Platform for Survival

THE PLATFORM FOR SURVIVAL
Toronto, Canada, 31 May 2018

The human population faces significant risks from at least six current sources: wars and weapons (especially nuclear); global warming; famine; pandemics, massive radiation exposure, and cyberattacks. They are so inter-dependent that none of them can be solved without addressing one or more of the others, yet there are known ways of reducing all these risks. Therefore, we demand that our public institutions adopt all of the following policies to protect humanity.

War and Weapons — Especially Nuclear

1. All states owning or hosting nuclear weapons shall immediately de-alert them and commit to no-first-use.
2. All states, including those in NATO, shall sign, ratify, and within 10 years comply with the TPNW.1Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
3. All states shall reduce their militaries and not plan war for “national security.”
4. All states shall develop a UN Emergency Peace Service to protect civilians and respond to crises.
5. All states shall ratify and fully implement the Arms Trade Treaty.
6. UN Convention on CCW and all states shall prohibit developing or deploying lethal autonomous weapons.2The “Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons” is the body that can negotiate rules banning “killer robots.”

Global Warming

7. All states shall swiftly adopt maximally stringent efficiency standards for cars, trucks, ships, and aircraft.
8. The International Code Council3The International Code Council is an association with over 64,000 members. It develops model codes and standards used in the design, build and compliance process to construct safe, sustainable, affordable and resilient structures. Some countries use its standards instead of developing their own. About 40 percent of emissions come from existing buildings, which could be 80% more efficient. Currently, design is done with consideration for payback by cost from utility savings. However, higher carbon fuels cost less right now than renewable energy, so buildings are being built to use fossil fuels instead of lower carbon fuel sources. They are not designed to be ready to use renewable energy sources. shall adopt stringent performance-based building codes.
9. All states shall adopt norms and procedures for the production, recovery, and recycling of materials.
10. All states shall accelerate R&D of HVDC4Research and Development of High voltage direct current electric grids electric grids, energy storage, and Demand System Management.
11. All states shall incorporate environmental considerations in developing national dietary food guides.
12. All states shall negotiate to preserve and protect forests and enhance carbon sinks.

Famine

13. All states shall accelerate SDG5Sustainable Development Goals efforts to end poverty and enable all to obtain food and potable water.
14. All states shall support improvements of soil health for resilient food production and carbon sequestration.

Pandemics

15. WHO shall promote nations’ use of Incident Management System6“Incident Management System” is an approach to disaster management developed by firefighters. for early detection and response to pandemics.
16. UN shall adopt a ‘one health approach’ integrating veterinary and environmental science7Pandemics often result from contact between humans and animals, whereby a virus jumps from an animal to a person. This risk is increasing because people are cutting down forests and living closer to the animals they displace, and because global warming enables some animals and insects to move into formerly temperate zones. to mitigate pandemics.

Radiation Exposure

17. To reduce radiation exposure all states shall shift immediately to efficient electricity from renewable energy*8recognizing that phasing out all nuclear power plants, including subsidies, and uranium mining may be an outcome in the future.
18. All states shall prioritize the long-term control and safe storage of radioactive wastes, with public review.

Cyber Attacks

19. The UN shall declare cyberspace a peaceful commons and create a binding treaty for international cyber norms.
20. Manufacturers of ICT hardware and software shall be liable for negligent security failures that cause harm.

Enabling Measures

21. Financial organizations shall support a just transition9Actors: The April 2017 version of the Security & Sustainability Guide (SSG) identifies 52 finance organizations: G7 and G20,
Actions include: Tobin tax, universal financial transactions tax, convening World conference to design a global financial architecture, including agreement on taxing wealth and redistribution. Canada’s Just Transition Task Force is now getting underway. to a low carbon future, the SDGs, and peace.
22. Civil society alliances shall bring justice priorities to the agendas of major global organizations.10Actors: World Social Forum, LEAP, Climate Action International, ecumenical and interfaith coalitions, CCIC, IUCN and other INGOs.
23. Sub-national governments shall exercise leadership in global processes, networks, and institutions.11the Bretton Woods organizations (IMF, World Bank),the Belmont Forum (of funding agencies), Bloomberg New Energy Finance, World Economic Forum (Davos), Climate Bonds Initiative, European Investment Bank, OECD’s Financial Action Task Force , Global Innovation Fund, Green Climate Fund (UNFCCC), UN Financing for Development), Green Investment Bank (UK), and the UNEP Finance Initiative; and The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures.
Actions: Use opportunities available around meetings and processes of organizations like G7, G20, UNFCCC, UNGA, ECOSOC, WTO, IMF, World Bank annual meetings, World Economic Forum, national governments.
Actors: C40, ICLEI, World Parliament of Mayors, Mayors for Peace, UNFCCC, UN Habitat, UN Global Compact Cities Programme, and 100 Resilient Cities (a $100m initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation), Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Canadian Urban Institute, The Urban Renaissance Institute at the University of Toronto
24. Investors and regulators shall compel business12Actors: Business-led Groups such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Ethical Groups such as the UN’s Global Compact, Broadened Accounting Groups seeking new and appropriate measures, Certifying Organizations, Green Investing Groups, Sustainability Consultants, and Green Business Publishing, OHCHR-Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, Stock Market disclosures; Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), G20, Trade Agreements, OECD, WEF to meet stringent human rights and climate standards.
25. Social movements and states shall prioritize Sustainable Common Security13Sustainable Common Security priorities are: to develop a common agenda that covers immediate threats, underlying causes and long-term consequences; to build bridges of understanding, support and solidarity in a movement of movements; to address shared global challenges; and, to counter the national security narrative of nuclear deterrence and further preparation for war, with steps toward a more effective peace system.
Actions might include: work for military transformation, economic conversion and progressive UN reform including a UN Emergency Peace Service, a UN Parliamentary Assembly, the strengthening of the International Criminal Court and support for equal participation of women in all UN processes and decision making to address shared global challenges to address shared global challenges.

Click on the footnote number — where provided — for further information or clarification.

Everyone and every group is invited to sign on this website to endorse and adopt this list of demands as part of your own agenda. However, it may be amended or shortened only by a future review conference, to be announced in advance.

Signatories

The list below includes people who signed via the website. If you signed in person at the Forum, please let us know by email, and we will gladly add your name.

Parween Irani
Betty-Jane Antanavicius
Metta Spencer
Robin Collins
Dr. Richard Denton
Sylvie Lemieux
Georgina Bourke
Joanna Santa Barbara
Scott Prosser
Ken Simons
Lester Kurtz
Ronald St. John
Laval Martin
Liz Couture
David Langille
Anthony S Arrott
Peter Jones
Abraham Weizfeld
Jan Slakov
Eryl Court
Paul McArthur
Earl Turcotte
Janet Nicol
Anna Jane McIntyre
Adam Wynne
Marianne Larsen
Vinay Jindal
Peter Meincke
Murat Guvenc
Jason McCartney
Lloyd Helferty
Barbara Birkett

Sign the Platform for Survival

If you choose “yes” to the “add me to your mailing list” option, you will also be able to: create a profile page for yourself (or your organization) on the website; make comments as a registered user; and have access to special features such as polls.

Our goal is to greatly reduce the risk of six global threats—


Because these threats are causally inter-dependent, adequate solutions may not emerge incrementally through ordinary political adaptations, but may require a simultaneous, comprehensive systemic change. Such a sweeping transformation may be possible only after a global shock renders the urgency of our humankind’s predicament inescapable. But we can think ahead now to identify the systemic changes that may become possible only then.

Method: to increase public concern about the dangers, identify the most promising solutions, and require global institutions to make the necessary structural and economic changes. We foresee three phases.

  • Phase I: Creation of a one-page list of 25 public policy changes that will either directly or indirectly reduce the risks. The indirect measures are the “Enabling Measures” — some changes that are requisites for enacting the direct measures. Phase I was completed on May 31 when a foroum in Toronto adopted the “Platform for Survival” by consensus.
  • Phase II is ongoing and should be completed by January 1, 2019. It has two aspects:
    • The elaboration through an open, democratic process of the rationale for the 25 planks of our platform. This is being performed by teams of researchers and writers who will collaborate online in writing wikis on each plank of the Platform for Survival, and suggest additional relevant measures.
    • The creation of networks of experts on these six global threats who will hold videoconferences to address the inter-dependence of their various projects.
  • Phase III begins in 2019 and will be a campaign to reach a much wider audience and mobilize public support for the Platform. Phase III may include future review conferences, which will have sole authority to revise the Platform for Survival.

New participants are welcome. Here are ways of joining Project Save the World:

  • Read and sign the Platform for Survival. Click on its page icon. Please supply your email address, which only other members of Project Save the World can access.
  • Read and watch videos about the threat(s) that interest you most. This website offers pages showing bibliographies and video discussions of the threats, the enabling measures, and (eventually) the intersections among the threats.
  • Attend a meetup dinner in a Toronto restaurant if you can. These occur on the fourth Tuesday of every month.
  • Participate in a Zoom conference call discussion on the last Sunday of every month. Call in from your own webcam, tablet, or smartphone from 8 to 9 pm Eastern Time by entering the following link on your browser: https://zoom.us/j/9108970203. Make sure your microphone and video camera are not muted so we can all hear and see well.
  • Discuss the six global threats, the Enabling Measures, and (eventually) the Intersections among the threats by reading, and writing to, the comments section on the pages dealing with these topics. Discussions are moderated.
  • Join a wiki team. Each threat page will include a list of several “planks” — public policy proposals on the Platform for Survival. We need to write an article explaining each such plank, and are forming teams of about 4 or 5 writers to do so by jointly composing wikis.
    Everyone who has been authorized to contribute to any one of the wikis is entitled to participate in formulating any of the other 24 wikis, though most writers will contribute to only one or two of them.

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