Can multilateralism survive the planetary crises?

What happens to international cooperation when the crises it was built to manage begin to outrun it? Can institutions designed in one era govern a planet transformed in another?

The past few years have placed the multilateral system under extraordinary strain. A succession of record-breaking global temperatures, accelerating biodiversity loss, and pollution's mounting toll on human health, collectively termed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) the 'triple planetary crisis' – the climate crisis, the nature and land loss crisis, as well as the pollution and waste crisis – confront a system of international cooperation already contending with geopolitical rupture, contested authority, and shrinking resources.

During a year featuring a number of key talks – including the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification negotiations (UNCCD COP17) in Mongolia, and as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP17) convenes in Armenia followed by the UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP31) in Türkiye, as well as ongoing negotiations on plastic pollution – the gap between what the planetary crisis demands and what multilateral institutions deliver has become the defining question of environmental diplomacy.

In this lecture, delivered just days before UN Day, Ms Inger Andersen, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNEP, examines whether the machinery of environmental multilateralism can be remade to meet the moment: what has been achieved, what has failed, and where the future of cooperation on the planetary crises will be decided. 

Returning to SOAS, where she earned her Master's degree in Development Economics, Ms Andersen reflects on whether multilateralism deserves to survive and, more importantly, what it must become to meet the demands of the planetary crises. In this lecture, she asks whether we can reimagine multilateralism.

Ms Andersen will be welcomed and introduced by Professor Elisa Van Waeyenberge, Provost of SOAS. The lecture will be followed by a conversation and audience Q&A led by Professor Laura Hammond, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research and Knowledge Exchange.