The GG2020 Focus

From addressing climate change to achieving nuclear non-proliferation and economic governance, making the mechanisms of global governance fit for addressing global challenges is a crucial task of our time. Future international institutions need to be able to effectively tackle global challenges while reflecting and capitalizing on the shifting balances within the international system.

Approaching the future challenges of global governance will require a cross-regional problem solving capacity that reaches beyond traditional alliances. GG2020 participants built their vision of global governance zooming in on the following issue areas:

Working Group I - Global climate governance
Like few other policy areas, global warming as an unambiguously transnational phenomenon highlights the inadequacy of isolated national approaches. Any significant reduction of global CO2 emissions will have to be based on a reliable framework of multilateral cooperation. How can we create the necessary agreement on the just distribution of mitigation burdens? How can this distribution be practically realized? How will global climate governance have to be shaped in order to bring about not only politically acceptable, but at the same time cost-effective and efficient ways to reduce CO2 emissions?

Working Group II - Global nuclear governance:
Despite the post-Cold War decline in public attention, the threats posed by nuclear weapons proliferation and an apathetic international resolve on nuclear disarmament remain potentially catastrophic. What are some of the challenges and lessons learned by the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime in the past decades? How can we rekindle a spirit of common purpose in international nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament governance in the next decade?

Working Group III - Global economic governance: 
In the best of all worlds, global financial markets facilitate sustainable development, growth and prosperity. In the worst, they bring instability and misery. What are the lessons of economic governance of the past decades and how should we go about building an architecture for global economic governance in 2020?