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Contributions from
the Column
Studies and reports
Poor outlook for transatlantic policy
Forced labour: the underside of globalisation
Military budgets: ploughshares into swords
The legitimacy of international taxation
Food aid: local purchases more cost efficient
06/2005 |
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[ Transatlantic relations ]
Poor outlook for joint policy making
Only if the business sector and civil society become more involved, will transatlantic relations advance – for instance in the field of climate. Anja Köhne of the development and environment NGO Germanwatch believes this to be the only way to overcome obstacles and to re-start dialogue given the current frosty atmosphere between the United States and “old Europe”. According to her, some US-based foundations broke off the ties that had formed over years because a number of European countries opposed the Iraq war.
At the same time, there is no lack of problems for Europe and the USA to work on. One of the biggest tasks for transatlantic relations in the coming decades will be to ease the global rivalry over dwindling oil supplies, says Andreas Kraemer of Ecologic, a think tank in Berlin specialised in international and European environmental research. Other challenges, according to him, include strengthening the world economy by providing for well-funded demand on new markets or globally protecting investments. Kraemer says that, unlike their counterparts in the USA, companies in Europe showed little concern for the social and ecological crises currently building up in China.
The assessment by other delegates at a conference on transatlantic relations held at the Protestant Academy at Loccum in Norhern Germany was not quite so dramatic. Michael Renner of the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute said that the challenge was to involve the private sector more in the Euro-American dialogue, without government actors withdrawing at the same time. Frequently, however, according to Jacop Malthouse of UNEP Finance Initiatives, there are no functioning communication structures between companies on either side of the Atlantic: “There is little discussion.”
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), an economics forum to exchange ideas, is to a large extent a European project, for example. Only 41 of 175 WBCSD-members come from the USA, whereas 78 are Europeans. The US discussion on more sustainable economic structures takes place within its own fora, such as the Investors and Environmentalists for Sustainable Prosperity or the organisation Business for Social Responsibility.
Malthouse sees opportunities for including the private sector in the debate on sustainability primarily in the case of institutional investors such as pension funds, a number of which are currently using up their operating assets. On the one hand, the funds are forced to deliver an increasing amount of capital in ever shorter time, because those insured are getting older on average. On the other hand, they are looking for long-term low-risk investments for their operating capital. Governments and society at large must prepare the right conditions to encourage such financiers to invest their capital sustainably. (orb)
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