A Global Climate Change Authority Is Needed

The impediments to the creation of a Global Climate Authority include nation-state commitments to political realism, resistance by fossil-fuel-producing countries, and nationalism. While these impediments are formidable, McClean believes that the catastrophic predictions concerning runaway warming and climate change provide the reasons to overcome them. The impediments to the creation of a Global Climate Authority include nation-state commitments to political realism, resistance by...

The impediments to the creation of a Global Climate Authority include nation-state commitments to political realism, resistance by fossil-fuel-producing countries, and nationalism. While these impediments are formidable, McClean believes that the catastrophic predictions concerning runaway warming and climate change provide the reasons to overcome them.

McClean argues that a Global Climate Authority need not be seen as a zero-sum game in which some countries will win while others lose, nor would it undermine sovereignty and self-determination on the part of states any more than other international agreements with mechanisms for the redress of infractions and non-compliance. How exactly would it work? McClean believes that the mechanisms could include, among others, the requirement of escrow deposits, indexed (in part) to GDP, which would be forfeited in the case of material non-compliance, and the Authority could sunset on a date certain unless its continuance is affirmed by member states. According to McClean, a Global Climate Authority should make it far less likely that domestic politics would interfere with a country's compliance with its climate-related undertakings, such as GHG reduction.

The calls for a Global Climate Authority, a climate club, and a new planetary politics indicate significant shifts in thinking about how global environmental threats (including threats to biodiversity) should be met. Says McClean: "We have one planet. While Earth's homeostatic systems are robust, they are clearly not immune to the sorts of shocks imposed during the Anthropocene. We need new thinking and new institutions to address those shocks, as well as to head-off new ones."

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