Global warming, climate change, and the loss of biodiversity is currently by far the most important and most urgent “security threat” to humanity. Global “greenhouse gas” (GHG) emissions is currently by far the most important “key performance indicator” (KPI) for geopolitics in our view. (see the following graph from “Our World in Data”, https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions)
Global GHG emissions, after minor reductions (ca. 4%) due to the significant political interventions to mitigate global COVID-19 pandemics in the year 2020, are still (significantly) raising (ca. 3% p.a. since 1950). Whatever politics distracting from actions to reduce global GHG emissions is very likely directly killing potentially (not thousands, not millions, but) billions of people.
This is our core finding and resume from witnessing latest geopolitical developments (most important: COP29 in Baku, BRICS 2024 summit in Russia – cf. https://infobrics.org, 61st Munich Security Conference (MSC), new USA administration taking over).
Currently we are heading towards a “situation out of human control” due to activated unstoppable self-reinforcing cycles with global warming. This will happen after reaching so called “tipping points”.
Undoubtedly, humans will survive. The (geo)political question is, how many?
From a humanitarian perspective, there is only one possible answer to that question – as many as possible.
Based on Article 3 of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights“, everyone has at least the right to life and there is no price tag for a human life. Actually we know, resources are not distributed based on such an understanding. Nothing justifies humans killing other humans, nothing. A “deal” is never a sustainable approach, not within business, certainly not within politics. Actually, good democratic (geo)politics is pretty much the exact opposite of a “deal”.
A war is dramatic and great for all kind of populism, since the killing happens directly. Global warming, climate change, and the loss of biodiversity in difference to that is slow, silent, complex and “kills” indirectly. Certainly rather low interesting and rather boring for populistic & reductive politics and media.
No one actually needs “Tesla”, no one actually needs highly populistic and reductive “information-services” like “X” (former “Twitter”), etc. We are very confident, the (global) market delivers fantastic substitute products & services and “consumers” & investors are taking and will take good purchase and investment decisions on that to “solve this issue”. Every single purchase and investment decision is a strong (geo)political act.
There is no healthy substitution to the concept of a “Democratic Republic”. Based on all the historic insights we have, “Democratic Republics” perform best in terms of developing peace, wealth, and prosperity (cf. 2024 “Nobel Prize” within Economic Sciences).
The main issue with populism is its distraction from the actual issues we have
The main issue with currently raising (global) populistic and nationalistic politics is its distraction from and its devastating negative impact on actually solving the main global threat, issue, and task – the mitigation of global warming, climate change, and the loss of biodiversity by fast and significantly (minus 40% within 5 years, minus 75% within 25 years) reducing global GHG emissions.
The threat of global warming, climate change, and the loss of biodiversity is most dangerous, because the global climate system reacts slow, inert, with delay (we see a delay of ca. 30 years between GHG emission and actual temperature rise), and dynamic (we expect an exponential temperature rise within the upcoming years). Human cognitive abilities perform bad with the “management” of such inert and dynamic threats. There is no strong direct stimulus (e.g. pictures from people directly dying from global warming, climate change, and the loss of biodiversity), there is no direct correlation between the emission of GHG and heat waves, droughts, hunger & thirst, wildfires, storms & hurricanes, melting ice shields & glaciers, heavy rainfalls & flooding, diseases, a change with ocean currents (e.g. the “Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation” – AMOC), see-level rise, the loss of biodiversity, and violence & war.
So the “art of good (geo)politics” within this context is to understand the complex correlations and to provide simple explanations, answers, and solutions. This demands leadership with the ability for brave conscious reductions to very little and simple core messages, e.g. to prevent the by far greats humanitarian catastrophe within human history and to prevent the “climate system” to become “out of human control”, we all have to significantly reduce GHG emissions from burning fossil fuels (gas, coal, oil) and meat production now.
To provide and reach this, to keep the climate system within balance, we have to reduce global GHG emissions minus ca. 40% within the upcoming 5 years (till 2030), and minus ca. 75% within the upcoming 25 years (till 2050) in comparison to global annual GHG emissions in the year 2019 (cf. “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” – IPCC). Currently we are already 20% off target. (see the following graph)
The emission of GHG is deadly for us humans. With current (geo)politics, there is a very high chance, global population will decrease ca. 40% (ca. 3 billion people) within the upcoming 25 years (till 2050).
Current (geo)politics does not deliver the necessary speed of transformation to actually mitigate this potential humanitarian catastrophe (e.g. cf. Trust s., Saye L., Bettis O., Bedeham G., Hampshire O., Lenton T.M., Abrams, J.F.: “Planetary Solvency – finding our balance with nature. Global risk management for human prosperity“, Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, University of Exeter, January 2025). (cf. “Trans- and interdisciplinary global warming scenario” and see the following graph)
Current (geo)politics leads to mass migration with very likely up to 1 billion becoming refugees and up to 2 billion people directly being killed within the upcoming 25 years (till 2050) due to the impact of global warming, climate change, and the loss of biodiversity on our nature and livelihoods. This will include dramatic humanitarian suffering, violence, hostility, force, killing and war with billions of people desperately fighting for survival.
With CO2 sinks are being full, we expect an exponential global temperature rise from now on
Furthermore, latest data shows carbon dioxide (CO2) sinks are being full now (cf. Curran J. C., Curran S. A. 2025: “Natural sequestration of carbon dioxide is in decline: climate change will accelerate”, Weather, Volume: 80, Issue: 3, Pages: 85-87, First published: 15 January 2025, DOI: (10.1002/wea.7668), https://doi.org/10.1002/wea.7668). (see the following graph)
So there is a high chance, the highly respected scenarios from the IPCC are too optimistic. IPCC underestimated
(1) the corruptive power of mimetic forces (greed, vanity, envy, jealousy, group-think) from commercialised societies (e.g. the new “United States of America” administration – currently in charge of ca. 10% of global annual GHG emissions – supports the increase of GHG emissions to support “gross domestic produce” – GDP growth),
(2) the speed & impact of raising global populistic (trash) media (mainly facebook, instagram, X – former twitter, TikTok), and
(3) the slow, inert but dynamic developments of global warming due to self-reinforcing cycles due to the cognitive tendency of “linear projection”.
Global warming, climate change, and the loss of biodiversity demands by far the greatest transformation “project” in human history – ca. 40% reduction of global annual GHG emissions within the upcoming 5 years (till 2030) and ca. 75% within the upcoming 25 years (till 2050). This demands a radical shift
- away from fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil – ca. 75% of GHG emissions) towards renewable & regenerative energy sources (e.g. photovoltaic, wind, water), and
- away from meat production (mainly beef – ca. 20% of global GHG emissions) towards a healthy, mainly plant based global nutrition.
The geopolitical solution for global warming is clear and theoretically “easy”
To deliver such a radical shift, change & transformation, the geopolitical solution is clear and theoretically “easy” in our view. Geopolitics has to provide
- a global binding market for global GHG emissions, and
- a democratic process to determine the “allowed” (traded) global GHG emissions.
We are confident, the global (liberalised) markets will then deliver the needed innovation & transformation with the necessary speed and within time.
But, to actually execute this and to develop such a global GHG emissions market, we need a global working legislative, executive, and justice system. We call this a “Global Democratic Republic” and this is something we currently do not have. This is the root cause for the current (geo)political failing on reducing global GHG emissions.
To mitigate this, we (1 – short term) advocate for a first (direct) global democratic vote on climate actions and (2 – mid term) the development of a “Global Democratic Republic”.
Revenues (taxes) from the GHG emission market can be used to finance the “Global Democratic Republic” institutions (most likely emerging from the “United Nations – UN“).
We are very confident, such a geopolitical approach will deliver significant impact. It will actually fix the most pressing issues within our current globalised society and therefore will be successful. It can succeed over all kind of short term, loud, agitative, pragmatic, programmatic, and nationalistic (geo)political “solution approaches”.
