Royal Society calls for a
more equitable future for humanity
26 April 2012
Consumption levels between developed and developing nations must be rebalanced alongside a stabilisation of the world’s population by voluntary methods, according to a new report from the Royal Society.
The most developed and the emerging economies must stabilise consumption levels, then reduce them, to help the poorest 1.3 billion people to escape absolute poverty through increased consumption. Alongside this, education and voluntary family planning programmes must be supported internationally to stabilise global population. The new report, People and the Planet, is the result of a 21 month study by the Royal Society, the UK’s 350 year-old national academy of science, on the issues around global population.
Sir John Sulston, Fellow of the Royal Society and Chair of the report working group, said: "The world now has a very clear choice. We can choose to address the twin issues of population and consumption. We can choose to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption, to reframe our economic values to truly reflect what our consumption means for our planet and to help individuals around the world to make informed and free reproductive choices. Or we can choose to do nothing and to drift into a downward vortex of economic, socio-political and environmental ills, leading to a more unequal and inhospitable future."
"We call on all governments to consider the issue of population carefully at the Rio+20 meeting and to commit to a more just future based not on material consumption growth for their nations, but on the needs of the global community, both present and future."
Trends in consumption are analysed, with four material resources considered. Particularly notable statistics for these resources include:
- Water: a child from the developed world consumes 30-50 times as much water as one from the developing world and it is now estimated that by 2025, 1,800 million people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity.
- Food: globally, average calorific consumption increased by approximately 15% between 1969 and 2005, yet in 2010 close to one billion people did not receive enough calories to reach their minimum dietary energy requirements.
- Energy: Utilising CO2 emissions as a measure of energy consumption, per capita CO2 emissions are up to 50 times higher in high income than low income countries, with energy insufficiency a major component of poverty.
- Minerals: production of minerals dramatically increased from 1960 to 2007, for example by four times in the case of copper and lead, close to four times for lithium and 77 times for tantalum/niobium (used in technological devices).
The report also assesses demographic trends from across the globe, encompassing population size, mortality, age structure, migration and urbanisation, highlighting various international and national trends, including:
- The annual increase in numbers of the world’s population peaked in the 1990s and the rate of population growth has been declining since the mid 1960s. Continued global population growth is inevitable for the next few decades but is not inevitable in the longer term.
- Between 2010 and 2050, it is projected that global population will add 2.3 billion people and become predominantly urban.
- The global population is ageing: in 1950 5% of the population was 65 and above, in 2010 it reached 9% and by 2050 it is expected to be 20%, almost 2 billion people. The percentage of the UK’s population that is over 65 is predicted to rise from 16% in 2010 to 24% in 2050, but the effects will be substantially mitigated by improved health of the elderly.
Key case studies included South Korea, Kenya, Niger and the UK.
In addition to concluding that the consumption by those that consume most must be reduced and that health and voluntary family planning must be supported, the report features numerous other recommendations including:
In addition to concluding that the consumption by those that consume most must be reduced and that health and voluntary family planning must be supported, the report features numerous other recommendations including:
- Population and the environment should not be considered as two separate issues and demographic changes and the influences on them should be factored into economic and environmental debate and planning.
- GDP is a poor measure of social well-being and does not account for natural capital. New comprehensive wealth measures should be developed that better reflect the value of a country’s assets.
- New socio-economic systems and institutions that are not dependent on continued material consumption growth must be developed, which will lead to better targeted governmental policies that are not based on consumption of resources without consideration of wider impact.
- Increasing population will lead to developing countries building the equivalent of a city of a million people every five days from now to 2050. Governments should plan for urban growth with reduced material consumption and environmental impact through the provision of well organised services.
Sir John Sulston said: “Ultimately, we should all strive for a world in which every individual has an opportunity to flourish. Science can help us to achieve this goal, not only by developing practical solutions that improve our health and living standards and optimise our use of resources, but also by identifying potential problems, such as emerging diseases or the impact of greenhouse gases. However, science is not a panacea and scientists alone cannot solve the challenges we now face. Humanity must now act collectively and constructively if we are to face the future with confidence.”
Sir John Sulston will present key findings of the report to delegations from United Nations Member States, in New York, on Tuesday, 1 May, ahead of the Rio+20 Conference.
Governos podem ainda concordar durante o encontro no Rio a usar outros indicadores econômicos além do PIB.
Population and
consumption key to future,
report says
Over-consumption in rich countries and rapid population growth in the poorest both need to be tackled to put society on a sustainable path, a report says.
Consumption levels are now high enough in some developing countries as to become a concern
An expert group convened by the Royal Society spent nearly two years reading evidence and writing their report.
Firm recommendations include giving all women access to family planning, moving beyond GDP as the yardstick of economic health and reducing food waste.
The report will feed into preparations for the Rio+20 summit in June.
"This is an absolutely critical period for people and the planet, with profound changes for human health and wellbeing and the natural environment," said Sir John Sulston, the report's chairman.
"Where we go is down to human volition - it's not pre-ordained, it's not the act of anything outside humanity, it's in our hands."
Sir John came to fame through heading the UK part of the Human Genome Project.
He shared the 2002 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, and now chairs the Institute for Science Ethics and Innovation at Manchester University.
Back on the table
Although the size of the Earth's human population used to be a main ingredient of environmental debate, it has fallen off the table in recent years.
In part that was because the Earth appeared able to support more people than predictions had suggested, and partly because developing countries came to view the population issue as a smokescreen to hide Western over-consumption.
The world at seven billion
However it is now back on the table, largely because of research showing that women in the poorest nations generally want access to family planning and that people benefit from it.
The UN's "medium" projection indicates the population peaking at just over 10 billion before the end of the century, and then starting to fall, from a current level of seven billion.
"Of the three billion extra people we expect to have, most will come from the least developed countries, and the population of Africa alone will increase by two billion," said Eliya Zulu, executive director of the African Institute for Development Policy based in Nairobi.
Human expansion is among the factors threatening bees, whose worth is not captured by GDP
"We have to invest in family planning in these countries - we empower women, increase child and maternal health and provide a greater opportunity for the poorest countries to invest in education."
The report recommends that developed nations support universal access to family planning, which it estimates would cost $6bn per year.
If the fertility rate in the least developed countries does not come down to levels seen in the rest of the world, it warns, the year 2100 could see a global population of 22bn of whom 17bn would be Africans.
Exceeding the planet's boundaries
The report backs the notion that humanity has already moved beyond "safe" planetary boundaries on biodiversity loss, climate change and the nitrogen cycle, risking severe impacts in the future
As well as supporting family planning and universal education, the Royal Society says a priority must be to lift the poorest 1.3bn people in the world out of extreme poverty.
If this means increased consumption of food, water and other resources, the experts conclude, that is simply the right thing to do.
“Start Quote
The environment is the economy to some extent”
Prof Jules PrettyEssex University
Meanwhile they say that the richest must cut back on the material resources they consume - though that might not affect living standards.
Eliminating food waste, slashing fossil fuel burning and switching economies from goods to services are among the simple measures advocated to reduce the developed world's footprint without reducing the prosperity of its citizens.
"A child in the developed world consumes 30-50 times as much water as in the developing world; CO2 production, a proxy of energy use, can also be 50 times higher," noted Sir John.
"We cannot conceive of a world that is going to carry on being as unequal as it is, or even become more unequal."
A number of developing and middle income countries are beginning to feel the same impacts of over-consumption as in the west, such as obesity.
Untrammelled population growth is contributing to severe poverty, the report says
Fundamentally, use of GDP as virtually the sole indicator of an economy's health needs to end, says the Royal Society, with other measures adopted that value "natural capital", the goods and services that nature provides for free.
"We have to go beyond GDP; and either we can do it voluntarily or we'll have to do it because pressure on a finite planet will in the end make us," said Jules Pretty, professor of environment and society at the University of Essex.
"The environment is the economy to some extent... and you can talk about running economies in ways that improve peoples' lives but don't damage natural capital, that even enhance it."
The Rio+20 summit in June is likely to agree on establishing a set of "sustainable development goals" (SDGs) to follow on from the existing Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that are helping to reduce poverty and improve health and education in developing countries.
Whether the SDGs will commit rich countries to curbing consumption is currently unclear.
Governments may also agree in Rio to develop and use economic indicators other than GDP.
#supercarrinho @supercarrinho
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário
super carrinho. faça as idéias rodarem aqui também.
obrigada pela participação no debate.