National Post (National Edition)
Proof we don’t need global summits
It’s a bit difficult to combine a worldwide health crisis with a global oil shock and find something positive in the outcome. But it’s not impossible, and there is at least one potential benefit the junction of the two could portend: with luck, it might speed the death of the global summit.
First of all, it should be pointed out that this was a totally artificial conflict. It wasn’t caused by some unforeseen event that forced the world’s biggest producers to flood the world with oil. It was started by a pair of authoritarian overlords — Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — looking to gain a bit more market share for themselves. Both run countries that are overwhelmingly dependent on oil income, and both need the money to keep people from getting restless and questioning their hold on power. In the end, it didn’t work out the way they hoped: they found their treasuries bleeding billions while they played a game of global chicken. In ending it, they managed the almost impossible feat of making U.S. President Donald Trump look like the adult in the room.
What’s important here, though, is how they ended it. The final agreement took days of intensive videoconferencing among some 20-plus representatives from major oil producers and the G20 nations. It was reportedly finalized on Sunday, as everyone was keen to get it done before the markets opened.
They did it without getting together in one place, the way grandees love to do. No fleets of aircraft stuffed with politicians and their army of aides and hangers-on cramming the skies. No army of limousines jamming streets in some exotic location specially chosen for its glorious scenery and luxury hotels. No group photos of people who would go largely unrecognized outside their own countries, enjoying their brief stay in the limelight. No bevy of journalists jostling for position, wondering why they continue to cover often-pointless, budget-draining get-togethers, when the outcome has usually long since been prearranged. No more activists gathering en masse to condemn the pointless effusion of emissions while adding to it themselves.
If authorities from so many countries can navigate so difficult a matter without leaving the comfort of their capitals, how can anyone defend the necessity of future summits? Why bother, other than for the aggrandizement of the people involved, which serves no one’s purpose but their own? This is especially the case when so many of the agendas have to do with efforts to come to grips with climate change, which would be much further ahead if all those people simply stayed home and did their talking by videophone.
The oil truce reflects a larger lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of ordinary workers have discovered that there is little reason for them to hustle to the office to do their work. They might still have to drag themselves out of bed, but the daily slog back and forth — whether by private car, public transit or whatever — is a ritual that’s well past its prime. Many already knew this: working from home has been a growing reality for years, but old habits die hard and many a boss has hesitated to accept the fact that a lot of their staff don’t have to be there. Their jobs are essential, yes; but their physical presence isn’t. Maybe they need to show up once or twice a week to keep in touch with life outside their own little world, and so the boss doesn’t forget what they look like (or do). But the daily mass migration from home to desk is a hangover from an earlier age that — like pennies, landlines and fins on cars — could be dispensed with without threatening life as we know it.
It’s also a good thing. Governments at all levels have struggled with ways to get people out of their cars, to reduce gridlock, cut smog, lower emissions and prevent the sort of frustration that maddens commuters who are stuck in traffic every day, wondering why they’re wasting their lives. Just tell them they don’t have to keep turning up in person to do what could be done from home and, voilà, life looks better already. Traffic jams would be lessened, road repair costs might be reduced, transit would be less crowded. There might be fewer fender-benders, less road rage, less pressure on family budgets due to hefty commuting costs. Reduced office space means lower costs for employers. Even the price of downtown housing might slacken as fewer people feel the need to buy pricey little boxes in the sky to be close to work. Everyone would be happier, and smile more often.
OK, maybe that’s stretching it. We’ll all still find lots of excuses to be grumpy. But there would be a lot fewer reasons to beef about the waste and annoyance of just getting to work and back.
Canada’s premiers have been fighting this pandemic without leaving their provinces. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hadn’t ventured past his front porch in a month (until Saturday, when, after instructing Canadians that they would have to bite the bullet and stay away from their relatives on Easter, he hopped a motorcade to the cottage to visit his kids.) A lot of co-operation has been achieved and decisions reached without sitting in the same room arguing with one another while underlings take notes. And it’s probably been more efficient, because no one feels the need to grandstand, or drag out discussions to justify the costs. Without intending to, they’ve made a big point. Death to the summit. We should, and could, all stay home more often and still do our jobs.
TRUCE REFLECTS A LARGER LESSON FROM THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC.