• Emilio Godoy interviews BORIS GRAIZBORD, director of LEAD-Mexico (mexico city)
• Tuesday, December 13, 2011
• Inter Press Service

People are disillusioned with global conferences 'that mobilise thousands of people and fail to achieve real global progress' in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, says Boris Graizbord, head of the sustainable development studies programme at one of Mexico's leading research universities in the social sciences

The Advanced Studies Programme on Sustainable Development and Environment (LEAD-Mexico) at the Colegio de México, a university in the north of the country, will reach its 20th anniversary when the Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) is held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012.

LEAD-Mexico forms part of the network of the international Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD) non-profit programme created by the Rockefeller Foundation, which has 2,200 members in 90 countries around the world.

Graizbord, the head of LEAD-Mexico, talked to IPS about his programme and about the future of climate change conferences, whose 17th edition ended Sunday Dec. 11 in Durban, South Africa.

Q: What is the outlook now, after Durban? A: People are very disillusioned with these summits, which mobilise thousands of people and fail to achieve global progress. The refusal by the United States and China to accept things infects other countries. The European countries were even saying they would not support another binding accord, other than a second commitment to the Kyoto Protocol.

Q: What should Mexico do? A: It is absolutely essential for everyone to take measures, for awareness to be raised on the need for adaptation to climate change.

The impact of climate change is going to be felt, a little now, and much more later. And since the target of keeping global temperatures from rising no more than two degrees (Celsius) will not be met, there will be events that people are not used to, like even worse droughts and floods. Everyone will be hit hard by the extremes, but the poor will suffer the most.

It's not really clear just what Mexico is doing. The special programme on climate change is overly general, failing to take into account that the coast of the Gulf of Mexico is not the same as the Atlantic coast, that (the southern state of) Chiapas is not the same as Tamaulipas (in the northeast). Things have to be taken to the micro level.

Q: What can LEAD contribute in this sense? A: We have followed an original model that involves training capable individuals with established professional careers.

It is necessary to provide specialised training of human capital in the South, to draw them into the debate that we are now involved in, and to train leaders who can make decisions at the national, regional and international levels.

We needed to be more selective, more strategic in training leaders. The programme seeks to attract people who are well-established in their careers, and who are not seeking a master's or doctoral degree but are interested in courses where they can take a close look at their thinking about the questions of sustainable development, the environment and of course climate change.

We take the students to where the problems are, so they can go beyond theory and see the real situation on the ground.

We are exposing them to real situations, learning, doing, experimenting, failing. Kind of like trial and error. When we go to the jungle, for example, we talk with all of the parties concerned: the people who own the land, non-governmental organisations, the authorities. That's how we organise our sessions.

Q: The anniversary of LEAD coincides with the Rio+20 summit. How are you going to promote sustainable development. A: I think we will have a noticeable presence there. LEAD International will definitely have a significant presence, and there is also a local Brazilian programme.

I have the impression that the phrase 'sustainable development' has been used gratuitously, and we often do not even know what it is — neither in the government nor in the world of business

We have to work on that, and not cheapen the term. Instead of 'corporate social responsibility', for example, 'corporate social commitment' can be used, which is a very different thing.

Q: What has the programme achieved over the past 20 years? A: We have trained 240 experts, who now hold important positions, and we have done good research. With our support, the metropolitan environmental commission and the government of Mexico City have outlined the city's environmental agenda.

We have also evaluated and recommended the rules for the operation of the national fund on natural disasters, and we are assessing vulnerability and risk in the capital.

But we haven't had enough success in the area of private initiative. Business leaders ask how can they let their employees be away from their desks for 40 or 50 days a year (to take the course). We are pushing hard with some contacts in large firms, getting them to send people to our programme.

But we no longer have direct financing, which meant we had to start charging tuition for the courses.

Q: What are your priorities now? A: We want to see if we can expand the programme to other parts of Latin America. We already have graduates in Guatemala and Cuba, although only a few, and we have reached an agreement with the National University of Lanús in Argentina, which will send us a candidate every year over the next three to five years.

We are trying to forge a partnership with the LEAD-Brazil programme and we're studying the possibility of raising funds from international bodies that are interested in strengthening projects of this kind in Latin America.

In the field of research, we launched a project on the economic costs of adapting to climate change in the metropolitan area of Mexico City over the course of eight months. Now they invited us to carry out projects with the ministry of social development over the next six month, in regional urban development and local aspects.

We want to influence state and local governments, to get them to pay attention to questions of energy efficiency and savings, to focus on transport systems, to not build more infrastructure to increase water supplies but to see where savings can be made and to recycle existing water, and to understand the interconnectedness of different aspects of the physical environment.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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