The current crisis is an opportunity to launch a new economic model, in which the environment, as a pillar of human welfare, must be central.
By Cristina Narbona Ruiz, Spanish Ambassador to the OECD and former Minister of the Environment, Spain
In the past few months we have seen the emergence of the dire economic, social and environmental consequences of a system which privileges personal profit over the general interest, and greed and wastefulness over responsibility and prudence. This crisis must be tackled urgently, but by first understanding its deep roots and not yielding to the temptation of tending only to the more serious symptoms. All the analyses point to an over-dominant financial economy that generated astronomical profits for a tiny minority of the world population, and promoted excessive consumption and indebtedness. Meanwhile, social inequalities and the systematic destruction of the earth's ecosystems have escalated, helped along by a lack of regulation and insufficient public oversight. Public authorities have been too tolerant of speculation and tax avoidance, which run alongside pollution and the exhaustion of natural resources. And all of this in the name of a type of economic growth that, instead of increasing the well-being of all, actually threatens it for future generations.
The reality is that the economy has never been "autonomous" from ecology: all economic processes depend on ecological processes. The consequences of having ignored this reality have become tragically evident today. On the other hand, as some European countries in particular have repeatedly shown, higher and lasting levels of job creation and increasing well-being, alongside reinforced environmental and social requirements, are perfectly possible.
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