Ms. Ine Baetens Visits AISG

On February 19, Ms. Ine Baetens visited AISG to talk to the students about sustainable development as well as how people are dealing with environmental issues in Belgium and Europe. Ms. Baetens focused on how governments, as well as committees, can work together to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals. According to the UN: the Sustainable Development Goals are the “basis to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all people of the world”. The goals address issues that the world faces, including those that are related to poverty, social inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, as well as many other issues. Ms. Baetens has participated in the Members of the Council of 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development (OECD) and is currently the Coordinator of the Flanders (Belgium) Government domestic and international sustainable development policy. She also has worked with the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and attended the Rio +20 Summit, negotiating the sustainable development goals.

Ms. Baetens first moved to Hong Kong during an exchange year when she was in high school, which coincidentally was the same year Mr. Kennett went to Hong Kong as an exchange student. She chose Hong Kong because “[she] wanted to experience something different in [her] life, so she thought [to herself] “lets go to the country that’s most different from mine.” That led her to Hong Kong, which “[she] liked very much.” Ms. Ine Baetens never expected to get into international relationships and sustainable development. “I never really knew what I wanted to do, I was interested in many, many things and had many interests but I never really knew what I wanted to do,” she explained. She has always been interested things such as culture, languages, international policies, and the environment. After this exchange year she was unsure of where to go next, and she had to choose between either law school or eastern languages. Long story short, she now speaks fluent Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. She then found herself studying international politics, and negotiating techniques after that. If you are still doubting Ms. Baetens love for studying, she is also a junior technician in water management “so [she] can lay pipes down for you,” as well as “a degree in soldering so [she] can adjust soldering machines.”

However, she wanted to settle down and have a steady job. She wanted to work for the government because “it is a very steady job, with a lot of job security.” The government of Belgium had an opening for sustainable development, and sustainable development combined Ms. Baetens’s love for the environment, international policies, as well as being able to meet people from multiple different cultures. Steady job, check. Her love for the environment, check. International policies, check. Being able to come in contact with different cultures, check. Ever since then, Ms. Baetens has been working for the Belgium government and she loves her job.

However, the topics that she works with are far from pleasant. “Things are going so badly [in this world], it won’t take 200 years to destroy ourselves, its probably decades from now for the human race to get to really, really extreme conditions where the human beings are being threatened with extinction,” says Ms. Baetens.

When asked if the world is becoming more conscious about sustainable development, Ms. Baetens said that “it’s difficult to say because where [she] lives, its teeny teeny tiny and people are highly educated.” She thinks it’s more of an issue of getting the citizens of the world to take action because many people are wealthy enough to take action, but not a lot of people are. She says that “many of them are paralyzed by the prospects of having these giant problems.” Neither the government nor the businesses want to change first and are waiting for the other to change, saying “oh you’re doing bad,” but “[the government and the businesses] are forgetting that they have also been doing bad for the past 200 years.” She says that it is very tough to say if people are becoming more conscious because “in [some countries], some basic knowledge that [she] takes for granted isn’t there, and [she] is really shocked by that, so [she] is not sure how well informed the general citizen is.”

“If human history has taught us anything, it’s about human ingenuity. It’s just about being able to mine it, and use it, and direct it. That’s where governments have an obligation, they have to steer it in the right direction,” said Ms. Baetens. “I see the people that do take action, and I think that it’s important to emphasize that, and show it, and enlarge it, and scale it up, and get people to get inspired, that’s the main part.” Ms. Baeten (hopes that one day, people will get inspired at some point in their lives and take action.