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Environmentalism & Sustainable Industry Practices Across Latin America

SpeakerS:

HD Ana Irene Delgado, Senator, National Assembly of Panama
Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Director of the School for Biocultural Leadership, Geoversity; Vice Chair for the Implementation of the UN Climate Convention (UNFCCC)
Anna Wellenstein,  Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Sustainable Development Global Practice Group, World Bank
Nicolás Rivero, Climate Reporter, The Miami Herald

Key takeaways & next steps:

  • It’s important that we take the time to articulate not just solutions to the climate crisis, but also strategies for how to educate and convey the importance of these solutions to local communities.
  • With today’s deficit in global leadership on the issue of climate change, steps should be taken to encourage a new, diverse, and passionate generation of leaders in both the public and private sectors.
  • A focus on sustainability is essential in the long term when reducing poverty and increasing equity. For example, dwindling access to clean water poses massive barriers to the very poorest communities across Latin America when pursuing development.
  • International institutions such as the World Bank should double down on efforts to provide governments in Latin America with the analysis, data, and training to turn climate proposals into well-articulated and actionable policy. 
  • Adjusting processes in agriculture and other industries in Latin America can lead to development benefits, with large markets in Europe and elsewhere demanding sustainable production methods.
  • The extent of urbanization in Latin America requires not just efforts towards sustainable transportation and energy consumption, but also a focus on adaptation in response to the ever-more extreme impacts of climate change.
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”If you go to an island and they have been used to doing one thing over the years and through generations, how do you explain to them why climate change is relevant to them? Remember they don’t speak our same language and I think that’s something that we all need to take into consideration.”

 
HD Ana Irene Delgado, Senator, National Assembly of Panama

“The solutions are out there. We know what we have to do. What we need is leaders who have the spine, who are capable of making the decision.”

 
Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Director of the School for Biocultural Leadership, Geoversity; ; Vice Chair for the Implementation of the UN Climate Convention (UNFCCC)

“You can’t get to improving poverty without looking at issues of climate and sustainability.”

 
Anna Wellenstein, Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Sustainable Development Global Practice Group, World Bank

“Urbanization creates some opportunities with things like electric buses, so cities like Santiago and Bogotá are leading the way on that.”

 
Nicolás Rivero, Climate Reporter, The Miami Herald

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