The Tällberg Forum 2008At the Tällberg Forum 2008, this systems understanding will be used in three steps:
- Explore boundary conditions
- Prioritize among “counter-tipping points”.
- Generate concrete ideas and proposals for policy, strategy and institutional de-velopment.
A first question to explore at the Forum is whether key boundary conditions can be defined for the sub-systems of human activity: these are limits that must not be crossed if the health and integrity of the whole is to be safeguarded today and in the future. Here are some examples: How much fresh water can we use? What are the limits to deforestation? Which should be the limit to CO2 concentration in the atmosphere? What are the limits to exploitation of ocean fishing? Which are the foundations of the food chain that must be preserved, both in the oceans and on land? For these questions, there are absolutes, imposed by nature.
Other boundary conditions are those that we impose upon ourselves, with a moral base. The Millennium Development Goals and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are a beginning. But they stop short of bounding the world into a common development process, where rich countries are bound to deliver absolute minimums. These (ethical) boundary conditions refer to equity and economy. They refer to the minimum levels of food, water, energy and security that are morally acceptable, and lead to questions such as: Which minimum level of income can we accept? What are the minimum requirements that any democracy or rule of law, any national constitution must accept? Under which conditions should nations be adopted and included into coming global governance regimes? What roles will civil society have? How can we define growth in both quantitative and qualitative terms? What environmental criteria must become part of our economic calculations? What kind of economic policy can safeguard the balance between economic growth, equity and nature?
The second challenge at the Tällberg Forum is to identify the “counter tipping-points”. These are the policies or actions that can as quickly as possible tip the systems of human activity towards balance with the natural systems. Which are the best existing initiatives, ideas, technologies, designs, etc. that have been identified as ways to solve the problem. Prior to the Forum, a preparatory process will make this inventory, and the task for the Forum will be to prioritize among them to select the ideas that can become the most important counter tipping-points.
The third challenge that the Forum will tackle is to generate concrete ideas and proposals. In the end, it is the way we apply our thinking through new solutions, new products, new technologies, new constitutions and new institutions that shows us the way forward. But in order to be successful, we have to start from the problems, the issues as they have emerged. We would inevitably go wrong if we started from the existing institutions.
The ideas and proposals generated at the Tällberg Forum do not aim to be “finished products”, but rather prototypes. Prototyping is a tool that corporations have used for a long time to organize and focus the work of innovative processes, and especially those dealing with complex systems adaptation. Also, a prototype becomes a very effective communication tool through its embodiment of the ideas it corresponds to, and R&D experts can then be inspired by it and turn it into a new product.
The prototyping at the Forum will be focused on the issue at hand – the governance and management of a sustainable interaction between natural systems and the systems of human activity. The prototyping will be done in small groups of Forum participants – prototyping laboratories – gathering people from different disciplines and with different expertise. The groups can be offered different tasks, questions and ideas, clustered around a number of themes, but they can also choose their own. They should deliver a “result” to be put on the table at the end of the Forum.
Tällberg DeliverablesThe process up to and during the Forum will result in three different deliverables that the Tällberg Foundation will present:
- A strategic position paper (drafted before the Forum, revised afterwards) that defines the systems problem and specifies boundary conditions.
- An inventory of potential counter tipping-points, and the Forum’s prioritization.
- A report from the Forum groups that have worked on the themes.
- A synthesizing analysis including policy recommendations.
A global commonsWhen the participants meet in Tällberg, in the Forum tent on the village commons, with the breathtaking view of nature at its most beautiful, overlooking meadows, Lake Siljan and the mountains beyond, they will create for a few days a “Global commons”. The plenary sessions will gather around a large round negotiating table – with an image of earth on its top – that provides the central metaphor for the discussions. The table helps focus the conversations on the basic question which lies at the heart of the Tällberg Forum: How on earth can we live together?
The negotiating table helps carry the insight that the obstacles ahead are essentially about how to agree between ourselves – how to strike a deal. As we all know, we cannot negotiate with nature, we can only strike deals among ourselves. And that is what now must be done.
Back to part 1Download the concept paper in pdf format