Articles & Videos

A principios de este mes, el Parlamento británico declaró que el planeta enfrenta una “emergencia climática”; el Reino Unido es el primer país que emite una declaración en ese sentido, después de ciudades como Los Ángeles, Londres, Vancouver y Basilea.

Political crises, scandals and dysfunction dominate the global news agenda. Unsurprisingly, therefore, many people missed Britain’s announcement last month that it would spend £600m ($1.133bn) to provide 20 million more women and girls in the developing world with access to family planning.

Neste momento, o mundo corre o sério risco de gastar recursos escassos em políticas climáticas que prejudicam mais do que ajudam as pessoas mais pobres.

Al ser cada vez más obvio que las respuestas políticas al calentamiento global, como el tratado de París, no están funcionando, los ambientalistas nos instan a considerar el impacto climático de nuestras acciones personales. Proponen no comer carne, no conducir un coche con motor de gasolina y no viajar en avión. Pero estas acciones individuales, además de no suponer una diferencia sustancial para nuestro planeta, desvían la atención de las soluciones que se necesitan.

Political crises, scandals, and dysfunction continue to dominate the global news agenda. Unsurprisingly, therefore, many people missed the United Kingdom’s announcement last month that it will spend £600 million ($779 million) to provide 20 million more women and girls in the developing world with access to family planning.

As it is becoming obvious that political responses to global warming such as the Paris treaty are not working, environmentalists are urging us to consider the climate impact of our personal actions. Don’t eat meat, don’t drive a gasoline-powered car and don’t fly, they say. But these individual actions won’t make a substantial difference to our planet, and such demands divert attention away from the solutions that are needed.

Many western donors love the idea that instead of dirty, coal-fired power-plants, poor nations should ‘leapfrog’ straight to cleaner energy sources such as off-grid solar technology. The World Bank is at the forefront of these efforts, no longer funding coal energy projects.

Off-grid solar projects begin with grand intentions, but too often end with recipients barely better off. We can see this in the small Pacific island nation of Fiji, where the government – advocates of strong global climate policy – teamed up with a Japanese technology company to deliver off-grid solar power.

En los últimos 25 años se ha logrado sacar de la pobreza a casi 1.200 millones de personas en todo el mundo, al mismo tiempo que la desnutrición y el riesgo de muerte por contaminación ambiental han disminuido. En conjunto, estos logros son prácticamente un milagro. Pero dos tendencias globales hoy amenazan con desacelerar el impulso en la reducción de la pobreza.