The Inefficiency of Inequality
Chapter II
The objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the global atmosphere and to cut waste emissions from industrial activities. The relationship between the global powers and their misgivings about accepting limits on and shifts in development styles have paralysed efforts to effect change and called into question the effectiveness and efficiency of a governance structure that lacks instruments to ensure compliance. Efforts to bring about a change in environmental governance and adopt an assessment framework have been undermined by the technology lag, the fact that time is running out and the vested interests of the status quo. To bring about change, States must move from an ineffective multilateral approach to one capable of meeting the mounting challenges that are arising as the planet approaches the critical limits of its capacity to absorb waste created by existing production patterns. Given that even full implementation of the current NDCs would mean a temperature increase of 3.2°C by 2100, which could be very harmful for humankind, comprehensive climate policies must be adopted in conjunction with industrial policies that seek progressive structural change. In this context, the proposal made by ECLAC (2016a) to treat climate security and the implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement as a core aspect of governance for creating global public goods is all the more essential. The 2030 Agenda underlines the link between human well-being, environmental quality, human rights and peace. Its guiding tenet that no one be left behind clearly establishes a rights-based perspective that requires active public policymaking to reduce inequality in all its forms. The effective application of Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development is thus a pillar of the 2030 Agenda in terms of ensuring that environmental governance consider the needs of vulnerable people and groups, such that they can exercise their rights under conditions of equality and non-discrimination. Accordingly, the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, a binding agreement resulting from a successful regional negotiation process inspired by Principle 10, is an example at the global level. In short, the high levels of uncertainty seen in the economic, technological, environmental and geopolitical spheres further complicate assessments of whether current growth will be sustained in the medium term. In any case, the uncertainty itself is detrimental to policies aimed at promoting investment and production diversification. It hampers economic calculations and, if all other factors remain constant, it reduces expected rates of return, with negative repercussions for investment. It is increasingly difficult to design sector-wide policies as technological change fuels greater doubts about patterns of specialization and employment generation, even in the medium term. Lastly, the growing contradictions between patterns of increasing use and consumption of digital goods and the analogue world raise questions about the production structure that can be resolved only over time. As discussed in chapter VII, all this makes it increasingly necessary to move towards a new pattern of development based on an environmental big push.
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