ECONOMIC GROWTH AND ENVIRONMENT: GOOD FRIENDS?

On the occasion of the presentation of a report by the Global Commission for the economy and the climate, headed by former Mexican President Felipe Calderón, held at United Nations Headquarters, the Spanish press  echoed a meeting in which representatives of the UN and the Committee of experts agreed that there should be "structural changes" to balance the efforts in favor of economic growth and the fight against global warming. Following are exceprts of the published news with our assessment.

"They are two sides of the same coin," said the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, during the presentation of the report, entitled "better growth, better climate", which lasted for more than one year, and seeks mainly to provide solutions that allow to combine economic growth with the protection of the environment.

"It is possible to create jobs and reduce poverty at the same time to limit carbon emissions that threaten our future," Calderon said during the presentation of the report, at United Nations Headquarters.

The paper argues that the coming 15 years will be critical because global growth needs a "profound structural transformation" that set the path to progressively limit carbon emissions and climate effect causing.

The report proposes solutions in three key sectors, energy, land use and urban development, fields in which, as recalled Calderon, over the next fifteen years are needed investments by some 90 trillion (million million) dollars.

"If we are going to invest 90 billion, and are going to do one way or another, have it to do properly," insisted.

Calderon argues that it should combat the "common belief" that the economic growth is enemy of the protection of the environment, insisted that, among other measures, should eliminate subsidies on fossil fuels and reorder the cities.

Until 2030, Calderon said, the world population in urban areas will grow at 1,000 million. That is equivalent to lift each month a city the size of Washington DC, Berlin and Singapore.

This demographic growth will mean that energy needs will increase by the equivalent to one-third of current levels over the next 15 years, so, he insisted, ''we cannot wait longer; we must act now".

The action plan proposed by the Commission, to which other former rulers like Chile's Ricardo Lagos, New Zealand's Helen Clark and Norway's Jens Stoltenberg are sponsors, consists of ten measures on energy, agricultural and urban issues.

The energy transformation must be part of key economic decisions, has to define a “strong, lasting and fair” international agreement on climate and, also, put an end to subsidies for fossil fuels. Which brings back to our memory the existence of one strong lobby, sponsored by the producers of fossil fuels, (and led,) among other things, by Koch Industries which aims to deny the scientific evidence and the message that "global warming does not exist", which is clearly indicative of the interests that they take precedence in this matter.

Objective scientific data such as average temperatures increased, are seen only as political manipulation resulting from an attempt to create a world Government that regulates not only climate change but, in general, the life of the citizens. Every day there is more evidence that we are in a world where they make us see that there is democracy, but that, however, the reality is quite different, and are governed by real mafia power found even by top politicians, whose will is consciously or unconsciously directed.

The analyzed report also argued that we need to reduce the costs of investment in clean energy sources, promoting technological innovation and seek "connected and compact cities", equipped with efficient public transport systems.

Ban said that some of the points in this report are contained in the agenda of the forthcoming Summit on climate change, which are expected to attend from more than one hundred of rulers. That Summit, advanced Ban, will represent a "real defining moment" to promote the protection of the environment, and she presented four recommendations.

He mentioned including the need to define a framework to "put a price" on carbon emissions and seek "innovative financial instruments" on this issue, as "green bonds".

It will also seek to put an end to the "political ambiguity" in the achievement of a "green growth" and to define common initiatives to reduce the dependence of carbon emissions in sectors such as energy, land use and urban development.

The UN Secretary General stressed that economy and environmental protection should "go hand in hand", with simultaneous actions not defined.

In terms of the Spanish position, in anticipation of the meeting, the Minister of agriculture, food and environment, Isabel García Tejerina, had assured that Spain "will not be outdone» in the challenge implied by the reduction of GHG emissions (greenhouse) with a view to the fight against climate change.

García Tejerina, pointed out-in accordance with the principles proclaimed by the UN, the European Union is in a time in which decisions of "great significance" should be taken to transform the energy and productive models and generate proposals that allow to develop a scope of action at Community level, in that climate and energy policies are developed in' coherent and reinforced», curiously reproducing the words of Ban Ki Moon about the s 'two faces of the same coin'.

The climate summit organized by the United Nations at its headquarters in New York as of September 23 was  described as an "unprecedented political appointment" where Spain was represented by the Kings and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, José Manuel García-Margallo.

All in all, the total amounts commited at the Summit are in the range of 200.000 million US dóllars to be invested before the end of 2015, even though scientists confirm that the average global temperature continued to raise in 2013 and should this rythm continue, the planet will witness, well before the end of this century, irreversible damages to its vital ecosystem

Is it possible to carry out the immediate necessary actions without jeopardizing economic growth? Does the lack of concrete actions and the maintenance of current pollution levels provide a legitimate argument necessary to assure economic growth? Is China entitled to consider that the above principles unfairly limit its economic growth? (social welfare seems ancillary here...).

Personally, with a reasoning that may perhaps be regarded as non-scientific, we consider that the ncrease in global temperature, when added to the coincidence in time and all around the world of disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, floods and torrential rains in one hemisphere and simultaneous prolonged droughts in the other and more similar events that are in the memory and retinas of all of us, are not coincidences, which  could possibly be regarded as such if these events were isolated and dispersed in time.

No doubt we are faced with an exciting and urgent debate, leaving us with the task of ascertaining who should we believe, while we await with anguish the day in which we wake up in a given morning with the news that we have gone past the "no return" point, an undesirable event that will definitely mortgage the future of our descendants in particular and the whole of mankind as a species at risk.