Post-pandemic recovery to spur sustainable, inclusive development in LatAm: UN agency

A woman walks past a shop amid COVID-19 outbreak in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on May 6, 2021. (Xinhua/Rahel Patrasso)

The UN agency has identified eight activities or sectors that could make a "Big Push for Sustainability."

SANTIAGO, May 11 (Xinhua) -- New measures implemented by governments to promote post-pandemic economic recovery offer an opportunity for a more sustainable and inclusive development model, the executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Barcena, said Tuesday.

During the virtual inauguration of Climate Week 2021, the senior United Nations official noted the novel coronavirus highlighted and exacerbated the region's vast wealth gap, and underscored the pandemic's links to climate change.

"Latin America, through its measures to tackle the emergency, is not contributing in a substantive way to a greener future. These recovery packages keep us on the unsustainable path and do not promote structural change, maintaining the incoherence between growth targets, poverty reduction and sustainability," warned Barcena.

Decarbonization rates in Latin America and the Caribbean are not enough to achieve the climate goals countries committed to in the Nationally Determined Contributions, which aim to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above normal, she said.

With that in mind, ECLAC proposes a transformative recovery that takes into account equality and sustainability, she added.

The UN agency has identified eight activities or sectors that could make a "Big Push for Sustainability," including transitioning to renewable energy, promoting sustainable electromobility in cities, pursuing an inclusive digital revolution, the health manufacturing industry, the bioeconomy, the care economy, the circular economy, and sustainable tourism.

The regional meeting gathers government officials and leaders from the private sector and civil society to explore solutions to common global environmental problems and promote needed climate action, with a view to the upcoming 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) to take place in November in Glasgow, United Kingdom.