Beforehand, it was billed as an historic opportunity to put the world on a sustainable development path whilst ensuring everyone has access to enough food, water, and energy.
It's a fine idea. 7 billion humans on the planet have a massive impact on resources. It makes good economic sense to try to conserve those finite resources. To do otherwise risks price instability, job losses, failed national economies, and environmental collapse. You'd think it was a no-brainer really.
And yet, the final agreement was weak, with no commitments to speak of, no timescales, and nothing legally binding. All we got were empty words.
Why is this I wonder? Most of the politicians seem to understand we're heading for trouble and yet they give us this meaningless document.
Well, look at the mess European leaders are making of the Euro-zone crisis. If they can't even sort out a clear and present danger like that, what chance does a future crisis stand?
But it's more than our leaders' ineptitude that's the problem here. It's also narrow 'national interests' (e.g. not wanting to lose competitive edge), and influence from corporations (e.g. who don't want a slow-down in consumerism).
Forget the fact that business-as-usual will eventually undermine economic growth down the line, we want our profits now!
So there's the problem: Politicians are protecting what they know (a broken system) because they're afraid of what may replace it.
With that kind of approach, it's going to take a major crisis before the powers-that-be even consider changing to a sustainable system. By that time, it could be too late fix things.
No comments:
Post a Comment