OPINION | Green economic recovery, a possible aid against climate change

Editor’s note: Carlos Alberto Rojas Ávila is professor of Business Innovation at Universidad La Salle Bolivia. He is Project Manager of the Croatian Community of La Paz, Bolivia. He served as a Process Control specialist at Amazon. He obtained an MBA from La Salle Open University. He has a double degree in Commercial Engineering and Business Administration from Universidad La Salle Bolivia and Lewis University. Artist and passionate about environmental sustainability. The opinions expressed in this comment belong to the author. See more opinions at cnne.com/opinion

(CNN Spanish) – Climate change is one of humanity’s greatest challenges. In response, global strategies such as the Paris Agreement have been proposed. The United Nations establishes that, “the central objective of the Paris Agreement is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, keeping the increase in world temperature in this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. , and continue efforts to further limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. In addition, the agreement aims to increase the capacity of countries to cope with the effects of climate change and to ensure that funding streams are consistent with a low level of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and a resilient trajectory. weather”.

The current reality would be different if the sustainable projects of great inventors such as Nikola Tesla, born in what is now Croatia, had been supported with more resources. There is a concept that using clean energy is expensive and slows down economic progress. Then it will be helpful to find a point where climate change goals intersect with economic development goals. It is time to consider visions like Tesla’s, get governments to include climate indicators in their economic reports, and seize the opportunities posed by the post-pandemic “green economic recovery”.

The Wardenclyffe tower. This is how Tesla named one of his most ambitious projects to achieve a wireless communication network, with the possibility of generating unlimited, free and global clean energy. The idea was based on the wireless transmission of high-frequency signals through the atmosphere.

His vision was clear and it was a premonition of current technology. In 1901, he managed to convince businessman JP Morgan to invest in his project. According to Tesla, some of the benefits of his invention were: “A cheap device, no bigger than a watch, will allow anyone who wears it to listen to music or songs, the speech of a political leader, the words of an eminent scientist or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, which will have been delivered in some other place, even if it is distant ”.

It was a 57-meter high wooden tower (which in the end had to be 91 meters to transmit wireless energy), with a hemispherical metal dome 21 meters in diameter. This dream was ahead of its time and could not be fulfilled due to a lack of investors and high material prices. Perhaps if the industrial revolution had not relied on coal and other fossil fuels and this technology had been used, the world would be closer to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

During the pandemic, the vulnerability of global systems was evidenced, it was detected that there is still a long way to go to minimize the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and avoid the effects of climate change. However, optimism and focus of efforts when approaching sustainable strategies, on the part of governments, corporations and individuals, is crucial. One of the most interesting strategies is “green economic recovery”. This concept signals a “positive turning point” in which economic interests meet the systematic and international protection of the environment.

The green economic recovery can be sustained in pillars such as forests and the generation of jobs linked to sustainable activities with the environment. UN Environment suggests that one of the fastest and most cost-effective strategies to counteract global warming is through forests. Each country should make efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change according to available opportunities. For example, in Indonesia you can reduce emissions from the forest sector, in Brazil you can increase the protection of forests, in the United States and the European Union you can encourage changes in people’s diet and reduce food waste, and in India and China can increase efficiency in agricultural and livestock production. The protection of forests can contribute to reducing poverty levels of 1.6 million people who depend on the forest for their livelihood and would reduce the possibility of the emergence of new pandemics through the reduction in deforestation, among other alternatives.

Green jobs are a strategic path to environmental sustainability. According to the regional director of the International Labor Organization, “there are enormous opportunities in a green economy, but also a potential for job destruction. Therefore, we must ensure that workers have access to social protection, that they acquire the right set of skills, and that economies have the ability to transition between traditional industries and greener industries. ” The ILO report indicates that until 2030 18 million green jobs can be generated in the world by concentrating resources on construction and manufacturing involved in the generation of renewable energies, as well as in the development of electric cars and other services or products that help to achieve energy efficiency in buildings.