Workshop 1 – Is technology the only way out ?
In Copenhagen , people and governments seemed to agree for the first time on the urge to tackle global warming and to reduce carbon emissions by any means. However, the multilateral consensus on global solutions that would involve many actors appears increasingly difficult to obtain. That’s why countries tend to consider that the absolute solutions are green technologies that are spreading fast. Indeed, « cleantechs » could be a new horizon, that could conciliate the imperatives of the economy and the ecology.
Can technological innovation take up every challenge it will have to face in the next coming century ? Or is it a new Babel , true myth when new social bonds are constantly developing accross the world and when emerges the necessity to regulate new financial instruments ?
We will question the pertinence and the risks of such evolution in this workshop : while the detrimental effects of a too invasive progress are pointed out, are we able to use innovation to increase wellbeing ? Would the light for humanity be green ?
Workshop 2 – Governance of change and change of governance
Tuesday 18/11/2010 from 2.45 to 4.30 pm
The beginning of the XXIst century was punctuated by social, ecological, economic, monetary or agricultural crises and catastrophes. Simultaneously, numerous social groups and a few governments were pleading for a new, different, innovative and desirable governance.
This new way of leading, living and progressing is currently more a governance in reaction to the crisis than a governance to prevent it. Are we building a curative governance to face the crisis instead of a positive and preventive one ?
Do we have time to build a sustainable world or are we trapped in the succession of catastrophes and only trying to face it ? Is the risk becoming the fundamental value of our societies ?
Besides, can ’t we find today inventive and multiform governance that reshapes the distribution of power and responsabilities ?
Workshop 3 - Keys to a contributive economy
Friday 19/11/2010 from 11 to 12.45 am
Innovations, whether they are technogical, social, legal, political or economic, have to go hand in hand with the individual and collective assimilation or they will be perceived not as solutions to the crisis but as the worsening of already existing disparities. Ourcomplex societies engender tensions, malaise and exclusion so in order to work towards a « positive complexity », we have to foster a contributive economy that would rely on three ethical levels: the universal, the specific and the singular.
It requires thinking about moderation before harshness, long view before acceleration, anticipation before reaction. Having in mind humanism and not apocalypse.
How can we encourage the society and the business world to answer to the needs instead of creating some more ?
How to include poor countries in this contributive economy that represents their onlychance to avoid chaos ?
Workshop 4 – The growing duties of entreprises
Friday 19/11/2010 from 2.45 to 4.30 pm
The line between public sector and private sector was the key principle to our social and economic organization for two centuries. At the dawn of a new millenary, the demand for the respect of general interest and of public commons is gainig in strength, hence the necessity of collective services always more efficient. Public collectivities, weakened by their effort to prevent the society from suffering too much from the fiancial crises, are impoverished. Firms become aware of their duties to the society on the whole, not only their employees. Is sutainable development the concept that nurtures this evolution ?
What are the new paths followed by emerging countries ? Are developed countries stillable to invent new paths ?
Conclusion - Does sustainable development help the emergence of new politicians ?
Friday 19/11/2010 from 4.45 to 5.30 pm
Everybody agrees on protecting the Earth but there is still a debate on the best way to do it. This debate is as virulent as was the one on how to guarantee social rights, but it cannot be superated only thanks to a culture of sharing and cooperation.
Does the immence or the actuality of catastrophes trigger ethical clivages more than political ones ?