International > CAIP > Events > Summer 1998

Sustainable Development and Environment: Harmonizing Economy, Environment, and the Development of Human Societies

by Walter V. Reid

The author is Vice President for Programs
World Resources Institute
1709 New York Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20006
tel: 202/662-2579
email: walt@wri.org

Achieving sustainable development -- development that meets the needs and aspirations of people today without diminishing prospects for future generations -- is an enormously challenging task, and it is perhaps the most important challenge we face today. It is daunting in part because many current environmental and economic trends make the prospects of sustainable development seem more remote every day. And it is challenging because we don’t yet know how to do it: how to effectively change development paths to effectively balance environmental, economic, and social goals. Our knowledge of living systems themselves is still rudimentary -- we have identified less than 15 percent of species on our planet and have only a basic understanding of the functioning of ecosystems. And, we are far from being able to tease apart the even more complex links between economic, demographic, and environmental factors that influence human development.

But there is much that we do know both about trends that underlie development prospects and about the actions that can be taken that will move us close to sustainability. In my remarks, I want to summarize some of these key trends, drawing from the just-published World Resources 1998-2000, the United Nations system report on the environment, co-published by World Resources Institute, United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations Development Program, and the World Bank. I’ll conclude with a brief summary of the types of actions that are needed to address these trends and some information on public understanding of both the challenges and opportunities that we face.

Social Trends

Progress in slowing world population growth has been more rapid than many predicted, but we still face the challenges of coping with as many people being added to the world population over the next 50 years as were added over all human history up through 1990. World population now totals 5.9 billion and continues to rise, but the peak rate of growth is behind us. We are currently on a demographic path lower than the median UN projection of just five years ago. Between 1985-95, 87 million people were added to world population each year; from 1990-95, 81 million people added each year. Population should climb to 8 to 11 million by 2050. Nearly all of that growth will occur in developing countries. The critical question is whether population will stabilize there. This depends on concerted efforts to continue the progress being achieved in reducing fertility rate, which in turn depends on continued socioeconomic progress: higher incomes, better education, more health care and family planning.

Economically, the picture is a booming global economy but one in which growth is concentrated in a small number of countries, disparities between the rich and poor are growing, and numbers of poor people continue to increase. Although 1998 may prove to be a year in which this pattern changes, the global economy has been booming. Gross domestic product has increased fivefold since 1950--up to nearly $28 trillion global GDP (in 1993)--an unprecedented rate of increase. But economic growth has not been even. In developing nations, economic growth has been dominated by just a few nations (China, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia). For 70 developing countries, average incomes are lower today then they were in 1980--and 1 billion people are worse off than they were in 1980.

Although the percentage of people living in poverty declined slightly between 1987 and 1993, the absolute number of people living on less than $1 per day increased from 1.2 to 1.3 billion. And disparities between rich and poor are increasing. In 1960, the richest 20 % of the world population had 30 times the wealth of the poorest 20%. In 1994 the richest quintile had 78 times the wealth of the poorest. The Poorest 20% of world population claims slightly more than 1% of global income while the richest 20% claims 86%.

Other social indicators show somewhat more broadly distributed progress in health, education, and democracy:

• Average life expectancy has climbed to 65 and the gap between industrialized and developing nations is narrowing;
• Death rates are falling, especially among children;
• Trends in literacy and education are positive; however, 2/3 of world’s illiterate adults are women and this gender gap is widening in some regions such as Africa;
• There has been significant growth in the number of democratic countries, from 39 countries in 1974 to 117 in 1994.

Food and Agriculture

The global food supply continues to outpace population and absolute numbers of malnourished people continues to decline. But food security is still a major problem in certain regions and concerns about the potential for continued growth in crop yield are growing. Global cereal yields continue to increase, but the rate of growth in yields for wheat, rice, maize is now declining. Some scientists fear that we are reaching a yield plateau, and since in most regions of the world relatively little arable land remains for expansion of agriculture, that could imply growing food security threats in coming decades.

Africa and the Former Soviet Union stand out as the only regions where food supply trends are particularly worrisome. While per capita production is increasing globally, it is declining in Africa and the FSU. Similarly, while the total number of malnourished people is declining globally, it is increasing in Africa. Millions go hungry everyday, largely because of poverty, conflict, and problems with distribution. WHO estimates that worldwide, about one third of children in the developing world are malnourished.

Environmental Trends

There is not much good news in global environmental trends. Renewable resources continue to decline dramatically and the toll of this decline on human development is increasing. And there is growing evidence of major human influences on global chemical, water, and atmospheric cycles. Some of the most worrisome trends are the following:

• Water scarcity is growing rapidly and now ranks among the greatest environmental challenges to human development. There has been a 6-fold increase in global water consumption between 1990 and 1995, double the rate of population growth. According to a 1997 UN assessment, one-third of the world’s population lives in countries experiencing moderate to high water stress and this may grow to two-thirds in 30 years.
• Pressure on marine resources continues to grow. Global fisheries are in decline: 60 % of world’s most important fish stocks are in urgent need of better management (to rehabilitate them or keep them from being overfished). This has major implications for feeding the world, since nearly 1 billion people rely on fish as their primary source of protein. This trends has been partially offset by the growth of aquaculture, which has doubled in the past decade and now provides 25% of all fish consumed for food. But aquaculture has very mixed impacts on local food security, pollution, and resource depletion.
• A recent World Resources Institute report, Reefs at Risk documents that nearly 60% of world’s coral reefs at risk from human activities.
• Deforestation rates are still high, and although there was perhaps a slight slowing in the early 1990s, there is still little evidence that we will avoid whole scale depletion of tropical forests. The world has lost half its original forests and the rate of forest loss is now 12 million ha per year, an area about the size of Greece. Only 20 percent of large relatively undisturbed natural forest tracts -- frontier forests -- remain standing today. And where progress has been achieved in protecting forests, we see that it is very fragile. In Brazil, although deforestation slowed significantly in the early 1990s, it shot up again in 1995 (nearly 3 million hectares.) With the extensive burning already in 1998, forest loss in this region is likely to be high again this year.

Collectively, these trends in renewable resources document the immense pressure that is being placed on the world’s biodiversity -- species, genes, and ecosystems. This biodiversity is threatened by loss of habitat and overuse as well as by introduced species. Extinction rates are now 100 to 1000 times background rates. For example, some 34 percent of all fish species are now at risk of extinction.

The climate forecast is just as gloomy as the trends in these renewable resources. The past year, 1997, was the hottest year ever, and additional peaks were reached in i) concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, ii) fossil fuel emissions, and iii) the rate of growth in energy supply. The Kyoto protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, agreed to last November, was a significant step, but the commitment to a 5 percent reduction in emissions among industrialized countries is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the eventual reductions necessary to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, estimated to require a 60% reduction below 1990 emissions.

We have observed a surface warming of about 0.5C over the past century and the 1990s are the warmest decade on record. The years 1990, 1995, and 1997 were each the warmest ever recorded and each of the first 5 months of this current year were the warmest ever recorded. The effects of this rising temperature are already being seen in the retreat of glaciers, and the extension by some 10 days in the growing season in the northern hemisphere.

The threat of climate change is largely a result of growing use of fossil fuels. Global energy use has climbed nearly 70 percent since 1971 and is poised to continue at a rate of 2% per year for next 15 years. Global carbon dioxide emissions will grow by some 50% by 2010 without strong action. Growth in emissions will be particularly striking in developing countries like China. But even with that growth, the developing world will not surpass the developed world in terms of their net contribution to climate change until after the year 2030. One dramatic trend reflective of the growing consumption of fossil fuel is the skyrocketing number of vehicles around the world. Transportation alone accounts for more than one quarter of the world’s energy use and vehicles now account for 15% of CO2 emissions. Since 1970, we see roughly 16 million more vehicles on the road each year. By 2025 there could be well over 1 billion vehicles on the road. Without a shift toward resource efficient, environmentally friendly vehicles--not run on oil--implications for both urban air pollution and climate are sobering.

Air pollution, a problem being brought under control in developed countries, is a growing problem in developing countries. Acid rain is worsening in Asia where energy use is growing rapidly and high reliance on sulfur-containing oil and coal. S02 emissions in Asia could triple between 1990 and 2010. An estimated 34 million metric tons of SO2 were emitted in Asia in 1990, some 40% more than were emitted in North America. Acid deposition levels are particularly high in southeast China, northeast India, Thailand, and the Republic of Korea.

The one atmospheric ‘success’ story is the implementation of the Montreal Protocol to address ozone depleting substances. Steady progress has been achieved in reducing production and consumption of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the primary culprit of stratospheric ozone depletion. Global consumption has dropped more than 70 percent. Losses in stratospheric ozone are projected to peak sometime in the next few years, with expectations that the Antarctic ozone hole would disappear around 2050. Even here, though challenges remain: Production of halons (another ozone depleter) is rising in developing countries and a black market in CFCs flourishes with 20,000 to 30,000 metric tons estimated to be sold each year.

One of the most striking human influences on global cycles involves nitrogen. Nitrogen is an essential nutrient to all forms of life. But in the past several decades, we have begun to overload the natural cycle by our skyrocketing use of fertilizer, the burning of fossil fuels (which release nitrogen) , accompanied by an upsurge in deforestation and other forms of land clearing. Since 1940, the amount of nitrogen available for uptake has more than doubled. Human activities now contribute as much to the global supply of fixed nitrogen each year as natural processes do. And through biomass burning and land clearing we mobilize an additional amount of nitrogen equal to half of the natural production. This overall human contribution could double over next 25 years. Natural systems can absorb some of this excess and even flourish, but after that serious harm can ensue. This nitrogen glut can disrupt soil chemistry and reduce fertility and change the composition of species in an ecosystem. Aquatic ecosystems are the most at risk. “Dead zones,’ such as that in the Gulf of Mexico, are a direct result of overfertilization of the waters, largely from agricultural runoff.

Policy Responses

We know a great deal about policy changes that could dramatically improve many of the worrisome trends noted above. For example:

• Removal of subsidies. Many of the pressures on renewable resources are exacerbated by the presence of public subsidies that promote overharvesting or overuse of resources. The expenses of the global fishing fleet, for example, exceed revenues by some $50 billion per year -- removal of this subsidy would dramatically decrease pressure on fish resources.
• Paying the full costs of goods and services. Many of the environmental impacts of our production and consumption are “externalized”. For example, the individual purchasing gasoline does not pay the cost associated with the air pollution impacts of burning that fuel, although society will bear those public health costs. By incorporating the full environmental cost into the price we pay for products we will encourage more appropriate decisions on the relative merits of various activities. A fuel tax, for example, would be one of the most economically attractive means of reducing the rate of growth in carbon emissions.
• Increased education and empowerment of women. By far one of the strongest correlations with declining birth rates is education and empowerment of women. Availability of family planning services, improved economic opportunities for the general population and other factors can contribute to reduced rates of population growth, but investment in education for women and creation of economic opportunities for women can be very helpful and are clearly desirable in their own right in any event.
• Increased accountability of the private sector. Within the United States, one of the most effective steps ever taken to reduce pollution from business was the “Toxics Release Inventory” -- a requirement that companies release information on the chemicals they discharge to the environment. The result of this was a major effort by companies to reduce emissions to avoid the public outcry associated with heavy polluters. Mechanisms such as these, which increase public scrutiny and the accountability of firms can be far greater incentives to change than regulatory controls or even financial incentives.
• Increased study of environmental systems. The environmental challenges we face involve complex systems that we still know relatively little about. The need for both basic and applied research on biogeochemical cycles, atmospheric science, marine science, biodiversity, conservation biology, human health, epidemiology, agricultural science and so forth is significant -- far out of scale with the current financing for research in these areas.

There are many more policy steps that could be elaborated: strengthened land and resource tenure for communities particularly in developing countries; strengthened international institutions and agreements for dealing with cross-boarder environmental and economic concerns; access to micro-credit for rural and urban poor, more effective mechanisms to finance environmentally sound development, and so forth.

Public Understanding

The public understanding of the challenges we face related to sustainable development is surprisingly good in many respects, although there are striking exceptions. A recent survey polled more than 35,000 people in 30 countries and found that majorities in 28 of 30 countries, ranging from 91% in Greece to 54% in India, say that environmental laws as currently applied in their countries “don’t go far enough”. And in 15 of the 20 countries where comparison to survey last year is possible, the number of people sharing this view is growing. The poll found that public support for major action to address climate change is growing rapidly. In Russia, 76% support “major action now”, up 46 points from 1997, China 56% (up 24 points), and U.S. 51% (up 5 points).

Yet in other respects, public understanding does not seem to align with scientific views. Scientists typically place biodiversity loss among the most pressing priorities for environmental action, yet in a poll conducted in the U.S. in 1994, neither biodiversity nor concerns about endangered species ranked as a top-five environmental problem. Moreover, the public did not even understand the term -- only one-fifth of American’s had heard the term “loss of biodiversity”, and virtually none were aware that biodiversity loss had been a major topic at the Earth Summit -- the meeting of heads of state on environment and development issues in Rio, Brazil, in 1992. The poll also found that American’s could not identify significant causes of biodiversity loss or what things might be affected by its loss.

These gaps in understanding extend well beyond the environmental issues involved. One of the most important means of promoting development in developing countries over the past several decades has been the bilateral development assistance programs of countries like the United States. These programs have contributed to major progress in such areas as health care and agricultural production. Yet Americans have no real understanding of the scale of the U.S. development assistance efforts. A poll conducted in 1995 found that Americans believe that United States spends 18 percent of its national budget on foreign aid and should spend more on the order of 5%. In fact, the U.S. spends less than 1 percent of its budget on development assistance.

Conclusion

Clearly, much needs to be done to place development paths on a sustainable footing. The current picture is not without its bright spots, such as declining levels of malnourishment and increasing longevity worldwide, but some trends, such as most environmental trends and the very worrisome growth in income inequality indicate that we are far from attaining a development path that can persist without growing costs to current and future generations. There is much that can be done to change these trends. But in many respects, two factors will ultimately be responsible for doing so: continued growth in our understanding of the complex environmental systems of the earth, and growing public awareness of the need for change and the mechanisms available to make those changes.

References

World Resources Institute. 1998. World Resources 1998-1999: Environmental Change and Human Health. WRI, UNDP, UNEP, and World Bank, Washington, D.C.

Environics Intl. Ltd. 1998. 1998 International Environmental Monitor Survey. Environics International, Ltd., Toronto, Canada

1998 Summer Meeting Papers

Education and Capacity Building
Shirley Malcom

Sustainable Development and the Environment
Walter Reid

Infectious Diseases and Public Health
James Hughes

ICSU Capacity Building Program
Molly Teas

Status and Trends in World Science
Maurizio Iaccarino