ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AND BIODIVERSITY
The Global Challenges
Excerpt from "
2001 State of the Future"
Sustainable Development
How can sustainable
development be achieved for all? [Challenge 1]
Water
How can everyone have
sufficient clean water without conflict? [Challenge 2]
Water
How
can sustainable development be achieved for all? [Challenge 1]
-- Brief Overview --
Global warming is expected to increase Earth’s temperature between
2.5 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit—higher than forecast just 10 years ago
by the same group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
This could raise sea levels by 34 inches by the end of this century, changing
human coastal settlements, and could melt the polar ice cap. Glaciers are
already receding worldwide. The IPCC declared unequivocally for the first
time that human action is a factor in global warming. Current policies
will not achieve Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gases reductions by 2010. World
forests continue to be cut, biodiversity reduced, and fisheries depleted.
The interdependence of economic growth and technological innovation
has been the most significant engine of change for the last 200 years,
but unless we improve our financial, economic, environmental, and social
behavior, the next 200 years could be difficult.
Unsustainable growth may well be the greatest threat to the future
of humanity since the danger of nuclear war. Yet without sustainable growth,
billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilization
will collapse. The world is increasingly aware of the adverse interactions
between population and economic growth on the one hand, and environmental
quality and natural resources on the other. As a result, most political
and intellectual leaders around the world acknowledge sustainable development—in
its environmental, economic, social, and cultural diversity dimensions—as
the most important goal for uniting humanity and its institutions.
Local environmental conditions have improved where vigorous programs have been implemented; where they have not (deforestation and ocean pollution, for example), conditions are getting worse. International arrangements to support sustainable development are increasing, but there is a lack of will to give them enforcement powers.
We can create definitions and measurements for commonly applied tax incentives and labels for more environmentally friendly products; review and implement Agenda 21 as much as possible; abolish environmentally inefficient subsidies; include environmental costs in the pricing of natural resources and products; spread the environmental standards ISO 14000 and 14001 to more countries and companies; create an international public/private mechanism to focus sustainability efforts such as funding R&D and acquiring the rights to innovate “green” technologies; forecast potential environmental “hot spots”; develop ecologically based agriculture to reduce the large consumption of water, energy, and other material inputs per crop; and encourage synergy between environmental movements and human rights groups to make clean air, water, and land a human right.
-- Brief overviews --
Water tables are falling on every continent. Nearly 450 million people in 29 countries live in water-short locations, which could increase to 2.5 billion people by 2050. More than 1 billion people lack safe drinking water. Nearly half the world lacks adequate sanitation, and 80% of all diseases in the developing world are water-related. Agricultural land is becoming brackish worldwide, and groundwater aquifers are being polluted. About 40% of humanity lives in river basins shared by more than two countries. If present trends continue, two out of every three people on Earth will live in “water-stressed” regions by 2025. Water systems are vulnerable to industrial catastrophe, agricultural pollution, and terrorist attack. Business-as-usual will lead to world water crises, causing mass migrations, disease, and wars.
The second World Water Forum in The Hague helped to move water challenges up the policy agenda. The water situation can be greatly improved if we change agricultural practices to get more crop per drop of water, institute water pricing, invest in desalination and reforestation, develop plants that are drought-hearty and more brackish-tolerant, use animal stem cells to produce meat tissue without animals, promote vegetarianism, invest in watershed management, secure treaties and cooperative agreements on water rights, and create integrated water management plans.
Last Updated: October 25, 2001