Together, recession and climate change mark the end of an era

It’s not globalisation that is threatened by the economic crisis, says Dirk Messner of the German Development Institute, but the age of industrialisation that dates back 200 years. He sets out ideas for a new approach to global policymaking

An era is drawing to a close with the global economic crisis – but not, as many critics of globalisation may think, the age of globalisation. What we now see going down is the international order in which Western societies were the centre and the measure of all things. The age of industrialisation was based on the delusion of infinite natural resources and the world’s infinite capacity to absorb greenhouse gas emissions and the illusion that despite accelerating globalisation, the nation-state could somehow just muddle on. 

Now our concern must be to create a truly viable and sustainable form of globalisation more suited to the challenges of the 21st century. Today’s worldwide economic debacle is opening a window of opportunity for us to put these central challenges at the top of the international political agendas with four major trends at the heart of global transformation. But to have a hand in shaping these changes and protecting its interests, Europe now needs to define its own role as a global player . . . .

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Autumn 2009

by Dirk Messner