AC/UNU Millennium Project
Updating the Global Challenges Facing Humanity
1. Sustainable Development
How can sustainable development be achieved for all?

This is the short description of the challenge as appears in the print version of the 2006 State of the Future report. The more complete version of this challenge along with actions to address it, graphs, and indicators to measure change is available on the CD-ROM included with the report.
Please add your suggestions in the space provided after each paragraph and feel free to contact us with any questions.

We look forward to including your views.

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General Description

Human consumption is now 23% larger than nature’s capacity to regenerate or to absorb our “ecological footprint.” The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reported that 60% of nature’s life-support systems are being degraded or used unsustainably. Devastating natural disasters are increasingly exposing humanity’s vulnerability to environmental change. Recent changes in the thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic have been measured.

The year 2005 was the hottest year ever recorded, and six of the past eight years were the hottest on record. The timing of seasons has been altered. The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment draft text, which will be released next year, forecasts a 2–4.5 ºC warming by 2050—a faster change from their 2001 forecast of 1.4–5.8 ºC warming by 2100. Just a 3 ºC increase would change coastlines and cause famines for 400 million people. Large reinsurance companies estimate the annual economic loss due to climate change could reach $150–300 billion per year within a decade.

Glaciers are receding worldwide and Arctic ice is melting faster than expected, leading some to warn that climate change has reached the point of no return. Half the world’s forests are gone, and 13 million hectares more are lost yearly. The current absorption capacity of carbon by oceans and forests is about 3–3.5 billion tons per year; human activity adds 7 billion tons annually. About 13 million hectares of forest are lost annually; the rate of net forest loss is slowing, yet 95% of tropical forests are unprotected or not being managed sustainably. And 20% of the world’s coral reefs are already destroyed. More than 16,000 species of animals, birds, fish, and plants are registered as under serious threat of becoming extinct. The value of intact ecosystem far outweighs the cost of protecting them.

IPCC estimates that fossil fuel usage has to be cut by 70% to stabilize climate change. Carbon sequestration systems could change this, but no significant progress is being made. As matters get worse, the environmental movement may aggressively turn on the fossil fuel industries. The legal foundations are being laid to sue for damages caused by greenhouse gases. What will it take for effective leadership to emerge? The synergy between economic growth and technological innovation has been the most significant engine of change for the last 200 years, but unless we improve our economic, environmental, and social behavior, the next 200 years could be difficult.

Next to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, unsustainable growth may well be the greatest threat to the future of humanity. Yet without sustainable growth, billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilization will collapse. Massive urbanization’s concentrated livestock production could trigger new global pandemics. Systems to prevent genetically modified crops from affecting wild relatives or becoming mixed with unmodified food are failing.

Please suggest edits to this paragraph:


Approaches to address this challenge

Challenge 1 will be addressed seriously when the average calories per capita per day exceed 2,000, when the number of hungry people diminishes by half, when the global acreage in forests increases for five years, and when GDP increases while greenhouse gas emissions decrease for five years in a row.

Switch government subsidies from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy (it is estimated that industrial countries subsidize fossil fuels with $200 billion a year). The carbon trading system has been questioned this year—alternatives should be sought. One study suggested raising fuel efficiency standards 5% a year relative to GDP, another proposed an environmental footprint tax for using more than 1.8 global hectares per person, and still another recommends a 1% tax on the $1.5–2 trillion of international financial transactions per day. Taxes on international travel, carbon, and urban congestion should be considered. Such tax income could support an international public/private funding mechanism for high-impact technologies such as carbon sequestration or acquiring the rights to innovate “green” technologies. Massive public educational efforts via film, television, music, games, and contests should stress the quality of human beings in harmony with nature along with what individuals and groups can do.

We should establish an international environmental crimes intelligence and police unit; bring environmental security to the UN Security Council; create definitions and measurements for commonly applied tax incentives and labels for more environmentally friendly products; include environmental costs in the pricing of natural resources and products; spread the environmental standards ISO 14000 and 14001 and use guides like the Natural Step and Equator Principles; publicize “sustainability report cards” on company practices; encourage developing countries to leapfrog unsustainable practices to more sustainable ones; declare key habitats off-limits for human development; consider the establishment of a World Environment Organization with powers like the WTO; and encourage synergy between environmental movements and human rights groups to make clean air, water, and land a human right.

Please suggest other actions to address this challenge or edits to the ones above:

Regional Considerations

Africa: Falling grain yields, water tables, and expanding desertification will continue unless local self-help is tied to government budgets, natural resources management planning and training is coordinated continent-wide, leaders take AIDS more seriously, and better partnerships are created between internal development organizations and international funding and technical assistance agencies. Kenyans believe their climate has changed after four years of drought.

Please suggest edits concerning Africa:

Asia and Oceania: Building a Harmonious Society became a slogan of China’s Communist Party last year. Pollution from China now reaches both coasts of the United States. India and China will eventually emit more greenhouse gases than the U.S. does, although their per capita emissions continue to remain low. China has to feed over 22% of the world’s population with less than 7% of the world’s arable land. India loses over 10% of its GDP annually due to its damaged environment.

Please suggest edits concerning Asia and Oceania:

Europe: The corporate social responsibility movement is growing, and the region leads in initiating environmental treaties. Seventeen of the 25 EU Members could face legal action for failing to apply EU environment protection laws. Charging motorists $14 a day for access to central London, enforced by 700 cameras, has reduced congestion there 33%. With existing policies, only the UK, Sweden, and seven new EU members are expected to reach Kyoto targets. Three-quarters of Switzerland’s glaciers would disappear by 2050.

Please suggest edits concerning Europe:


Latin America: Although ethanol is a cleaner fuel that oil, its accelerated production from expanded sugarcane fields in Brazil is degrading soil and deforesting the Amazon rainforest. Brazil has already lost more than half of its dry forests, which could nearly disappear by 2030. Attacks on land tenure and the breakup of farms into smaller parcels are generating irreversible ecological damage in most countries.

Please suggest edits concerning Latin America:


North America: Individual initiatives like Al Gore’s movie on climate change (An Inconvenient Truth) and Craig Venter’s applied genomics for cleaner fuels should be emulated. Government subsidies should switch to sustainable activities. Corporations have to resolve conflict between short-term profits and long-term sustainability and demonstrate how to reduce consumption while increasing efficiency and improving living standards.

Please suggest edits concerning North America:

Graph: Global Surface Temperature Anomalies (0C)
CO2
Source: NOAA National Climatic Data Center, 2006 data series


If you want to suggest a better graphic representation for this challenge, please indicate the source(s) of data:

Additional Comments
Please suggest any additional comments concerning this challenge:



Thank you for your participation. The results will be sent to you in the 2007 State of the Future in August 2007.



Survey conducted by the Millennium Project of the ACUNU.