“New way” programming for COP28
Project Source Code rewrites the UN’s climate efforts
It’s a grave miscalculation to rely on the United Nations to do more global parenting than it is programmed to do on a planet of 200 self-interested and unruly nation states.
With a hit and miss record, the UN is chartered to keep a lid on our geopolitical penchant to explode: aggression between nation states, toward vulnerable humans and from galloping disease and famine.
It has a far worse record managing global apathy. The UN has proven there is no diplomatic safeguard against our societal penchant to implode — and inflict neglect, deprivation and other anti-human cruelties that aren’t ICBMs but just as lethal.
It’s not for a lack of effort to fulfill its purpose to be “the one place on Earth where all the world’s nations can gather together, discuss common problems, and find shared solutions that benefit all of humanity.” Since its founding in the aftermath of WWII, the UN has churned out a staggering portfolio of work to pinpoint the challenges and needs related to human dignity and a viable environment — but has secured neither.
Thanks to the UN’s analysis of the global climate threat, we know with precision how climate is adversely affected by the status quo and what must be done to avert the worst outcomes. More science, more warnings and more meetings won’t change the prognosis without a change in approach — a new way.
“The world is demanding a new way, and COP28 UAE says, ‘No way’” **
It's now 51 years since its first global gathering focused on the climate threat and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat is off to Dubai later this month to host COP28, yet another conference aimed at global climate cooperation — the old way.
Nice things will be pledged, tsk-tsk fingers will wag, goodwill spread and fears of climate demise put on pause. Most everyone will mean well but once they are back in the office Monday all the kumbaya will dissolve into the same old same old. Delegates will avoid calls from the UN to make good on those promises. Then, the UN will do it again. COP31 planning is already in the works with Australia and Pacific Island Nations as co-hosts.
If we pointed smokestacks at each other like canons, the UN would have a better chance at brokering a climate “peace”.
Instead, we are placated by baseless assurances that COP events, as they are, create a gateway to a climate solution when they do not. When Bank of Nature talks about the government being ill-equipped to be the climate hero we need, this is what we are referencing. The illusion of climate leadership is preferred over actual climate leadership.
COP28, therefore, provides an old-way trade show platform for activists to be outraged, governments to appear contrite, businesses to gain eco-investment, nonprofits to be close to the action, sponsors to repair reputations and media to amplify false hope. UN critics and allies, alike, will have their perspectives affirmed: “There is no alternative. Government must do more. It’s a moral failure. Growth is evil.” They will be disappointed that the UN won’t just snap its fingers crossed behind its back.
It's a deeply dissatisfying situation if you are #climatehoping that this will be the year we wake up. Even if the UN were to admit to pantomiming climate strategies, it’s deep into the “everything will be fine” narrative. Telling the truth now is somehow more dangerous.
Imagine the ensuing chaos from this alternative COP28 press conference:
“The UN, and its various climate initiatives, will no longer pretend that it is able to, or wants to, fix the global climate crisis impasse. It’s beyond our scope to affect the change that is so clearly required. Look somewhere else for your climate-security hero. There is a role for the government in the crisis – but just as a supporting player.”
It would be honest and a “new way.” It would expose the void of ideas about what must be done. It would create panic, especially for people who demand the government do more, not less. It would let us get to work.
“The world is demanding a new way. COP28 UAE blinks: ‘Does not compute.’” **
When a “this file is corrupted” warning pops up on your computer, it is not laced with judgement. It just needs to be corrected or swapped out for a better program. The hard drive is not purposely orchestrating an expensive day of tech services.
All institutions, like the UN, are “hard drives” invented by humans, given autonomy and imbued with a specific purpose. “You shall protect international peace.” “You shall grow the economy to ensure plenty.” “You shall curate a future.”
The catastrophe, which is real, happens when hard drives like the UN, already working beyond their scopes, misread the inputs — most of which were not relevant at the time of their design. What was reasonable when the UN was founded may not be what is reasonable today. These institutions are otherwise working to spec — which, I hope, gets an aha response.
As such, COP28 participants are not examples of “bad actors acting badly” in creating a climate impasse. Regardless how much is invested in the UN to be so, it is not the moral arbiter of the crisis. It won’t improvise. It is not a parent built to adapt to the behaviors of incorrigible children. The UN is a robot trying unsuccessfully to teach humanity to other robots, like 200 incorrigible nation states.
So, it’s not wrong for government and industry to chase growth. It’s their prime directive. It’s how they were designed to create jobs, innovation and ways to facilitate transactions. We need that to go from eight billion earthlings to 10 billion by 2050 when society is supposed to be net zero.
The UN is not at fault for failing to provide a solution at scale. The UN studies global apathy, it doesn’t remove global apathy. Governments, instead, will protect the economy ahead of all other concerns to serve human society as government “hard drives” understand it. This is how government protects us to death.
“The world demands a new way. COP28 UAE says ‘I love that for you” **
The thesis here is that the institutions we rely on for solutions have no interest in those solutions, but spend effort to look like they do. While that sounds like a diabolical soap opera villain, it's analytical:
The UN is an institution designed to preserve geopolitical security
It can recognize the climate crisis but has no programming to intervene in a passive threat
To moderate the threat in the name of geopolitical stability, it equivocates between transparency and inaction: Its version of keeping the lid on.
It convenes places for humanity to gather to discuss common problems of the threat.
With this in mind, I wanted to highlight a single bad line of code from the actual COP28 materials. **It’s been rewritten as the subheads, in case you had not noticed.
“The world is demanding a new way, and COP28 UAE will deliver it.”
It may look like no big deal, but hear me out if only because, previously, I have been paid big consulting bucks for this kind of communications work:
Even in a world used to empty political rhetoric, this one line is intended to operationalize the reason for the event — and it says nothing. It’s blah, blah, blah. Perhaps it’s intentional. Likely, it’s a meaningless placeholder. It’s not supported by follow through and that abdicates leadership.
The official vision doesn't deliver “new way” content in the (downloadable) thematic program for COP28. The phrase hardly shows up in a word search of COP28 materials and certainly not as a “north star” for participants — if that is the “it” to be delivered. Instead, climate carnies will be extremely familiar with UN calls for:
“Stakeholders to close outstanding commitments”
Trade to be “a means for climate-smart, equitable growth”
“Accountability mechanisms to turn promises and ambition into tangible results.”
These are very old wants. A “new way” program picks new wants.
The old way humdrum continues with COP28’s planned “Fix Climate Finance” slate of sessions that returns to “blended” public-private partnerships, shaming governments for past-dues, and self-congratulations for climate funding fractional to the need.
“As we convene for COP28, we recognize that effective financial strategies are key to building a more equitable and resilient world, where the impacts of climate change are met with adaptive solutions and sustainable prosperity.”
Blah, blah, blah. As an indictment of old ways, COP28 will also present the first Global Stocktake report on global climate action since COP21’s Paris Agreement in 2015, which was the zenith of UN climate efforts and a legitimate achievement. We already know the bad news and the failure of the status quo to make good on the accord.
“The United Nations’ polite prose glosses over what is a truly damning report card for global climate efforts,” says Ani Dasgupta, President & CEO, World Resources Institute “Carbon emissions? Still climbing. Rich countries’ finance commitments? Delinquent. Adaptation support? Lagging woefully behind.”
So, at COP28 nation states will be asked, yet again in old way tradition, to do what they are not designed to do: collaborate, sacrifice growth, give up advantage. Regardless of the threat, they will say Yeah, but No. “We’re supposed to grow the economy.”
“The Pope says we need a new way, and multilateral government won’t deliver it.” **
In his October 2023 encyclical addressed “To all people of good will on the climate crisis,” Pope Francis took aim at the weakness of international government to lead on climate.
“When we talk about the possibility of some form of world authority regulated by law, we need not necessarily think of a personal authority [but rather] more effective world organizations, equipped with the power to provide for the global common good, the elimination of hunger and poverty and the sure defense of fundamental human rights”.
He's asking for an alternative to traditional world government. He will find answers in our Project Source Code proposal to create the new way by engaging a different institution — one that is already programmed with the mission, duty and scale to do what the climate crisis requires. Fiduciaries of pension plans are so vast that fixing fiduciary noncompliance for their own promisees delivers a dignified future for eight billion.
We say, "Rewrite the source code."
The climate impasse isn’t the problem… It's a symptom. Project Source Code looks “upstream” to root causes for the downstream impasse. It reveals an unconventional idea — that fiduciary duty in public policy is in breach causing the misalignment of vast fiduciary money presently working in non fiduciary ways.
Our Massachusetts Senate Bill 1644 is an example of how we might rewrite the instructions for government and others for better outcomes.
Whereas the status quo leaves the problem solving in the hands of the problem-makers, Project Source Code assigns the problem solving to fiduciaries with the scale and duty to lead.
Whereas the status quo is in a conflict of interest with its central purpose of growth, Project Source Code is aligned with a fiduciary’s central purpose to deliver a dignified future.
The single most powerful, right-sized policy strategy for government to direct big money toward climate security, without raising taxes, is to fix governing law. It’s what gets government out of the way and into the constructive supporting player role to which government is better suited.
“The world demands a new way. This way delivers it.” **
While execution of our proposal requires the terrifying global heavy lift of any economic transition, it is not, in concept, complicated: Fiduciary duty is tailor made to humanize the economy and our collective future, as it was designed to do.
Our COP28 UAE’s alt-program — The Untaken Safer Alternative — could feature sessions and other stakeholder interactions to unpack a fiduciary new way.
Vision: To support a climate hero that isn't us.
DAY !
Fiduciary Duty as a 21st Century model for structural innovation
Fiduciary Money: The trillions that shape the economy and define our future
The powers of Loyalty, Care and Impartiality to negotiate a planet-scale climate plan
DAY !!
Citizen Juries
Adjudicating the evolving definitions of common sense prudence, reasonable people and a modern Prudent Person Rule
Planet-Scale Thinking
Elevating art and science to show us what’s possible when we spend trillions
DAY !!!
Stewardship of the Human-Nature Partnership
Rethinking the economy as more than markets, prices and scarcity to include sufficiency cash-flows pegged to the future
Civil society > Enterprise > Finance > Markets > Government: Social architectures for social decision making
Liberating fiduciary money from market capture and the tyranny of the growth imperative
Fiduciary-Grade Financings: Fast-tracking just transitions and taking the best climate ideas off the white board of potential.
DAY!!!!
Stabilizing Geobiochemistry:
A moonshot-style engagement of transdicsplinary experts to reengineer habitat and social justice
Imagining a world already made sustainable and how fiduciary finance can manifest it
“If the world is demanding a new way, COP28 UAE must be reprogrammed to deliver it.”
Seating limited. Tickets selling fast.
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