Of Superglue and Sustainable Cities

Pooja Krishna H A, reporting from the United Nations Economic and Social Council, draws the readers’ attention to the importance of building sustainable and resilient cities, as debated upon by the delegates in the Council.

Following the Delegate of India’s declaration that humans have caused irreparable damage to the environment, the Delegates from the various other countries began putting forth their respective country’s opinions on the matter of SDG numbers 11 and 12; making cities safe and resilient, and sustainable consumption and production.

The Delegates of France, People’s Republic of China (PRC), Japan, Sweden and South Africa were of the mutual opinion that improving infrastructure and public services was the way to go. The Delegate of PRC claimed that the country had made public services and economic services easy and accessible to all its citizens, agreeing with the Delegate of France’s stance that sustainable urbanization was the solution to the problem. The Delegate of India, in relation to all this, brought up to the fact that India had introduced and implemented the Clean India Campaign, which apparently was a success. The Delegate of PRC also urged all his fellow delegates to extend producer responsibility.

The Delegate of Sweden pointed out that the situation in each country is different, which related back to the Delegate of Afghanistan’s earlier statement that the Sustainable Development Goals must be prioritized according to the country’s situation. The Delegate of Sweden also stressed upon the fact that all the goals were interconnected. The Delegate of Australia, agreeing with the Delegate of Sweden, also added that since they were connected, if one failed, it resulted in the failure of the others, too.

When it was the Delegate of the Russian Federation’s turn to speak, she came up with a number of technological terms like satellite imagery, unmanned aerial vehicles, and crowd sourcing, which the Delegate of the United States of America questioned, and said that measures like biometric scanning were what would be effective.

The delegates of the other countries in council seemed like they didn’t believe in establishing sustainable cities, for who would not jump at the chance to improve their infrastructure?