The Rome Roundtable
16-19 June, 2024
Our global project on
‘Shaping Global Governance, Climate and Nature’
was launched in Rome – with some important help!
With the personal blessing of His Holiness, Pope Francis, today in Rome we launched an initiative to help renew faltering global governance, with a particular focus on systemic renewal to more effectively address the global challenges of climate change and the restoration of nature.
The launch came after three days of faith-enabled discussion and dialogue at our Rome Roundtable meeting, involving forty invited leaders from every continent and walk of life, representing global business and investors, global institutions, governments, faiths, civil society, think tanks, NGO’s and academia. It built upon our preparatory global roundtable discussions over the past 6 months, including, most recently, in Beijing.
The Rome Roundtable culminated in an Audience with Pope Francis, building upon his previous endorsement of the work of the Global Foundation. It was moderated by our Leadership Group, under the guidance of our Global Advisory Council, which also met in Rome.
Keynote guest speakers framed the major topics for discussion at the roundtable and each made significant contributions to the outcomes and to our future plans:
A centrepiece of the Rome Roundtable was a half day session dedicated to ‘Renewing the Global Financial System, to Better Serve Climate and Nature Outcomes’, led by Dr Steve Waygood, Chief Sustainable Finance Officer, Aviva Investors, a Key Partner of the Foundation and global advocate for major reform of the international financial system, to make it more fit for purpose in enabling effective global action.
Overall, the Rome meeting identified the major shifts that are required in the orchestration of global efforts to collaborate, govern and effect timely action to address climate change and the restoration of nature, at scale, if humanity is to secure a sustainable planet. Such global mobilisation is possible, but it is not evident today. Global, national and local efforts need to be elevated and integrated, faster and at a much larger scale than at present.
In this respect, the roundtable underlined the important contribution of the Global Foundation, as a global catalyst and as a high-level convening platform that could help to further mobilise and align often disparate global actors. Notably, it emphasised the vital leadership role that enlightened business is willing to play in addressing the great global challenges of our time, working in true partnership with all sectors of society.
Our signature project, ‘Shaping Global Governance, Climate and Nature’, to be overseen by a Steering Committee, has identified and is already mobilising and aligning an expanding network of those in positions of influence who agree to affiliate with the initiative, drawn from five key sectors of society, namely: global talents, global business, global institutions, global civil society and governments.
Over the coming months, subject to securing levels of support, we will convene an ongoing series of global face to face and online forums that will help to bring these leaders closer together, so that they are encouraged to move forward in concert, to enact systemic change at the global level.
Global Leadership Team
*Mark and Sharan are co-chairs of our Steering Committee for Shaping Agreement on Global Governance, Climate and Nature Project.
Background
Over the past 25 years, the Global Foundation has become a trusted platform for international dialogue about pressing global challenges, including but not limited to climate change and nature. Some of the Foundation’s past achievements in the areas of global governance, climate and nature include:
Forming a crucial part of the Foundation’s ‘Shaping
agreement on Global Governance, Climate and Nature’ project, the Global Foundation convened a global roundtable meeting in Beijing, comprising its partners, supporters and guests, from 25-27 May 2024.
The roundtable took place against a backdrop of improving bilateral relations between China and Australia and just ahead of the visit to Australia by Chinese Premier Li Qiang, to meet with the Australian Prime Minister, Hon Anthony Albanese.
The Shaping Agreement on Global Governance, Climate and Nature project was announced at the State of the World Roundtable and endorsed by Ms Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations. The project is led by Dr Mark Cutifani CBE and Ms Sharan Burrow AC and will consist of at least ten global roundtables over the next three years.
In June 2023, the Foundation co-convened and co-chaired a meeting at the prestigious Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences that in many ways helped create the template for the new global governance project. That meeting at the Vatican concluded that:
1. Reorienting economies towards the common good to raise human well-being and planetary flourishing 繁荣 (fánróng), and to reduce inequalities of opportunities and outcomes. In this perspective, the redesign of the current System of National Accounts should be pursued not only to go “beyond GDP,” but also to build a new system focused on the measurement of well-being now and prospectively in the future. New measurements of a Fraternal and Sustainable Economy for the Common Good must ensure that the well-being of humanity and of the planet are at the core of the SDGs, and are in line with the philosophy of the 2030 Agenda and the concept of integral ecology as defined in Laudato Si’.
2. Promoting new global governance arrangements to oversee the sustainability of the global environmental commons, including the climate, the oceans, biodiversity, world heritage sites, and to ensure a fair and just transition that advantages the poor. The formulation of such arrangements should be affiliated with the United Nations and its many institutions and should involve governments as well as religious groups, civil society, enlightened businesses and investors, educators, students, and young people around the world.
The Assisi Accord meeting of May 2022 brought together figures of international significance from diverse professional, social, and religious backgrounds to reach agreement on how to reform global financial architecture to incentivise investment in climate change action and other areas of sustainable development. Signatories agreed to harness global finance to work towards delivering the Paris Agreement and the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda. The Accord is an ongoing document that recognises the role played by the global financial sector in environmental degradation while also advocating for it to be part of the solution.
At its second Rome Roundtable, the Foundation brought together some of the world’s most powerful actors from business, governments, institutions, academia, faiths, and civil society to discuss cooperative globalisation, with a focus on sustainable development. The meeting was addressed by Pope Francis, who endorsed our work and commitment to cooperative globalisation. The Rome Roundtable also brought together the founding partners of the World Benchmarking Alliance, a not-for-profit that ranks and measures business contributions towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Foundation brought together China, the United States and Australia to align on global climate change policy, first by hosting the Australian Prime Minister in Beijing, then by initiating three-way follow-up discussions with the officials in Washington DC a few months later.
