Political and Sustainable Development on a Global Scale

First of all, what is sustainable development? The general focus in the West is about the neutralization of carbon emissions and the protection of the environmental heritage. In Europe indeed the hype is around the EU Green Deal and the proposition to make Europe a carbon neutral continent by 2050. The project promoted by the EU commission and endorsed by the member states is ambitious and opposite of the denial policies carried out by the Trump administration. In fact, the former US president dismantled around 100 laws regarding environmental protection in the States on a federal level, erasing years of the country’s progress on the subject (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html).

Yet, for a lot of countries, environmental protection is not the priority, rather they still need to pursue the achievement of a decent lifestyle level for the majority of their population facing major inequalities.

Developing countries challenge the west, claiming that the industrialization in Europe and in the US started hundreds of years ago and thanks to that and to colonization these countries achieved the level of wealth they have now. And, as in basic marketing, when the “belly is full” the need is to have other kind of products and services, such as social and status benefits. But developing countries still need to satisfy many basic needs that certainly have the priority. Therefore, the political focus hardly ever is on environmental policy because it is not appealing and of interest for the population. In Europe, recycling is becoming normal union wide, but it is still niche in Latin America, for instance. By living in Colombia, coming from Italy, I felt extremely surprised in not finding particular trashcans for plastic and metal and being forced to put all the rubbish together seemed “shocking”! Still, the climate clock is ticking for the entire planet (https://climateclock.world/) reminding us how we need to avoid a 1.5° temperatures increase and keep away from a near 4 trillion US dollars loss.

How to convince developing countries and denying countries to cooperate? Well, with respect to the US, companies play a major role and multinationals such as Mars, Gap, Staples and others have already spoken out against the administration (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/29/climate-change-companies-challenge-trump-mars-staples-gap). A mix of consciousness and consumer awareness makes it possible for them to pursue sustainable practices despite an adverse political framework. On the other side, developing countries may realize that sustainability has a market and that sustainable policies may create jobs, foster innovation and also contribute to achieve social development, which must be clearly a priority. Such kind of innovation may be the answer for developing countries to reduce the gap with the western established economy, surfing on a “virgin” territory where most is yet to come.