From a European point of view, the Copenhagen Climate Conference of December 2009 ended not only in disappointment, but also in a rude awakening. Whilst all the member countries of the United Nations were meeting around one table, an agreement was negotiated in camera by five countries sitting around another. Whilst an all-too-often silent European Union (EU) at last made its voice heard on climate issues, it was not invited to the negotiations on the final agreement that closed the Conference. And whilst a vast proportion of the world’s population (albeit predominantly in the West, it must be said) considers that climate change is a major systemic threat, heads of state from the entire globe were incapable of reaching any agreement worthy of the challenge before them.

What happened? Quite simply, Copenhagen gave us a glimpse of a new world order. At the outset of the UN conference, Europeans spoke of mutual interests and worldwide cooperation. Their words fell on deaf ears, however, for the good reason that the language spoken in Copenhagen was that of realpolitik and geopolitics and, moreover, spoken with an American, Chinese or Indian accent. The fundamental interest in the great game that was the climate Conference comes primarily from its revelation of the emerging new world order. The latter is characterised by the increasing power of new players, often symbolised by the acronyms BRIC, for Brazil, Russia, India and China, or BASIC, if Russia is replaced by South Africa. Conversely, since power is relative, the new order is reflected in an overall decline of the West. It is also characterised by increasing interdependence of world players with regard to economics, politics and security—even to simple survival, in the case of climate change.

In such a world, which Giovanni Grevi has elegantly called interpolar (a contraction of interdependence and multipolarity, the two central characteristics of the emerging system), national and regional problems have become transnational and worldwide, and by any logic they cry out for a concerted and collective approach.⁽¹⁾ Without such an approach, the problems move around and remain unresolved, as is the case with climate change, terrorism and organised crime.