Bernardo Kliksberg (*)
The new year begins with many questions, uncertainties and searches. The most worrying ones include the following:
How to confront the accelerating climate crisis?
The renowned Copernicus Observatory announced that last year was the worst since the increase in the Earth's heat has been measured. It exceeded the feared threshold of 1,5% in various geographical areas. In 1850 it was 1%. The main cause is obvious. The amount of carbon dioxide generated by solid fuels released into the atmosphere exceeded 432 parts per million. It was the highest mark in history and double that of 1750. Under this impact, natural imbalances are passing into the realm of the unknown. Ice surfaces are dissolving, seas and oceans are overflowing, corals are destroyed, marine species are becoming extinct, the number and intensity of hurricanes is increasing, unstoppable rains, droughts, and mega fires are increasing. We are going from high heat to extreme heat. It is clear to 99% of meteorological science that it is necessary to replace dirty energies with clean energies. It is known that the solution lies in maximizing the use of solar, wind, tidal, hydrogen and other non-polluting energy. Progress is being made. In Europe, 60% of the energy used is clean, but progress is slow due to economic interests that oppose change.
Failed States
The world currently has 56 conflicts involving 92 countries. The highest number since the Second World War. Drug power is also rapidly increasing. Together, both are causing States to implode and become embroiled in internal wars without direction. Examples include Sudan with the highest rate of crime and famine on the planet, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, a major drug hotbed, Myanmar, the leading producer of opium, Iraq, Haiti, and others. This means forced migration, killings and rapes of women, collective insecurity, and racism without limits.
Inequality and poverty
Six people accumulate more wealth than 51% of the world's population. On the other hand, five billion people do not have a healthy diet or a reasonable habitat, nor adequate protection systems in health, education, and social protection. The spaces for SMEs, access to credit for them and formal work are shrinking. There is no poverty because there is inequality. Inequality creates conditions for poverty. The Nordic countries, with the lowest inequality, active public policies, and socially responsible companies, have almost eliminated poverty.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
It can profoundly improve the world, but as Pope Francis warns, it can also make it worse if ethical governance is not created to guide and control it.
Israel
His case is illustrative. It is one of the countries that is among the most advanced in generative artificial intelligence. There is an intense discussion about the moral implications of the subject in the scientific, technical and academic community. He has led the analysis of the risks and possible preventions in ethics, the dense production of Yuval Noah Harari that includes 4 works that are a world reference. The latest, Nexus (2024), explores how to monitor the dilemmas that arise from its application. Likewise, with other thinkers, he examines the labor effects in terms of unemployment and social impacts.
perspectives
Will humanity be able to answer these questions with positive values in the year that is beginning, or will selfishness, greed, speculation, disinterest in one's neighbor, unscrupulous exploitation of nature, soulless companies, long-standing discrimination against women, racist ideologies, and the law of the strongest prevail?
There are rays of light that encourage, such as the electric car, the increasing use of solar energy, wind power even in the Atacama Puna, the almost perfect democracy with pure clean energy in Uruguay, the democratization of Bangladesh, the tireless fight for the Amazon in Brazil today, and the construction of the longest tunnel in the world by Norway under the fjords to facilitate transportation, vaccines against the coronavirus, and the constitutional protection of indigenous people in Mexico. It would be very useful for the new year to heed an egalitarian thought from the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead: “You must keep in mind that you are unique as is everyone else.”
(*) Advisor to various international organizations. Doctor Honoris Causa of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His new work “Where is social responsibility going in the world” has appeared (2024, Council of the Judiciary of the City of Buenos Aires). kliksberg@aol.com