World Government for Environmental Protection

In the 1940s, theorizing around world government gained traction because of the advent of nuclear weapons; it was feared that a nuclear war between nations could annihilate humanity entirely. Even as the world remains fragmented today, fortunately this has not come to happen, yet we face another urgent risk in the form of environmental destruction. This provides a new dystopian argument for world government in the present: should we fail to act decisively as the whole of humanity, the risk to us is as great as that posed by nuclear war. ‘One World or None’, people remarked then in the context of nuclear weapons—and this applies even more to the urgent environmental threats we face.

The multiple environmental crises that humanity faces are truly worldwide in scope, without regard for any of the borders that humans have created. Therefore they cannot be dealt with by national groups separately, unlike perhaps some other policy issues. We know from centuries’ experience that cooperation and taking collective action is something the national system fails miserably at. It is also well-known that the reason behind this failure is national selfishness—every nation pursues its own interests rather than the good of all humanity. No nation wants to bear the costs of environmental action and cause any loss to itself, even if it means the extinction of humans. This is particularly the case when the returns are uncertain, as other nations could not act and still destroy the world. Thus there is a collective action problem, in that no nation wants to commit to environmental protection if others might not lose so. National groups, overall, have no incentive to counter climate change and environmental destruction, and this may cost humanity its existence.

Scholars have studied multiple mechanisms that illustrate the misaligned incentives of nations to humanity. The tragedy of the commons is one of the best known, in which natural resources which are non-excludable but rivalrous in consumption tend to get depleted or degraded through unsustainable consumption by self-interested actors like nations. Competition between nations also results in the so-called ‘Delaware effect’, whereby environmental protections get diluted or sidelined as nations lower their regulations to remain competitive. Nationalist economic policies, such as trade barriers on solar panels or electric cars, have also been hindering much-needed environmental progress.

These incentives are fixed within the national order, and we cannot expect nation-states to irrationally go against them for the greater good. No amount of messaging or warning about the dangers of environmental catastrophe, and no efforts to bring countries to cooperate, can change these. It is also insufficient to pin our hopes on massive changes in public opinion to drive change entirely; while highly useful, this cannot by itself overcome the fact that ultimately, national governments are accountable only to a subset of people. Even individual action, such as reducing personal consumption, cannot fully make up for the need for bold government action on the environment. The efforts of civil society and individuals are a complement, not a substitute, for global governmental intervention.

However, no proper solution to these misaligned incentives has been found within the framework of the national world order. From the perspective of methodological nationalism, all we have been able to come up with are voluntary, unenforceable agreements which lack the ambition the planet needs. A lot of hype is generated in global summits and declarations, but these result in little tangible action. Countries could not even agree to ‘phase out’ fossil fuels at COP28. The ‘historic’ Paris Agreement has all but failed in limiting warming to 1.5C thanks to its reliance on national governments.

But we can change the game itself. With a world government we have an opportunity to break free of these multi-actor dilemmas, and confront the challenges of environmental degradation and climate change together as humanity. There will be no question of selfish interests holding a veto over environmental policy, as nations do. There will be no externalities, and no ‘somebody else’s problems’. When faced with a collective action problem where the equilibrium is suboptimal, the best solution is to break the multiple-entity game itself and set up a strong authority that can enforce the optimal solution today. That is why we have governments today, and that is why we need a world government.

Consider, for example, a prisoner’s dilemma for nations:

4, 4	5, 0
0, 5	1, 1

However, there is no dilemma for world government, with only one actor and one set of payoffs:

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5

5

2

Should we fail to advance beyond the ruinous nation-based system very soon, we will find ourselves on the wrong side of the future. For the people of the not-too-far future will remember us as those who could have developed political mechanisms to save the earth, but did not for no better reason than an imaginary identity’s selfishness. From the scorching heat of the future, the petty selfishness of the struggles in climate negotiations will lose all relevance, and the minimal victories of international agreements will be seen as false hopes. The national system is failing us, and we must advance beyond it to save ourselves and the planet.

The earth does not recognize any of the boundaries or identities by which humans alienate each other. It is a planet that belongs to no one but is shared by all of humanity and other life forms. The nationalist approach to the earth has been one of division, competitive extraction, exclusive claims, and lack of management. The time has come for humanity to replace this with a holistic, cosmopolitan view of the planet as one global commons. The environment, as something shared by all humans, can provide a foundation for global community and unity, and is a potential rallying point for political efforts to achieve these goals.

World government also opens up new avenues for environmental solutions beyond the capacity of the national system. It will enable proper management and governance of the high seas and polar regions, ensuring their preservation and sustainable use for the common good. Global standards can be set and enforced for domains like biodiversity preservation and pollution. And a world government can also embark on large-scale development of clean energy and infrastructure and, if required, even geoengineering projects.

World unification does not guarantee by itself that the environmental crisis will be solved—we still need to take bold action towards a sustainable existence. However, it gives us the agency to do so, creating the political backbone at the global level. So far, governments have lagged behind civil society and individuals on environmental action, but with a world government the state can finally start pulling its weight. “Think globally, act locally,” many environmentalists are fond of saying. But we do not have to be limited by the national system any further. Let us Think Globally and Act Globally.