On the Road to Johannesburg

by James Gustave Speth, Dean, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

Finding a New Sense of Urgency

"Sustainable development" can mean so many things that it's helpful when someone comes along and reduces it to the essentials. Ashok Khosla, an IISD board member, wrote the following words of wisdom:

The simplest and most effective way to arrive at a

sustainable future is to take care of the two primary

preconditions of sustainable development:

1. Meet the basic needs of all.

2. Protect the environment.

This is what Johannesburg should be all about in my view: protecting and regenerating the environment and eliminating large-scale poverty. If we are going to make progress at Johannesburg, we must be honest about how deplorable conditions are and how deplorable our record is in addressing them. We need a new sense of urgency. Environmental information is far more sophisticated than ever before, but the trends are less reassuring:

• Half of the tropical forests are gone. Non-OECD countries are projected to lose another 10 per cent by 2020.

• Birds and mammals are becoming extinct at 100-1000 times the natural rate.

• Over the last 50 years, agricultural productivity in an area larger than India and China combined has been degraded due to overuse or misuse.

• We are now appropriating, wasting or destroying about 40 per cent of nature's net photosynthetic product annually and consuming half of the available fresh water.

• In 1960, five per cent of marine fisheries were either fished to capacity or overfished. Today, 70 per cent of marine fisheries are in this condition.

• Half of the world's mangroves and wetlands have been destroyed.

On top of these processes of biotic impoverishment comes the biggest threat of all--global climate change. Without major corrective action, global warming in the lifetimes of today's children will likely make it impossible for about half of the land in the U.S. to sustain the types of plants and animals now on that land. And, of course, the developing world will be even harder hit.

The size of human populations, our affluence and consumption patterns, and the technology we deploy to meet our perceived needs have driven these disturbing trends. It took all of history for the world economy to grow to $6 trillion in 1950. Now it grows by more than that every five or so years and economic production is doubling every 20-25 years.

We could not stop this growth if we wanted to, and, indeed, the world economy must grow if we are to meet the needs of half the world's people who live on less than $2 per day. Will the next doubling of economic activity differ from the growth of the past, or will it produce more of the same? The OECD estimates that its members' CO₂ emissions will go up by 33 per cent between 2000 and 2020. Motor vehicle use in OECD countries is expected to rise by 40 per cent during the same period.

The implications of all this are very profound. We have entered the endgame in our historical relationship with the natural world. Humans dominate the planet today as never before. Whatever slack nature has cut us is gone. We live in a full world. We impact hugely on the great life support systems of the planet. Nature as something independent of us is dead. We are in a radically new ethical position because we are at the controls.

While there are some success stories, we have, for the most part, analyzed, debated, discussed and negotiated these issues endlessly. Our generation is one of great talkers, overly fond of conferences. But on action, we have fallen far short.

There is, however, some good news to report on the human development front. Since 1960 life expectancy in developing regions has increased from 46 years to 62. Child death rates have fallen by more than half and literacy rates have risen.

Yet the bleak realities remain. Among the 4.5 billion people who live in developing countries, three-fifths live in communities without basic sanitation; one-third is without safe drinking water; a quarter lacks adequate housing; and a fifth is under-nourished. For the 1.2 billion people who live on less than a dollar a day, poverty is a brutal denial of human rights.

On the policy front, an impressive consensus has emerged around objectives. The world community has come together with a concerted commitment to the goal of halving the incidence of absolute poverty by 2015. This, and related goals in health and education, were endorsed by all governments in the Millennium Assembly of the United Nations. Eliminating large-scale poverty is not a crazy dream. It could be accomplished in the lifetimes of today's young people.

These combined challenges of environment and poverty underscore the importance and the urgency of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Johannesburg is the opportunity to move beyond talk. It is the opportunity to reignite public concern before it is too late. Johannesburg is our chance to get it right this time--to correct the mistakes we have made in the past in our efforts to address these issues. We need major success at Johannesburg. We need to do a lot better than merely avoiding a failed summit.

So how should we measure success?

As Maurice Strong, Jan Pronk and others have indicated, Johannesburg will succeed if agreements are reached on specific plans of action to which governments are unambiguously committed, with targets and timetables and commitments to funding. Nothing else will close the huge credibility and accountability gaps that have opened since Rio. Given the shortness of time, these initiatives must build on past progress. The real agenda for which action is expected must be well focused and not diffuse, vague or overly broad.

There are many areas where I believe we can still develop concrete, practicable initiatives. In each area there are communities of experts who could be tapped to develop action plans. I suspect they are eager to be called upon.

The areas where accepted initiatives are required include poverty; financing for development; climate and energy; desertification; biodiversity and forests; global water issues; globalization and sustainable development; global environmental governance; the market and sustainability; and information, accountability and transparency.

I do not believe it is too late to develop actionable initiatives in these and other areas. But it is almost too late. We should invest in this effort with urgency in the weeks and months immediately ahead.

Before assuming the position of Dean, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, James Gustave Speth served as administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and chair of the UN Development Group. Prior to his service at the UN, he was founder and president of the World Resources Institute; professor of law at Georgetown University; chairman of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality; and senior attorney and co-founder, Natural Resources Defense Council.