Prosperity Without Growth?
A major report by the UKs sustainable development adviser argues that the pursuit of economic growth is one of the root causes of the current financial crisis, as well contributing to a growing environmental crisis and undermining well-being in developed countries.
The UK Sustainable Development Commission report Prosperity Without Growth? The Transition to a Sustainable Economy says that the current global recession should be the occasion to forge a new economic system equipped to avoid the shocks and negative impacts associated with our reliance on growth. Ahead of the G20 Summit in London this week, the report calls on leaders to adopt a 12-step plan to make the transition to a fair, sustainable, low-carbon economy.
Prosperity without growth? finds that our current financial crisis is directly linked to our pursuit of growth. Our reliance on debt to finance the cycle of growth has created a deeply unstable system which has made individuals, families and communities inherently vulnerable to cycles of boom and bust, while increasing consumption does not make us happier.
The report shows that economic growth has delivered its benefits at best unequally, with a fifth of the worlds population earning just 2% of global income. Even in developed countries, huge gaps remain in wealth and well-being between rich and poor.
The pursuit of growth has also had disastrous environmental consequences. In the last quarter of a century, while the global economy has doubled, the increase in resource consumption has degraded an estimated 60% of the world's ecosystems and led to the threat of catastrophic climate change.
The global economy is already almost 5 times larger than it was 50 years ago. If it were to continue to grow at the same rate, it would be 80 times larger by the end of this century.
While modernising production and redesigning goods and services have led to greater resource and energy efficiency in recent decades, the report finds that aspirations for 'decoupling' environmental impacts from economic growth are unrealistic. Even based on a moderate level of growth of 2% per year, meeting 2050 carbon reduction targets would mean achieving a carbon content of no more than 6gCO2 for each dollar spent - a staggering 130 times lower than the average carbon intensity today.
Recommendations include:
- Creating the conditions for people to flourish
- Includes tackling systemic inequality and removing incentives for unproductive status competition; sharing available work and improving work-life balance, and reversing the culture of consumerism
- Building a sustainable macro-economy which is no longer structurally reliant on increasing consumption
- An economy which can succeed without growth must be based on financial and fiscal prudence and improved macro-economic accounting, and prioritise investment in public assets and infrastructures over private affluence
- Putting an awareness of ecological limits at the heart of economic decision-making
- Treasury thinking must be governed by clearly defined resource and emissions caps; policy should promote technology transfer to developing countries and international ecosystem protection
Thinking in Systems
Thinking in Systems is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem-solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. This essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life.
While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble and to continue to learn.
In a world growing ever more complicated, crowded, and interdependent, Thinking in Systems helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions. A vital read for students, professionals and all those concerned with economics, business, sustainability and the environment.
An Outline of the Case for a Green Stimulus
A new report, published by the former members of the team that produced the landmark report on The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review, highlights the need for Governments to include spending on green measures in their packages for tackling the global economic crisis in order to address the growing threat of climate change.
In An Outline of the Case for a Green Stimulus, the researchers from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy conclude that about US$400 billion should be spent worldwide on green policies and investments which also help economic recovery and lay the foundations of sustainable low-carbon growth. The report points out that this sum represents about 20% of the US$2 trillion, or 4% of global gross domestic product, which governments might spend in the next 18 months on fiscal stimulus packages to lessen the economic downturn. The report examines the economic case for both fiscal stimulus packages and green expenditure. Specific measures and investments are assessed, on a scale from 1 to a maximum 3, in terms of timeliness, long-term social return, positive lock-in effects, domestic multiplier and job creation, targeting areas with slack, and time-limitedness and reversibility.
EPA Finds Greenhouse Gases Pose Threat to Public Health, Welfare
After a thorough scientific review ordered in 2007 by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a proposed finding this month that greenhouse gases contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare.
The proposed finding, which now moves to a public comment period, identified six greenhouse gases that pose a potential threat. As the proposed endangerment finding states, In both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem. The greenhouse gases that are responsible for it endanger public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act.
EPAs proposed endangerment finding is based on rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific analysis of six gases carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride that have been the subject of intensive analysis by scientists around the world. The science clearly shows that concentrations of these gases are at unprecedented levels as a result of human emissions, and these high levels are very likely the cause of the increase in average temperatures and other changes in our climate.
The scientific analysis also confirms that climate change impacts human health in several ways. Findings from a recent EPA study titled Assessment of the Impacts of Global Change on Regional U.S. Air Quality: A Synthesis of Climate Change Impacts on Ground-Level Ozone, for example, suggest that climate change may lead to higher concentrations of ground-level ozone, a harmful pollutant. Additional impacts of climate change include, but are not limited to:
- increased drought;
- more heavy downpours and flooding;
- more frequent and intense heat waves and wildfires;
- greater sea level rise;
- more intense storms; and
- harm to water resources, agriculture, wildlife and ecosystems.
In proposing the finding, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson also took into account the disproportionate impact climate change has on the health of certain segments of the population, such as the poor, the very young, the elderly, those already in poor health, the disabled, those living alone and/or indigenous populations dependent on one or a few resources.
In addition to threatening human health, the analysis finds that climate change also has serious national security implications. Consistent with this proposed finding, in 2007, 11 retired U.S. generals and admirals signed a report from the Center for a New American Security stating that climate change presents significant national security challenges for the United States. Escalating violence in destabilized regions can be incited and fomented by an increasing scarcity of resources including water. This lack of resources, driven by climate change patterns, then drives massive migration to more stabilized regions of the world.
The proposed endangerment finding now enters the public comment period, which is the next step in the deliberative process EPA must undertake before issuing final findings. The proposed finding does not include any proposed regulations. Before taking any steps to reduce greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, EPA would conduct an appropriate process and consider stakeholder input. Notwithstanding this required regulatory process, both President Obama and Administrator Jackson have repeatedly indicated their preference for comprehensive legislation to address this issue and create the framework for a clean energy economy.
Innovative Approaches in European Sustainable Consumption Policies
A new report by the German Institute for Ecological Economy Research, Innovative Approaches in European Sustainable Consumption Policies, describes the outcomes of the project "Assessing the potential of various instruments for sustainable consumption practices and greening of the market (ASCEE).
The scope of the ASCEE project was to consider the latest trends in policies supporting sustainable consumption and production (SCP), and to indicate key elements of policies supporting sustainable consumption. The main research emphasis dealt with innovative instruments, approaches and practices to support sustainable consumption. The aim of ASCEE was to contribute to policy development to indicate promising innovative approaches and tools to foster sustainable consumption; and to present some strategic recommendations on how to progress in this arena.
Ecological Debt
Andrew Simms shows how millions of us in the West are running up huge ecological debts: from the amount of oil and coal that we burn to heat our houses and run our cars, to what we consume and the waste that we create, the impact of our lifestyles is felt worldwide. Whilst these debts go unpaid, millions more living in poverty in the majority world suffer the burden of paying dubious foreign financial debts.
Each year, humanity's ecological overdraft gets larger, and the day that the world as a whole goes into ecological debt - consuming more resources and producing more waste than the biosphere can provide and absorb - moves ever earlier in the year.
Because the global economy is still overwhelmingly fossil-fuel dependent, the accumulation of greenhouse gases and the prognosis for global warming remain our best indicators of "overshoot".
Using thresholds for risk identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on current trends, in only 92 months - less than eight years - we will move into a new, more perilous phase of warming. It will then no longer be "likely" that we can prevent some aspects of runaway climate change. We will begin to lose the climatic conditions which, as Nasa scientist James Hansen points out, were those under which civilisation developed.
In tackling climate change we need urgently to recalibrate our responses, just as governments had to when they rescued the reckless finance sector. The difference is, that if they fail this time, not even a long-term business cycle will come to our rescue. If the climate shifts to a hotter state not convivial to human society, it could be tens of thousands of years, or never, before it shifts back.
Ecological Debt: Global Warming and the Wealth of Nations explores a great paradox of our age: how the global wealth gap was built on ecological debts, which the world's poorest are now having to pay for. Highlighting how and why this has happened, he also shows what can be done differently in the future. Now updated throughout, this is a clear and passionate account of the steps we can take to stop pushing the planet to the point of environmental bankruptcy.
Spring Alliance
The Spring Alliance is a participatory movement to ensure that the European Union puts people and the planet first.
It was created by three leading European civil society organisations: the European Environmental Bureau, the European Trade Union Confederation and Social Platform. But the Alliance is much broader than that - it's supported by a network of organisations from all corners of civil society and beyond, including development NGOs, fair-trade associations, anti-poverty campaigners, consumer organisations and representatives from the research and business community.
On the Spring Alliance website you can learn more about this initiative. You can also read how you can - and why you should - get involved in the Spring Alliance, or contact them for further information.
Climate Change in the American Mind
Based on a nationally representative survey of 2,164 American adults conducted last fall, A new report from the Yale Center and George Mason University, Climate Change in the American Mind: Americans' Climate Change Beliefs, Attitudes, Policy Preferences, and Actions, examines how Americans are dealing with the issue of global warming. The study yields an important new perspective. On the whole, the American mind appears to be open to embracing a concerted national effort to address climate change.
92% of the 2,000+ individuals polled stated the United States "should take steps to reduce global warming," while 89% had "never" written, called, or emailed govt. officials to urge them to take such actions. About half of those polled have either rewarded companies for curbing global warming or punished them for making global warming worse.
Around one third still think scientists disagree about the causes of global warming, yet 62% agree it is caused by humans, the report concludes, "Thus, many Americans appear to have already made up their minds, drawing on other sources of information, without waiting for a perceived scientific consensus."
Climate Policy Integration, Coherence and Governance
Specific measures to tackle climate change, such as emissions trading, will only be successful if they are coherently supported by other government policies addressing economic and social issues, says a report published today by the Partnership for European Environmental Research (PEER).
The report, Climate Change Integration, Coherence and Governance, explains that, in order to create an effective, Europe wide climate policy, climate change issues must be better integrated into both general and sector-specific policies such as taxation, transportation, and land use planning. By doing this the necessary changes in production processes and consumption patterns to tackle climate change will be achieved.
The new report assesses the degree of climate policy integration in six different European countries, at national and local levels, as well as within key policy sectors such as energy and transport. It analyses measures and means to enhance climate policy integration and improve policy coherence.
The report shows that when climate policy is integrated into an increasing number of policy sectors such as energy, transport and land use, many latent conflicts are reopened. These include conflicts over nuclear power, taxation, hydro power, mobility and other issues involving values and ideology. If such conflicts are not recognised early they provide a barrier to effective climate policy integration.
Over recent decades, climate change research has focused primarily on the climate system impacts in general terms, and on mitigation. In the future, new challenges will be posed by the emergence of climate change adaptation policies across Europe. Climate policy integration and coherence will be essential in order to bring together the environmental, economic and social impacts of both adaptation and mitigation policies.
Climate Change and Human Rights
Measures to address climate change should be informed and strengthened by international human rights standards and principles, an analytical study by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) concludes.
The OHCHR study will be made available to the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen, in December. The study bases it premises on the findings of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which in its Fourth Assessment Report dispels any remaining doubts about the reality of global warming and details a range of climate change impacts. Many of these impacts are already affecting human rights across the globe.
It then discusses examples of specific human rights directly under threat in the face climate change, such as the rights to life, food, water, health, housing, and self-determination.
The study also explores how specific groups including women, children and indigenous peoples are particularly vulnerable to the detrimental consequences of climate change.
In particular, a human rights framework underlines the critical importance of effective participation of individuals and communities in decision-making processes affecting their lives.
Expressing concern about the human rights impact of climate change, the Human Rights Council in March 2008 mandated OHCHR to conduct this analytical study. When considering the study at the current Council session, the government of the Maldives said that it would table a resolution requesting a panel debate on the subject at the Council's next session in June.
There is a broad agreement that climate change has generally negative effects on the realization of human rights, says the study, which has taken into account numerous submissions from governments, UN agencies and other intergovernmental organizations, national human rights institutions, non-governmental organizations and individual experts throughout its consultation process.
The study underlines that governments have specific obligations under international human rights law to protect individuals whose rights are affected either by the physical impacts of climate change, such as sea-level rise and extreme weather events, or by policies and measures to address climate change.
It emphasizes that climate change, as a truly global problem, can only be effectively addressed through international cooperation. Such cooperation is particularly critical because of the way climate change disproportionately affects poorer countries with the weakest capacity to protect their populations.
The study concludes that "human rights standards and principles should inform and strengthen policymaking in the area of climate change, promoting policy coherence and sustainable outcomes, and that the realization of human rights remains a central objective of national and international action to address climate change.
Climate Change and Aviation
Trends such as the massive growth in availability of air travel and air freight are among those which have led to aviation becoming one of the fastest growing emitters of greenhouse gases. These trends have also caused a shift in expectations of how we do business, where we go on holiday, and what food and goods we can buy. For these reasons aviation is (and is set to stay) high up on global political, organizational and media agendas.
A new publication, Climate Change and Aviation, is the first to attempt a comprehensive review of the topic, bringing together an international team of leading scientists. Starting with the science of the environmental issues, it moves on to cover drivers and trends of growth, socio-economics and politics, as well as mitigation options, the result being a broad yet detailed examination of the field. This is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in transport, tourism, the environment, geography and beyond, while also being a valuable resource for professionals and policymakers seeking a clear understanding of this complex yet urgently pressing issue.
Vinyl 2010 Essay Competition
The Vinyl 2010 voluntary commitment is a 10 year plan to improve PVC production processes and products, invest in technology, minimise emissions, reduce waste and boost collection and recycling.
2007 saw the launch of Vinyl 2010s first Sustainable Development Essay Competition which led to young people across Europe submitting essays in response to the question, Are sustainable development and economic growth mutually exclusive?
The winners of the second Vinyl 2010 Essay Competition have been announced. Earlier this year, participants aged 18-30 years from Europe and around the world were invited to submit 1,000 words in response to the following question: Faced with a food and energy crisis, how can society improve its well-being. Close to a 1000 people representing 89 nationalities had signed up to take part in the Essay Competition. Over 200 completed essays were finally submitted to the panel of judges.
In the European Economic Area category, the first prize (3,000) has been won by 28 year old Jon Elms, an MSc student studying Project and Enterprise Management. His key interests are sustainable development and organisational design. The Second prize (2,000) has been awarded to 30 year old British / Canadian Fiona Wright who works to actively support the growth and development of skills and competence in strategic sustainable development worldwide. The third prize (1,000) has been awarded to 26 year old Robert McSweeney who is an environmental scientist for a consultancy firm in London and works predominantly on climate change impact and adaptation assessment.
The Global prize (3,000) winner is Christian Williams a 28 year old New Zealander who studied Civil Engineering at the University of Canterbury and specialises in Highways and Transport Engineering. He is also interested in conservation and sustainability. The Industry prize (2,000) has been awarded to 22 year old Wei Chao Zhou a student from Singapore at University College London currently pursuing a MSc degree in physics.
Bloom
The BBC has recently launched a website Bloom an interactive site for those who want to tackle climate change but are not sure how to go about it. In addition to providing news and blog commentary, the site handpicks individual actions for the viewer, and allows comparisons between these and other actions by how much carbon dioxide they save, how cheap they are, and how easy other bloomers have found them. Each feature has hard facts, expert opinion and topical debate to provide a sense of how much difference particular actions can really make. With everyone leading different lives, Bloom helps individuals to pick the actions that work for them
pick a seed, plant it to represent your action, and watch your flowers bloom.
Dictionary and Introduction to Global Environmental Governance
A new Dictionary and Introduction to Global Environmental Governance (GEG), written and compiled by two veterans of the international stage, provides a compilation of over 5500 terms, organizations and acronyms, drawn from hundreds of official sources. An introductory essay frames the major issues in GEG and outlines the pitfalls of talking past one another when discussing the most critical of issues facing the planet. It challenges those who are concerned with the management of our planet and its inhabitants to understand and accept a vocabulary common to the often-opposing objectives sought in the many GEG instruments.
The result is a practical tool that should find a central place on the desk of anyone involved in environmental management, development or sustainability issues anywhere in the world, including the United Nations, government policy makers, NGOs and other stakeholder groups, the business community, and students and professionals.
This fully revised and updated edition contains over 500 new entries and acronyms on global environmental governance as well a new introductory section on global water governance, one of the most pressing environmental issues in our era of climate change, growing populations and food shortages.
World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development
From 31 March to 2 April 2009, the "World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development Moving into the Second Half of the UN Decade" was held in Bonn, Germany. Organizers of the conference were UNESCO and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, in cooperation with the German Commission for UNESCO.
Conference participants exchanged best practices on Education for Sustainable Development from all world regions. They developed mechanisms for enhanced cooperation in the implementation of the UN Decade, especially focusing on the exchange between developing countries, those in transition and industrialized countries.
Five years into the Decade, the conference followed four objectives: to highlight the relevance of ESD to all of education; to promote international exchange on ESD, especially between the North and the South; to carry out a stock-taking of the implementation of the UN Decade and to develop strategies for the way ahead.
Furthermore, participants discussed regional, national and cultural differences as well as challenges in the implementation of the UN Decade. At the end of the conference, the Bonn Declaration reflecting the debates and proposing guidelines for the implementation of the UN Decade in its second half was adopted.
