The announcement over the weekend that no binding accord on climate change would be signed at the Copenhagen conference next month is a severe setback to the environmental movement. Green campaigners had been mobilising mass support to pressurise governments and industry captains to accept concrete enforceable commitmentsfor carbon emission reductions at Copenhagen.
For over a year, the word ?Copenhagen? grew synonymous with planetary survival owing to the belief that collective inaction of governments at this high profile UN meet will doom humanity to extinction. Policy papers, memos, posters, slogans and even conversations in green-conscious circles had elevated Copenhagen into a Mecca where a workable panacea for global warming could be obtained in writing.
To their credit, governments of the major polluting countries read the pulse of mass opinion and did engage in round after round of preparatory sessions and talks to narrow down inter-state discord before the big meet in December. The goal of mini-Copenhagens, where lawmakers, bureaucrats, environment and finance ministers brainstormed, was to bridge chasms about differential responsibilities on emission cuts and financing green technologies.
However hard they tried, piecing together a grand bargain that minimally satisfied all parties proved elusive. With no endgame in sight after Herculean diplomatic efforts, the Danish Prime Minister who will host delegates at Copenhagen has now delivered the bitter news of downgrading the purpose of the much-anticipated finale in December. Instead of it being a historic turning point for saving the environment, Copenhagen will now join the list of UN jamborees, which swear to continue ?further negotiations?.
Coming on the heels of the prolonged deadlock over the Doha round of trade negotiations, the acknowledgement that the Copenhagen meet will just be a ?stepping stone? for an uncertain final accord raises doubts about the very future of multilateralism to solve global problems.
The failure of stakeholders to reach pragmatic compromises on trade and climate despite energetic backstage endeavours by ?Mr Multilateralism?, US President Barack Obama, are all the more disconcerting. Obama?s promise was to chart a multilateral approach to US foreign policy that would break from eight years of unilateral bullying by his predecessor.
The hope in early 2009 was that an America devoted to multilateral ways (i.e. to diplomacy), inclusive dialogue and reciprocity, would act as a catalyst for cooperative solutions by drawing disparate interests to the table and forging consensus. Obama?s self-image as an ice-breaker and peace-broker fanned anticipation that he would succeed in ushering in genuine multilateralism that delivers results for the benefit of all parties.
The problem with excessive optimism pinned around a more acceptable and attractive American Presidency was that it ignored the seismic shifts taking place in the underlying global power distribution.
Revival of the stillborn multilateral trade and climate manifestos needs a lot more than mere changes in government in the US, the EU or the emerging economies.
Only conducive international power structures can give the sagging fortunes of multilateralism a new lease of life. In 1990, on the verge of the post-Cold War era, then US President George HW Bush proclaimed the arrival of a new world order where ?there is no substitute for American leadership?. Under conditions of unipolarity in the Bill Clinton era, WTO?s anti-protectionist crusade recorded rapid progress because the US could take a commanding lead and shepherd complex multilateral interactions towards the desired outcome of advancing liberal economic rules to govern the world.
International relations scholars term this phenomenon ?hegemonic stability?, wherein a supremely powerful hyper-state takes the initiative to guide and caress clashing interests and convert them into agreements that are global in scope. The resources and deterrent capabilities at the command of this benign hegemony should be sufficient to rally other states to be either convinced or arm-twisted to agree to binding commitments that are not really fair to weak parties, but at least give each participant the belief that it got some benefit.
Today, unfortunately for Obama, the configuration of world power he confronts is far from unipolarity. The writ of America is no longer universally respected or feared because of an unquestionable shift in concentration of power towards Asia. The fact that countries like China and India can today block a WTO trade round or a global climate pact from being imposed over their heads was unthinkable before their economic rise and the simultaneous decline in Western power and confidence.
While this trend was visible even before the financial crisis, it is now obvious that Asia?s powerhouses are still recording high growth and feeling upbeat about their place in the world, while the Western world has gone into a sulk about losing turf. Multilateral agreements get progressively harder to achieve in a situation of wide dispersion of power into multiple hands, not all of which share liberal values. Where no one gives any quarters to the other and all want to bargain from their respective positions of strength, large group agreements are doomed.
Order, which is based on making and following rules, thrives on inequality and power differences. Weaker parties submit to rules made by stronger ones when they have no means to oppose or delay. But when the former turn the tables on the latter, and become less acquiescent and more resistant, there is no policeman mighty enough to come and compel or bribe them to obey.
This is the dilemma of the world we currently inhabit. On one hand, a polycentric international system that restrains America from riding roughshod like a cowboy is welcome as it lifts the fear and insecurity of becoming hapless victims to an unstoppable monster. On the other hand, the loss of a single liberal hegemony digs the grave of multilateralism. Copenhagen, R.I.P.
The author is associate professor of world politics at the OP Jindal Global University
