Dobbeltmøde: Udfordringerne fra den nye verdensorden

Den geopolitiske krise er i fuld fart ved at ændre det internationale samarbejde, som har defineret den hidtidige verdensorden. Også klimaforandringerne bliver påvirket.

Globaliseringsgruppen har derfor inviteret to internationalt anerkendte forskere til at præsentere deres tanker og lægge op til debat.

Oplæggene er på engelsk.

Program

Kl. 10:30 – 12:00: Geopolitiske og miljømæssige implikationer af Ukraine-konflikten
Oplæg: Keith Smith, økonom, University of London

Kl. 12:00 – 13:00: Fælles frokost

Kl. 13:00 – 14:30: The Climate crisis’ background in Western colonialism as described by Amitav Ghosh
Oplæg: Björn Johnson, emeritus senior associate professor, Aalborg Universitet.

Mere om programmet

Keith Smith præsenterer sit papir: “Geopolitical and Environmental Implications of the Ukraine Conflict”

“This paper discusses the Ukraine conflict not in terms of the shooting war, the outcome of which is highly uncertain, but as a protracted and complex economic war.

It argues that this war has profound geopolitical implications – it has ended the unipolar hegemony of the West and is inaugurating a ‘heteropolar’ system based on strong superpower division and different sources of power across countries.

The critical problems facing the world at the present time are global warming, environmental degradation and pandemic disease. Warming in particular appears to be approaching biospheric limits.

We need a serious search for solutions, and this must entail multilateral collaboration.

However, a key geopolitical outcome of the war is the effective collapse of existing systems of multilateral collaboration, which have had some successes (the Montreal Protocol), and some failures (the COP process and emissions control).

The most important challenge facing global civil and political society is to construct some basis for enhanced multilateral collaboration in the face of deep geopolitical division.”

Om Keith Smith

After training at Cambridge and Sussex universities, Keith Smith worked extensively
on issues in the economics of innovation. He worked as an economist at a number of
universities: Keele in the UK, Tasmania in Australia, and the UN University in the
Netherlands.

Most recently he was Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College Business School
from 2009 to 2018. Prior to that he was Professor of Innovation at the University of
Tasmania from 2005 to 2008.

He has worked in a number of policy positions. From 2009 to 2012 he was head of
the policy analysis division for science and technology in the UK Department of
Business, Innovation and Skills.

In 2005-6 he worked for the European Commission, at the Joint Research Centre in
Seville, Spain.

For ten years (1990-2000) he was Director of the STEP Group (Group for Studies in
Technology, Innovation and Economic Policy) in Oslo, Norway.

His work has focussed on the structure of innovation processes, on the economic
history of innovation, on innovation in low-technology industries, and on innovation
indicators.

Björn Johnson, emeritus senior associate professor, Aalborg Universitet present:
“The Climate crisis’ background in Western colonialism as described by Amitav Ghosh”

“In my presentation I will try to discuss the main themes in two new books by Amitav Ghosh:
(1) The Nutmeg’s Curse. Parables for a Planet in Crisis, 2021
(2) The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, 2016

Booth books are about the present climate crisis and its background in Western colonialism, which is described as a process of violence. More specifically Ghosh discusses how Western colonialism has affected our views on nature, society, culture and the total world system. The books present a harsh but serious critique of Western civilization, especially modernity. They are also a reminder of how deeply our history is affected by non-human entities and forces.

One basic theme is how the Anthropocene leads to new insight about the relations between nature and society.

Another theme is how the dynamics of climate change and other environmental crises connected to transgression of planetary borders are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism.

A third theme is about how human history has been entangled with earthly materials such as spices, tea, sugarcane, opium, and fossil fuels and how it has been shaped non-human forces. “The agency of the landscape”.

A fourth theme is the character of ‘modernity’ especially its claim that everything in the world exists to be exploited and utilized by humans – i.e., primarily white, male Europeans.

A fifth theme is ‘terraforming’ i.e., the muting and remaking of the landscape to fit European ways of life and the role this has played in the process of colonialization.
Other recurrent themes are the crucial importance of geo-politics and the paradigm of ever-growing material desire.

Amitav Ghosh is primarily a writer and his own main conclusion is:
“This is the great burden that now rests upon writers, artists, filmmakers, and everyone else that is involved in the telling of stories: to us falls the task of imaginatively restoring agency and voice to nonhumans”

Introduktion til Amitav Ghosh

On YouTube there several interesting videos in which Amitav Ghosh discusses ‘The Nutmeg’s Curse’, see for example: https://youtu.be/C3lZ7EmChWo

Om Bjørn Johnson

Björn Johnson is an emeritus senior associate professor and reader in economics at
the Aalborg University Business School (former Department of Business and
Management at Aalborg University) in Denmark. His earlier research dealt with
regional aspects of consumer behavior, comparative economic systems, and
comparative analysis of strategies in economic policy. His later research has been in
the field of institutional economics with a focus on systems of innovation and the
relations between technical and institutional change and economic development. His
latest research interest is about how the idea of sustainable development is affected
by the onset of the Anthropocene.

He has led a long-term project for enhancement of research capacity in developing
countries within the Danida framework in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.
Björn Johnson has published broadly in articles and books in these fields.

Fælles frokost – tilmelding

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