THE FUTURE IS A GLOBAL COMMON FUTURE MATTERS

By Claire A. Nelson

THE UN Summit of the Future has me in high spirits, for it is evidence that the UN has finally come around to seeing the world, and the truth as I and others in my tribe have long seen it. This truth is that despite our very individual hopes and dreams for our lives and the dizzying diversity of futures we want (each of us seven billion), the future is part of THE Global Commons. Yes, I said it.

I know the term Global Commons typically refers to the natural resources, ecosystems, and areas that are not owned by any single nation or entity but are shared by all of humanity, crucial to the environmental stability and overall well-being of the planet, and require cooperative management and protection due to their global significance.

Traditionally key areas of the Global Commons have included:

The Atmosphere is essential for life, regulating climate and providing breathable air. It is considered part of the global commons because no single country controls the atmosphere, and it is affected by activities across borders, such as air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

The High Seas - the areas of the ocean that lie beyond any nation’s exclusive economic zone (200 nautical miles from the coast). The high seas make up over 60% of the Earth’s ocean surface and are vital for biodiversity, marine life, and the global climate system though vulnerable to overfishing, pollution, and exploitation.

Outer Space - ‘out there’ including celestial bodies like the moon and planets, is considered part of the global commons because it is beyond the sovereignty of any one country. Its management and exploration, including issues like satellite use, space debris, and potential future resource extraction, require international cooperation and regulation.

Antarctica - governed by the Antarctic Treaty System, which designates it as a global common to be used for peaceful purposes and scientific research. No nation owns Antarctica, and it is protected from activities like military operations and mineral exploitation.

Cyber Commons – a fairly new addition, to the global internet and cyberspace, is a critical shared space that transcends national borders, making cybersecurity, data privacy, and access to information key global concerns.

The Global Commons (described above) provide critical ecosystem services, such as regulating the climate, maintaining biodiversity, and ensuring the productivity of the oceans. Overuse or degradation of these areas can have devastating consequences for the entire planet. We have shared rule books because the Global Commons require international cooperation and governance to ensure they are managed sustainably. This is crucial in addressing challenges like climate change, ocean pollution, maintaining ecological balance, and space exploration. Managing the global commons also involves questions of equity, as all nations, including developing ones, should have fair access to resources and opportunities from these shared spaces without being disproportionately harmed by their degradation. Sustainable stewardship is vital for humans ‘thrival’.

The reality is that such common-pool resources are susceptible to what is termed the “tragedy of the commons,” where individual entities overexploit shared resources for short-term gain, leading to long-term depletion or damage. This includes overfishing in the high seas or excessive greenhouse gas emissions. Countless treaties and agreements exist (such as the Paris Agreement for climate or the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea for oceans). However, governance of the Global Commons can be challenging due to competing national interests, enforcement difficulties, and the lack of a unified global authority. Thus, the Global Commons are at risk from human activities like pollution, deforestation, climate change, and resource extraction, which threaten the ecological balance and sustainability of these critical areas, which in turn threaten our survival, and our future.

This is why the UN Summit of the Future (SOTF) is an idea whose time has come.

‘The Future’ begins and spans across multiple interconnected domains spiraling out from the Noosphere -- the sphere of human thought, consciousness, and intellectual activity, evolving as a new layer of influence over the Earth. Coined by scientists Vladimir Vernadsky and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the noosphere follows the development of the geosphere (physical matter) and the biosphere (living organisms). Unlike the geosphere and biosphere, which are shaped by natural processes, the noosphere is created through human cognition, creativity, and collective thought.

The noosphere encompasses the sum of all human knowledge, culture, communication, and intellectual achievements, which drive innovation and shape our collective vision of the future. As an evolutionary step, the noosphere highlights humanity’s ability to consciously influence the Earth’s future, from scientific discoveries and technological innovation to ethical and philosophical considerations about how we coexist with nature. The digital age, with its interconnectedness through the internet and global collaboration, can be seen as a current manifestation of the noosphere. Thus, the noosphere is both a conceptual and tangible realm, where human thought becomes a powerful force shaping the future of our world (manmade) and the planet (nature). We can see now that our collective mind, actions, and innovations will determine the sustainability and evolution of life on Earth. The noosphere, encompassing the totality of human knowledge, creativity, and intellectual progress, plays a vital role in determining how we envision, plan, and build our shared future. Thus ‘The future is a global common’.

Our ability to thrive in the future requires our collaboration to balance the needs of humanity with the health of the planet. We must make choices that ensure that our technological, environmental, and intellectual developments work together for the common good of all life on our home planet Earth. The future like the Earth’s atmosphere, and geosphere is a shared resource. It is not the domain of any one nation, group, or individual, but a collective space shaped by our actions, decisions, and collaborations today – the noosphere. The future can be either nurtured for the common good or diminished by short-sighted exploitation. In recognizing the future as a shared responsibility, we see the need to refresh and make future-ready our multilateral governance systems so that we can ensure the well-being of generations to come, by protecting all the essential commons we share today.

The future, as both conceptual and physical reality, is shaped by the artifacts we create and the shared visions we cultivate. Our collective thoughts, dreams, fears, and hopes for tomorrow form an evolving tapestry. Many of the futures that dominate our airwaves are frightening—marked by ecological collapse, hardened inequality, or conflict. Too few of the futures we see are aspirational, filled with technological marvels, peace, and sustainability. Since what we think about is what we create, the future is a space where humanity must act collectively to ensure that it is equitable, inclusive, and sustainable. The UN Summit of the Future is our response to our collective awareness of the arrival of the Anthropocene—a new geological epoch defined by human impact on the Earth—which demands a fundamental rethinking of how we share the future. This reality necessitates an updated rulebook, one that prioritizes sustainability and the collective well-being of all people and species. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent an ambitious attempt to codify such a rulebook, offering a global blueprint for eradicating poverty, reducing inequality, and addressing climate change. However, progress has been slow, and the SDGs themselves are in danger of being unmet. To realize a sustainable future, the world must accelerate its efforts and adopt a more cooperative and integrated approach to governance, that transcends borders, ideologies, and short-term interests. We need a paradigm shift. And we need it fast.

The UN Summit of the Future is the current outcome of years of evolution of our seeing ourselves as parts of one world. From the late 19th century through the present, international conferences and gatherings have aimed to shape a shared global future. The Congress of Vienna (1815) sought to create a post-war order after the Napoleonic wars, a precursor to later gatherings like the Hague Conferences (1899, 1907), which addressed global disarmament and the laws of war. Fast forward to the 21st century, and the United Nations Summit of the Future serves as a modern-day continuation of these earlier efforts to create frameworks for global cooperation. Such conferences have been pivotal in shaping international norms, binding nations through treaties and agreements that reflect an ever-expanding consciousness of the Earth as a single, interconnected system. The Noosphere idea echoes in these gatherings, as humanity increasingly recognizes that our fates are intertwined, and collective action is necessary to face shared challenges like climate change, pandemics, and nuclear proliferation.

World Fairs have also played a crucial role in imagining the future as a shared space. The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London marked one of the earliest attempts to showcase technological and industrial innovations with a global audience in mind. The World’s Fair of 1939 in New York, with its iconic theme “The World of Tomorrow,” explicitly invited the world to envision a future shaped by technology and progress. These expositions were both a celebration of human achievement and a speculative look at what was to come. They helped frame the narrative of the future as something not just to be predicted but actively shaped. The legacy of these fairs reminds us that imagining the future is a collective exercise, one that must be inclusive, hopeful, and rooted in shared human values. The UN Summit of the Future is designed to be a forwardlooking platform that moves beyond reactionary approaches and focuses on long-term strategies to secure the future of humanity.

Many denigrate the UN as just another ‘talk shop’. All talk but no teeth. But the reality is it is not hard to imagine a far worse alternative history—a world where the United Nations does not exist. In the words of the late Emperor Haile Selassie made visible and immortal by the Honorable Robert Nesta Marley, “Until the philosophy that holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war.” Consider the relentless pursuit of atrocities everywhere even under the watch of the entire world, given that the 24-7 news cycle transmits images of bombings and bloodshed as a service of our entertainment empires. Consider the world without the UN! Yet we know that the establishment of institutions is not enough. We need a paradigm shift if we are to achieve global sustainability. A flourishing future can only be built on shared values like solidarity, mutuality, altruism, reciprocity, and trust. Zoetic visions, as opposed to dystopian dreams, demand we see ourselves not just as co-habitants of this planet, but as co-authors of its future. We need to ensure that our leaders become future literate.

UNESCO defines future literacy as “a capability that enables people to better understand the role that the future plays in what they see and do.” It emphasizes that futures literacy is about being able to imagine multiple futures and use those insights to inform decisions and actions in the present and deal with complexity and uncertainty in a rapidly changing world. In the words of Riel Miller, by developing futures literacy, individuals and organizations can move beyond passive predictions and embrace active exploration of possible futures, empowering them to make more informed, adaptable, and resilient choices in the present. Ziauddin Sardar, a futurist and scholar, offers the perspective that futures literacy is “the ability to understand and constructively engage with future possibilities, including the ability to decolonize the future”. For our world of 7 billion people with varying hopes, dreams, and nightmares shaping the noosphere, it means recognizing that different cultures and perspectives can shape future visions and that there is no single, dominant future. Rather there is a plurality of potential futures embedded in the Noosphere waiting to be explored.

The significance of the UN Summit of the Future lies in its ambition to reshape global governance. In the face of rising nationalism, populism, and isolationist tendencies, the multilateral system that has guided international relations since the mid-20th century is being challenged. Our rule books will need to address existential threats, reimagine global cooperation, and foster ethical digital and technological governance. The SOTF seeks to rejuvenate our multilateral ecosystem, recognizing that no nation, no matter how powerful, can tackle these global challenges alone.

The key to human thrival—going beyond mere survival—is collaboration. A strong multilateral ecosystem is essential for creating zoetic futures -- a world where humanity thrives, not just in terms of economic prosperity but in environmental sustainability, social equity, and peace. As the COVIDemic showed us, public health, climate change, and food security are problems that no single nation can solve. A strong multilateral ecosystem ensures that the voices of smaller or less powerful nations are not drowned out by larger players. This inclusivity is crucial for global equity, as the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations are often those most affected by global crises like climate change or pandemics. The multilateral system has long been central to global peacekeeping efforts. The summit is expected to discuss reforms to peacekeeping operations, focusing on modern threats such as terrorism, cyber-attacks, and proxy wars, thus ensuring the UN remains relevant and effective in a rapidly changing global security landscape. The interconnected nature of our economies means that the collapse or instability of one nation can ripple across the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic also highlighted the fragility of global supply chains and exposed the weaknesses in the economic safety nets of many countries. A strong multilateral ecosystem fosters economic resilience by encouraging international cooperation on trade, development, and financial stability.

The UN Summit of the Future emphasizes that the future of humanity is interconnected, and our collective well-being depends on how we work together. And by we, I mean ‘WE the people’, whether we sit in government, the public sector, the private sector, or the plural sector, that is to say, civil society. We the people have to revitalize the multilateral system, via a whole ecosystems approach to co-create a new era of collaboration— one where nations and peoples come together not just to survive but to thrive in an equitable, and sustainable world for generations to come.

In the words of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, “We can love what we are, without hating what we are not.” A strong multilateral ecosystem embodies this sentiment, recognizing that while we are many nations, we share one planet—and our future depends on how well we work together to protect and nurture it. To envision and pursue zoetic futures is to recognize that human flourishing is a shared pursuit that prioritizes the common good, and harnesses collective intelligence to co-create a world in which every person, every nation, and every species can thrive. The future we share is the future we must create—together. The Future is a Global Common.

The Author

Dr. Claire A. Nelson, Author of SMART Futures for a Flourishing World, and named among Top 50 Female Futurists on Forbes is Editor-at-Large of Human Futures, and Board Member of World Futures Studies Federation.