It’s important, but why?
Posted by AlexT - 07/10/09 at 10:10 amApologies to anyone who has wondered why I haven’t posted anything on the Director’s Blog for 6 weeks. I’ve been away on holiday (twice!) and then caught-up with various Conversation-related things. We are now approaching the half way point between when we launched the Conversation and CHOGM and things are hotting up both online and offline.
If you look around the website, you can already see some interesting points of difference emerging. For example, the question about the role of the monarchy is clearly one which people are passionate about. So too it seems is the question of what the Commonwealth should be doing in places like Sri Lanka.
But, for me, one of the most intriguing questions about the Commonwealth’s future has been thrown into sharp relief over the last few days. Have a look at the video clips from the Australian and British Foreign Ministers. One quite clearly believes that protecting and promoting democracy should be the Commonwealth’s key priority, while the other thinks it should be around climate change.
I am sure both Ministers think both issues are important but it’s where they place emphasis that is intriguing. I really do think that this is one of the most pressing questions for the Commonwealth: does it focus on what Stephen Smith calls its ‘core business’ or does it forge political momentum on climate change as David Miliband would have it?
What’s promising is that two important players are taking the Commonwealth so seriously. The challenge now is to work out how the Commonwealth can best respond to their challenges in either or both areas. Any views?
I promise to be more regular in my blog entries. Watch this space!
Category : Director's Blog, The Commonwealth's Relevance
Tags: Australia, climate change, danny, democracy, Miliband, Smith, UK
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October 12th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Danny,
here is possibly why the two ministers are so different in their emphasis:
Stephen Smith represents Keving Rudd’s government which could hardly muster the courage to commit itself to 5% reduction in CO2 emissions. Thank god it signed Kyoto – but, oh no!- they signed hardly two years before Kyoto goes obsolete and a replacement framework is not even in place. Far better to let off steam about woolly, ill-defined democratic principles, that clearly have no binding commitment to them.
But Miliband represents a government that has committed to astonishingly deep cuts in CO2 emissions; and it will certainly try and build consensus around an (or any) issue that its big brother America thinks is important. Also, it knows the nature of dialogue around democratisation is changing and needs to be careful about what it says on democratic processes abroad (remember Afghanistan, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Sri Lanka…)
All the same, the CW cannot afford to look at either climate change or democracy. Just as poverty can no longer be de-linked from climate threats, in the same way, democratic process and change is fundamental to alleviating poverty in a sustainable way, which in turn, prevents people from behaving in ways which damage the environment.
Dev