forces of real-politik were
waiting to collide with the forces of
ideology. We proclaimed a new moral era at
the end of the Cold War, but actually we
constructed an era of moral relativity. Our
standards remained inconsistent and our
policies selective. Those that decried 44
dictatorship in Burma remained silent about
tyranny elsewhere. Many in this room
rightfully demand self-determination for the
people of Palestine but are less vocal about
the rights of the Kashmiri people. And
moreover, I would add, that we evaluate
national security by hardened borders and
tanks and missiles but true security is
linked to the fight for economic justice
that will liberate nations. True security is
linked to the fight against famine and Aids.
True security means protecting our
environment.
I remember a time when the world walked away
from Afghanistan, after the withdrawal of
the Soviets in 1989. The fundamental mistake
was that in Afghanistan at that time, we
were not consistently committed to the
values of freedom, democracy and self
determination that ultimately undermine
terrorism. The result was Taleban
dictatorship, Al Qaida and terrorism.
Dictatorship doesn’t constrain
fundamentalism or terrorism, dictatorship
provokes it. The goal of rational foreign
policy must always be to simultaneously
promote political stability and strengthen
democratic values. The stakes are high.
Every war in the South Asian sub continent
from where I hail started when my country
was under a military dictatorship. And I do
not know of a single case after the Second
World War when one democratic country went
to war against another democratic country.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the
answer lies in democracy, and I believe that
democracy is the best guarantee of the
respect and dignity of the people of
Pakistan. I believe that a democratic
Pakistan living by the rule of law within
and without is the best guarantee of the
triumph of moderation and modernity amongst
one billion Muslims who today stand at the
crossroads of history, who today have to
choose between the paths of dictatorship and
democracy, of modernity and terrorism.
These are difficult times. We stand at the
crossroads of a new world order. We witness
the dawn of a unipolar world, a unipolar
world environment where wars can take place
with the coalition of the willing. We
witness disunity in the United Nations
Security Council, in NATO, in Europe and in
the Muslim world. But we can also remember
that the future is in our hands, as the
European philosopher, Goethe, once wrote:
“freedom must be reinvented in every
generation”.
This is our turn, yours and mine to reinvent
freedom, and I know we shall prevail.
End.
This speech was given by Benazir Bhutto to
the founding conference of the World
Political Forum in Turin, 2003.
Other World Political Forum founding
conference speeches can be read here:
Founding
conference speeches
Civitatis International takes part in Mikhail Gorbachev’s
World Political Forum: New World Political
Architecture seminar.
Civitatis International is pleased to
announce that it is honoured to have been of
service to President Mikhail Gorbachev and
The World Political Forum. Civitatis
International was invited to attend the New
World Political Architecture
International Seminar held at Bosco Marengo
in
Italy on October 27th & 28th 2006 and
has served the World Political Forum in
occasionally reporting and
transcribing its proceedings.
The World Political Forum's New World
Political Architecture seminar was a
two-day event on the 27th and 28th of
October 2006 that examined the necessary
steps for the realignment and improvement of
current world structures, and suggestions
for laying the philosophical foundations and
principles for the New World Political
Architecture.
Civitatis International observer delegation
to the New World Political Architecture
Seminar of the World Political Forum.
Picture taken outside the Monumental Complex
of Santa Croce, Bosco Marengo, Seat of the
World Political Forum. 28th of October,
2006.
A
NEW WORLD POLITICAL ARCHITECTURE
Bosco Marengo, 27-28 October 2006
Read the Chairman's Conference Background
Paper
Friday, October 27
Opening Session
Chairman:
Paolo Filippi, President of
Alessandria Province
Speakers:
Angela Lamborizio, Mayor of Bosco
Marengo;
Gianfranco Pittatore, President
of the CRAL Foundation;
Mercedes Bresso, President of the
Piedmont Region, Co-President of the WPF;
Gianni Vernetti, Under-Secretary
for Foreign Affairs of Italy; Opening
speech:
Mikhail Gorbachev, President of
The World Political Forum
A WORLD IN CRISIS: CHALLENGES, CONFLICTS,
ACTORS
1st Panel
Chairman:
Giulietto Chiesa, Member of the
European Parliament, journalist, Italy
Speakers:
Stephane Hessel, Ambassador,
France;
Alexandre Bessmertnykh, former
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia;
Mary Kaldor, Director Centre for
the Study of Global Governance and Professor
of Global Governance at the London School of
Economics, UK;
Vladimir Petrovsky, former
Director-General of the UN in Geneva and
President of the Conference on Disarmament,
Russia.
2nd Panel
Chairman:
Riccardo Petrella, Professor of
Globalisation at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), Italy
Speakers:
Robert Skidelsky, Member of the
House of Lords and Professor of Economic
History at Warwick University, UK;
Gyula Horn, former Prime Minister
of Hungary;
Lakdar Brahimi, Former Special
Representative of the Secretary-General for
Afghanistan and Head of the UN Assistance
Mission in Afghanistan, Algeria;
Pascal Boniface, Director of
IRIS, France.
Discussion Groups
New Grammar of International Relations:
Authority of International Law, Questions of
Sovereignty, Use of Force, Diffuse Violence,
Society Action.
Chairman:
Piero Bassetti, former Member of
the Italian Parliament, President of Globus
et Locus, Italy.
Speakers:
Lord Robert Skidelsky, Member of
the House of Lords and Professor of Economic
History at Warwick University, UK;
Edoardo Greppi, Professor of
International Law at Turin University,
Italy;
Mary Kaldor, Director, Centre for
the Study of Global Governance and Professor
of Global Governance at the London School of
Economics, UK;
Troy Davis, President,
Association de soutien à l'Ecole de la
Démocratie, France;
Nancy Roof, Editor Kosmos
Journal, USA;
Victor Makarov, Baltic Forum’s
Research Director, Latvia;
Fausto Pocar, President of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia.
Security for States and Citizens: by what
means? at what price?
Chairperson:
Anna Caffarena, Professor of
International Relations at Turin University,
Italy.
Speakers:
Hall Gardner, Professor and Chair
of the Department of International Affairs
of the American University of Paris, USA;
Richard Falk, Professor of
International Law and Practise, Princeton
University, USA;
Aung Tun Thet, Senior Advisor
United Nations System Staff College,
Myanmar;
Roberto Savio, Chairman of Inter
Press Service, journalist, Italy;
Amitai Etzioni, Professor of
Sociology at the George Washington
University, USA;
Georges Estievenart, Honorary
Executive Director of the European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug
Addiction, Senior Lecturer, France;
Ana Isabel Prera, Guatemalan
Ambassador in France, Permanent Delegate for
Guatemala to UNESCO, Guatemala;
Adam LeBor, Journalist for The
Times, writer.
Transnational Institutions in the Global
World: New Missions, Failures, Reforms.
Chairman:
Vladimir Petrovsky, former
Director-General of the UN in Geneva and
President of the Conference on Disarmament,
Russia.
Speakers:
Stephane Hessel, Ambassador,
France;
Lakdar Brahimi, Former Special
Representative of the Secretary-General for
Afghanistan and Head of the UN Assistance
Mission in Afghanistan, Algeria;
Flavio Lotti, National
Coordinator Table for Peace, Italy;
Olivier Giscard d’Estaing, Chair
of COPAM (Comité d'Action pour un Parlement
Mondial), France;
Hubert Vedrine, former Foreign
Minister of France;
François Trémeaud, former
Executive Director of the International
Labour Organization (ILO) and of its
International Training Centre in Turin,
France;
Gyula Horn, former Prime Minister
of Hungary;
Jianmin Wu, Executive
Vice-President of China National Association
for International Studies, President of BIE
(International Bureau of Exhibitions),
China;
Riccardo Petrella, Professor of
Globalisation, University of Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), Italy;
Federico Mayor, former Director
General of UNESCO, Spain;
Empedocle Maffia, Special Advisor
to the Executive Director of the World Bank,
Italy;
Andrei Grachev, Chairman of the
WPF’s Scientific Committee, former spokesman
of Pres. Gorbachev, Russia.
Saturday, October 28
IN SEARCH OF A NEW
POLITICAL ARCHITECTURE: PRINCIPLES,
CONDITIONS, STAGES OF CONSTRUCTIONS
1st Panel
Chairman:
Edoardo Greppi, Professor of
International Law at Turin University, Italy
Speakers:
Hubert Vedrine, former Foreign
Minister of France;
Amitai Etzioni, Professor of
Sociology at the George Washington
University, USA;
Olivier Giscard d’Estaing,
Chairman of COPAM (Comité d'Action pour un
Parlement Mondial), France;
Jianmin Wu, Executive
Vice-President of China National Association
for International Studies, President of BIE
(International Bureau of Exhibitions),
China.
2nd Panel
Chairman:
Andrei Grachev, Researcher,
former spokesman of Pres. Gorbachev,
Chairman of the WPF’s Scientific Committee,
Russia
Speakers:
Fausto Pocar, President of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia, Italy;
Michel Rocard, former Prime
Minister of France;
Federico Mayor, former Director
General of UNESCO, Spain;
Richard Falk, Professor of
International Law and Practise, Princeton
University, USA;
Frédéric Gros, Philosopher,
Professor at the University of Paris XII,
France.
Closing speech:
Mikhail Gorbachev, President of
The World Political Forum.
CIVITATIS INTERNATIONAL
ENDORSES THE
COPAM PROPOSAL
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