#30 Something has to change in the governance of the commons

Hi all,

We’ve just witnessed two critical COPs: the Biodiversity COP16 and the Climate COP29. Yet, their outcomes offer little cause for optimism. The challenges remain depressingly familiar. These conferences reflect deep and unresolved tensions between the haves and the have-nots, rich and poor countries, current and future generations—and ultimately, between humanity and nature.

The casualties of this ongoing struggle are becoming increasingly apparent. The have-nots, impoverished nations, future generations, and nature bear the brunt of inaction. It’s as stark—and as tragic—as that.

These outcomes expose a systemic failure of our current governance structures. International mechanisms are incapable of restraining markets dominated by entrenched interests. Worse still, it’s not just markets that have been hijacked—many governments are complicit, captured by the forces they should regulate.

The result is undeniable: the system as it stands does not work. It neither addresses the inequalities it perpetuates nor prevents the destruction of the ecosystems on which we depend.

Initiated by the Club of Rome, reforms were proposed to shift the governance of the COP process from negotiation to implementation of climate commitments. It emphasizes the need for stricter criteria for selecting COP presidencies, ensuring only countries with high climate ambition and commitments to phase out fossil fuels host these gatherings. It calls for a shift from large negotiation-focused conferences to smaller, solution-driven forums held more frequently to track progress and address issues like equity, finance, and technology in line with scientific evidence. Furthermore, it urges the establishment of robust mechanisms to hold countries accountable for their climate commitments, including independent reviews and benchmarking to ensure national actions align with global targets. Without such reforms, the letter warns, the current COP structure cannot deliver the urgent transformations required to secure a sustainable future.

That’s clear, but I think the problem runs deeper. Negotiating in this way about common goods will remain a challenge, and we probably need a more fundamental reset.

So there is more to be done. For example, Joyeeta Gupta , a distinguished Professor at the University of Amsterdam and winner of the Spinoza Award 2023, is undertaking a research project to write a Global Constitution. This draft Constitution aims to identify all rights and responsibilities in the Anthropocene context. It also promotes social well-being and environmental prosperity within an equitable world.?

If you, as a reader, want to contribute, you can write a 1000-word essay on what a 21st-century global constitution should include. You have until the first of December. Also, this coming Wednesday in Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam, we will discuss with Joyeeta how we can make it happen, that better global governance.

But in the meantime, I think we should not stop thinking. We can not rely on governments or markets for solutions. It is up to us. Us, as being the commons, the place between the market sector and the public sector. As Henry Mintzberg coined it, the plural sector. This encompasses households (including household labour), informal networks, non-profit organisations, cooperatives, and similar entities. Sometimes called ‘the commons’, referring to the concepts introduced by Elinor Ostrom. It refers to anything outside hierarchical public sector structures or market-based transactions. According to Mintzberg:

“Responsible social movements and social initiatives, often carried out in local communities but also networked globally for collective impact, are the greatest hope we have for regaining balance in this troubled world.”

(Mintzberg , 2015, p. 57)

This is also what Mariana Mazzucato advocated for in a recent article that I referred to in another blog . In her article, she foremost writes about setting a collective objective (as the common good goal), the direction. At the same time, it might be more important to discuss how to organise that if global governance does not seem to deliver.

The rest of this text is based on an article I wrote a month ago in Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch).

If you want to read the rest, go to my Substack