Afghan crisis is climate risk, opportunity

The Western alliance may be so damaged by the crisis in Afghanistan that it can't provide leadership to tackle the mounting climate emergency.

It's not just that America's and by extension the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's credibility is so shot to bits that the West will find it hard to provide leadership on anything in coming years. The Afghan calamity will suck up leaders' attention in coming months, meaning it will be harder to build momentum in the run-up to November's crucial COP26 climate conference, which is supposed to result in a big push by countries across the world to come up with more ambitious decarbonisation plans.

If the effort to address the climate crisis flags, it is not just that the planet will fry and there will be more extreme weather events of the sort experienced in recent months. There will be a myriad of knock-on effects on financial markets: there will be less investment in zero- and low-carbon technologies than there would otherwise be; the price of carbon, which has risen sharply in the past year, may fail to maintain its upward trajectory; and, by failing to take swift action to mitigate the damage, the world will be storing up massive economic and fiscal pain.

China, Russia and other authoritarian states will seek to exploit America's humiliation in Afghanistan. Their argument that the West is in decline and its promises can't be believed could become self-fulfilling, if third countries see where the wind is blowing and shift their allegiance. If so, the world order – which has provided stability for trade and investment in recent decades – could be shaken.

But the West also has a chance to regroup after the Afghan debacle. It should seek to create a new world order, a central pillar of which would be protection of the planet. By putting climate change centre stage of a new post-Afghan strategy, the fight to mitigate global warming would gain extra energy and focus rather than being marginalised as leaders agonise over their military impotence.

Such a plan could be a modernisation of the Pax Americana, but without the American imperialism. Call it Pax Planeta. It could have substantial appeal across the world given the current zeitgeist.

At the core of Pax Planeta would be a set of values – human rights, rule of law, economic vitality, global justice, and protection of the planet. These bear some similarity to those that were supposed to infuse Pax Americana, except for the sharper focus on justice and the planet – and, of course, that America has too often been willing to override its values when it deemed it in its interests to do so.

A more realistic, humble approach to military intervention would be needed. America and its allies would have to be less trigger-happy – and focus more on defence than attack. Indeed, after the failure of "Operation Enduring Freedom", there's unlikely to be much appetite for gung-ho missions anyway.

There would also need to be a greater willingness to use the carrot than the stick. The West has often found it easier to justify military spending than spending on projecting its soft power – even though wars are typically vastly more expensive than even generous carrots.

Many of the global institutions that were central to Pax Americana - such as NATO, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank - could continue with a new focus under Pax Planeta.

But there would also need to be a push to channel much more investment to developing countries so they can grow in a green way. This would also provide an alternative to China's Belt and Road Initiative, which has not been climate-friendly. Although the private sector should provide the bulk of the capital, the public sector will need to prime the pump, as Larry Fink, BlackRock chief executive, argued at a G20 meeting last month.

This is the thinking behind "Build Back Better World" (B3W), an initiative G7 leaders committed to at their last summit in June. B3W, also sometimes known as the Clean Green Initiative and the Green Marshall Plan, is envisaged as an attempt to unleash hundreds of billions, and potentially trillions, of dollars of private capital to invest in green growth projects in emerging markets. This is an idea I have been pushing.

Although the details are still scanty, B3W is supposed to be in addition to the $100 billion a year in climate finance that rich countries have promised to mobilise for developing countries. With the West searching for a new strategy after Afghanistan, now is the time to make B3W into a really bold initiative.

It is possible that America and its European allies will fall out over the botched exit from Afghanistan, with Washington retreating into a sulky isolationism. If so, the West will struggle to find any common purpose in coming years – and disaster will be piled upon disaster – just when the planet needs determined and sustained action.

But this would not be in the West's interest. What's more, America and its allies can still avoid this outcome if they show sufficient wisdom and willpower. The virtual meeting of the G7 leaders planned for next week would be a good moment to start devising a Pax Planeta that prevents the Afghan fiasco turning into a more general retreat.

Hugo Dixon is a journalist, entrepreneur and political campaigner. He was Breakingviews' first editor-in-chief and before that ran the Financial Times' Lex Column. He also founded InFacts, a journalistic enterprise which until December 2019 was making the case against Brexit.