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Manish Bapna, representing the World Resources Institute and the Open Government Partnership (OGP), argues that while open government cannot solve all global crises alone, it is a necessary prerequisite for solving them. He identifies a failure of governance evidenced by the rise of populism, extreme poverty, and climate change. To combat this, he proposes five steps: protecting civic space, fostering citizen-centered governance, pursuing transformational rather than incremental change, improving tangible quality-of-life outcomes (such as clean air and water), and reinvigorating political leadership to deepen the impact of OGP commitments.

The text consists of remarks by David Runnalls at the Trade Ministers’ Dialogue on Climate Change Issues in Bali (2007). He asserts that climate change threatens global GDP and human well-being, potentially leading to the failure of the multilateral trading system if left unaddressed. Runnalls highlights that the UNFCCC and WTO frameworks are mutually supportive and suggests four primary areas of linkage: direct impacts of climate change on trade infrastructure, competitiveness impacts of national climate actions, legal interactions between the two regimes, and the use of trade policy to benefit the climate. Specifically, he proposes liberalizing trade in low-carbon goods, reducing fossil fuel subsidies, creating special rules for environmental subsidies, and improving technology transfer and intellectual property rights (IPRs) to facilitate a clean development path for developing countries.