PEACE CHILD INTERNATIONAL | UN OF THE FUTURE

Strengthening Global Governance to protect the environment

UN OF THE FUTURE - GLOBAL GOVERNANCE REFORM

Our world does not have a Climate, Peace or Biodiversity problem: it has a global governance problem. The 2022 Biodiversity Review expresses it thus: “Our world lacks the global infrastructure to protect the global commons…”: the UN is not that infrastructure: Peace Child is working with the MEGA Coalition to explore what has to change so that it may become that Infrastructure. Our survival depends upon it.

Introduction

The UN cannot save Life on Earth in its current form: this section offers teachers and students a number of resources to explore how young people can change it. It would be good for students to review the previous section on how the UN works before addressing this section on UN Reform.

1. Video Introduction: GRAB THE WHEEL: A 1-minute animation showing why young people must grab the steering wheel of the planet if their generation is to avoid planetary catastrophe and steer a safe course towards the sunlit uplands of Sustainability.

2. The State of the Planet Report: In response to frequently heard questions from youth: “How bad is the state of our Planet?” and – “What do we have to do to turn the situation around?” PCI developed the pilot for a youth-led annual UN Day State of the Planet Report. Set in a fictional UN-based Earth Situation room, the programme looks at 5 x key planetary indicators:

Population; Economy; Natural Capital( – now renamed: Biosphere); Inequality; Peace. It looks at key indicators on each issue as they are now (in 2022) – and as they need to be in 2100. This is the essential background to any study for UN Reform: for Life to Survive on Planet Earth, these 5 x critical issues must be managed globally in a way that competitive nation states have proved themselves pretty incapable of doing these last few decades.

3. Our new UN Centenary Peace Child: How does the UN have to change by its centenary in 2045 to keep all the promises it is making to present and future generations? Will it have become the global infrastructure that can protect the global commons? The new UN Centenary Peace Child musical empowers young people – and their communities – to explore these most serious of existential questions through either the writing and rehearsal of a full-dress production of the Musical, or by working through one or more of its 7 x Vignettes on the issues raised in the story. (The Vignettes are currently being finalised by Peace Child Staff & Advisers.) Each Vignette includes songs, games and improvisations designed to help young people to research the issues and come up with their own solutions in a fun way. Building on the UN’s own Summit of the Future and Declaration on Future Generations, Peace Child Intl. has developed a number of commentaries to stimulate youth ideas. From the simple expedient of appointing the UN’s 1st female Secretary-General to more far-fetched ideas to criminalise the production, sale and use of all fossil fuels, the new UN Centenary Peace Child musical seeks to put young people in the vanguard of thought-leadership on UN and Global Governance reform. The Vignettes cover the following topics:

Vignette ONE: the UN’s Centenary Targets – what must the UN – and our world - have achieved by 2045 to have ensured the survival, both of the UN organisation, and Life on Earth? Songs: Peace Day; If you close your eyes….

Vignette TWO: What does your conscience tell you? Can anyone really tell us Right from Wrong? What should our consciences object to? Is Conscientious Objection therefore courage or cowardice? Songs: I who am I? - I believe & Listen to Me;

Vignette THREE: The UN Security Council: what is the nature of the “Security” most human beings seek? Can the UN Security Council ever deliver that kind of Security? Songs: I want to Live & Reach Out

Vignette FOUR: The Earth Situation Room: How bad is the State of our Planet? What do we have to do to turn it around? What are the Key Indicators we need to measure? Why are these measures are so critical? – and why did our Ancestors get their behaviours so wrong? What would it take to be a “good ancestor?” Songs: World & I’m Sorry;

Vignette FIVE: What is war? If it really is hell on earth, why does humanity not abolish it? What kind of global institutions and regulations could actually prevent War? Songs: WAR & Inventions;

Vignette SIX: The Immense potential of the Business Sector: Is Capitalism the problem? Does advertising and pension schemes mean that growth is sacrosanct? Can the Business Sector solve the problems that Governments self-evidently cannot? Songs: Superman & We are the World;

Vignette SEVEN: Solutions – Mindsets and Values: what are the changes in human behaviours and values that have to happen to sustain and improve life on earth for everyone? Can we achieve them in our Lifetimes? Look back over all the Vignettes – and check that you have done all that needs to be done to build Harmony in your own mind; Harmony between you and ALL the people around you; - and – Harmony between humanity and the natural environment which supports all life. Songs: Child for a Day; SING!

4. UN Summit of the Future Process & Papers: PCI was deeply involved in the development of Pact for the Future – the outcome document of the UN’s internal Summit of the Future with its annexes: the Declaration on Future Generations and the Digital Compact. As the most recent effort by UN Member Governments and Civil Society to deliver UN reform, we encourage students who want to explore in depth the challenge of re-organising our world’s system of global governance to review the following documents and PCI’s commentaries upon them just to get a sense of the complexity ( - and obscurity!) of UN negotiating processes. Don’t worry – it is almost impossible to follow – and the acronyms defeat even the most experienced diplomats. But, though it is being updated all the time, it may show you why we, in PCI, don’t rate the chances of UN / Global Governance reform happening through incremental changes made my member state governments very highly. Even if they do happen, expert opinion is that small, incremental changes are not going to deliver the machinery of global governance required to save life on earth. We need the Giant Leap proposed by the story of the UN Centenary Peace Child.

UN Summit of the Future Documents:

a) Our Common Agenda – the Secretary General’s report calling for the Summit of the Future;

b) Peace Child Youth Introduction & Youth Suggestions for UN Summit of the Future

c) PCI’s Briefing for the People’s Pact: Environmental Governance Proposals

d) The People’s Pact for the Future – prepared by a global coalition of NGOs – C4UN;

e) PCI’s Commentary on the People's Pact;

f) The Governments’ Zero Draft Declaration on Future Generations

g) Peace Child International Commentary on the Zero Draft

h) Outcome Summary: UN Civil Society Conference for the Summit of the Future, Nairobi, Kenya May 2024;

i) The Final Agreed Version of the Pact for the Future – September 22^nd 2024; (to come)

j) The Final Agreed Declaration on Future Generations – September 22^nd 2024; (to come)

k) PCI’s response to the whole process – and suggestions for next steps; (to come)

5. PCI’s youth-led TV Series on the Past, Present and Future of Global Collaboration Outline: studying this outline will give students the essential context for the study of UN reform: Part 1 shows the history – from the demise of empires to the foundation concept of International Law, on through the creation of the International Court of Justice, the League of Nations and why it failed, on to the UN which arose out of the ashes of the 2nd World War; Part 2 shows the immense scope of the UN’s work now; Part 3: is about how the UN needs to reform: it will record conversations between young people preparing their version of the new UN Centenary Peace Child and diplomats from the UN and from the 5 x Permanent Members of the Security Council (USA, UK, Russia, China and France.) Also if, as we hope, the Centenary Peace Child does a world tour, it will record conversations between the cast and audiences in the Forum Theatre section of the show – and in discussions afterwards.

5. Model Citizen Assemblies(MCAs) and Intergenerational Conversation Cafés(IGCCs) can enable youth and elders to research UN reform together. MCAs look at the 3 x main existential threats to the survival of Life on Earth which only a reformed United Nations can resolve: Climate Change, Global Pandemics & the threat of Nuclear War. Propose a controversial solution, like –

“The Human family must criminalise the production, sale and use of Fossil Fuels by 2040 if it wishes to save life on earth”

– or –

“The people of the world must unite to demand the elimination of all thermo-nuclear weapons from the face of the earth by 2045”

– or –

“The world’s doctors and health professionals must be supported by their national governments to work together and do whatever it takes to identify, contain, and vaccinate against any potentially global health pandemic before it spreads beyond local, provincial or national borders.”

7. The Projects of the Mobilisation for Environmental Governance Alliance (MEGA): PCI has been involved in MEGA since its inception as our President, David Woollcombe, managed the Environmental Governance strand of the People’s Pact for the Future process. We fully subscribe to the MEGA view that the challenge of conserving Life on Earth is a governance problem, not an existential threat. Therefore – we seek to simplify and communicate its major messages to a young audience, and thence to the rest of us.