French President Macron’s recent statements – as he hosted the Paris Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, which he organized – read like a formative charter statement for the creation of the United Nations-based Ministry of the Future (MotF) – the fictional organization at the center of eponymously-titled speculative fiction novel by Kim Stanley Robinson.
Featured Image: OpenAI’s DALL-E with the prompt “Depict the Ministry of the Future headquarters under attack by Ecoterrorists”
Background: Speculative Fiction as Strategic Foresight
“…some of the most gripping scenes in the book are the Ministry of the Future conference room discussions…”
For the uninitiated, The protagonist of the Ministry of the Future (MofF) is an Irish economist – a late-career woman, on the brink of retirement, who has been chosen to lead the MotF, which comes with a quirky and talented team of scientists, biologists, data scientists, and global economists – amongst other inter-disciplinarians from the private sector, academic and public sector. Yes, it is science fiction, but a book with a banker as the main protagonist – whose core social network is within the IMF and the World Bank and includes the Finance Ministers of every country in the world – well, this is super geek, super fanboy science fiction stuff – that is deeply human and gripping – and that reads, in the end, like masterful non-fiction reporting from the future.
Robinson just gets something fundamentally, intuitively right in this work – with just enough quant to validate the lack of a failure of imagination to communicate some of the bad news that may await us in this inevitable future.
The most impressive narrative structure that the author navigates, on the brink of rigid doctrine, is a storytelling spine throughout the book that – while crypto and blockchain are real and lasting in this speculative future – foundational, global monetary and financial institutions are going to need to be lasting in order for the human race to get through this poly-crisis period in history.
And while the author is not an institutionalist per see (there is plenty of extremism and violence in the book) this is a clear argument that it is these institutions of global monetary and fiscal policy that will need to survive, reformulated to collaborate with new systems of value creation, exchange, and storage – and with some enforcement latitude and muscle – to get the planet through the climate crisis.
As a result, the hero of the novel is a late-career, Irish, female banker, and monetary policy wonk – headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland – who leads the Ministry of the Future organization – and some of the most gripping scenes in the book are the Ministry of the Future conference room discussions between her and her team.
What is the Ministry of the Future? (by OpenAI’s ChatGPT)
“…the novel serves as a thought-provoking exploration of the potential role of such an institution in addressing the pressing global challenges…”
“The Ministry of the Future is a fictional institution created by author Kim Stanley Robinson in his novel titled “The Ministry for the Future,” published in 2020. The novel presents a near-future scenario in which the international community establishes the Ministry of the Future as a means to address the urgent challenges posed by climate change.
In the book, the Ministry of the Future is an organization based in Zurich, Switzerland, with a mandate to advocate for and work towards global solutions to the climate crisis. Its primary objective is to represent the interests of future generations and ecosystems, advocating for policies and actions that mitigate climate change and promote sustainability.
The Ministry of the Future operates as an independent entity, utilizing various tools and strategies to achieve its goals. This includes diplomatic negotiations, economic interventions, technological innovations, and even direct action when necessary. The ministry acts as a catalyst for change, working alongside governments, corporations, and grassroots organizations to push for a sustainable and equitable future.
While the Ministry of the Future is a fictional creation, the novel serves as a thought-provoking exploration of the potential role of such an institution in addressing the pressing global challenges of climate change and environmental degradation.”
With The Ministry of the Future narrative in mind, take a moment to read this recent interview with French President Emmanuel Macron by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria as he hosted in late June 2023 the inaugural Summit for a New Global Financing Pact – which, again, reads like a formative charter statement for the creation of the MotF.
French President Emmanuel Macron at the 2023 Summit for a New Global Financing Pact
“…we have to address this narrative of the double standard, otherwise, it will be used…to create an alternative multilateral order…”
Fareed Zakaria (CNN Host, Fareed Zakaria GPS): I was in Paris this week for an interview with French President Emmanuel Macron. On Thursday and Friday, he hosted a summit. Bringing together dozens of world leaders and hundreds of other stakeholders to seek new ways of funding the fight against climate change and extreme poverty. We met on Friday morning on the sidelines of the summit. Before the events of the Russian Rebellion were known.
Mr. President, a pleasure to have you again.
Emmanuel Macron (French President): Thank you for being here in Paris.
Zakaria: Let’s talk about this conference (The Summit for a New Global Financing Pact): 55 heads of government, heads of state here, trying to get some kind of agreement about what to do about climate change, about debt relief, poverty reduction.
Isn’t the fundamental problem you face that in the wealthy countries of the world, the domestic politics right now does not allow for a massive expansion of aid, and you need a lot of money to solve the kind of problems you’re talking about?
Macron: Look, I think this summit is a very important moment for at least two reasons, if I may say. The first one is geopolitics. There is a big risk of a global divide. Because of the war in Ukraine and the whole dynamic. And this divide is a “West against the rest”. And this narrative is pushed by some big countries, I would say, for several reasons.
But listening to a lot of leaders during the past year, I was very upset by this narrative of a double standard: A lot of leaders in this world said to us, you have a lot of billions for Ukraine. But when the question is to fix poverty, climate change, and climate vulnerability in our country, it takes years or decades to find a few million.
This is quite true. I think we are right to do what we are doing for Ukraine because we are fighting for international law, for our liberty and our principles, and for a country being aggressed. But let’s be clear we were not sufficiently efficient vis-a-vis the South and a lot of countries facing poverty and climate change at the same time.
So we have to address this narrative of the double standard, otherwise, it will be used by some of those to create an alternative multilateral order – new financial institutions, new global order – and to say the World Bank, the IMF even the United Nations are no more efficient to fix our big issues. Let’s create something else. This is the number one reason for — for me. This forum gathering from the U.S. to China to South Africa, Brazil, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, the Europeans, and so on. A lot of countries – very poor to very rich – to build together a new consensus.
“…this new consensus is precisely to fix…this question…and to find new instruments and new mobilization.”
The second objective of this summit is precisely to fix a new consensus. Because we created our financial institutions in a world where more than half of these countries didn’t exist. They are not fairly represented. And at that time the challenge was not at the magnitude they are facing.
Poverty and inequality increased during the past few years and the Covid crisis – plus the food crisis now – had a huge impact on poverty in a lot of these countries. And the climate change and biodiversity crisis have huge impacts on these countries and impact on all of us because we will never fix this issue if we don’t address the issue vis-a-vis the emerging, developing, and poor countries. And this new consensus is precisely to fix – with them – this question, this nexus, poverty, biodiversity climate – and to find new instruments and new mobilization.
And we are designing this new consensus for people and planet around four principles to be clear.
Number one: Nobody should be put in a situation to choose between poverty and biodiversity and climate. This is unacceptable morally, but this is bad for these countries and for us, because a lot of these countries are absolute treasures for us in terms of biodiversity – and absolutely key for our fight against CO2 emissions If they start deforesting or keep on deforesting, the impact for the whole planet is huge. So, principle number one, they have to fight together against poverty, climate change, consequence, and for biodiversity.
Second: We have to respect each country on its own path in order to fix this challenge. This is why this is much more a contract by a country to be negotiated than a sort of role model to be implemented for everybody.
Third: We need much more public money, much more investment from rich countries, and much better utilization by the IMF and the World Bank. And I think here we signed a new roadmap for the IMF on World Bank – better coordination, better leverage, more exposure – which is absolutely key. And this is a transformational moment. Better coordination with public development banks. And yesterday we set up the first political summit finance in common with all public development banks and multilateral institutions from China to the U.S., the Europeans, the emerging countries, the Saudis, and so on. So: more public funding.
And fourth: We do need more private money to fix these issues in a lot of this country. And the World Bank has committed to having a leverage of at least one: for one dollar of public money, we have at least one dollar of private money being invested. This is key. And this is why we are channeling all these liquidities the sovereign funds, asset managers, and private equities part of this world – to be channeled to these countries and these projects. What do they need? They need first loss mechanisms, new guarantees, and new innovative financing in order to take the risk in these different countries. This is what we are fixing in this summit.
Zakaria: Next on GPS, Emmanuel Macron said the quiet part out loud in April when he said Europe needs strategic autonomy not to be tied to China or America. I ask him about that when we come back.
Macron on “Strategic Autonomy”
“For me, it’s very important to have a much more autonomous Europe and European Union.”
Zakaria: Paris and Washington have a special relationship. After all, France was the first military ally of the yet-to-be-formed United States during the Revolutionary War. But will that relationship hold? Or will France and its neighbors find another path? After a three-day visit to China in April, President Macron told reporters that Europe needed what he called strategic autonomy.
He didn’t want the continent to be a vassal or follower of either China or America. Here’s more of my interview with the French President.
Zakaria: Let’s talk about China. You had a very important trip to China, and after you came back, you said some things that provoked a certain amount of opposition in Europe and particularly the United States, most specifically, your comment on Taiwan. So I want to ask you, you said that, you know, Europe needs strategic autonomy. It should not be a vassal of either China or the U.S. And on Taiwan, we should be careful not to accelerate a crisis that is not ours.
Mike Gallagher, the head of the China Committee in the House of Representatives, said these comments are disgraceful. Is there anything you want to clarify or change about what you said?
Macron: Look, I was very clear and I want to be clear. First, on Taiwan, we are in favor of the status quo – – which means we are dead against any aggression and we do respect the existing model this is what I reiterated with President Xi Jinping, and understand, this is exactly the position of President Biden.
Second, I never put France in a sort of equal distance visit with China and the U.S. We are allies in NATO but through our history with the U.S., We do share the same values. We are economic competitors, but we are closely linked by history, alliance and human relations, and friendship.
We want to have the best possible relation with China. We have to work with China to fix climate change, the biodiversity crisis, and a lot of conflict in this world. It’s clear that we don’t share all the same — all the same values — and we have very strict differences on human rights and so on. But we want to find the right way to respect each other. And we are a competitor, and our willingness is to include China in the global order.
This is exactly what we are doing here at this conference. So this is just to clarify this sort of perception that China and the U.S. could be put at the same level vis-a-vis, which is not the case, but I want to insist on the point: For me, it’s very important to have a much more autonomous Europe and European Union. Why? Because it’s useful for the global order. I think it’s useful even for the U.S. It’s useful to have a more powerful Europe being in the capacity to fix conflicts at its border.
“…we should not push the Chinese to overreact in the short run.”
I think we are very lucky to have a U.S. administration ready to engage in Ukraine today. Would it be the case in a few years or in a few decades? I’m not sure. The Europeans have to build – themselves – their capacity to preserve peace on their territory and in their neighborhood.
Second, I want us, for our citizens, to be in a situation to be independent in terms of technology, defense, energy, I would say the key structures of normal life. Why? Because nobody knows what could happen in the rest of the world.
And if you are dependent on one country, you can be put in a very tricky situation the day you have a leadership in this country that decides to completely flip-flop. And it did happen – and guess what? And I experienced that. So I don’t want to be put in such a situation again. So I think it’s fair as a European to be very pushy for more autonomy. It’s useful for the U.S. from a defense point of view, because this is burden sharing and it’s useful for the global order because it’s having for the U.S. and an ally, being in a situation to discuss with some other people and big power–in which — with which it is more difficult for the U.S.
So I think it’s not a lack of respect or disgraceful vis a vis the United States what I said. And by the way, I discussed with President Biden before and after my trip, and we were very clear, and I can say that you have a President who is extremely clear regarding China and very sensible regarding this big interest and is not pushing for an increase of the conflictuality.
And this is my last point on China and your question. My main objective was to say: through different initiatives and non-coordinated initiatives, we should not push the Chinese to overreact in the short run.
“If there is no agreement between China and the U.S….it is impossible to build a global agenda and to fix these issues.”
Zakaria: After you made those remarks about Taiwan, almost, it seemed by coincidence, a poll came out in which they asked Europeans whether they would be willing to fight in Taiwan — over Taiwan. And overwhelmingly the people in Europe said, no. Do you think that vindicates the point you were making about Taiwan?
Macron: No. I mean, I’m always very cautious with polls because sometimes they are good, and sometimes they are bad. And I think you have to design your strategy referring to them as well as the long-term interest of everybody.
I think we have to be very strict on our values and perspective and global order. But I think this world needs less conflictuality because the top priority of our agenda is to fix global problems. I think for me, the top priority of the global agenda is trying to fix the existing crisis, fighting against inequalities. And fixing climate change and biodiversity. Here are the key challenges of the decades to come, but especially this decade. I would add to this building a good framework and common regulation on artificial intelligence.
Here are the key elements of a global agenda. To deliver on this agenda, we need cooperation, and especially we need cooperation between China and the U.S. We did sign the Paris Agreement because President Xi and President Obama found an agreement a few months before.
If there is no agreement between China and the U.S. on all these topics, it’s impossible to build a global agenda and to fix these issues.
Here are my top priorities. This is why I think for the critical elements where you will increase divisions and conflictuality and tensions between the U.S. and China, we should try to moderate them, to find a way to — I mean–discuss quietly and build the relevant forum to decrease tensions – because our priority should be to fix these ones.
Zakaria: Mr. President, always a pleasure to have you on.
Macron: This is mine. Thank you, my friend. Thank you.
Zakaria: Thank you, sir. (1)
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