By Paula Escalada Medrano |
Manaus (Brazil) (EFE).- The planet is not in danger because of figures like Donald Trump, because although they contribute to its degradation with their denialist policies, it is humanity that is truly responsible for being “using more than what needs,” the president and executive director of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for the United States, Carter Roberts, stated in an interview with EFE.
“The planet is in danger not because of Donald Trump but because of all of us, because we all live beyond our means,” said the director of the NGO with the panda logo.
The planet is in danger, he added, because “we count dollars and cents more than biodiversity in nature and climate” and because “people need to feed their families and unless they find a way to do so using less land , energy and water, will destroy nature.”
For this reason, he added, it is up to humanity to “find new solutions, new paths for development” because “everything cannot depend on one person”, nor on former President Trump (2017-2021) – favorite to win the US presidential elections. United States – nor from “other world leaders” such as former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023), who with their policies put any progress in environmental protection at risk.
Sustainability at the business level
In 2020, the United States became the first country in the world to formally withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which was approved in 2015 to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, while Brazil fell behind Bolsonaro in most indicators, like that of deforestation.
In times like those, WWF saw the existence of “business partnerships” as more vital than ever to prevent the progress made from being reversed.
Given the need to strengthen these associations, Roberts participated this week in Manaus, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, in Sustainability Week, an event organized by IDB Invest, the private arm of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
Roberts has been participating in high-level environmental meetings for more than two decades, but “in the last five years” he has seen that companies are “increasingly present,” he says.
And they are because “they see an opportunity to make money and gain share” in the sustainability market, but also because they know that “they have to do it”, since “governments will enact laws that will force them to create new” business models. .
Latin America, more concerned about environmental protection
Is it possible for the investments necessary for the survival of the population to coexist with environmental protection? In Roberts’ opinion it is, but to do so “you need good, strong government leadership, a regulatory framework” and “protective barriers” that stipulate “what economic development should be like.”
Also a civil society that “measures what is happening,” he added. In Latin America, for example, there is a “vibrant” civil society and “a huge number of very well-educated NGOs and fierce advocates fighting for the Amazon.”
Despite the risk of changing political parties, inherent to any democracy, in Latin America there is a more favorable scenario “for continuity” than what is seen “in other parts of the world, on other continents,” stated the CEO of WWF.
“We, as an NGO, have to be experts in navigating between different political parties and creating programs that have the support of different extreme parties,” he added.
Because while “it matters” who governs, Roberts insisted, “there are many different sources of power” with which to address conservation and climate change.
