Towards Earth Summit 2012: Transition to a Green Economy is Urgent Where is humanity headed? Is today's development sustainable? No one knows the answer to the first question, but the answer to the second gives an indication. A virtually unanimous chorus of scholars, experts, and policy makers think that humanity must take a new direction and change its societies and their way of thinking. Our ruthless exploitation of natural resources is approaching the limit of what the planet can sustain. Next year, it's once again time for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, and there is an urgent need for wise and practical decisions.
The United Nations has debated the issue of sustainable development since 1987, when the so-called Brundtland report highlighted the concept. At the World Summit in Rio de Janeiro a few years later (1992), there was optimism, political will, and consensus on the importance of these issues. The meeting adopted Agenda 21, a concrete and comprehensive plan of action for the sustainable development of all countries in the world. Nevertheless, today, almost two decades later, development in the world is as unsustainable as ever. It is urgent to use powerful measures to save the Earth's ecosystems and climate. In addition, the food supply for the Earth's growing population is under threat. In a debate article from January 2011 a number of researchers at the Stockholm Environment Institute write: "We have now reached a point where we exceed several limits on the Earth's capacity to generate social and economic development in the long term. We have not just a climate crisis to manage, but also a global ecosystem crisis. This new position requires deeper global cooperation between the countries of the world in close collaboration with researchers. Local, regional, and global environmental changes now interact in a way that threatens to undermine our ability to secure social and economic progress in several of the world's emerging economies. These environmental and resource challenges demand shifts of production and consumption and investments in industry, energy and transportation systems."
SOME PROGRESS Numerous initiatives and processes are taking place to tackle these enormous challenges. In recent times some progress has been made at the global level. At a UN summit in October in Nagoya, Japan, concrete decisions were made about the protection of biodiversity — including a scientific panel, set up with the UN's climate panel IPCC as a model. The climate negotiations in December in Cancun, Mexico, showed some signs of a new constructive spirit.
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Maria Berlekom, leading expert on environmental and climate issues from the Swedish Agency for International Development, highlights the increased interest of business in sustainability issues as another positive trend: “Many players in business are beginning to understand that their resource base is threatened. Many industries are heavily dependent on natural resources, such as access to water. They are also beginning to understand that climate change is a threat that must be dealt with. In addition, they realize that there are commercial advantages to showing a commitment to sustainability issues”, she says. “So, there are positive signs, but is it enough and is it quick enough? The answer is no. We don’t have that many years to safeguard ecosystems and the climate.” Daniel Slunge, environmental economist at Göteborg University, says that it is time for humanity to move from knowledge to action: “We have engaged industry and other stakeholders in the discussion on sustainable development, and we have created an awareness of these issues. Now we must move from awareness to concrete action, and that is where we stand today. “There is a huge gap between all the commitments made within the United Nations system and concrete action”, he said.
GUIDING CONCEPTS When the concept of sustainable development was launched in the 1980s it was seen as consisting of three parts: environmental, social, and economic sustainability. The experts interviewed by Världshorisont believe that sustainable development as a guiding concept in the global debate has had both advantages and disadvantages. “A great advantage was that it highlighted the issues and the need to look at the bigger picture. This meant that the focus on the issues was strengthened, and that different actors have been involved,” says among others Johan Kuylenstierna, director of SEI (Stockholm Environment Institute) and adjunct professor of international water resource issues at the University of Stockholm. Daniel Slunge points out that it also created a long-term perspective: “In sustainable development there is an obligation to future generations that has led to a deeper discussion. We have also moved environmental issues closer to the issues of trade and development, and thus gained new players to take an interest in the environment,” he said. At the same time, the three agreed that the term is vague, which meant that different parties made various interpretations, depending on their own perspectives and interests. “After the Rio Conference in 1992 there was a dilemma regarding what the term actually meant. The North stressed environmental issues while the South has stressed the development part, which caused a mismatch in the discussion,” said Johan Kuylenstierna. “A simplified explanation is that developing countries generally have economic development as a global goal. They believe that economic development is the foundation for all development in a society and it is only when there is economic development that one can fight poverty and have a positive social development in general.”
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INVISIBLE BARRIER The different perspectives have created an invisible barrier hindering the global negotiating machinery. Another fundamental issue is that the institutional and regulatory framework that will address environmental challenges is far from adequate, a point on which there is a broad consensus. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has no mandate to work with sustainable development in its full breadth, and is furthermore a relatively weak actor. The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) can only produce recommendations and has low status. Furthermore, the UN conventions on the environment are too numerous and the work to implement them is far too divided, say a chorus of critics. When the world's countries in June next year will again gather for the summit in Rio to discuss sustainable development (Earth Summit 2012, also known as Rio + 20) the international framework –organizations and processes – will be one of the two main themes in the negotiations. “CSD is the only UN body with a mandate to work with the whole issue of sustainable development. Strengthening the CSD, and giving it greater weight should have been an important part of the reform of the UNITED NATIONS,” says Johan Kuylenstierna. “Sometimes UNEP tried to assume responsibility for sustainable development issues, but it has problems because it invaded the territory of other agencies.” Kuylenstierna believes that the problem is the same for several of the major global challenges. They span many different UN agencies’ areas and therefore require close and strong cooperation between agencies in order to deal with the issue. The climate issue, for example, involves everything from industry and consumption to forestry, agriculture, water and food.
SECTORIZED SYSTEMS “We have a UN system that is based on what the world looked like in the middle of the 20th century. It is a sectorized system where each issue has its own body. So the question is how to resolve this? Should we reform the entire United Nations system from scratch, or continue as before, and create new, strong bodies for important issues?” Kuylenstierna’s preferred suggestion is to set up mechanisms that promote and govern cooperation between existing United Nations bodies, with UN-Water from 2003 as a model. He was himself active as advisor to this entity between 2007 and 2010. The mission of UN-Water is to stimulate interaction between 28 different UN bodies on issues related to water. “UN Water has only three employees and physically, they exist only as a part of other United Nations agencies. So, resources are drawn from other agencies instead of creating a new one. Today, there are also a UN-Oceans and UN-Energy, and I would like to see a UNClimate,” says Kuylenstierna. “No single UN agency would have sole responsibility for the climate issue. If we are to solve it, it requires that all concerned parties are involved and feel ownership.”
Maria Berlekom has the same thought: 3
“Occasionally upgrading UNEP to a powerful UN agency for environmental matters, a "World Environment Organization" has been discussed. The French push this idea vigorously. Perhaps it would give higher status to environmental issues and make them more visible in the international system. “At the same time, I have a concern about such a development. Environment and climate are issues everyone should be involved in, because they transcend borders. Creation of a new UN body could create an alibi: others might think they don’t have to work with these issues anymore.”
GREEN ECONOMY The second main theme at the Summit in Rio next year is green economy, a concept becoming increasingly prominent in the debate. Perhaps a result of the Rio Conference will be that green economy replaces sustainable development as a guiding concept, thinks Kuylenstierna . The concept of ‘green economy’ is an attempt to bridge the old division between North and South, where the North countries stressed the environmental dimension of sustainable development, while the global South stressed the need for growth. “From developing countries, there is a fear that there will be a lot of environmental requirements which prevent economic development in poor countries. They insist they must have the right to growth to build their societies, just as rich countries once did,” says Daniel Slunge, and continues: “The concept of Green Economy, which now is launched prior to the Rio Summit, is a way to try to resolve this conflict. They say that this is not about putting constraints on economic development, but instead is a new way of creating economic development. Conversion to a green economy creates jobs and growth by investing in green technologies, etc.”
HAS COMMITTED ITSELF Two global players who engaged in these issues are OECD (cooperation organization of the developed countries) and the UN Environment Program (UNEP). The OECD has developed an ambitious strategy for "green growth" while UNEP recently launched a report of 600 pages specifically about the green economy. “UNEP and others have long pointed out the large costs that the current economic system causes, primarily due to environmental degradation and climate changes which have not been taken into account and which there has not been a good system to measure,” says Daniel Slunge. “Now, therefore, the argument is that a green conversion is good, even from an economic point of view. UNEP's message is that a country that invests only 1-2% of its GDP on green conversion may get very far. So ‘green economy’ is an attempt to reformulate and link together the three pillars within sustainable development. Unfortunately, there are already signs of resistance to the new ideas, he explains further: “The cooperation group of the developing countries, G77, for example, does not think we need any new concept. They say it is better to work on the commitments already made. They 4
fear that there will be a ‘green protectionism’, i.e. that the rich countries are going to set up trade barriers for countries that, for instance, lack carbon taxes. “If a green conversion is actually what is needed, then the G77 thinks that the rich countries should take the lead and transition their systems so that poor countries can focus on growth.” Here the OECD thinking on "green growth” comes into the picture. Slunge believes that growth as we know it has positive connotations, at the same time as it causes increased use of energy and materials. The question is how to manage to get growth that is eco-friendly? “As it is today, it is necessary to have very strong policies to achieve a growth rate that does not lead to increased emissions of carbon dioxide,” he says.
NEW THINKING Maria Berlekom argues that there are many new ideas in the air that can have a major impact in the long term. “On the one hand, it is about how we look at human development in general. We are thinking in a linear fashion, that progress advances slowly in small steps, which means we are building systems that make us vulnerable. Events in recent years show that progress happens in leaps, in connection with sudden events — an economic bubble that bursts, for example, or an earthquake off Japan's coast. “Research shows that the planet’s systems are approaching the limit of what they can sustain. The risk is that they will suddenly break down. We have to start anticipating sudden, unexpected events and therefore build systems that include safety margins,” she said. Furthermore, she stresses that “We must begin to value nature's resources in a different way and create financial incentives for a more sustainable society.” Two main issues for which today’s development goes in the wrong direction are climate and biodiversity, but attempts to counteract the negative development are seen as impeding economic development. For example, protecting biodiversity in an area is seen as excluding that area from development. “Instead we need to think that we are making an investment to preserve essential natural resources that benefit society. Caring for these natural resources creates a buffering capacity, a ‘resilience’, in society,” says Maria Berlekom.
LOCAL LEVEL An expert approaching sustainable development from a slightly different point of departure is Marilyn Mehlmann, General Secretary for GAP, Global Action Plan International. GAP works with sustainable consumption and behaviour change, mainly at individual and local level. Mehlmann no longer thinks world governments and the UN are the major players: “I believe more and more that the switch, if it comes, will have its centre of gravity in the local community. In Sweden, as well as in many other countries, I believe that there are almost unlimited possibilities to take important decisions at the municipal level. “Municipalities often feel they lack the money for this purpose. This is both the challenge and the opportunity: to start building 'oases' based on all local resources – not least the human;
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and buffered from a monetary system which has proved itself unsustainable. There are now many such oases around the world, with or without state and municipal support.” She is sceptical of the concept of ‘green growth’: “The risk is that people think that we can continue as before, if we only improve our technology. But as long as the world population keeps increasing, it eats up all advances made in technology. “So the risk of ‘green growth’ is that it will be like today's growth. I think we need to think about growth of a different nature. Look at the body: after a while we human beings stop growing, otherwise there is something wrong. However, we continue to grow spiritually and intellectually. So the question is: How can we, as humanity continue to grow spiritually and mentally? How do we do this at the social level?”
REMEMBERS RIO AND STOCKHOLM Marilyn Mehlmann has worked all her life to promote sustainable development and has been awarded the Rachel Carson Prize 2011-12. She belongs to the generation that remembers both Rio 1992 and Stockholm in 1972, when the UNITED NATIONS for the first time organized a global environmental conference. “The meeting next year is not just Rio +20, it’s also Stockholm +40. A lot has happened for better and for worse. The world has certainly become much more unsustainable, while at the same time we have new mechanisms to deal with the problems. It would be absolutely wonderful if this time they showed the same willpower that they did in Rio when they adopted Agenda 21. “A positive trend is that more and more are opening their eyes to the fact that climate change is happening, that it is due to human actions – and that there is no need to sit back and wait for something nasty to happen. A good thing, especially when compared to Stockholm in 1972, is that we now have a global feeling, people realize that we are all in the same boat,” she says. “Now what is needed is a focus on solutions,” continues Mehlmann: “Instead of being obsessed with the challenges, we need to discuss how we can build a sustainable society, a sustainable world. And we need activities focused on problem-solving, lots of experimentation and creativity, projects of different kinds.” Johan Kuylenstierna is on the same track: “I'm incredibly optimistic. I’m not a Doomsday prophet. It should be clear that we face enormous challenges but also that there are solutions to those problems. I don’t believe that the best way to create change is to scare people. But it is extremely important to pay attention to the issues,” he says. “As it is now, we’ve had two cold winters in Sweden and people forgot global warming. It hasn’t sunk in deeper than that. So we have an educational problem. I believe that we must show a positive process of change and say that we can build a society for nine billion people and eradicate poverty at the same time. There we have an important responsibility for researchers, we need to show and explain that there is a way forward.”
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Sustainable development is a concept that was introduced in the 1980s. In the Brundtland report of 1987 it is defined as development that "... meets the needs of the present without compromising the possibility of future generations to meet their own needs.” Colloquially the term sustainability is often used. Sustainable development is seen as resting on three pillars: · ecological sustainability, · social sustainability and · economic sustainability. Within the United Nations two world conferences on sustainable development have been held. The first in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1992 and the second in Johannesburg, South Africa, 2002. Next year’s conference, Earth Summit 2012, will also be held in Rio.
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