Article by Vaughan Turekian and Peter Gluckman: “…Science diplomacy has an important, even existential imperative to help the world reconsider the necessity of working together toward big global goals. Climate change may be the most obvious example of where global action is needed, but many other issues have similar characteristics—deep ocean resources, space, and other ungoverned areas, to name a few.
However, taking up this mantle requires acknowledging why past efforts have failed to meet their goals. The global commitment to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is an example. Weaknesses in the UN system, compounded by varied commitments from member states, will prevent the achievement of the SDGs by 2030. This year’s UN Summit of the Future is intended to reboot the global commitment to the sustainability agenda. Regardless of what type of agreement is signed at the summit, its impact may be limited.
Science diplomacy has an important, even existential imperative to help the world reconsider the necessity of working together toward big global goals.
The science community must play an active part in ensuring progress is in fact made, but that will require an expansion of the community’s current role. To understand what this might mean, consider that the Pact for the Future agreed in New York City in September 2024 places “science, technology, and innovation” as one of its five themes. But that becomes actionable either in the narrow sense that technology will provide “answers” to global problems or in the platitudinous sense that science provides advice that is not acted upon. This dichotomy of unacceptable approaches has long bedeviled science’s influence.
For the world to make better use of science, science must take on an expanded responsibility in solving problems at both global and local scales. And science itself must become part of a toolkit—both at the practical and the diplomatic level—to address the sorts of challenges the world will face in the future. To make this happen, more countries must make science diplomacy a core part of their agenda by embedding science advisors within foreign ministries, connecting diplomats to science communities.
As the pace of technological change generates both existential risk and economic, environmental, and social opportunities, science diplomacy has a vital task in balancing outcomes for the benefit of more people. It can also bring the science community (including the social sciences and humanities) to play a critical role alongside nation states. And, as new technological developments enable nonstate actors, and especially the private sector, science diplomacy has an important role to play in helping nation states develop policy that can identify common solutions and engage key partners…(More)”.