For an Exceptional and Urgent Global Research Project
To act while there is still time
Dakar call to action
To scientists, governments, and peoples of the planet
The signatories are calling for a project to be financed at the level of 2% of the global GDP i.e. 1200 billion euros annually.
Climate, biosphere, oceans …, the Earth system enters an unknown era. The living conditions of all humans and other animals are threatened. In the long run, the very survival of the human species is at stake. These issues are global. They require appropriation by all and engagement of all nations, peoples and sectors of activity.
A major contribution of research – including humanities and social sciences – is essential to achieve a transition.
The United Nations must set up an agency, with financial means and the binding legal instruments, to be in charge of an international transition program, including international research projects of exceptional magnitude.
It is urgent to step up to an exceptional level of state financial investment, with national contributions in accordance with the principles of cooperation and solidarity – of the order of 1,200 billion euros, i.e. 2% of the world’s global GDP – in order to mobilize the scientific potential of all countries.
In the twenty-first century, the preservation of the earth system and of mankind’s common assets, sustainable well-being and fulfillment of all human beings, shall become the compass which will guide the scientific community, and beyond, the whole of the human community.
We address to scientists of all countries a call for personal and collective commitment to cooperate and contribute to these goals and in the development of a powerful international movement to that effect.
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EXPLANATORY NOTE – Collection of signatures
The 22nd General Assembly of the World Federation of Scientific Workers held in Dakar, Senegal, last December, decided to launch a solemn “call to action” addressed to scientists, governments, and all peoples of the planet, stressing the need to find, debate and put into practice within the shortest possible time, measures capable of combating effectively the effects of the serious environmental crisis whose consequences for humanity are already felt today and tend to worsen in the future. A post with the full text approved in Dakar is published in our website. On the same occasion, it was decided to draft a shorter text for wider dissemination purposes. It is this shorter text that is presented here. OTC, an affiliated organization of the World Federation of Scientific Workers, is willing to contribute to the wider dissemination of this “Call to Action” in Portugal and elsewhere. The contribution of science and scientific workers to overcome the challenges facing mankind in our days is indispensable and irreplaceable.
The WFSW has started a new web page (SAVE THE PLANET BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!) where all those interested can show their support to the Dakar Appeal.
As a final note we draw our readers’ attention to the fact that the annual amount of 1,200 billion euros proposed for the project is less than the sum total of military expenditures of all states of the planet. In fact, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) military expenditures exceeded 1,500 billion euros in 2017. Also, either of these amounts dwarf the investment close to 100 billion euros, to be spent over seven years, foreseen for the 9th Framework Program for Research and Innovation — the main instrument of European Union members cooperation in R&D, including some of the key issues raised in the Dakar Appeal.
The Executive Board of OTC
