2023-08-28 18:56:17
“Everyone is arguing about climate change and the environment: instead, here we need to find solutions, because the situation is critical and we need collaboration, good will and pragmatism”. This is what Francesco Rutelli, founder and president of the Soft Power Club, warned at the opening of the ‘Soft Power Conference’ at the headquarters of the Cini foundation on the island of San Giorgio in Venice, explaining that “here we bring together experts, scientists, institutional managers, diplomatic representatives, entrepreneurs, to find solutions”.
Rutelli observes that the fourth edition of the ‘Soft Power Conference’ arrives “in a dramatic moment of war” and comments on the video message delivered by Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, president of the CEI and special envoy of Pope Francis: “We have received a very strong message, which contains a praise of multilateralism and underlines the need to collaborate. He went to Kiev, he went to Moscow, he went to Washington, he will go to Beijing; but if we don’t all work towards collaboration we will only have an further expansion of the war. We need a just peace, to protect the rights of the attacked Ukrainians and at the same time a path not resigned with respect to the continuation of the conflict. This is the position that the Soft Power Club largely shares”.
At the center of the fourth Soft Power Conference, Rutelli underlines, “we placed the theme of water, because at the same time there is too much and too little… We are increasingly registering extreme phenomena, floods and droughts. The problem arises at an international level, because if agriculture becomes desertified, migrations will continue and multiply.Here in Venice, experts and institutional and diplomatic managers, brought together by the Soft Power Club, are called to indicate solutions: collaborating is the only way forward “.
Soft Power, the power of persuasion, “is more important than ever in a changing world and in this phase of international crisis”, underlines Francesco Rutelli in the inaugural speech of the fourth edition of the ‘Soft Power Conference’, observing that “the everyone’s future also depends on a renewed, organised, more effective Soft Power”.
Rutelli explains that “the people who join and participate in the Soft Power Club, with very different positions and responsibilities, in their countries and internationally, share the need to give real power to multilateral institutions over some great challenges of our time and to create an authentic and credible space to build shared solutions, in addition to essential national interests, on major issues that cannot be addressed, much less resolved without collaboration, convergence, creative compromises”.
Rutelli asks: “Does anyone perhaps think that without dialogues and agreements between the populations and nations of the earth, without persuasion, without the exercise of a new season of Soft Power, it is possible to achieve such complex and indispensable objectives?”. And he mentions “the challenges regarding water, the oceans and seas, access to drinking water; the growth of healthy agriculture and forest services useful for all humanity; policies to immediately reduce emissions that alter the climate, responding to the commitments already signed by the international community; policies for adaptation to the most disruptive effects of climate change, especially in areas of large urban and coastal concentrations; the encounter between natural systems and technologies for the absorption of emissions”.
Warns Paolo Gentiloni, EU Commissioner for the Economy: “The terrible consequences of climate change become more and more evident with each passing year. World growth, the increase in ocean temperatures, the rise in sea levels, drought and the floods pose major challenges for peace and stability, food security, migration and livelihoods”, noting that if “we see the return of Hard Power with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”, however” even in this new geopolitical context, there is still a lot of room for the role of Soft Power”.
In Europe, “more than 10 million people are employed in the blue economy and in the agricultural sector and together contribute approximately 400 billion euros of gross added value to the European economy – recalls Gentiloni – Therefore, there is a significant economic dimension and a dimension of water security, as is even more visible in Venice. In recent years, the EU has undertaken far-reaching actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The European Green Deal is also a Blue Deal and together they represent an opportunity to create new jobs and a better quality of life”.
Gentiloni observes that “Member States’ NRPs include ambitious measures to improve water management, reduce waste and tackle hydrogeological risk. Eurostat’s latest monitoring report on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals notes that we are making progress on a set of indicators: the number of marine protected areas is increasing, our fisheries are becoming more sustainable and 88% of coastal bathing sites have excellent water quality: all good news, not only for the planet, but also for our daily life”.
Europe, underlines Gentiloni, “has been at the forefront in leading efforts to tackle climate change and through our example we want to encourage others to raise their level of ambition. This is essentially the concept of Soft Power – he observes the EU commissioner – In the last year and a half we have witnessed the return of Hard Power in its most brutal and tragic manifestation with the large-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia.In this new geopolitical context, what space is left for the Soft Power? Hard Power will be essential to chart a common future together”.
The challenge to climate change “is global and we must find a solution, we must have a commitment at the world community level, with a renewed spirit”, affirms the Minister for the Environment, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, for whom “it is therefore necessary to carry out always also an action that refers to the social impact, the economic impact of the European measures that are called into question”.
A few weeks ago, he recalls, “I signed the decree adopting the national strategy for biodiversity to 2030. We have drawn up a proposal for the revision of the integrated national plan for energy and the climate with an ambitious but realistic choice. We have got the motion going again the renewable energy sector which was partly paralyzed by the bureaucratic system, even at a national level”.
Furthermore, continues the Minister for the Environment, “with the plan, we support investments and self-consumption, all with the aim of decarbonisation. We push to the maximum what is the whole front of the circular economy, a sector for our country very important: an economic leg. But it is an economic leg that also becomes a social leg”, concludes Pichetto Fratin.
For the president of the Chamber of Deputies Lorenzo Fontana, “in addition to the traditional ones, there are activities that can create new economic and social value. I am referring, for example, to the renewable energy generated by the sea or the use of marine biodiversity for medical-pharmaceuticals. More generally, respecting the balance of the ecosystem also means protecting the local economy”.
Fontana recalls that “water covers about two-thirds of our planet, but the availability of water for man is increasingly limited. We therefore need greater responsibility in consumption and better management of water resources to also protect food safety and of biodiversity. Seas and oceans are an essential resource for our well-being and our survival and they are also an incredible source of wealth. They would seem like an infinite resource, but the reality is different. Pollution and excessive exploitation put them at great risk health but marine resources are increasingly necessary for the present and for the future of humanity: they offer us many opportunities up to now still little explored”.
According to Fontana, “water protection is an extraordinarily complex challenge, which requires the cooperation of institutions, economic and social subjects and all citizens. However, we cannot think of offering valid answers without intensifying cooperation between states. It is necessary therefore the commitment of the entire international community to support the transition process towards a sustainable development model”, concludes the Speaker of the Chamber.
The Prince of Jordan, El Hassan bin Al Talal, president of the Arab Thought Forum, in the message sent to the fourth edition of the ‘Soft Power Conference’, declares that “the purpose of the UN ‘Cop’, which deals with climate change , is to develop an understanding of Hard Power and Soft Power, the latter oriented towards public participation and transparency, to build cooperation based on trust and knowledge sharing, which is the only means by which can achieve prosperity”. This was stated by , organized at the headquarters of the Cini foundation on the island of San Giorgio in Venice by Francesco Rutelli, founder and president of the Soft Power Club.
“Soft Power begs us today the question: how can we connect water, energy, food and the environment, particularly in a semi-arid region that is rich in energy, fossil and solar, but scarce in water, food efficient but economically and environmentally vulnerable to climate change, i.e. the Arabian Peninsula with the countries of the Levant?”.
Bin Al Talal assures that Jordan’s interconnected approach “is intended to act as a catalyst for dialogue between the political economy and the supply chain and facilitate the transition from conflict and competition for natural resources to an area of cooperation where it is possible to exploit synergistic solutions”.
For Gianfelice Rocca, vice president of the Cini Foundation which hosts the ‘Soft Power Conference’ at its headquarters on the island of San Giorgio in Venice, “Soft Power needs above all common cultural values and highly credible institutions, because precisely in the era credibility is the scarcest resource of information Humanity is experiencing new opportunities and threats – underlines Rocca – New nations and peoples have reached unprecedented levels of development in a few years, emerging from conditions of poverty and deprivation and accessing technology and innovation. However, a language of polarization and conflict prevails between nations and within the public opinion of those nations. And, drastically, war is back on the agenda, in Ukraine and potentially in Taiwan.” .
The vice president of the Cini foundation explains: “We are witnessing a clear hegemonic clash which also seeks to change the balance of power within the main international institutions such as the UN and the G20, through the formation or expansion of new groups of developing nations, as we have just seen happen with the BRICS”.
At the same time, continues Gianfelice Rocca, “we have to face crises of a global nature, such as pandemics or climate crises, for which it is absolutely necessary to find international collaboration. And in the same way, we must find a common approach towards some fundamental issues for the future of humanity. Artificial intelligence and genetic engineering touch on the very distinction between the natural and the artificial.”
For the vice president of the Cini foundation, “it is necessary to find common ethical values in tackling them. The very term Soft Power, in an era like the present one, risks appearing as a different form of hegemony, albeit with a paternalistic tone Perhaps – he suggests – it is better to focus not on power but on process, a ‘soft’ process that can lead to collaboration and mutual understanding, through the patient search for a shared method and language”.
(by the correspondent Enzo Bonaiuto)
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