The price of development

On Father’s Day I lit a candle before Pappy’s ashes, sealed in plastic and locked in a wooden box. The container is surrounded by religious icons; in his final days my father became a prayerful man.

Near midnight, as the rain spawned by “Butchoy” poured and a strong breeze blew, the candlelight danced and cast shadows around the box and icons.

The soothing scene took me back to my great-grandfather’s house in Boac, Marinduque, where, as a member of the Army’s Special Forces, he met his future wife and relocated from Pampanga. The house, built in the old style with high ceilings and a lot of wood, stands near the Boac church and, as far as I know, is still there, although in a state of disrepair. Behind the house was a creek, where I often saw children bathing and women doing their laundry, beating the clothes with a wooden paddle.

Back then there was no electricity in the households of Boac. At night I was lulled to sleep by the calming sounds of insects, muted footsteps on wooden floors, and the flickering light from handheld lamps.

It’s a lifestyle that has disappeared in most parts of the country. In place of such stillness of the night, without pollution and the inky sky brilliant with millions of stars, Marinduque now has electricity and all the amenities of modern living including Internet access. It is home to one of the country’s most luxurious and expensive island-resorts.

I don’t think residents of Marinduque will ever want to go back to those slower days of my childhood. The province has prospered – from tourism and its downstream industries, from agriculture and fishing, and for some time, from the mining activities of Marcopper.

In March 1996 the mine, at the time operated by Canadian firm Placer Dome, spilled 1.6 million cubic meters of copper tailings into the Boac River system in one of the world’s worst environmental disasters. Residents in the affected areas reportedly continue to suffer from health problems and the river and surrounding areas have not fully recovered from the catastrophe.

There are less disastrous ways by which economic development, job creation and poverty alleviation have caused environmental degradation. The impact has worsened as global population continues to grow. People are simply consuming more than what the planet can produce.

How to prevent or minimize the adverse impact of development on the planet and its finite resources is one of the goals at the 2012 Earth Summit. Twenty years after the first such summit was held in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the gathering is back where it started. Rio+20, the Earth Summit or the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, opens tomorrow, with 194 nations represented and more than 130 heads of state attending. With 50,000 foreign participants expected, it will be the UN’s largest gathering yet.

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Developing countries belonging to the G77 are pushing for the creation of a global fund for sustainable development, with an initial budget of $30 billion. With the continuing crisis in the eurozone and financial woes in the United States, this could be a hard sell at Rio+20.

The rich countries are also balking at the demand of developing countries for financial assistance and technology transfer for the move toward a “green economy” – a catchphrase in the Earth Summit.

Despite disagreements, the summit can lead to an agreement in principle among the participating countries to draw up so-called Sustainable Development Goals, mainly to guarantee universal access to sustainable food, water and energy. The SDGs will be similar to the Millennium Development Goals, governing matters such as education and public health, which countries are in fact moving to achieve.

Groups are also pushing for the creation of a new measure of national progress and well being, called the Inclusive Wealth Indicator. It takes into account natural capital rather than just the gross domestic product.

Since the first Earth Summit in Rio, the world has lost an estimated three million square kilometers of Arctic ice due to global warming, millions of hectares of rainforests have disappeared, and carbon emissions have increased by 40 percent.

But progress is also being made as the environment becomes a social and political issue and governments respond to their constituents’ need for green and livable communities.

Austrian Ambassador Wilhelm Donko, who hosted a farewell dinner at his home the other night for Brazil’s Ambassador Alcides G.R. Prates, told me that Austria’s secondary rivers used to be heavily polluted by industrial waste.

Austria told the industrial plants to clean up or face stiff penalties – and meant it. Ambassador Donko recalled that several of the companies opted to close shop and leave Austria because of the high initial investment required for green technology. Vienna risked public protests as workers lost their jobs. The government explained to the affected communities that green technology was cost-effective in the long run.

It proved not only cost-effective but also a boon for public health and tourism, which eventually benefited many of the displaced workers. Now the communities whose rivers have become clean enough to drink are enjoying the benefits of the tourism boom.

Brazil has lost an estimated 30 million hectares of its rainforests. But the country – now the world’s sixth largest economy (and among the strongest amid financial woes around the planet) – has several sustainable development programs that can serve as models.

P-Noy skipped the Earth Summit, probably spooked by the long flight of about 36 hours. But the Philippines, which is represented at Rio+20 by a delegation led by the socioeconomic planning secretary, will likely go along with the proposed SDGs and even the Inclusive Wealth Indicator.

The problem will arise from those who think the price is too steep for shifting to a green economy and pursuing sustainable development programs. Many of them happen to be influential individuals and families whose fortunes were built on old ways of doing business.

In carrying out the goals of the Earth Summit, the hard part for the country, as usual, will be in carrying out its international commitments.