Sostenibilidad

If we continue to consume at the current rate, in a few years we will need resources equivalent to three planets to sustain us. How can we avoid this forecast?

National governments are not the only ones increasing their climate action in Latin America and the Caribbean. News at the subnational level is also quite encouraging. Multiple local governments have joined in increasing their climate ambition, recognizing that they are key actors for the implementation of climate change policies and that cities play a leading role in the solution, since more than half of the world's population lives in them.

The current health crisis forced the Chilean capital, like the rest of the world, to stop. This pause allowed Santiago to immediately experience the benefits of much better air quality.

Nature is humanity’s most important asset. It provides us with the raw ingredients for most modern medicine, the air we breathe and the food we put on our tables. All economic activities also fundamentally rely on these services to some extent, with estimates suggesting that a massive USD 44 trillion – over half of global GDP— of the global economy is highly or moderately dependent on nature.

2020 was the hottest ever on record, according to NASA. We are increasingly feeling the impacts of this climate crisis from unprecedented wildfires to catastrophic hurricanes.

Latin America and the Caribbean have made great progress in the sustainability agenda in the last twenty years.

Imagine you are working on the IDB's Flood Risk Reduction Program, a project which seeks to improve the country's resilience to climate change by reducing the risk of floods in peri-urban areas in the Andes. The program includes studies that consider the effects of climate change and, based on the results, the identification, design and execution of works to reduce risk and adapt to climate change.

Although Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are an important policy instrument to ensure biodiversity conservation in coastal and marine areas and to help marine ecosystems adapt to climate change impacts, they should be regarded only as one of the tools within a comprehensive policy and regulatory framework. Many environmental institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) – and the world - seem to consider this mechanism as the ‘holy grail’ for protecting marine biodiversity; however, MPAs are not by themselves the ultimate solution.

2021 is a make or break year for people and the planet. The international community needs to orchestrate a sustainable recovery from the pandemic while delivering more ambitious commitments to protect nature and ensure a climate safe future. In LAC, there is the added challenge of responding to tough issues such as inequality, poverty and unemployment, which COVID-19 has considerably worsened.

For most Latin American and Caribbean cities, public transport is the single most important way to access opportunity and essential services for most urban dwellers, from finding a job to education to health care. At the same time, it is “informal” or semiformal service providers rather than formal providers that account for more than half of all public transport trips in the region.