Human ingenuity and market forces can help rescue Gaia

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Human ingenuity and market forces can help rescue Gaia. Letter published in The Financial Times, July 23, 2023.


Camilla Cavendish’s opinion piece on the arrival of the Anthropocene correctly states that human societies have produced changes to our planet that objectively mark a new geological era (Opinion, July 14). The conclusion that this new era will inevitably result in irreversible damage to “Gaia” and human societies, however, is premature.

Thanks to human ingenuity, awareness and collaboration we have been able to solve previous environmental crises, including acid rain and the disappearance of the ozone layer. Water and air quality in advanced economies are much better than they were half a century ago. Rivers no longer burst into flames. And thanks to conservation efforts, forests and other ecosystems are coming back in the northern hemisphere.

The solution to the climate crisis, however, cannot be based on the premise that we need to change our own individual lifestyles and behaviours, as stated in the article. Human progress and economic growth have reduced poverty and raised the standards of living for billions of people, but there are still others that have not yet benefited from this progress. Therefore, we must not slow down economic growth. Instead, what is needed, in addition to strengthening the commitments currently outlined in the Paris Agreement, is to properly implement policies that combine regulation and incentives to unleash market forces and align the ingenuity and entrepreneurship inherent to humans, to help us deploy the needed capital and decarbonisation technologies at a much faster pace.

Gonzalo Castro de la Mata Executive Director, Earthna, Center for a Sustainable Future, Doha, Qatar

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2023. All rights reserved. 








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