Sustainable Development: an everlasting race?

When we talk about sustainable development, we can consider it as a long race where the end is sustainability. Evidently, many processes or stages are involved between the beginning and the end of the race and some obstacles should be beaten. Nowadays, humanity is aware that there are relevant pressures affecting our environment, therefore if we want to continue our existence, things have to be done. Fortunately, sustainable development is a real concern currently, this means that the race already started. But, are we going to reach the goal someday or this just will be a never ending story?

According to a group of Australian researchers, after 25 years since the Rio Earth Summit, which could be considered as the kick-off of sustainable development, “the overall decline in environmental quality has continued unabated and no country has achieved environmental sustainability” (Howes et. al. 2017, p.2). The researchers state that there are three key failures that are preventing us from reaching the goal, that is achieving sustainability. These failures are: economic,political and communications. In the next paragraphs i will explain these deficiencies with situations referring to Chile.

In the first case, there is a direct relation between environmentally destructive activities and economic profit. A good example of this, is what happens in Chile where mining industry is a relevant economic activity that represents 9% of GDP (Sofofa 2012). Chile is the world’s largest producer of copper,lithium and iodine and has high reserves of this resources so this unsustainable industry will probably last for many years.

Political failures relate to the implementation of effective policies. Referring to mining industry in Chile, the government is not going to create in the short term policies that will affect this relevant economic sector. It would be an unpopular measure and the economy would shrink.

In the third case, lack of communication with the population can have negative consequences. This happen with Transantiago, the public transport system of Santiago de Chile. It was conceived by experts without community involvement. As it resulted to be a poor quality service, opposition still exist and the last trimester of 2016, 34.6% of Transantiago users didn’t pay their fare.

However, the race is not lost yet, if we aim to win it, we should make the following changes:

• Governments need to give financial incentives to switch to eco-efficient production. In the case of chilean mining industry, royalty that companies pay could be reduced proportionally due to their less contaminating production.

• Governments need to provide a viable transition route for most damaging industries. For example, the increasing solar energy market in Chile, that is leaving behind fossil fuels energy sources.

• Leaders from all areas must convince of both the seriousness of the environment degradation and that sustainable development is possible. In the case of Chile, politicians should start thinking over their personal interests and create environmental care laws.