Humans must remain at centre of green development

UNITED NATIONS (CNS) – During a UN conference on the “green economy” and sustainable development, a St John’s University professor speaking on behalf of the Vatican urged that humans remain at the centre of all such development.

“Promoting economic development should not be at the expense of the poor and marginalised or of future generations, which is often qualified as ‘inter-generational engagement and justice,’” Charles Clark, a St John’s economics professor, said in his remarks to the UN General Assembly. “The well-being of all, and especially those who live with the pains of hunger and who are excluded from contributing to and benefiting from the economic, social and political life of their communities, requires that both markets and government policies be directed towards the higher goal of integral human development, grounded in the principle of the fundamental human dignity of each person,” Clark said on 7 March during the UN’s Second Preparatory Committee for the Commission on Sustainable Development.
“With them, it is our solemn obligation to remain in solidarity. We all must work together to ensure that this is incorporated into the goal of sustainable development and the concept of the green economy. The promotion of sustainable development is one of the most important challenges humanity faces today.
“Most of the development strategies and policies that have failed to promote integral human development in the past have done so because they reduced humans to a shadow of their humanity.
“On the one hand, we are told that self-interest and greed are the sole drivers of human behaviour, and that ‘free markets’ are all that is needed to turn ‘private vice into public virtue.’ On the other hand, we are told that human nature is what society makes it, giving us a development strategy that centres on structures and institutions, with the hope that the right institutions will be enough to promote development.”
However one views the issue, Clark said, “humanity cannot be reduced to either selfish egos or social constructs. A full understanding of what it means to be human must also include the basic solidarity that is a necessary part of our humanity, that comports to the fundamental dignity of each person and that demands justice. Just as we need to improve the functioning of markets and the effectiveness of government policy, we must also work to promote solidarity and social justice.”
Clark quoted from Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”) when he reminded the delegates that “integral human development is primarily a vocation” and that the global economy needs “a moral formation which is people-centred.” But he also harkened back to Pope Paul VI, whose encyclical Populorum Progressio on the development of peoples has been regarded as “the Magna Carta of development” 45 years after it was issued in 1967.
“We hope that it will also become a clarion call to people of good will for an integral human development that will form the foundation for peace, founded on social justice and animated by solidarity,” Clark said.