Economic growth does not have to come at the expense of the environment, said José María Figueres, the former president of Costa Rica, in a speech at Duke Thursday.
Figueres spoke to students about “Democracy and Environmental Sustainability” in the Goodson Chapel at Mi Gente’s first annual United College Conference.
Figueres, now the chief executive officer of social investment company Concordia 21, discussed opportunities in sustainable markets for economic growth in developing Latin America. He emphasized that the economic crisis demonstrated that policy and government, not financial markets, should facilitate a concrete, environmentally-friendly economy.
“During the last 20 years, the markets have been kings,” he said. “But policy is again in the driver’s seat.”
Figueres stressed that the key to creating development opportunities is to shift away from the Latin American paradigm of “banking on the growth of other countries” and profiting from exports to those countries, which are carbon dependent. Instead, developing Latin American nations should go straight to the use of energy-efficient technologies. He said the planet is now resource-constrained, which could facilitate innovation.
“In our countries we don’t need to go the same way in which the developed world has gone about putting together a carbon-intensive economy,” he said. “In our case, we can be constructive and leapfrog directly into the global economy... and that is a great opportunity.”
The former president stressed the immediacy of climate change by targeting students with questions on the environment and incorporating Spanish phrases into his talk.
“[Climate change] is here today. The numbers do not lie. Oil is the equivalent to the global economy that blood is to the human body,” he said. “Do you know the number of vehicles per 1000 people in the United States? 920.”
Despite his emphasis on Latin American development, many students who were not associated with Mi Gente came away from the speech inspired.
“I was very impressed,” said freshman Adiel Mora. “I’m a public policy major, and I never realized what a big role policy will be playing. Now I’m just excited to go reconstruct our policy system.”
Sophomore Linda Li said the speech had caused her to think harder about climate change as a global issue.
“I am interested in climate change, but I wasn’t convinced we were in a crisis,” she said. “[Figueres] gave a lot of good evidence in terms of what we can do. He was not so much pointing fingers as looking forward.”
Junior Luciano Romero, founder of UCC and co-chair of Mi Gente’s Political Affairs Committee, said Figueres was inspirational for urging students to forget the “old way” of business and develop innovative alternatives.
“We wanted to bring academic discussion to political issues in Latin America, especially directed to questions of how in a context of poverty and inequality you bring solutions to climate change,” he said. “He not only painted a picture of Latin America, but he drew from examples for solutions. He was fantastic.”
Ciaran O'Connor contributed reporting.
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