World Future Councilors Release Global Plan to Preserve the Earth

World Future Council Issues Global Policy Action Plan

On 40th anniversary of World Environment Day, plan identifies
24 policies to preserve a habitable planet

With growing climate chaos and desertification, biodiversity decline, ocean pollution and forest decimation, the interlinked crises brought about by human action are threatening the very capacity of the earth to sustain life. Defining a political framework for changing course, the policy advocacy organization, World Future Council (www.worldfuturecouncil.org), presents an emergency policy agenda consisting of 24 tipping-point policies that need to be implemented globally to preserve a habitable planet. The launch of the Global Policy Action Plan coincides with the 40th Anniversary of the UN's World Environment Day on June 5, 2012.

The condensed, five-page document is titled “Saving our Shared Future – Best Policies to Regenerate our World.” It is the result of more than five years of work with parliamentarians, national and international policy-makers, as well as scholars and civil society groups, to identify, debate, legislate and implement breakthrough policies to enable the transition to a fair and sustainable future.

In releasing the plan, Jakob von Uexkull, founder and chairman of the World Future Council, announced, “With the best laws and right policy incentives we can mobilize human inventiveness and entrepreneurship to safeguard a healthy planet for future generations. It has to be understood that the purpose of our Policy Action Plan is not to promote one specific solution, but to identify interlinked reforms that rapidly enable us to change direction.”

The 24 tipping-point policies are divided into four main areas of necessary policy reform, evocatively titled “Regenerating our Planet,” “Making Money again our Servant,” “Governance and Education” and “Protecting Our Shared Future.” They include policies to speed up the global transition to renewable energy, to regulate financial instruments, secure sustainable ecosystems, grant equal educational opportunities for women, and outlaw nuclear weapons. Ahead of the Rio+20 Conference in Rio de Janeiro, the top policy recommendation concerns the election of a High Commissioner or Ombudsperson for Future Generations by the United Nations and national parliaments to institutionally integrate a long-term perspective in policy-making.

Speaking from Santa Barbara, Dr. David Krieger, co-founder and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and one of the 50 founding World Future Council members, praised the plan for calling global attention to the interlocking crises facing life on planet Earth and, in particular, its focus on the continuing danger posed by nuclear weapons.

“Nuclear weapons present humanity with the possibility of extinction—indeed, of ecocide. Only the simplest life forms are likely to survive the nuclear winter that would follow a major nuclear war. But even a regional nuclear war could have horrendous global consequences, leading to a billion deaths from nuclear famine. The continuing threat of nuclear war, combined with the exorbitant amount of money the world is spending on military forces and hardware, rather than on meeting human needs, argue compellingly for the elimination of nuclear weapons and war.”

The full Global Policy Action Plan is available at www.worldfuturecouncil.org/plan.html and at http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/pdfs/2012_wfc_action_plan.pdf.

The World Future Council will draw on its existing international network for the advocacy work necessary to implement the tipping-point policies, and is also looking for new allies. “We appeal to governments, inter-governmental and civil society organizations, academia, media and youth groups to work with us on saving our shared future and regenerating our world,” von Uexkull said.

The World Future Council brings the interests of future generations to the center of policy-making. Its 50 eminent members from around the globe have already successfully promoted change. The Council addresses challenges to our common future and provides decision makers with effective policy solutions. The World Future Council is registered as a charitable foundation in Hamburg, Germany.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was founded in 1982 to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons, and to empower peace leaders. The Foundation is comprised of individuals and organizations worldwide who realize the imperative for peace in the Nuclear Age. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a non-profit, non-partisan international education and advocacy organization. It has consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council and is recognized by the UN as a Peace Messenger Organization.