Unsustainable goals

摘要

Mary robinson, a former president of Ireland, calls 2015 "the Bretton Woods moment for our generation". In 1944 the small town in New Hampshire of that name hosted a conference which was to shape the post-war economic order. The open trading rules it established laid the foundation for decades of post-war growth and the "Bretton Woods twins" that it founded, the imf and World Bank, still influence global financial governance. Four un conferences comprise the new Bretton Woods. Though they are unlikely to produce institutions that will matter in 50 years, if they go well they could boost growth and development in poor countries. If they do not, the only outcome will be windy and pointless political rhetoric. The first of the conferences has just finished in Sendai, the nearest city to the epicentre of an earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan in 2011. The importance of its subject-how to reduce the risk of disasters-was dramatically highlighted the day before it started when Cyclone Pam smashed into the tiny island chain of Vanuatu in the South Pacific, ravaging its economy and killing at least 17 people. The country's president, Baldwin Lonsdale, who was in Sendai at the time, said the storm had wiped out many years' development gains.