Climate change: An opportunity to rethink the multilateral system

The last decades have witnessed the profound and noticeable change to a global awareness of the reach of socio-environmental challenges. This is accentuated by the fact that we are in an international system that is reconfigured under numerous centers of power, where they begin to emerge a multitude of state and non-state actors to realize this. But why should environmental issues become an axis for international relations?Scientific evidence indicates that climate change and its consequences represent serious threats to the environment and communities. Can be seen, even as a threat to international security in various forms, as it affects collective integrity. “When climate change dries the rivers, reduces crops, destroys critical infrastructure and shifts communities, exacerbates the risks of instability and conflict,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said during a meeting called by the United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson to discuss the relationship between climate and world insecurity.Capitalism historically redefined social relations and exchanges with the environment, through the appropriation and exploitation of natural resources for the satisfaction of the needs of the growing communities. Interdependence, in a world where climate variables could tackle these challenges, makes working collaboratively the only alternative.The geopolitical analysis with the factor of climate change shows the national interests and strategies that determine the actions of the States. Sebastián Vigliero, Professor and International Relations Specialist says: " From a declamative point of view there is a certain consensus and cooperation to sign pacts such as that of Paris, but in the long term they always end up being a power proposal for the development of one country over another.” In this line, the “Reloj of the Final Judgment (Doomsday clock)" - a metaphor that warns that we are so close to a global catastrophe - of Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, warned the weakening of the institutions and, therefore, of multilateralism, where we find ourselves.International agreements such as that of Paris - established to limit the temperature of the planet below 2°, with efforts to 1.5° -, where the states of the world undertake to work collaboratively and voluntarily in environmental matters, end up impacting their own sovereignty. By quoting a case, the neglect of deforestation policies and fires in Brazil caused actors like France - with whom it has a common cooperation border such as French Guiana - start a diplomatic conflict to reorient the path of action of the Brazilian leader, as these would not advance in No trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur has not yet complied with the environmental conditions laid down in the Treaty of Paris.Although the international climate treaties are not perfect, they initiate a policy-making process. It obliges the international community to undertake multilateral alliances and dialogues that tend to mark or establish new action axes to address global challenges, which implies the generation of dialogue spaces between new partners: Public, private, academic and civil society.Therefore, we must think of a new international order that will allow us to overcome the centrality of states as the only actors of power, to begin to conceive a new multicenter complex that emerges from international relations. A policy that represents the sum of the efforts of all the actors involved.Climate issues require the application of public policy strategies, internal plural and participative governance processes, which ensure local and global voices. In a globalized world of interdependence with climate, biodiversity and people, the construction of consensus and multilateral international negotiation are the only alternative that can help ensure the protection of the planet and communities.