Make climate action cool

“Making climate action cool”

Intervention at UNEP workshop on the

Trade and technology nexus to achieve

Agenda 2030 goals for developing countries

1.     As you may know, the Earth spins on its axis at 1600 kilometers per hour. Its orbital speed around the sun is of 108,000 kilometers per hour. Now, as some of you may know, last July NASA achieved the remarkable goal of putting a spacecraft in Jupiter’s orbit. By the name Juno, it launched from Earth on August 2011. In October 2013, it encountered Earth’s orbit again and used it as a slingshot to gain significant speed on its travel voyage towards Jupiter. Five years and 2.8 billion kilometers later, Juno slowed down to avoid crashing against Jupiter’s gravity forces and enter into orbit, which was achieved successfully. A remarkable fact is that the top speed it reached on this trajectory was 265,000 kilometers per hour, or more than twice the orbital speed of Earth around the sun. Another remarkable fact is that it traveled all this distance and reached this astounding speed using solar energy as predominant source. What NASA has done is commendable indeed: they have made aerospace science and exploration cool. If someone like me can share this story with you is because I was drawn into NASA’s social media outlets and explanations for the non-technical public. Bravo, NASA!

2.     I am from Costa Rica, and it is a country that has a very cool brand. We are a sought-after destination for ecological tourism, we generate 100% of our electricity from renewable sources, our economy has tripled in the last 30 years and in that same period of time our forest coverage has doubled, representing a unique case worldwide in the last 50 years. This can be considered a good example of regenerative development, where growth is both in financial and natural capital simultaneously. We have learned throughout the decades that there is a virtuous spiral between renewable energies, environmental conservation, forest coverage, biodiversity, ecological tourism, services, jobs, and wellbeing. This is a recipe we believe can be considered by countries with similar geographical location and climate, many of which face considerable developmental challenges. May I remind you about the billion people worldwide without access to electricity; the two billion people without access to drinkable water; the three billion people without access to three meals per day; and the four billion people without access to the Internet.

3.     Regarding Sustainable Development Goal 13a., related to the creation of a Green Climate Fund that hopes to raise US$100 billion/year to finance mitigation efforts in developing countries, it is a fact that globally we are spending US$1.5 trillion/year in military equipment. Only a 6% reduction in this expenditure would provide all the cash required by the Fund. Let’s choose our battles wisely!

4.     One of the most important lessons learned from the Paris Agreement is a successful mindset that positively affected the attitudes and behaviors of key participants in the process. This included optimism to always expect a brighter future; imagination to create an innovative agreement; vision to have a broader, more long-term approach; strategic thinking to prioritize actions with key stakeholders; and the ability to design a critical path to take the necessary steps to make it work.

5.     Regarding the Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA) currently under negotiation at the World Trade Organization (WTO), it is an agreement whose aim is partially assisting climate change mitigation and adaptation, partially improving insertion into Global Value Chains (GVC), and also fostering innovation. Costa Rica can share the success story of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) signed in 1996, which allowed the country to attract an important investment like the manufacturing plant of INTEL, which at its peak of production was exporting from Costa Rica 99% of all server microprocessors used worldwide. This created a high-tech cluster that triggered the development of multiple small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that engaged in GVCs through innovation and high competitiveness. INTEL decided in 2014 to transfer its manufacturing plant from Costa Rica to Asia and decided to leave in Costa Rica an innovation lab. This means that Costa Rica has moved, in 20 years, from agricultural production to high-tech manufacturing to high-tech innovation, creating enormous value for the company, its suppliers and the world in general. The most important aspect of this success story is that education has been at the core of it, from school preparedness to the ability to develop public-private partnerships with higher education institutions to adapt to the needs of foreign multinationals, to being able to develop world-class talent to operate at the highest level of performance.

6.     Another important topic related to trade and climate action taking place at the WTO is the leadership of the group of Friends of Fossil Fuels Subsidy Reform which seeks the elimination of these subsidies that, according to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, amount to US$500 billion/year. Furthermore, they have calculated the social cost of these subsidies at US$4 trillion/year. Reducing them would immediately create incentives for renewable energies by proving fossil energy not cost competitive without such subsidies.

7.     Clean technology offers the possibility to address different needs through different solutions. For example, geothermal energy should be prioritized wherever there is an accessible volcano. Solutions should grow organically from there. Is it towards clean tech manufacturing clusters or towards agriculture or towards ecological tourism? It will depend on each case. It is important to consider a different paradigm when thinking about clean tech. For example, an electric car is a great solution to a particular problem of carbon emissions, but better than an electric car is an electric bus that can provide massive, public and clean transportation.

8.     Innovation requires that we identify the constraints within which we must innovate. For example, why do researchers work on the vaccine of a disease they are not suffering? They have the constraints and they look for potential developments that will advance the knowledge and science and technology frontiers organically in a variety of directions depending on the findings and additional constraints incorporated along the way.

9.     Humanity has put a satellite on Jupiter’s orbit powered with renewable energy. We have the challenge to make climate action cool. Millennials know what is cool, not only because they are young and in every generation it is the youth who determine what is cool and what is not, but because millennials are not motivated by money or power or glory, but by purpose. We are not rocket scientists but is this the best we can do to make climate action cool? If we don’t do it, then who? And if we don’t do it now, then when? Thank you. 

Be the Students of Life and Teachers of Peace

I have been granted the immense honor to host on my blog the commencement speech addressed today by Dr. Óscar Arias Sánchez, Nobel Peace Laureate and two times Costa Rican president, to the alumni graduating from Soka University at Hachioji, Tokyo, Japan. Here are his inspiring words for a world that urgently needs more peace:

"Esteemed faculty, graduates, and families:

Friendship is one of the most beautiful and mysterious secrets in life. It takes people as different as can be, and ties them together with an unbreakable bond. It can unite us across divisions of age, gender, race, nationality and class. And it has united a young man who grew up among the seaweed farms of Tokyo, with a young man who grew up among the coffee fields of Costa Rica. I am honored to call Daisaku Ikeda my friend, and to have had several opportunities over the years to benefit from his support, inspiration and collaboration. In the universe of human accomplishment, art, philosophy and wisdom, the nation of Japan is one of the brightest galaxies in the firmament; Daisaku Ikeda is one of the brightest corners of that galaxy; and in the remarkable constellation that is his life work, Soka University, without any doubt, is one of the brightest stars. I am honored to have been invited to visit, once more, this extraordinary place, a beacon of peace and progress for the world.

At first glance, one would say that my friendship with your founder is not based on a shared nationality, or a shared language, or a shared job. But in a way, it is based on all those things. Our friendship is based on the shared job of making the world a more peaceful place. It is based on the shared language of peace. It is based on the shared nationality that belongs to all those of us who recognize that borders are only lines sketched by humans on the world map; who place our common identity as humans before all others; and who call ourselves citizens of the world.

            This is a job, and a language, and a nationality that all of you join today when you receive your degree. The mission of this institution is one I wish that more educators would take on as their own mission. It is a goal that echoes a belief I have expressed for many years at schools and universities all over the world: the belief that if we are to create a more peaceful world, that process must begin in our classrooms and lecture halls.

            The novel “Love and Pedagogy,” by Spanish writer Miguel de Unamuno, tells the story of a father obsessed with educating a genius. This tragic work makes no attempt to hide its message. It shows us what happens when education is a simple compendium of facts without values, ideas without emotions. When we form scholars, but not wise men. When we form experts, but not human beings.

Dr. Ikeda has said that “a great Human Revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a society and further, will enable a change in the destiny of all humankind.”  Education must create just this kind of human revolution, or it is not worth the effort. It must be the greatest agent of change in the destiny of humankind, or it has failed in its mission. Education is not an end in itself – it is a path. It is a way to overcome a kind of eternal adolescence that has struggled for millennia to reach maturity. It is not enough to say, “We educate,” or “We have been educated.” We must ask, “To what end?” We must ask what kind of society we are building through our arts and sciences.

When we look at today’s leading universities and colleges, it seems obvious that we are educating in order to create more prosperous societies. The twentieth century was, without a doubt, the most prolific multiplier of wealth in history. Hundreds of millions of people emerged from poverty in the last few decades. For the first time in memory, more than half of the world population belongs to the middle class. A planet that is growing at an exponential rate has managed, with surprising ingenuity, the lack of resources that this growth implies. Technology has connected every corner of the world. In material terms, we have never been better off. But we can see that this material development, while essential to human development, is not the only thing we need.

That same twentieth century, generator of fortunes and opportunities, was also the birthplace of unprecedented barbarity. Never before has humankind killed on such a scale. Never before has hate poisoned our words to such a degree. Never before has death reigned with such impunity over all races. Never before have so many tears been shed because of man-made tragedies. Never before have so many minds, so many ideas, been wasted in the name of torture and violence.

What was the role of education in all of this? How did the academy contribute to the decline of the human spirit? Were illiterates responsible for the worst genocide in history? Was ignorance or lack of access to the texts and thoughts of wise men to blame for the civil wars in which millions of brothers killed each other? Did we have too few teachers? Or could it be that we had too many soldiers?

The answer is that education was not enough. The world forgot to add an essential course to the curriculum that it teaches its young. The world forgot to add a course that brings heart to our thoughts, and soul to our studies. That course is one that I like to think of as “Peace and Pedagogy.”And it is one that is found on the curriculum of Soka University.

Peace and Pedagogy means education for peace, and with peace. There is no point in forming learned men and women who do not understand the value of a life. There is no point in forming professors for whom war is justified. There is no point in graduating students who do not care if dozens of people die every day in the most cruel and absurd violation of human rights: armed conflict. No student, of any discipline, in any country, should be unaware of the cries of the victims of Iraq and Afghanistan, of Colombia and Sudan, of Somalia and Myanmar. No student, of any discipline, in any country, should be unaware of the fact that most casualties in wars today consist of innocent civilians, and not soldiers who have chosen to fight. No student, of any discipline, in any country, should be unaware that there are 17,000 nuclear warheads watching over us as we sleep, waiting for any moment of insanity or carelessness to strike. No student, of any discipline, in any country, should be unaware that the world spent 1.75 trillion dollars on weapons and war in 2012 alone, at a time when tiny fractions of that sum could eliminate preventable diseases, hunger, and illiteracy from the face of the earth. No student, of any discipline, in any country, should be unaware that 640 million small arms and light weapons flow uncontrolled across borders every day while we await the ratification of the Arms Trade Treaty that was approved last year by the United Nations.

One does not need to subscribe to any particular ideology to understand that this is absurd, and that it is entirely within our power as humans to change our course. If our universities cannot teach this, if our elementary and secondary schools fail to transmit this basic concern for human rights, then education fails as an instrument of peace. It fails as a way to heal the pain of humanity.

Educating for peace and with peace means recognizing all of this. It also means building in our classrooms the world we seek to see in the street. So often, our schools are home to a competitive, even violent environment. Students are allowed to carry out a war of words that is the prologue to a war of weapons. They are taught patriotic values that border on xenophobia. They are brought up in a world divided by borders and nationalities, where success is measured in triumphant military campaigns. Nowhere is this more clear than in my own region, Latin America, where students are better able to narrate the glories of soldiers than the accomplishments of those who have struggled for world peace. If we make peace an extracurricular subject, it becomes an extracurricular attitude. It becomes the strange whim of bohemians and dreamers, not the mission of academics and doctors.

This is the challenge that each of you will face when you leave this unique institution, where Peace and Pedagogy really is a part of the curriculum. You will face being written off as unrealistic, naïve, or out of touch with reality. I have said that Soka University is a bright star in the human firmament. It follows that when you leave here, you will, at least sometimes, go from light into darkness. You will go from the fellowship of the student, to the loneliness of the peacemaker in a world that still prizes war. If everyone on the globe were represented by 100 people, only seven of those people would possess a university education – and of those seven, not even one would possess a degree like yours. Not even one would possess a degree that represents not only a grasp of facts and figures, not only mastery of data and disciplines, but also a profound commitment to nonviolence, to negotiation, to changing the misplaced priorities and twisted paradigms that have for too long cast a shadow over human history.

But that is no reason to fear. This is the quest for which your studies have prepared you. I urge you not to falter. I urge you not to fail. I urge you to look back, every day of your lives, to the determination you feel at this moment, and to draw from it the strength you need.

My friends:

It is in the spirit of friendship that I have come here today. The spirit of the friendship between our countries; the spirit of the friendship I share with your founder; and the spirit of the friendship that unites all those who seek peace. That is the friendship that will sustain you through the challenges ahead. Never forget the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. Nonviolence of the strong is any day stronger than that of the bravest soldier fully armed or a whole host.”

            The determined spirits I see before me have been students in these hallowed halls. Now that you are moving into the world beyond, you must be more than that. You must be professors. You must prepare yourselves to bring these lessons of peace and pedagogy to a greater audience. When you pass through these doors, become students of life, and teachers of peace – to continue learning how to heal our planet, as you share the lessons you have learned here with the world.

            Thank you very much."

Óscar Arias Sánchez

Former President of Costa Rica

Nobel Peace Laureate 1987

Commencement Address

Soka University, Japan
Thursday, March 20th, 2014

¿Por qué forjar la paz?

Me resultaría imposible escoger la madre, esposa o hija a quien pedirle enviar a su hijo, esposo o padre a la guerra. Bien lo dijo Ryoichi Sasakawa cuando expresó, llegando a Costa Rica: "Dichosa es la madre costarricense que sabe, al dar a luz, que su hijo jamás será soldado."

Costa Rica es un país con el raro privilegio de haber prescindido de la institución militar. Aquella decisión de hace 65 años ha producido enormes beneficios, además de todos los costos que ha evitado, no sólo en recursos financieros que el Estado ha podido invertir en el porvenir de los costarricenses, sino en recurso humano, en progreso social y económico, en desarrollo político y diplomático, artístico y cultural, profesional y laboral, y en tantas otras áreas de nuestro quehacer nacional donde no hay cabida para soldados.

La cultura de paz aún no se consolida. El hecho de haber renunciado a las armas apenas garantizó que nunca, jamás, las usaríamos para agredir a un vecino o a nosotros mismos. Ese grado avanzado de civilización que nos distingue en el concierto de las naciones ya lo alcanzamos. Ahora lo que debemos hacer es forjar la paz.

La definición de este inmenso valor universal que prefiero es la de Johan Galtung:

"Paz es la capacidad de transformar conflictos de manera empática, creativa y armoniosa."

Para ello existen cientos de metodologías, miles de expertos y muchos más casos de éxito en el mundo. Aparte de ese valioso conocimiento también se requiere de un conjunto de virtudes, tales como la actitud proactiva de querer la paz, la autoestima colectiva para apoyarnos mutuamente en esta gesta, la visión del país que queremos dejar en herencia a nuestros nietos cuando ya nos hayamos retirado, la valentía de ir más allá de las agresiones recibidas, y la convicción de que es más fuerte, más vigorosa, más sostenible y más próspera la paz que cualquier guerra.

Amenazas militares de Corea del Norte contra Japón

El acontecimiento geopolítico más relevante de este mes de marzo para el Japón ha sido la amenaza de ataque militar por parte de Corea del Norte, que resultó de maniobras de la fuerza aérea estadounidense sobre cielos surcoreanos. Dichos ejercicios fueron interpretados por autoridades norcoreanas como una provocación y un ensayo para una eventual invasión a su territorio.

La expresión de violencia militar, política y diplomática fue dirigida específicamente a las bases militares estadounidenses en Japón y Guam, argumentando que es de bases en estos lugares de donde despegaron los bombarderos utilizados en los vuelos de entrenamiento.

La notoria agresividad del régimen norcoreano se ha visto exacerbada en días recientes por las sanciones impuestas por Naciones Unidas el mes pasado en respuesta a la tercera prueba nuclear realizada por Norcorea en el mismo mes de febrero. Adicionalmente, la Comisión de Derechos Humanos de Naciones Unidas ha aprobado la semana pasada la creación de una comisión para investigar supuestos abusos de derechos humanos en Corea del Norte.

Es destacable, en esta oportunidad, el aumento de tensiones en la región del Lejano Oriente o Asia del Este, concretamente entre Japón, China, Corea del Sur y Corea del Norte. Los últimos seis meses han sido de un ruidoso incremento del discurso hostil, desde el verano anterior en que se agitaron las aguas por disputas territoriales entre Japón, por una parte, y China y Corea del Sur, respectivamente, así como la reciente detonación nuclear norcoreana y esta última manifestación ofensiva de amenaza de ataque militar.

Para una democracia desmilitarizada como la costarricense, este escenario geopolítico es inaudito y deplorable. Mientras nuestro país avanza una agenda de prosperidad basada en el desarme, la sostenibilidad y la creación de valor socioeconómico y ambiental a través de la implementación exitosa de los derechos humanos, en pleno Siglo XXI el este asiático pareciera estar reviviendo el teatro vivido durante inicios del siglo pasado y la consecuente guerra mundial que vio, en esta zona geográfica, una de sus manifestaciones más cruentas y violentas.

Es menester mantener la firmeza de la posición histórica costarricense basada en intereses y principios que promueven la convivencia pacífica entre naciones y estados y expresarse con vehemencia ante manifestaciones belicistas que, de ninguna manera, ofrecen ni proponen opciones para la creación de valor en torno a medios pacíficos.

Se debe considerar, además, la posibilidad de que la autoridad moral de Costa Rica pudiera aportar mejores prácticas para la transformación de estos conflictos que son, por ahora, fácilmente desescalables en términos de los costos en los que se debe incurrir para obtener los beneficios que traería otro tipo de entendimiento entre las partes.

Más allá de lo específicamente local del conflicto y lo que pudiera afectar a los actores directos, la alteración de la armonía en las relaciones internacionales significa una pérdida para toda la comunidad global en el sentido de seguridad y en las expectativas de prosperidad que se procuran a nivel doméstico en todos los rincones del mundo. Ello sin entrar a considerar el impacto económico que tendría un incremento en la belicosidad en las semanas y meses siguientes, en tiempos de cadenas globales de valor que integran industrias enteras vinculadas prácticamente a toda región del orbe.

Por lo expuesto, el liderazgo de Costa Rica, si bien tan solo indicando lo que no anda bien y cómo reenfocarlo hacia la paz, podría resultar un instrumento innovador en lo que algunos sugieren son los albores de la Guerra Fría del Siglo XXI.