Iceland Writes an Information Age Constitution

Few things are as exciting and periodically necessary for a democracy as writing a new constitution. Iceland is in the process of doing just that, and they are doing it with a social media twist.

The Icelandic Stjórnlagaráð or Constitutional Council has solicited public feedback from citizens and is adjusting its drafts accordingly. The Council explains its method and rationale as follows:

The Constitutional Council is eager to make sure the public can be up to date while the work is in progress. It's possible to see the developments in the text of a prospective proposition and make comments. Furthermore, the Constitutional Council has made it possible for the public to send messages and already numerous messages have been sent to the Council. All messages are published on the Council's website under the sender’s name (anonymous messages are not accepted) and the public can read and comment on each of them which has already created a lively discussion on the website.

In this way the Constitutional Council emphasises an open communication with the Icelandic nation and has given the people an opportunity to participate in the formation of a new Constitution of the Republic of Iceland. The Council's work can also be seen on the major communicative media such as Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. Every day short interviews with delegates are put on YouTube and Facebook. On Thursdays at 13:00 there is live broadcast from the Constitutional Council meetings on the webpage and on Facebook. There are also schedules for all meetings, all minutes from meetings of groups, the Board and the Council as well as the Council's work procedures. The webpage also has regular news from the Council's work as well as a weekly newsletter. Advertisements are published in the media encouraging the public to keep track of what is going on and to make comments.

That Iceland chose the digital route should come as no suprise—the country has one of the highest internet penetration rates in the world, and its voter participation rates are roughly double what is common in the United States. Still, it's an impressive maneuver for a country whose legislature, the Althingi, dates back to 930, making it the oldest existing parliament.

Should we expect any substantive surprises from this process? Perhaps it is too soon to tell, with the drafts still shifting wiki-style, but already some interesting ideas have emerged. (The current official English version is machine translated, so some of the following quotations may be awkward.)

THE POWER OF GOV 2.0

The statement on transparency couldn't be clearer: "Governance must be transparent." The new constitution also requires that all "matters and documents held by government … be publicly accessible," which includes complaints made to the government as well as procedures for their redress. That Iceland would uphold press freedom and freedom of information—"anyone is free to gather and disseminate information"—is in keeping with the strong laws they passed last year to protect journalists and anonymous sources, with implications for WikiLeaks and other whistleblowers.

EDUCATION A PRIORITY

Education is a high priority, and the opening section has a passage on academic freedom: "It should be ensured by law the freedom of science, education, arts and education." There is also a guarantee that everyone will receive a public education, free of charge at the primary level. The spirit animating the education section falls in line with the tradition of civic humanism: "Education shall aim at the full development of each individual, critical thinking and awareness of rights and duties."

WITHOUT NATURE, NOTHING

By far the most interesting language so far comes in the sections on ownership and natural resources. The overall sense of property rights is that "ownership is inviolable," while "exercise of ownership should not go against the public interest." At the same time, the "natural resources of Iceland are common and perpetual property of the nation. They should be utilized in a sustainable manner for the benefit of all citizens. No one can get them for permanent ownership or use." These clauses are driven by a belief that "Icelandic nature is inviolable. Each person must respect and protect. The utilization of common resources of the nation must act so that they are not diminished in the long term and the right of future generations is observed."

It would definitely be nice to see the "right to healthy environment, fresh water and unspoiled natural land, air and sea" enshrined in a new U.S. Constitution. As it stands, the current crop of Republican candidates has staked out a bizarre stance against environmental protection, despite the fact that the American public consistently supports clean air, clean water, and more renewable energy.

So the new Icelandic constitution may not be as radical as Bolivia granting rights to Mother Earth, but with its procedural innovations and a focus on sustainability and civic humanism, Iceland is certainly showing the world what twenty-first century democracy looks like:



[PHOTO CREDITS: Althingi by vovchychko (CC); Stjórnlagaráð by Stjórnlagaráð (CC).]

America Shouldn't Blow an Opportunity for Green Diplomacy

Among all the talk about soft power and smart power something big and obvious has been missing: wind power. By not being a global leader on climate change over the past decade America has blown a major opportunity to engage in Green Diplomacy—the strategic use of clean energy projects to boost development and security in poor countries. Going forward, the Obama Administration should articulate and carry out a plan to align several of our national priorities: innovation, emissions reduction, development, diplomacy, and security.

When it comes to linking climate change and security it is common practice to trot out the specter of mass hordes of climate refugees inundating rich countries as their own coastal homelands disappear into the ocean. Likely this fear suffers from a case of xenophobic exaggeration. But an already-porous migration policy does motivate the United States to focus on the development of climate-resilient countries in its own hemisphere first. Fortunately a demonstration project exists in the region: Costa Rica, where reforestation and renewable energy combine in a national commitment to becoming carbon neutral.

One can envision the United States helping clean energy best practices radiate out from there, facilitated by domestic and international regulation. Thus it is heartening to see funding and institutional priorities coalescing around these goals in Sen. John Kerry's recently submitted Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act [PDF]. The bill calls for establishment of a Strategic Interagency Board on International Climate Investment, to be composed of the secretaries of State, Energy, Treasury, Commerce, and Agriculture, the administrators of USAID and the Environmental Protection Agency, and any other relevant officials the president sees fit.

The SIBICI's task would be "to provide United States assistance to developing countries to develop, implement and improve nationally appropriate greenhouse gas mitigation policies," including preparation for participation in "markets for international offset credits for reduced emissions from deforestation." The bill also calls for the State Department to establish an International Clean Energy Deployment Program that would distribute funding either as bilateral assistance, to multilateral funds or institutions formed pursuant to the UNFCCC, or some combination of both. Similar funding would also be distributed under the International Climate Change Adaptation and Global Security Program to "provide assistance to the most vulnerable developing countries... in a way that protects and promotes interests of the United States."

The bill goes on to specify the details for emissions allowances and international offset credits, but much is also left open-ended to ensure that the executive branch has enough latitude to create and carry out these new programs. This bodes well for putting Green Diplomacy in the American power toolbox.

[Photo credit: Volcan Arenal, by Arturo Sotillo (CC).]

Confronting the Global Water Crisis

Further to Christina Madden's Policy Innovations article "Managing Water Well," Peter Rogers recommends some technical and managerial adaptations in Project Syndicate this week:

- Trade virtual water—the amount of water that is embodied in producing a product (usually food) and shipping it somewhere else to be used. This saves the recipient from using his own water, which can be saved for higher-value activities;

- Conserve irrigation water. Because agriculture routinely accounts for 75 to 90 percent of all water consumed in a country, a 10 percent efficiency gain would save as much water as all the water used by the country's municipalities and industry. Another way of improving irrigation efficiency is by developing crops that produce more food with the same, or less, water. Research on such genetically modified (GM) foods is well advanced in several of the largest water-scarce countries, such as China and India;

- Exploit advanced desalination. Modern developments in desalination have brought the cost per unit of desalinated seawater to levels comparable to obtaining fresh water from natural sources (approximately $0.05 per cubic meter).

- Expand wastewater recycling. Urban areas typically dispose of about 85 percent of their fresh-water intake as wastewater, often in neighboring water bodies. The wastes could be treated and used to replenish groundwater. Emerging low-water-using sanitation technologies such as urine-separating dry-composting toilets could also significantly reduce urban water demands if properly developed;

- Develop creative pricing policies for urban water and wastewater. Protecting human and ecosystem health are difficult to price, because they form part of the pervasive externalities associated with water use. Nevertheless, many water uses would respond well to more efficient prices.

Although avoiding a global water crisis will not be easy, we have at hand policies and technologies that, if properly applied, could see us safely through the next several decades, even in the face of increasing—and increasingly wealthy—populations.

Economy vs. the environment?

Last week I wrote a briefing on the upcoming carbon credit auction, Northeast Puts on the Carbon Cap. In the article I identified a few kinks in the system that might make the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative less than successful in the long run. A more immediate threat, however, may be the effect the credit crisis is having on markets in general.

When I spoke with RGGI Inc. spokesman Jonathan Schrag a week before the auction, I asked whether the organization was concerned about there being too many credits for sale – the total allowance easily exceeded current emissions. Though unable to disclose just who would be taking part, Schrag was convinced that, with over 100 registered bidders, the “broad participation” would ensure success.

One week and a few collapsed banks later, that participation was no longer a given; concerns about the credit-crunch fallout on Wall Street affecting the RGGI auction seem to have borne themselves out. Although the emissions allowances sold for $3.07 – higher than the $1.86 floor price set before the auction, the prices did not reach the levels anticipated on the futures markets.

Is lackluster interest from the financials to blame? According to today’s press release 59 entities submitted bids, with “compliance entities,” the utilities that will be bound by the emissions cap, purchasing most of the credits. This differs greatly from the European emissions market, where financial companies play an active role. There, carbon trading is big business, and companies seek out creative ways of reducing or abating their emissions so they can sell their allowances for a profit. The well-functioning (since last year's reforms) market ensures emissions reductions come at the best price and with the lowest economic penalty.

The recent turmoil in the financial sector may thus have claimed yet another victim – one few have even noticed. As everyone is focused on the astronomical bailout, the falling house and stock prices, and the economic slowdown, global warming concerns are taking a back seat. Could this be yet another example of pocketbook issues trumping the environment?

Photo by Taras Kalapun (cc)

Policy Innovations on the Road

Policy Innovations staff is traveling this month on a couple projects related to climate change.

GPI Director Devin Stewart is leading a Carnegie Council delegation to Beijing to lay groundwork for China-Japan-U.S. dialogues on ethics, energy, climate change, and faculty development.

Devin will be accompanied by Joshua Eisenman, an Asia Studies Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and Ph.D. candidate at UCLA; Jonathan Gage, a Carnegie Council trustee and principal of Booz & Company, where he also publishes its magazine strategy+business; Harry Harding, University Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University; and Alex Westlake, managing director of ClearWorld Energy (based in Beijing).

Stewart and Eisenman are coordinating the itinerary with the China Reform Forum in Beijing. Institutions to be visited include Peking University, Renmin University, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. The trip was made possible by generous support from ClearWorld Energy.

Meanwhile, Policy Innovations Managing Editor Evan O'Neil is literally hitting the road. He's biking in a peloton of 120 riders from New York to D.C. to meet with Congressional staff to discuss transportation and climate policy. To learn more about the story behind Evan's Climate Ride, take a look at the sponsorship page our web designer Graham Slick put together for him, or at Evan's new blog Inside Climate.

[Beijing Bicycles photo by Keith Marshall (CC).]

Philanthrocapitalism: Just Another Emperor?

One of the topics we cover at Policy Innovations is trends in social organization, how they affect globalization, and vice versa. Based on his new book, Michael Edwards of the Ford Foundation wrote an interesting article for openDemocracy on the subject of philanthrocapitalism—the "movement to harness the power of business and the market to the goals of social change." He believes it's time to look past the hype and really debate whether this influx of market mojo is delivering what it claims. Are social goals compromised in favor of financial ones?

[ASIDE: We ran an article by Laura Raynolds of Colorado State University not too long ago discussing a similar moment in the evolution of Fair Trade. Raynolds argues that Fair Trade's new position in the marketplace—due to success in scaling up and expansion into new products—puts it in conflict with its social goals.]

Edwards believes that civil society's shift from community organizing to services provision represents an erosion of the sector's power to participate in social transformation: "The accumulated outcome is that civil society may be getting larger—but not stronger or more effective in leveraging fundamental changes in society."

What are the changes Edwards wants to see?

Systemic change has to address the question of how property is owned and controlled, and how resources and opportunities are distributed throughout society.

How do we get there?

[C]ollaboration among separate organizations may be better than blending or competition. It preserves the difference and independence required to lever real change in markets (not just extend their social reach), and to support the transition to more radical approaches that might deliver the deeper changes that we need, like new business models built around "the commons" such as open-source software and other forms of "non-proprietary production"; and community economics and worker-owned firms, which increase citizen control over the production and distribution of the economic surplus that businesses create.

How do we keep nonmarket civil society motivated?

What separates good and bad performers is not whether they come from business or civil society, but whether they have a clear focus to their work, strong learning and accountability mechanisms that keep them heading in the right direction, and the ability to motivate their staff or volunteers to reach the highest collective levels of performance.

I think the most important critique Edwards makes is that market-style projects shouldn't be the sole logic of civil society—social entrepreneurism has hit the scene with a fair amount of zeal. If civil society acts as a social immune system, as Paul Hawken puts it, then that system should have several curative options. Plus, people are more and more motivated to find meaning in their work—social entrepreneurs are filling a niche.

When critiquing the new unity of philanthrocapitalism, Edwards sets it in comparison to the diversity of actors that was required in successful social movements of the past. But right now there is no unified movement. The only thing comparable is the set of actors that are pushing the shift to an environment-friendly lifestyle—though goals may overlap, they are loosely bonded at best in their actions. And the problem they are trying to solve is so inherently tied to our existence as consumers, making it no surprise that fast-acting market forces have swooped into the new environmental gap in our political consciousness.

Has philanthrocapitalism only flourished because civil society becomes too calcified when it is based on institutions instead of a broad social struggle?

Co-operative Food Ethical Policy

In this video clip from a Guardian climate change conference, Paul Monaghan, head of ethics and sustainability for the Co-op Group, speaks on how businesses can use long-term power purchase agreements for renewable energy, help scale up microgeneration of electricity, improve energy efficiency, get involved with public policy in a positive way, and use carbon offsets.

Monaghan's passion led me to investigate the Co-op Group a little more, and I found that they are developing a new member-led ethical policy for the food they sell. "Going forward the ethical and environmental priorities that underpin our co-operative products will be in line with members' concerns," writes Guy McCracken, Chief Executive for Food Retail at Co-op. They've developed a questionnaire to figure out what those concerns are and how to prioritize them. The questionnaire covers food quality, diet and health, environmental impact, ethical trading, community retailing, animal welfare, metrics for success, and future member consultations.

I'd say meeting half of these targets would be admirable. Does the co-op as an organizing principle give them an advantage?

China Revisionism Already (Again)?

China was a threat because it was weak in the 1980s. Then it was a threat because it was strong in the late 1990s. Is it time again for a revision of the world's thinking again on China? I have noticed a steady increase in the number of informed observers talking about China's weaknesses rather than its strengths, making James Mann's thesis that China could be a "model" a bit dated. See Mann's Washington Post essay "A Shining Model of Wealth Without Liberty" here.

These days, informed observers inside and outside China are talking about pollution, food safety, income gaps, environmental degradation, slave labor, and income disparities... and lack of equity and ethics in China. Just today, the IHT ran an editorial called "The China puzzle" here. The piece is typical of this latest revisionism on China:

"...The latest reminders are reports of slave labor in Chinese factories and the discovery that some of the popular Thomas the Tank Engine toys manufactured in China have lead in their paint. Before that, it was the contaminated dog food, the stubborn support of Sudan for its oil, the regular reports of human rights abuses, the huge economic disparities between city and country, the controls on the media.

Why rehearse these faults now? Because governments and companies tend to become so seduced or intimidated by China that they won't hold it to high standards of human rights and business ethics.

Western companies have been so anxious to transfer manufacturing to China's cheap factories that they have been happy to close their eyes to what else goes on over there - just as Google or Yahoo were happy to assist in repressing information to get a toe into the Chinese market, or as Washington and other Western capitals compete in trying to please visiting Chinese leaders..."

We will probably see many revisions in our understanding of China. Clearly, reality falls somewhere in the complicated, complex middle.

CSR on the (Elite) Mind in East Asia

I am in the Singapore airport bound for Shanghai, reflecting on my visits to Manila, Jakarta, and Singapore. Three policemen armed with automatic weapons just walked by the free Internet stall to take the escalator downstairs.

I don't want to get carried away, but I am happy to say that issues such as the environment, human rights, and good governance are not confined to conversations in California, Washington DC, New York, Europe, and Japan. Every day, the local newspapers ran at least one article about the environment, climate change, and their popularization in ASEAN.

I read about an eco beauty pageant in Manila and about how Bangkok shut off its lights a couple of days ago to promote eco awareness. On the TV, I saw an ad in Manila (sponsored by the UNDP) against corruption and a music video in Jakarta promoting energy efficient light bulbs. In the cab ride the the airport this morning, the driver spoke about the environmental problems in Southeast Asia broadly, and said that he has never seen such bizarre weather in Singapore. Every businessman, scholar, and government official we interviewed acknowledged the importance of eco and human rights leadership in the world economy.

Now, I don't want to overstate the case. Clearly, the biggest problems facing many countries in ASEAN are poverty and political stability. I understand that I was reading newspapers in English, the TV was in English, our interviewees were elite, and the taxi driver was in fact from a highly educated family. But we should not forget how human rights abuses and environmental degradation can conflate with terrorism, corruption, and instability. The perfect storm could go something like this:

Imagine an area saturated with corruption (which is seen by investors as the number one problem in the Philippines). Officials take bribes from criminals, and gangs are allowed to arm undisturbed by law enforcement. They are able to prosper by engaging in illegal activities such as piracy or smuggling. Lack of equity creates resentment toward more successful groups in the society. An environmental disaster, such as a flood, destroys homes and makes people more receptive or vulnerable to a strongman. Gangs seize the opportunity to overthrow the local government. Martial law is declared, rights are curtailed, foreign direct investment flees, and a downward spiral of poverty and violence ensues.

It isn't that far fetched. All these issues are related.

Mysterious Death of Honeybees Magnifies Fragility of Interdependence

A lot of honeybees are dying in America and nobody knows why. Some researchers speculate that AIDS-like immune suppression is at fault. Whether consumers will notice a price difference in the condiment aisle is one issue, but the real problem is the broader impact on agriculture: Bees provide natural, local biotech through pollination. Many crops depend on it.

Interdependence is the essence of globalization. This seems to apply as much between countries as across species lines. According to the New York Times, "imported honey from China and Argentina has depressed honey prices and put more pressure on beekeepers to take to the road in search of pollination contracts." Trucking bee colonies around the country could stress out the hives and make them more vulnerable to infection.

Though pollination is partially commercialized, this crisis raises the larger question of how we account for the irreplaceable economic services of our environment, which are often priceless and free.

Whose Carbon Is It?

Recognition that global warming is anthropogenic grows daily, but sweeping solutions to clean up pollution mature at a different rate. This is not surprising. We're dealing with invisible gases. When determining moral responsibility and economic motivation (or vice versa), we must ask an important question: Whose molecules are they? When the factory is in Bangalore and the corporate HQ in London, who accounts for the emissions? Christian Aid senior climate change analyst Andrew Pendleton writes that the UK has been massively underestimating its contribution to the problem. He calls for standardized and more accurate corporate reporting on emissions, reinforced by legislation.

Ban the Bulb!

Australia, like the United States, may never ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but its government just announced a bright idea for reducing carbon emissions: mandatory phase-out of incandescent light bulbs. The old bulbs will be replaced by longer-lasting compact fluorescent bulbs that are more energy efficient. The top-down, market-based legislation will "gradually restrict the sale of the old-style bulbs" (AP).