Financing global governance

Initial steps should be taken in establishing practical , if initially small-scale, schemes of global financing, notably to support specific United Nations operations. In designing schemes for global financing several principles could be adopted: charging for the use of some global resources on straight economic grounds using market instruments; spreading the burden across a range of countries, on a gradual but progressive basis; ensuring that new revenue systems did not substitute for domestic taxes or charges but represented additional sources.

Possibilities include: surcharges on airline tickets for use of increasingly congested flight lanes; a charge on ocean maritime transport, reflecting the need for ocean pollution control; user fees for ocean, non-coastal fishing, reflecting the pressures on many stocks and the costs of research and surveillance; special user fees for activities in Antarctica so as to fund conservation there; parking fees for geostationary satellites; charges for use of the electromagnetic spectrum.

There is a widening gap between the financial requirements of programmes widely supported in principle and the money actually available through traditional channels. The non-financing of agreed peacekeeping operations is the most glaring example.