Paulo Magalhães, Founder and President of the Common Home of Humanity
Kimberly White
Hello and welcome to Common Home Conversations. Today we are joined by Paulo Magalhães, Founder and President of the Common Home of Humanity. Thank you for joining us today, Paolo.
Paulo Magalhães
Thank you. Thank you so much for your invitation, so kind. Thank you.
Kimberly White
So Paulo, can you tell us what inspired you and your organization to launch this global call for a legal framework?
Paulo Magalhães
The main idea, the starting point was when I saw a legal dysfunction one incapacity for law to explain the law, and this happened in 2002, when the oil tanker that crashed near the border between Portugal and Spain, in the north of Portugal, and the crash was on Spanish waters. And the first reaction of the Spanish authorities was to push the boat for Portuguese waters, they tried to push, and after our army sent the boats, and the reality was that there were several boats on the water in the middle of the oil spill and the oil went to both sides. This is when this reality of having one line that is abstract, that is a legal obstruction that divides the sea. The sea, we cannot divide the sea; we cannot, we can divide the space of the sea, but we cannot divide the water; we cannot divide the system; we cannot divide the quality of the water or the fishes. So this is really one incapacity of law to explain the reality of this planet, of this interconnected planet, for so when we do lose the connection between the abstraction and the legal figuration and the reality of the planet, we have to look for solutions. This is what you need a new legal abstraction that is able to represent the interconnections of the planet.
Kimberly White
So, we have had agreements to address the climate crisis such as the Kyoto Protocol, and of course, the Paris Climate accord. However, we're still struggling to move the needle. The annual emissions gap report from the UN environment released last year found that global greenhouse gas emissions must fall by more than 7% each year over the next decade if we're to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. And we recently learned that we have failed to achieve any of the global biodiversity targets set a decade ago. What do you believe has prevented us from moving forward and finding the solution?
Paulo Magalhães
One of the main mistakes is to consider and our mental inability to address the global, you understand? To accept, we can say but to accept and to view that the things are all interconnected. The question is the same problem that I talked about before about the absence of one legal abstraction that is able to represent the interconnects, the interdependence of this planet is the same reason or is the structural reason for not achieving any results, in my view, on the climate emergency, or biodiversity. The question is, when climate for the first time entered the UN discussions in the 80s, the first question that was raised was 'what is climate from a legal point of view.' Climate, as you can imagine, is something absolutely different for international law because climate is not a territory, it is a system; it is more than a system, it is a well-functioning system. It is a pattern of stability of the function of the system that is predictable that we can have seasons, well-defined seasons, and all the years, the same pattern repeats and repeats again. And we have an envelope of temperatures that stay inside these limits of temperature. Climate is for so it's a well-function, a well functioning Earth System. It is a way of functioning of the system that is favorable for humans and other species. And this model, operating model of the system is intangible, it is a software. It's not a territory; it is not the hardware, it is the software.
The great question is that from a legal point of view, we still look at the planet as we did in the 18th century, in the 17th century, in the 16th century, or more. The question is we are still looking at this planet only as a territory, divided between states, where the leftovers of the territories are the global commons. And this is not true. This is not absolutely true. What makes this planet different from all the planets that we know is the system. All the planets have a territory, bigger or smaller than Earth, all the planets have a territory. What the other planets do not have, and we have here on this planet, is the system that supports life. The system, the Earth System in a well-function way or function, is our main heritage. It is our main and most valuable thing that we have on Earth because it supports life and supports us. And for the law, this system does not exist, does not exist because it's intangible, because you cannot divide it, because we cannot appropriate it, we cannot properly privatize these things. And if we can divide the space of the sea, as we have made on the territorial waters, we can divide the space, but we cannot divide the system that operates inside the water of the oceans; we cannot divide the system that operates on the airspace, we can divide space, we cannot divide the system. Okay. And this is the great difference. Because we do not accept that we have a global common without borders, we do not manage climate as a global common. This is the great quest.
And when climate entered in the UN negotiations in the 80s, the first proposal from Malta was to propose to recognize a stable climate as a common heritage of mankind. The question was in 1992, in the Rio summit, the decision was to consider climate change as a common concern of humankind. And this makes all the difference. This is the main reason why we still do not have any results in tackling, tackling climate change, because, with this decision, we decide that climate is not a common good, we decide that climate is an issue, an issue like any issue, and from a legal point of view, no one knows what is a concern from a legal point of view, in terms of flights and in terms of duties. And the main question, because we do not accept that climate is a system that exists in the real world and not an issue, we do not accept that it is a global common and we do not manage it as a global common. And the great question is again, because we do not recognize the stable climate as a global public good, all the benefits that maintain and produce a stable climate do not exist for the law, and for so do not exist for the economy.
For example, the question of Amazon, I call it the paradox of Amazon. Everyone knows that the forest of Amazon is one of the key ecosystems on the planet that maintain and produce a stable climate. This forest has the highest value for humanity. A great question is this value that everyone feels this value, everyone knows about this value, but this value is not visible for the economy. Why? Because when we talk about the value of Amazon, we are talking about the intangible work that these ecosystems and other ecosystems around the world make on the function on the model of operating of the Earth System, on the intangible work of nature, on the chemical changes that the forest made on the air, on the water, on the soil. And these chemical changes, this intangible work does not exist because the common does not exist. From a legal point of view, this work is made in a global legal gap; the global does not exist. Law considers the global commons are only the leftovers of the territories. Sorry, sorry. This planet is more than a territory. No jurist in the world, no legal expert in the world can say that that is not true. The truth is that this planet is more than a territory, and natur...
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