Rockefeller – Controlling the Game (27 page)

The Conference Declaration of the Planet Under Pressure Conference concluded that the earth system was a complex interconnected system which included the global economy and society. Just like in Barbara Marx Hubbard’s Wheel of Co-creation, each part was interconnected and interdependent with all others.

The analysis also concluded that current political structures were not equipped to deal effectively with global challenges, such as climate change and the threats to biodiversity. A Sustainable Development Council within the United Nations system was called for, mandated to integrate the three pillars of sustainable development (ecological, economic, and social sustainability). This was a carbon copy of the conclusions made in the Trilateral Commission’s
Beyond Interdependence
(1991) and the proposal of a World Environment and Development Forum. These ideas in turn went all the way back to the RBF Special Studies Project from 1958 (under the name International Development Authority).

An article in
Science
in March 2012, signed by 32 scientists headed by
Frank Biermann
, summarised the recommendations on institutional changes:

Human societies must now change course and steer away from critical tipping points in the Earth system that might lead to rapid and irreversible change. This requires fundamental reorientation and restructuring of national and international institutions toward more effective Earth system governance.
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They suggested that the major economies of the G20 should be given greater power in relation to other nations in the new Policy Council:

The most promising route is creating a high-level UN Sustainable Development Council directly under the UN General Assembly. To be more effective, such a council should rely not on traditional UN modes of geographical representation, but give special predominance to the largest economies—the Group of 20—as primary members that hold at least 50% of the votes in the council. Only such a strong novel role for the Group of 20 will allow the UN Sustainable Development Council to have a meaningful influence in areas such as economic and trade governance.
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The 2012 UN Summit Rio+20

On June 20–22, 2012, The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) was held, but did not attract the same attention as its predecessor 20 years earlier, despite its 45,000 participants. Several of the most prominent world leaders, who had just met at the
G20
summit in Mexico on June 18–19, declined participation and instead sent lower ranking representatives.
⁵⁴⁰

In connection with to the Rio Summit,
GLOBE International
held its first World Summit of Legislators, with 300 parliamentarians just a few days prior to the opening of the conference. It was arranged in close collaboration with the
UN
and the
World Bank
.
Ban Ki Moon
praised their efforts to implement the sustainability agenda in their respective national Parliaments.

And in today’s increasingly interconnected world, you are also a link between the global and local—bringing local concerns into the global arena, and
translating global standards into national action
. I very much welcome your engagement in the process. (Ban Ki Moon)
⁵⁴¹

No binding agreements were signed during the Rio+20 Summit, and the conclusions of the conference consisted mostly of vaguely formulated ambitions to “continue efforts to create sustainable development.” The only action decided upon was the establishment of an intergovernmental policy forum, the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) for overseeing the implementation of sustainable development and its three pillars.

The green NGOs were dissatisfied with the result, as always. They claimed that the leaders had not lived up to their responsibility but had let themselves be guided by corporate interests. Greenpeace thought that much more needed to be done in terms of global agreements and governance.

We still need a global deal, we need global governance to support and foster a great transition where equity, economy and ecology are not in competition but in harmony to deliver sustainable development. (Greenpeace).
⁵⁴²

On September 10, 2012 Ban Ki Moon made a speech where he praised the Rockefeller family for their generosity both to the UN and its predecessor, the League of Nations.
⁵⁴³

There was no doubt who the architects of the future were. The Trilaterals and the Rockefeller family now seemed to succeed in swaying the global agenda toward the future they wanted. Both the G20 and the Sustainability Forum were now firmly established – although these forums had not been given the muscles which the Trilaterals had in mind for enforcing the Great Transition. The world's four corners needed to be united.

That same year, the finance families Rockefellers and Rothschilds had pulled their weight and entered a partnership through Lord Jacob Rothschild being included on the board of Rockefeller Financial Services – the company that handled all Rockefeller's business. At the same time the Rothschild family consolidated their British and French operations under a single umbrella.
⁵⁴⁴
In the press release Lord Rothschild was welcomed by the family patriarch at the time, David Rockefeller:

Lord Rothschild and I have known each other for five decades. The connection between our two families remains very strong. I am delighted to welcome Jacob and RIT as shareholders and partners in the ongoing development of our investment management and wealth advisory businesses.
⁵⁴⁵

Now the march towards the global agreement planned to be signed in Paris 2015 would begin...

All the problems that we face, from climate change, to financial contagion, to nuclear proliferation, are too complex and cross-cutting for ANY one government or indeed governments to solve alone. (Hillary Clinton, Clinton Global Initiative, 2013)

10.
THE ROAD TO PARIS

We have been involved in the entire United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process going back to Kyoto. We have supported grantees in different areas including in the think-tank community who have been working on the substance of the global climate agreement. We’ve also focused on supporting advocates working globally to increase the ambition and push for agreement. And, along with some other foundations, we also provided support to the process itself. (Stephen Heintz, Rockefeller Brothers Fund)
⁵⁴⁶

A NEW GENERATION AT THE HELM

F
or the Rockefeller family, 2013 was a special year as their oldest charity, the Rockefeller Foundation, celebrated its 100th anniversary.

As of 2010, the family once again had direct control over Rockefeller Foundation when David Rockefeller Jr. (who had been a board member since 2006) was appointed chairman – a position no family member had had after John D. III was chairman 1952–71.

In 1913, Valerie Rockefeller Wayne (daughter of John D. ‘Jay’ Rockefeller IV) became chairman of the RBF, after Richard Rockefeller (whose private aircraft crashed on Friday, June 13, 2014, on his way home from David Rockefeller's 99th birthday celebration). Valerie was the first chairman of the fifth generation, and also joined the Board of Directors of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Stockholm Resilience Center

In May 2015, as part of the Rockefeller Foundation's anniversary, the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship Program for Social Innovation was established at the Stockholm Resilience Center. The program’s focus was on developing nations and vulnerable populations, with an objective of transforming suboptimal systems – politically, economically, educationally, legally, environmentally, and socially – to a resilient society.
⁵⁴⁷

This was part of the Great Transformation. Just like in previous decades, Stockholm and Sweden played a very central role.

Around the same time, countdown to the Paris Summit in December started, with high hopes for the signing of the Paris Agreement. Efforts to secure this outcome intensified.

The Stockholm Resilience Center (SRC) had been founded in 2007 by the Swedish governmental research foundation MISTRA (The Foundation for Environmental Strategic Research), Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Beijer Institute. SRC was largely a continuation of the research of Beijer and SEI. Its purpose was to become a world-leading institute for “sustainable governance and management of ecological and social systems” and be an
important player in the UN-led process of implementing the sustainability goals.
⁵⁴⁸

The center also became a vital node in the efforts to coordinate the spreading awareness of the “nine planetary boundaries” identified under the leadership of Johan Rockström (Executive Director of SEI 2004–2012).

The concept of ecological resilience was introduced by Canadian ecologist C. S. Holling’s “Resilience and the Stability of Ecological Systems” (1973), in which he mixed ecology with systems theory.
⁵⁴⁹
Holling also developed the theory of
panarchy
(from the Greek nature god, Pan), which provided a framework for describing the development of hierarchical systems with a number of interrelated elements – in this case it meant the complex interaction between man and nature. Holling identified the cycle of growth–collapse–rebirth, followed by new growth, etc.
⁵⁵⁰

The theory also had parallells to anthropologist Joseph Tainter’s
The Collapse of Complex Societies
(1988), describing how increasing complexity (in terms of increased bureaucracy, larger political entities and increased energy consumption) inevitably leads to a social collapse, with examples such as the Maya culture and the fall of Rome.
⁵⁵¹
Just like Barbara Marx Hubbard, Holling saw the inevitable collapse as something positive, offering new opportunities. In the case of the Roman Empire, however, the transformation phase from a high-energy to a low-energy system had not been handled properly. Part of the mission was therefore to create an effective control system in order to manage the critical phase.

As always, this would require Global Governance with a planetary institutional management. Society would proactively be rebuilt to respond to humanity's increasing crises (resource depletion, climate change, economy etc). Holling (who had for a time been executive director of IIASA in Laxenburg, Austria) worked with the Beijer Institute and in 1996 initiated the network Resilience Alliance. This collaboration was formalised in 1998, with funding from MacArthur Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation.
⁵⁵²
The goal was to adapt, develop and reorganise the current system into a resilient society within the 9 planetary boundaries.

This self-appointed mission became an increasingly pressing priority for the Rockefeller family. Since 2006, they had also funded the Architecture 2030 initiative in order to build a CO
₂
-neutral urban environment.

In 2013, Rockefeller Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors created the network 100 Resilient Cities.
⁵⁵³
The network received $31,350,000 from Rockefeller Foundation during its first year.

The following year, Rockefeller Foundation, in partnership with Swedish foreign aid agency SIDA, American USAID, and Stockholm Resilience Center, also initiated the Global Resilience Partnership, specifically aimed at building resilient cities in Sahel, Horn of Africa, and in Southern and Southeast Asia.

The vision for the impending transformation also included Smart Globalization, which had been a priority for RF since 2007. Smart information technology for monitoring and gauging all human activity had been identified as a crucial part of the solution to humanity's problems.

Global Challenges Foundation

In March 2013, the Swedish initiative Global Challenges Foundation (GCF) was announced, founded by the Hungarian–Swedish financier László Szombatfalvy who had made a fortune on the stock market.

Its board of directors included Johan Rockström, with Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Social Democrat Margot Wallström, as spokesperson.

The purpose of GCF was to increase the knowledge base on global threats to humanity and to accelerate the advent of a strong Global Government to deal with these threats.

Global challenges can only be solved through global action, but global action requires global decisions, and global decisions can only be made by supranational decision-making bodies, but today there are no effective, supranational, decision-making bodies.
⁵⁵⁴

Collaboration with Stockholm Resilience Center, Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford (led by transhumanist philosopher, Nick Bostrom), Kennette Benedict (
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
), and GLOBE International, was initiated. Rockström soon became known as a climate guru and media personality along with his partner, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (whom he would later succeed as head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, PIK).

Earth League

In 2013, the research network Earth League was created, which included both Rockström (as chairman) and Schellnhuber. As scientific advisor to the world's top politicians and religious leaders, the network worked diligently to anchor the agenda. They were aided in this mission by the World Bank report,
Turn Down the Heat
, written at PIK in November 2012, under the leadership of Schellnhuber.
⁵⁵⁵

The doomsday message in the report (including dramatic changes, extreme heat waves, reduced food stocks, and sea level rise) was more alarmist than the more restrained IPCC reports (the alarmist approach followed the 2005 recommendations from psychologist David Wasdell which included “declaring a planetary emergency”).

Just like Rockström, Schellnhuber was a strong advocate for global supranational solutions. In February 2013, he described his vision in an article in the
Center for Humans and Nature
:

Let me conclude this short contribution with a daydream about those key institutions that could bring about a sophisticated—and therefore more appropriate—version of the conventional “world government” notion. Global democracy might be organized around three core activities, namely (i) an Earth Constitution; (ii) a Global Council; and (iii) a Planetary Court.
⁵⁵⁶

In 2009, Schellnhuber had participated in the conference The Great Transformation – Climate Change as Cultural Change in Essen along with a number respected profiles such as Obama's Chief of Staff, John Podesta, and professors Ottmar Edenhofer, Frank Biermann, and Stefan Rahmstorf. In a session led by Dr. David Held from London School of Economics, the question was raised whether democratic solutions were compatible with the measures that were now “required.”

Technological innovation and political regulation can only be effective if ‘the people’ participate in their various roles as polluters, producers, citizens and voters. Democratic regimes are not well prepared for the level of participation that is required: Can free democratic societies cope with the effects of grave changes in the global climate, or might authoritarian regimes possibly be better placed to enforce the necessary measures?
(The Great Transformation, 2009
)

Schellnhuber’s and the Rockefellers’ dream of Global Governance seemed to be moving ever closer to being realised.

G20 – A Global Politburo?

In 2009, in an op-ed in New York Times, Mikhail Gorbachev asked the question what place the newly formed G20 had within the system of global institutions. Was it a “global politburo”, a “club for the powerful”, or a prototype for a World Government? Gorbachev felt that the G20 group should assume collective leadership in world politics but that, in order to achieve success and gain legitimacy, it needed to work closely with the United Nations.

He also suggested that the annual summit should be held at the UN headquarters in New York (instead of in the current system of rotating schedule and chairmanship of member states).
⁵⁵⁷

On 5–6 September 2013, Vladimir Putin hosted the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg, which also included the G20 “engagement groups” (Business 20, Civil 20, Labour 20, Think 20 and Youth 20) “to make contributions such as drafting recommendations on their areas of interest.”

The G20 Group had thus rapidly evolved into a growing global power factor with an ever closer relationship with UN institutions, even though the group's meetings had not yet moved into the UN headquarters.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, who had attended all G-20 meetings since the first one in Washington 2008, called for a joint responsibility in the emerging Syrian crisis. The year before, he had praised the collaboration that had developed between the UN and the G20. World leaders supported the UNFCCC and Secretary-General's efforts to mobilise the political will to introduce a legally binding agreement at COP21 in the Conference Communication.
⁵⁵⁸
Major decisions lay ahead.

High-Level Political Forum 2013

On September 24, 2013, High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) held its first session at the UN headquarters.

The theme was “Building the future we want: from Rio+20 to the post-2015 development agenda.” This new agency within the United Nations was to replace the Commission on Sustainable Development as coordinator of the sustainability agenda.

Now, the conclusions from the 2012 Rio Summit were to be turned into practical action and the new sustainability goals for 2015 and onwards established. This was to be executed through the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals, formed on January 22, 2013, following a decision at the Rio Summit.
⁵⁵⁹
UN ambassadors Csaba Kőrösi and Macharia Kamau were appointed to lead the work.

Besides representatives from member states and the UN system, a large number of NGOs participated. At the 2012 Rio Summit, Ban Ki Moon had appointed an advisory group called the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Expert opinions were also submitted by the Leadership Council of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which included Johan Rockström who inserted the “nine planetary boundaries” into the agenda.
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A first report would be presented to the UN General Assembly and HLPF 2014.
⁵⁶¹

HLPF acted as a guardian of Sustainable development. Drafting the goals for Global Governance, strengthened interaction between the G20 and the UN was proposed.
⁵⁶²
It was imperative to create an effective mechanism for implementation that could take collective leadership.

On June 30–July 9, 2014, HLPF held its second session, calling on the Ministerial Declaration to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and “revitalise global partnership for sustainable development.” 2015 was to be a pivotal year, with both the establishing of the new Sustainability Goals and the Climate Summit in Paris.

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