Be afraid! Be very afraid!

How many times has someone cautioned you -- be careful, you are living beyond your means!

Generally, this happens because you are heading towards a financial mess -- by either spending more than you can afford or because you are living on borrowed money.

But has the thought ever occurred to you that we, as a human race, are also living beyond our means. In our need to succeed, to create more wealth and more comfortable lifestyles, the human race has put intense pressure on planet Earth and its delicate ecosystem.

The warning that we are destroying our limited resources has been issued repeatedly and it has once again been reinforced by The United Nations Environment Progamme, which released its Global Environment Outlook: environment for development report. The report is a follow-up to the seminal Our Common Future, published two decades ago after the World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission).

The GEO-4, the fourth follow-up report in the series, released on October 25, is a result of a five year effort by nearly 400 experts from around the world, including leading scientists.

The warning they issue is unambiguous – the state of our planet is grim and, as a result of mankind's self-centredness, the future of the human race could be at stake.

The GEO-4 report recalls the Brundtland Commission's statement that the world does not face separate crises -- the 'environmental crisis', 'development crisis', and 'energy crisis' are all one. This crisis includes not just climate change, extinction rates and hunger, but other problems driven by growing human numbers, the rising consumption of the rich and the desperation of the poor.  

It says climate change is a 'global priority', demanding political will and leadership. Yet it finds 'a remarkable lack of urgency', and a 'woefully inadequate' global response.

Climate: The report says the threat is now so urgent that large cuts in greenhouse gases by the mid-century are needed. Some rapidly-industrialising countries, who are now substantial emitters themselves, need to agree to emission reductions. It adds, 'Fundamental changes in social and economic structures, including lifestyle changes, are crucial if rapid progress is to be achieved.'

Population: The human population is now so large that, says the report, 'the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available... Humanity's footprint [its environmental demand] is 21.9 hectares per person while the Earth's biological capacity is, on average, only 15.7 ha/person...'

Water: Irrigation already takes about 70 per cent of available water, yet meeting the Millennium Development Goal on hunger will mean doubling food production by 2050. Fresh water is declining: by 2025, water use is predicted to have risen by 50 per cent in developing countries and by 18 per cent in the developed world. GEO-4 says: "The escalating burden of water demand will become intolerable in water-scarce countries."

Water quality is declining too, polluted by microbial pathogens and excessive nutrients. Globally, contaminated water remains the greatest single cause of human disease and death.

Fish: Consumption more than tripled from 1961 to 2001. Catches have stagnated or slowly declined since the 1980s. Subsidies have created excess fishing capacity, estimated at 250 per cent more than is needed.

Biodiversity: Current biodiversity changes are the fastest in human history. Species are becoming extinct a hundred times faster than the rate shown in the fossil record.

To meet humankind's growing demand for food, we will need to increase agricultural production (using more chemicals, energy and water, and more efficient breeds and crops) or cultivate more land. Either way, biodiversity suffers.

This is also the first GEO report in which all seven of the world's regions emphasise the potential impacts of climate change.

Priorities for Asia and the Pacific include improving urban air quality, fresh water stress, degraded ecosystems, agricultural land use and dealing with increased waste. Drinking water provision has made remarkable progress in the last decade, but the illegal traffic in electronic and hazardous waste is a new challenge.

The bad news

For some of the persistent problems the damage may already be irreversible. GEO-4 warns that tackling the underlying causes of environmental pressures often affects the vested interests of powerful groups able to influence policy decisions. The only way to address these harder problems requires moving the environment from the periphery to the core of decision-making: environment for development, not development to the detriment of environment.

"There have been enough wake-up calls since Brundtland. I sincerely hope GEO-4 is the final one. The systematic destruction of the Earth's natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged and where the bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay," said UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

EXTERNAL LINK
Planet's Tougher Problems Persist, UN Report Warns