Citizens of the World, Dealing with Global Issues

By Jaya Spier

Climate change. This issue seems to come up a lot these days. The younger generation has become very involved in the environment, global warming and its affects on our planet. Older generations are pushing the topic into politics, using it to bring together the international community because this issue concerns, not just individual countries but the global population as a whole.

On Thursday April 16, 2009 former Deputy Secretary (Clinton administration) Strobe Talbott spoke for the Chace Lecture Series at the Levin Institute in New York. He was there to discuss the topics of his recent book The Great Experiment: The story of Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation. In his book, Talbott states that there are three big issues that the world faces today. These are climate change, nuclear war, and the economic meltdown.

During his lecture Talbott focused mostly on how the world is going to deal with the ongoing threat of the first issue, climate change. Earlier this year Michael Levi spoke at the Levin institute to discuss the report (Confronting Climate Change: A strategy for U.S. Foreign Policy) that he and a task force of people from the Council on Foreign Relations had put together. Levi had five elements that could decrease the affects of global warming and decrease green house gas emissions by 2050. The elements were cap and trade, traditional regulation, directly reducing oil consumption, research development and promoting infrastructure. Levi believes that America must take the lead on this otherwise nothing will change.

As someone who has been heavily involved in government, Talbott seemed more concerned with what the international community has planned. He is very interested in the idea of people being “citizens of the world” and writes that

Just as a nation is a gathering of tribes, so the international community is a gathering of nations—an incipient global nation, in the sense that humanity is learning to govern itself as a whole on those issues where it can do so to the benefit of all, and especially on those where it must do so to avert planetary disaster. (The Great Experiment)

We must work together to slow the damage of climate change and use international leverage to do so. Foreign policy and pressure from allies can make a big impact. Talbott agreed that America’s influence may help move the process along but in the end everyone must be involved.

One of the problems that stands in the way, according to Talbott, is that in the past international progress has been reactive. States make progress after disasters, wars, the dropping of nuclear bombs, only then do governments get together to fix what they have broken. In this case countries must work together now before the damage becomes to great and can’t be reversed.