Asia falling behind SDG/CC targets: Time to reset growth strategies

In 2015, the Un Member states adopted two historic agreements —the Paris agreement on Climate Change mitigation and the 17-point framework for sustainable development. Both have 2030 as the target date for completion by Member states of their commitments under the two agreements. Both seek to address two existential threats to humanity: global warming and runaway social and economic inequality.

The Paris Agreement requires Member States to limit their collective emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases (GHGS) to the ideal 1.5-degree celsius above the pre-industrial era. Beyond 2.0-degree, a super-hot planet will trigger sea rise (up to 2 meters), violent typhoons, droughts, desertification, etc. These catastrophic consequences of unchecked global warming are well ventilated in the mass media, social and official. This is why majority of the people around the world understand the threat posed by global warming. In fact, the new temperature

records being registered in various regions of the world are being blamed for the disasters that happened in 2020, e.g., devastating fires in Australia and the United States, melting of the permafrost in Siberia, super-typhoons that hit the Philippines and other Asian countries, and even the outbreak of diseases that are wiping out the animal population in many countries.

W hat is not fully understood is that governments of signatory countries to the Paris Agreement have the duty to come up with concrete measures to stop GHG emissions, foremost of which is the need to have a bold and holistic program of “transitioning” from dependence on fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) towards reliance on the renewables (wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, biomass and ocean). In this connection, advocates of the renewables are questioning why the share of the renewables in the Philippine energy consumption has been going down at a time when prices of the renewables have become cheaper compared to the fossil fuels. Further, they ask: why is the government’s Philippine Energy Plan 2018-2040 has no explicit stepby-step energy transition program. They also ask why the Department of Energy has declared a moratorium on the establishment of “new” coal plants, and yet the DOE is not discouraging the production expansion of newly-built coal plants and the large long-term supply agreements between the big coal plants and distribution companies led by Meralco. Further, the DOE has been pushing for new legislation providing incentives to the construction of terminals and infrastructures for natural gas at a time when Europe and America have already declared that they are putting in place exit programs from natural gas usage.

As to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS), popular understanding is quite limited. The 17 SDGS and the various targets under each of the SDGS are not as dramatically concrete as the disasters triggered by rising global temperature. And yet, these SDGS, taken together, are crucial because they address life-and-death societal issues such as poverty, hunger, health, education, water, energy, decent work, industrial development, sustainable community, and so on. One of the slogans used by the UNDP in its advocacy of the SDGS is “No one shall be left behind.” This slogan, often quoted by glib politicians, simply means no one in society will go hungry, water-less, uneducated, untreated when sick, jobless, homeless, without decent standards of living, and so on. In short, there should be equality in development and opportunities for all.

How can this be realized? It is abundantly clear that the 17 SDGS can only be achieved if the government and the citizenry are working together to build an inclusive, equitable and sustainable social and economic order. This cannot happen in a society that is divided between an elite few and impoverished many. And the deeper the division, the more problematic is the issue of society’s sustainability. If the numerous impoverished are left

behind, governance of society eventually becomes unstable and unsustainable. This is, in fact, at the roots of insurgencies, social conflicts, uprisings and revolutions in the history of many countries.

In this connection, the UN Economic

and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific has been issuing warnings on the likely failure of Asian countries, in all the sub-regions (East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia), to meet the SDG targets by 2030. In its 2019 SDG Report for Asia, ESCAP wrote that all countries are missing the SDG targets and are even unable to make progress in a number of SDGS: zero hunger (SDG2), clean water (SDG6), good health (SDG3), quality education (SDG4), clean energy (SDG7), and decent work (SDG8). These failing grades are due to the reality that the fabled growth achievements of Asian countries are not filtering down to the unwashed masses of Asia.

Now with Covid flattening the economies of Asian countries in 2020, the SDG scorecard for Asia worsened and is likely to worsen further in 2021. ESCAP, in its recent 2021 Report, wrote that the maternal mortality rate is likely to increase in 14 countries, from 184 to 214-263 per 100,000 live births. Most worrisome are the projections of ESCAP on the poor people doubling in number (from 640 million to 1,276 million). As it is, the unemployed increased by 15 million in 2020. The sad stories are endless.

The point is that meeting the SDG as well as the Paris Agreement targets require a change in the growth paradigms for the Philippines and other Asian countries. Inclusive, balanced and sustainable Asia means a more egalitarian and participatory system of socio-economic planning and development, which is different from the present system of obsessive preoccupation with marketization in a globalized and deregulated setting. Asset and social reforms are a must to insure equal opportunity in life for all.

With the unresolved Covid pandemic, Asia has the opportunity to re-think the existing growth paradigm. A “reset,” a favorite term of Neda, is indeed in order. But it should not be a reset to go back to the old and unequal pre-covid order. It should be a reset for an inclusive, balanced and sustainable order.