Copenhagen Response III: Self-Assembling Structures in Dynamic Networks; A Dangerous Development for Globalisation?
DK Matai
We are grateful to:
. The Lord Howell of Guildford, President of the British Institute of
Energy Economics, from The Palace of Westminster, for “Self-Assembling
Structures in Dynamic Networks”;
. Prof Prabhu Guptara, Chairman, UBS Think Tanks, and Executive
Director, Wolfsberg, Switzerland, for “A Dangerous Development for
Globalisation?”;
in response to The Copenhagen Socratic Dialogue:
. Hervé de Carmoy, Vice-Chairman, Trilateral Commission Europe, and
Chairman, ETAM, Paris, for "Convergence of National Interests";
. Dr Harald Malmgren, Chief Executive, Malmgren Global, Washington DC,
who has worked for Four US Presidents, for "Dynamics of 21st Century
Power Structures"; and
. Prof Jim Rollo, Professor of European Economic Integration,
University of Sussex, England and Editor of the Journal of Common
Market Studies (JCMS), for "Carbon Trade War?";
. Bill Emmott, Distinguished ATCA Contributor and Independent Writer,
"Is the Copenhagen Analysis Right?"; and
. The ATCA Briefing, "Copenhagen Accord Heralds Geo-Political Power
Shift".
Dear DK and Friends
Re: Self-Assembling Structures in Dynamic Networks
Please allow me to join, after a bit of reflection, in the Diet of
Copenhagen post-mortem.
The maximalist approach at Copenhagen -- the search for a great
global, and even legally binding, deal -- was always bound to fail.
Too many of our governing and political class do not understand that
our world is created and organised via LOCAL RULES -- and increasingly
so in this age of world-wide web empowerment.
As any good scientist will tell you the protein molecules which make
up the living process come together to form living cells or embryos on
a basis of self-assembly. There is NO overall plan or top-down
imposed blueprint. Every molecule is driven by its own local rules.
The whole behaviour pattern is bottom-up. The same goes for the
formation of crystals. Ditto in the Copenhagen case! The world
energy transition, and the advance of green technologies, products and
lifestyles, is going to come about through the behaviour of peoples
and their governments and societies, not through some universal carbon-
limiting master-plan.
If investors in green energy systems are going to wait for a globally
applied limiting and pricing system for carbon they will wait in vain.
We just need in each nation state to get on with our own transition
measures. And we need to understand that China, with its tiny per
capita emissions and its total dependence on hugely increased energy
consumption to lift hundreds of millions more out of mediaeval rural
poverty, is right to do exactly the same. So why don't we just get on
here in the UK and bring in a settled carbon tax/price which will
give the green light to EDF and others -- at present amber or red --
to start building new nuclear plants and to provide a clear path for
real Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) research and development?
Let others catch up as they will. At least we would then be on our own
sure path to energy security and cheaper, not more expensive, non-
fossil energy. In short, let's follow our own local rules and see how
they adhere in due course to the evolving wider global pattern.
A word on power shifts, West to East. Of course there is nothing new
here. Some of us have been pointing out the changing world balance for
fifteen years now. [Easternisation circa 1995] But it is NOT a
question of superpower status simply being transferred to China,
because the central lesson of the network age is that there are NO
more super-powers.
Power has not only drifted away from America and the Atlantic West. It
has been dispersed into the myriad source points of the world-wide web
and its media outlets. Not only is the mindset of Western superiority
(and the quaint idea that an American President can 'fix' everything)
completely out of date. The similar mindset that the Chinese are
capable of world leadership is equally dated. They will be very hard
pressed to manage their own internal affairs and respond to the forces
of change and innovation welling up from beneath.
The maximalist approach and its authors have done great political
damage to our future. If Copenhagen brings that home to some of them
then it will have at least done some good.
I should add that despite the misguided distraction of the Diet of
Copenhagen -- and the snark-like hunt for a global deal -- in
practice technological and innovative brilliance is meanwhile
breaking out in all sorts of societies and regions round the planet,
where it is allowed and encouraged to.
Namely, The whole Green Gulf project: the Mediterranean green energy
plans of Prince Hassan and others; the endless American ingenuity
(driven by the desire for energy independence and security);The
Japanese with their constant low carbon innovation at every level; our
own British inventiveness (especially in key fields of vast efficiency
improvements in energy generation and transmission); masses of
initiatives along the low carbon path in China (they are way ahead of
us in many areas!); France's glorious civil nuclear programme (done, I
recall, without any concern about carbon emissions whatsoever!); and a
million other greening developments in rich countries and poor, in
cities and in rural areas (and forest regions); all driven by the
inextricable link between energy and prosperity, plus the imperative
need to produce that energy cheaply and reliably.
Let's forget the Diet of Copenhagen and move on, And let's have
accountable political leaders and advisors who really understand what
moves the human spirit at its grassiest roots to be at once creative,
provident and generous.
Enough said - for the moment!
Season's Greetings
David
The Right Honourable Lord (David) Howell of Guildford, President of
the British Institute of Energy Economics, is a former Secretary of
State for Energy and for Transport in the UK Government and an
economist and journalist. Lord Howell is Deputy Leader of the
Opposition in the House of Lords and Conservative Spokesman on Foreign
Affairs. The Lord Howell of Guildford also Chairs the Windsor Energy
Group. Until 2002 he was Chairman of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group,
(the high level bilateral forum between leading UK and Japanese
politicians, industrialists and academics), which was first set up by
Margaret Thatcher and Yasuhiro Nakasone in 1984. In addition he writes
a fortnightly column for The JAPAN TIMES in Tokyo, and has done so
since 1985. He also writes for the International Herald Tribune and
the Yorkshire Post. David Howell was the Chairman of the House of
Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1987-97. He was Chairman
of the House of Lords European Sub-Committee on Common Foreign and
Security Policy from 1999-2000. In 2001 he was awarded the Grand
Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure (Japan). His latest book,
'Out of the Energy Labyrinth' has been described as 'a serious and
thoughtful attempt to grapple with the complexities of the energy
challenge and foreign policy', by James R Schlesinger, and as 'a
terrific book, not least because of its topicality' by Sir Simon
Jenkins.
[BREAK]
Dear DK and Friends
Re: A Dangerous Development for Globalisation?
Many thanks for the ATCA Briefing in regard to Copenhagen and
subsequent postings by Bill Emmott, Hervé de Carmoy, Harald Malmgren
and Jim Rollo.
My view is that the G-2 would not have been the G-2 if China had not
found common interest -- in avoiding the drastic cuts proposed by the
EU -- on the one hand with the US and on the other hand with at least
India, Brazil and South Africa.
It is fairly clear that the interests of the US will not always
coincide with China's, and it is equally clear that China's interests
will not always coincide with those of India, Brazil, South Africa and
other developing countries.
Whenever these differences surface, and they will surface more and
more from now on for the foreseeable future, we will succeed in having
fewer new global rules, and even less agreement on the implementation
of whatever global rules have existed till now. I submit that that is
a dangerous development for globalisation, keeping in mind that, for
globalisation as for economics, the natural obverse of lack of growth
is not stability, it is shrinkage.
I submit further, therefore, that we have to be alert to the fact that
the stage is now set, whether through carbon trade wars -- as noted by
Prof Jim Roll -- or through other means, for continued protectionism
and competitive devaluation of currencies (China has been leading in
the latter for a couple of decades, with the US, the UK and other
countries not far behind, and even Switzerland has occasionally joined
in the game).
Those two factors, protectionism and competitive devaluation of
currencies, are exactly the fundamental factors that led to the last
World War. So, post-Copenhagen, even if we entirely ignore the
climate dimension, we are in a much more dangerous world simply in
terms of trade, economics and politics, than we were earlier.
We may or may not like the outcome from Copenhagen, but we are now in
a situation where the US alone cannot carry things, and where even the
US and EU together may not be able to carry things without the
agreement of China, India, Brazil, South Africa and so on. Given that
democracy is still relatively thin outside the US, the EU and India,
what does that portend for the future of the globe?
And what of the main burden of Copenhagen itself? We may summarise as
follows: China and the US (with India and the rest) successfully
resisted EU pressure to move the whole of the globe in a disputedly-
sensible direction.
China is now well set to emit more environmentally-damaging products
into the atmosphere and the waters in the next 30 years than what the
US did in its entire history. If the scientific consensus on climate
chaos is wrong, then whatever the consequences for China's own
environment, that is no great environmental problem for the rest of
the world. But if the scientific consensus turns out to be right, the
result of China's pollution will be global environmental disaster that
will deluge more Chinese than people of any other country in the
world.
The effect of India's -- 2nd largest-deleterious -- emissions will be,
similarly, that India will have the second-largest "hit" from the rise
in sea-levels, the disappearance of Himalayan snow-cover and water-
flow, and other environmental disasters.
In brief, while China and India are crowing about their "victory" at
Copenhagen, if the climate consensus is right, China and India will
find that crowing is replaced by the even-louder wails of the dead,
the dying and the mourners. Developing countries, far from being
delighted with their new "power" will turn out to have simply shot
themselves in their own hearts. The developing countries have sought
to stymie global pressure to stop doing the wrong things. Yet, they
may have successfully stymied that global pressure to do the right
things...
This is a historic reversal from the global trend towards morality,
democracy, human rights and environmental concern which increasingly
marked the globe from the sixteenth century due to the Protestant
Reformation and its impact in fields as diverse as education,
morality, the rule of law, and the creation of nation states -- as
distinct from kingdoms -- which were increasingly forced to trim their
"sovereignty" to moral concerns such as decent treatment of
minorities, the notion of just war, and the use of regulation to force
responsibility on the elites. We may call this the secular impact of
Protestantism. As I have demonstrated in detail elsewhere -- eg in
Joseph Straus (ed) -- the consequent gains to humanity started being
reversed with the rise in the popularity of an attitude represented by
Ayn Rand, and given political expression by Reagan and Thatcher. That
attitude we may slightly caricature as: "greed is natural, greed is
good, and provided we can be successfully greedy (with perhaps a few
crumbs thrown to the hoi polloi) the rest will look after itself".
The non-agreement at Copenhagen can therefore be considered the
triumph of the Randian approach, at least for the moment.
May I close, in spite of all, with best wishes for Christmas and 2010!
Yours sincerely
Prabhu
Prabhu Guptara is Distinguished Professor of Global Business,
Management and Public Policy, William Carey University, Meghalaya,
India; Member, Organising Committee, stars09, Switzerland; and
Executive Director, Organisational Development, at Wolfsberg -- The
platform for Business and Executive Development, a Swiss subsidiary of
UBS, one of the largest banks in the world -- where he organises and
chairs the famed UBS Think Tanks and the Distinguished Speaker series
of events. Prof Guptara has professional experience with a range of
organisations around the world, including Barclays Bank, BP, Deutsche
Bank, Kraft Jacob Suchard, Nokia, the Singapore Institute of
Management and Groupe Bull. A jury member of numerous literary
competitions in Britain and the Commonwealth, he has been a guest
contributor to all the principal newspapers, radio and TV channels in
the UK, as well as media in other parts of the world. Professor
Guptara has been Visiting Professor at various other international
universities and business schools. He is a Freeman of the City of
London and of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists; and
Fellow of the Institute of Directors, and is included in Debrett's
People of Today.
[ENDS]
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All the best
DK Matai
Chairman and Founder: mi2g.net, ATCA, The Philanthropia, HQR, @G140
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heartphone
In all humbleness I would like to make one suggestion:
“”The coming age is going to be the age of Intuition, of direct
experience, of knowing things directly rather than through the
intervention of student's intellects. Something like a child's
learning his mother tongue just by hearing and seeing things”” ~
Harbhajan Singh – Self Designed Universe.
Direct experience is subjective and is only true in the eye of the One
that observes it.
Always be open to the New
Because then everything one can imagine is True
Words will not be able to explain it anymore
But direct experience will,
for sure
Direct experience –
Creative response -
Holistic Creativity
I honour this divine experience in you like I do honour it in myself.
Blessings from the heartphone.
Harbhajan Singh
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