Planetary supervisory council for energy, natural resources and global environmental sustainability:
Ensuring the environmentally sustainable utilisation of the (remaining) natural resources of the Earth for the benefit of global society and being in a position to prevent their irrevocable destruction or dissipation calls urgently for the creation of a supranational institution which would be legitimised by the (reformed) United Nations and would guarantee an effective surveillance and administration of, in particular, drinking water, arable land, oil and gas, heavy metals and flora and fauna. This Planetary Council would in addition have global responsibility for the protection of the genome and the environment. One of the most important tasks in this connection would be to arrange and supervise the phasing out of all environmentally destructive production processes (especially those which give rise to nonbiodegradable pollution and emissions) in the medium term. Within the framework of the reformed United Nations, the decisions of the Council would have to acquire the force of international law, and would thus be able to overrule national law.
A pivotal task of this institution would be to supervise the exploitation of energy sources located beneath the Earth’s surface (such as oil, natural gas, uranium, coal, geothermal heat), though also solar, wind and water energy, worldwide. Through the legitimation and under the protection of the reformed UN, this agency would in the medium term implement the switch from fossil-based and other potentially environmentally destructive energy sources (including nuclear) to regenerative energy sources. As long as these energy sources remained under the control of private corporations or individual states, hence could not yet be assigned to the global social commons, and as such were beyond the reach of a planetary administrative council to be established in the long term, this agency would be assigned the task of using diplomatic means to promote a corresponding sustainable utilisation of these energy sources in the interests of planetary society and security. In crisis situations, the proposed supranational military authority (UN) would be empowered to enforce decisions of the Planetary Council for Energy as appropriate.