Our Common Journey: A Transition Toward Sustainability (1999)
Chapter: 4 environmental threats and opportunities, 4 environmental threats and opportunities.
The goals for a transition toward sustainability, as we set them out in Chapter 1, are to meet human needs over the next two generations while reducing hunger and poverty and preserving our environmental life support systems. The activities to approach this goal can only move ahead within the constraints set by resources and the environment. Many people have argued that, unless we make dramatic changes in our human enterprises, the development needed to meet future human needs risks damaging the life-support capabilities of the earth—which in turn would of course prevent society from meeting its goals. In this chapter, we therefore ask two related questions:
• What are the greatest threats that humanity will encounter as it attempts to navigate the transition to sustainability?
• What are the most promising opportunities for avoiding or circumventing these threats on the path to sustainability?
Our object is not to predict what environmental damages might be caused by development at particular times and places—a largely futile activity for all but the most specific and immediate development plans. Rather, it is to highlight some of the most serious environmental obstacles that might be met in plausible efforts to reach the goals outlined in Chapter 1 and along development paths such as those explored in Chapters 2 and 3, to take timely steps to avoid or circumvent these obstacles. 1
This chapter begins with a brief discussion of the approaches and issues we considered in scouting the environmental hazards that societies may confront. We then turn to efforts to assess the relative severity of
these hazards for particular times and places. Following the lead of the Brundtland Commission, we next analyze how human activities in a number of crucial developmental sectors might pose important challenges and opportunities for navigating the transition toward sustainability. Finally, we turn to the question of interactions—how multiple developmental activities may interact with complex environmental systems to transform the very nature of the journey before us.
Throughout our discussion, we not only seek to identify potential obstacles to a successful transition, but also to highlight the skills, knowledge, and materials that might be most useful in detecting and understanding the hazards, and in devising solutions or mid-course corrections to address them. We conclude that in any given place there are significant if often place-specific opportunities for societies to pursue goals of meeting human needs while sustaining earth's life support systems. Some of these opportunities are likely to be realized by individual actors—firms, organizations, and states—in the normal course of their self-interested activities. Others, however, will require integrative planning and management approaches.
Conceptual Issues
One of the most difficult challenges of the Board's exercise—and one that has bedeviled other attempts to evaluate the pitfalls to sustainable development—has been to determine which of the many potential problems are truly those that cannot be ignored. Perhaps the easiest approach might be to list as potential concerns for sustainable development every resource limitation or environmental response that can be imagined. Equally clear, however, is that a canoe-steering society that tries to focus public resources on avoiding every possible danger in a river at once will likely be looking the wrong way as it collides with the biggest rock. How can we distinguish those threats that, while not insignificant, are likely to be avoided or adapted to from those with a real potential for sinking the vessel? And how can we devise a system that encourages society to update its priorities among all hazards in light of new information and expertise?
A further difficulty in the analysis arises because hazards have spatial and temporal dimensions and important interactions. However connected the world may be, and however global the transformations humans impose on it, the sustainability transition will be played out differently on a vast number of local stages. Neither population growth, nor climate change, nor water limitations will be the same in Japan as in the Sudan. The environmental hazards that nations and communities find most threatening and the response strategies they look to will continue to be
significantly different in different places in the world and at different times. Moreover, some components of the environmental system have impressive resiliency and ability to recover from human-caused or natural stress. Temporal dynamics and variations in the resiliency of systems confound clear illumination of critical hazards. Identification of hazards must also confront the difficulty of identifying, measuring, and predicting cumulative and interactive effects and discontinuous changes. Many of the activities that humans engage in occur at local scales, but as these activities are repeated around the world, their effects accumulate; collectively, local changes can lead to regional and global changes. Many of the worst and of the best-known environmental problems (e.g., stratospheric ozone depletion, anoxia in the Gulf of Mexico) resulted from the slow, day-by-day accumulation of small changes and dispersed activities. Such cumulative effects are only noticed after they have intensified over time, or when nonlinearities in the response of global or regional systems lead to dramatic and unforeseen events. Interactions of multiple changes also lead to surprise. Consequences that are deemed unlikely are often overlooked, yet rare events with extreme or large-scale consequences may influence the sustainability of the global system even more than cumulative effects.
Clearly, uncertainty is rampant and surprise is inevitable. Recent environmental surprises have ranged from the emergence of "new" communicable diseases such as Legionnaires' disease, in a part of the developed world where such things were assumed to be hazards of the past; through the devastation of the developing-world town of Bhopal, India, in a very modern industrial accident; to the belated discovery that the nontoxic, noncorrosive CFCs that had displaced hazardous refrigerants and propellants turned out to have their own serious risks. 2 More such surprises are likely as the earth system comes under increasing pressure from human activities. One difficulty lies in achieving a balance between falsely declaring certainty to engender action and the fatalistic resignation that societies can never know enough to know when or how to act.
In dealing with these difficulties, the Board has attempted to develop a process for setting priorities and for identifying issues that require top concern. While our analysis builds on numerous national and international "stock-taking" efforts, we ultimately focus our attention on those issues that cut across sectors and that interact to simultaneously threaten human and ecosystem health, urban development, industrial advances, and sustained agricultural production. We conclude that integrative solutions-those aimed at interacting challenges across many sectors—will be key to successfully navigating the transition to sustainability.
Perceptions of risk change with circumstances, as pressures increase, information is collected, technology advances, and surprises occur. The
environmental challenges that local places face as they navigate the transition to sustainability will also differ, because of inherent variations in resource bases and biophysical, social, and political environments. These variations include differences in geochemical and ecological vulnerability to pollution, social capital formation, and countless other details. Together, they make unsatisfactory any global-scale exercise to rank potential hazards. How do we then focus on challenges and opportunities that are relevant at the global scale yet meaningful locally?
We conclude that the most serious threats are those that (1) affect the ability of multiple sectors of almost any society to move ahead toward our normative goals for sustainability; (2) have cumulative or delayed consequences, with effects felt over a long time; (3) are irreversible or difficult to change; and/or (4) have a notable potential to interact with each other to damage earth's support systems. To identify the problems that fit these criteria, we draw on several approaches. First, we use an environment-oriented analysis, 3 in which hazards are ranked on the basis of the breadth of their consequences (e.g., having human health consequences, ecosystem consequences, and consequences for materials and productivity). Secondly, we use the framework of ''common challenges" to development in various sectors proposed by the 1987 Brundtland Commission as the basis for expert group analyses of threats and opportunities for the transition to sustainability. Finally, we identify the threats stemming from the interaction of sectoral activities.
Environmental Perspectives
Researchers 4 drew on the UN Environment Program's The World Environment: 1972–1982 , the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Unfinished Business and a range of other national and international environmental assessments that had been carried out worldwide, to develop a list of 28 potential environmental hazards that included most issues judged important in one or more of these studies. The hazards fell into five broad categories: land and water pollution, air pollution, contaminants of the human environment (e.g., indoor air pollution), resource losses, and natural disasters. Environmental data and explicit value judgments about the relative importance of present versus future impacts and of human health versus ecological impacts were then combined to generate comparative national rankings of the overall hazards list. From their analysis, it is apparent that the availability of high-quality freshwater is a priority concern in the United States, whether the most weight is given to human health, ecosystem, or materials concerns. Also, the more regional to global problems of stratospheric ozone depletion, climate change, acidification, and tropospheric ozone production and air pollution are common
and highly ranked issues of concern across the three areas. Such an approach provides the basis for assigning priorities to environmental threats.
In support of this Board's activities, the list was modified 5 and compared with eight other major efforts to assess environmental hazards, scoring each hazard on the basis of how important the various efforts found them to be (Table 4.1). Looking at Table 4.1 as a whole, some problems such as groundwater contamination and forest degradation stand out as being of nearly universal concern. Others, such as indoor air pollution and contamination, show up less frequently. Over time, there has been a shift from a focus on the depletion of natural resources and contamination of the environment to the loss of particular ecosystems (e.g., forests). In the individual assessments, the environmental threats identified as the most serious are often those most salient to a particular population. For example, the report on India devoted considerable attention to the health hazards of chemicals, both in the workplace and in accidental leakages, largely because at the time of the report the Bhopal disaster was still a major environmental event.
Overall, these analyses suggest that, for most nations of the world, water and air pollution are the top priority issues; for most of the more industrialized nations, ozone depletion and climate change are also ranked highly; while for many of the less-industrialized countries, droughts or floods, disease epidemics, and the availability of local living resources are crucial. The scored hazards approach 6 shows that sufficient data exist to make some relative hazard identifications for both today and the future. It also makes clear that relative hazard rankings—even of global environmental problems— are strongly dependent on the circumstances of the region assessed.
One of the limitations of this approach is its failure to address interactions—for example, the fact that such issues as water quality, acidification, and climate change are intimately linked, and that change in one will have consequences for change in others. In addition, because the approach focuses on the problem rather than the cause, it is not a good pragmatic tool on its own. Solutions are difficult to develop without knowing causes.
Development Perspectives
For another type of perspective, we built on the work of the Brundtland Commission's report Our Common Future . 7 In the interests of policy relevance, this effort broke with the tradition of analysis focused on environmental issues. Instead, analysis is directed to the "common challenges" to the environment arising from development activities within particular sectors: population and human resource development, cities,
Table 4.1 Assessments of the Importance of Environmental Hazards
Sources: UNCED (1992); World Bank (1992); WRI (1996); UNEP (1982) ; Easterbrook (1995); Centre for Science and Environment (1995); Council on Environmental Quality and Department of State (1982); Brown (1956).
agricultural production, industry, energy, and living resources. Using the Brundtland "common challenges" concept, we evaluated potential sector-specific resource and environmental impediments to reaching sustainability goals, along with the opportunities each sector offers to reduce, prevent, or mitigate the most serious threats. In addition, we evaluated progress over the last decade in achieving the measures identified by the Brundtland "challenges."
Human Population and Well-Being
In 1987, the Brundtland Commission framed the issue of human population growth in terms of both the balance between population and resources and the need for increased health, well-being, and human rights to self-determination. Today, these issues are strongly linked, and we recognize that the reduction in poverty, poor health, mortality, and the increase in educational and employment opportunities for all are the keys to slowing population growth and to the wise and sustainable use of resources. Thus, one of the most critical challenges for efforts to navigate a transition to sustainability will be to reduce population growth while simultaneously improving the health, education, and opportunities of the world's people.
Population growth is an underlying threat to sustainability due to the increased consumption of energy and materials needed to provide for many more people, to crowding and competition for resources, to environmental degradation, and to the difficulties that added numbers pose in efforts to advance human development. Today, population growth has ended in most industrialized countries and rates of population growth are in decline everywhere except in parts of Africa (see Chapter 2); yet the population of 2050 is nonetheless predicted to reach about 9 billion. In a classic decomposition of future population growth in developing countries, a researcher examined the major sources of this continued growth: unwanted childbearing due to low availability of contraception, a still-large desired family size, and the large number of young people of reproductive age. 8 Currently, 120 million married women (and many more unmarried women) report in surveys that they are not practicing contraception despite a desire for smaller families or for more time between births. Meeting their needs for contraception would reduce future population growth by nearly 2 billion. At the same time, such surveys also show that the desired family size in most developing countries is still above two children. An immediate reduction to the level of replacement (2.1) would reduce future growth by about 1 billion. The remainder of future population growth can be accounted for by so-called population momentum, which is due to the extraordinarily large number of young
people. This momentum ensures that population growth will persist for decades even if fertility were to drop to replacement level.
Addressing each of these sources of future growth could reduce fertility and future population numbers further and faster than current trends would project. Opportunities include making contraception more readily available to those who desire it (Table 4.2), accelerating trends that lead to lower desired family size, and slowing the momentum of population growth arising from the large number of prospective parents that are alive today. 9 Linking voluntary family planning with other reproductive and child health services can increase access to contraception for the many who want it. Improving the survival of children, their education, and the status of girls and women has been correlated with and may lead to a desire for smaller families. Increasing the age of childbearing, primarily by improving the secondary education and income-generating opportunities for adolescent girls, can slow the momentum of population growth. All of these opportunities, if exploited, could contribute directly to our societal goals for a transition to sustainability; at the same time, through these factors' influence on reducing the ultimate size of the population, they would increase the probability of meeting environmental goals.
Threats to human-well being stem from many environmental sources. Environmental factors can affect human health directly—through exposure to air pollution, heavy metals, and synthetic chemicals—and indirectly through loss of natural biological controls over opportunistic agents and vectors of infectious disease. Because of human introductions nearly
50 years ago, the global environment now carries a number of synthetic chemicals that can interfere with human physiology, including the endocrine system, the immune system, and neurological function. 10 Additionally, heavy metal deposition in the environment is rising and will continue to increase under development scenarios implicit in meeting our normative goals. Health effects of exposure to heavy metals may be substantial, and include long-term neurological effects on intelligence and behavior. Air pollution is a critical problem of urban systems in many regions of the world, and the increase in air pollution with a rapidly urbanizing world raises serious concerns for human health and the health of crops and natural ecosystems. As described in Chapter 2, over the past several decades, there has been an emergence, resurgence, and redistribution of infectious diseases. The potential eruption of diseases in an increasingly populated world is a serious threat to sustainability goals. These diseases threaten human health, water safety, food security, and ecosystem health.
Fortunately, because of biological and other scientific revolutions and policy reform over the past decades, there are opportunities for addressing the health risks from exposure to environmental threats. Biotechnology holds great promise (for example, in the creation of new medicines and diagnostics, pest-resistant crop species, plants with low-water requirements, and biodegradable pesticides and herbicides). Policies that control the point sources of air pollution, deposition of heavy metals, and disposal of synthetic chemicals help resolve health-related problems for local and regional human populations and can have very significant and long-term payoffs for future generations. Also, the establishment of early warning systems and other predictive capabilities to identify conditions conducive to outbreaks and clusters of infectious disease could be useful for health institutions at all spatial scales.
In addition, a number of opportunities arise via interactions of this human well-being sector with others. For example, reduction in industrial wastes through approaches using industrial ecology would have large advantages for human health, and also for the environment as it is affected by energy and water sectors, through the increased efficiency of these resources' use. Finally, the maintenance of natural ecosystems and the protection of their services can influence human health in many ways, including by providing natural enemies for disease vectors and natural water and air purification and supply systems.
Over the next half century, urban populations are likely to grow from the present 3 billion to perhaps 7 billion people, with most of the growth
occurring in non-OECD (see Chapter 2 and 3). 11 Cities are engines of economic growth and wealth creation, of innovation and creativity, but they are also the sites of extremes of wealth and poverty, unequal access to drinking water and sanitation, pollution, and public health problems. As the Brundtland Commission noted, the growth of urban populations has often preceded development of the housing, infrastructure, and employment needed to sustain that population. In the 10 years from 1985 to 1995, a period during which the Brundtland report was published, the world saw the addition of the equivalent of 81 cities with populations of over a million people. 12 There have been dramatic and successful efforts to improve water, air, and sanitation services in developing world urban centers during this period. But the number of city dwellers without adequate water and exposed to poor sanitation and air pollution has grown as urban population growth has outpaced investments. 13 The health consequences of inadequate drinking water and poor sanitation services are felt most strongly by the poor.
Among the major challenges of urban development is air pollution, produced largely by the interactions of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides produced in industrial and transportation processes as well as by heating and cooking. 14 While investments in pollution control in industrialized countries have led to air pollutant reductions in many cities, air pollution is still a major problem in the developed world. In the United States, some 80 million people live in areas that do not meet air quality standards, and in many European cities air pollutant concentrations are also higher than the established standards. 15 At the same time, air quality in the cities of the industrializing world has worsened. Worldwide, the World Health Organization estimates that 1.4 billion urban residents breathe air that fails to meet WHO air quality standards. 16
Access to water and sanitation services also present enormous challenges to rapidly growing cities. Despite concerted efforts during the 1980s, designated the "International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade" by the World Health Organization, in 1990 about 200 million urban dwellers were without a safe water supply, and around 400 million were without adequate sanitation. 17 In the largest cities of the industrializing world, the poorest populations in the slums and at the city margins tend to have the least access to safe water. For example, in Sao Paulo, nearly 20 percent of the city's population lived in slums (called favelas) in 1993; around 85 percent of the favelas had no sewerage service. 18 Innovative technological opportunities—such as condominial sewers, 19 improved ventilated pit latrines, various lower cost sewage treatments, and approaches to reuse of municipal wastewater—are available to provide flexible and cost-effective services and are being used with success in some regions, but have yet to be widely applied. Also, in some areas, such
as Mexico City (see Box 4.1), high-priority attention can be given to treatment of municipal wastewater as part of a comprehensive plan for improving the balance of water supply, water demand, and water conservation.
In 1900, there were only 16 cities with populations of 1 million or more; by 1994 there were 305 such cities—and of these, 13 had populations of greater than 10 million. 21 Most of this growth has taken place over the last 50 years. As described in Chapter 2, projections of population growth indicate that there will be nearly 7 billion urban dwellers by 2050. The most rapid expansion of high-density cities will be during the next several decades. This trend presents an opportunity to build modern, state-of-the-art facilities and to provide efficient infrastructure systems for the delivery of services. Maintenance and improvement of the quality, adaptability, reliability, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency of these systems are critical to established and aging cities as well. Realizing these opportunities, of course, depends on the foresight, will, capital, and incentives to take advantage of them. Seizing these chances would help to meet the future needs for housing, while reducing the footprint on the land, and, with increases in efficiency, the needs for energy and materials.
Agriculture and Food Security
The task of feeding an additional several billion people in the next 50 years is an unprecedented challenge, one fraught with biophysical,
environmental, and institutional hazards and roadblocks. Food demand will rise in response to population growth, growth of per capita income, and attempts to reduce the undernutrition of the very poor. By 2050 food demand could almost double to accommodate the projected population depending on the growth of income and the nature of diet. 22 But the paths to meeting these demands are far from clear. The challenge of feeding this population and reducing hunger requires dramatic advances both in food production, which we focus on here, and in food distribution and access. Production of the globally traded staples (maize, wheat, rice, soybeans, poultry, and swine) will be driven by new technologies already in or rapidly moving toward the private sector. 23 The emergence of genetic biotechnologies, protected by intellectual property rights and patenting, is attracting enormous private investment. Global markets and the movement of private capital into processing and marketing have increased handling efficiencies. Market balance among rich and poor countries, monopoly control, and environmental impacts due to the scale of operations all remain major issues. Industrial technologies are major engines for continued growth. Prospects for growth in production of the numerous "minor" or regional staples, such as cassava, yams, potatoes, grain legumes, millet, white maize, sorghum, and other crops critical to food security for a large segment of the world's poor, are not nearly as optimistic. Such growth is not now in progress nor is it projected for the foreseeable future. The Brundtland Commission recognized that a great strategic effort would be required to meet the challenge of feeding a growing population, yet the past 10 years have seen a reduction in resources for the international agricultural research community along with indicator values that increasingly show world capabilities for increasing food production are stagnating. 24
During the last half century, the dramatic gains in crop production that have occurred almost worldwide (except, in particular, Sub-Saharan Africa) have come from four interrelated sources: expansion of cultivated land, increased use of fertilizer and pest control chemicals, expansion of irrigated area, and the introduction of high-yielding crop varieties. The continued gains in agricultural production required in the 21 st century will be considerably more difficult to accomplish than in the immediate past. 25 There are currently difficulties in raising yield ceilings for the cereal crops, despite a history of rapid yield gains in the past. Incremental response to increases in fertilizer use has declined in many areas. Expansion of irrigated land has become more costly and has slowed dramatically in the past two decades. Because of rising demand for water with growing urbanization, water supplies are increasingly less available to agriculture. 26 The loss of soil fertility and degradation of agricultural lands due to inappropriate management, climate change, and other factors
has been reversed in some agricultural areas but at the same time has become an important issue in many other areas. 27 For example, the expansion of irrigated area, combined with the failure to design and implement incentive-compatible irrigation management, has contributed to waterlogging and soil salinity. Reductions in agricultural productivity due to air and water quality changes, some of which emanate from agriculture itself, have also raised concerns. 28 Increasing pest problems because of increasing pesticide resistance stemming from misuse of chemical pesticides, the decimation of natural enemies, and the invasion of new pests are also topics of concern. 29 Any one of these problems alone could impede efforts toward increasing production and yield. Together, these biophysical factors threaten achieving a successful transition toward sustainability.
Perhaps more important still are the threats associated with inadequate investment in the agricultural sector now—for research, education, technological developments, and transfer of knowledge and information to the developing world. 30 Local agricultural research capacity, local public and private capacity to make knowledge, technology, and materials available to producers, and the schooling or informal education of farmers and farm workers are all required for sustained growth in agricultural production. The international agricultural research system and the private sector research community are important sources of new knowledge and new technology, 31 but these systems are effective only in the presence of viable national and regional research systems capable of adapting new technologies to local agroclimatic conditions. Finally, productivity and sustainability depend on the knowledge that farm people bring to the management of their resources and production; education is critical. Institutions must make advances in the technology and management approaches available to farmers, and local financial credit and labor markets must function effectively.
Limitations of institutional capacity may be one of the reasons why Sub-Saharan African countries have failed to realize the gains in productivity that have been achieved by green revolution technology in South and Southeast Asia and Latin America. Institutional limitations, along with political instability, complex land tenure systems, and unique agroclimatic environments may all contribute to the apparent lag in productivity gains there. Understanding the dimensions and factors controlling this failure is critically important because Sub-Saharan Africa is the major region where growth in agricultural production is running behind population growth. One of the major challenges of the sustainability transition will be to develop new and appropriate approaches to improve food production in this region.
If the development of international and national agricultural research
systems is maintained, there are many opportunities to enhance our ability to respond to growing world food demand at the same time that we sustain resources and the broader environment. Improved varieties and better management could lead to increases in yield, at least up to fundamental limits set by plant physiology. Scientific and technological breakthroughs, particularly in the area of biotechnology, could over the long term lead to a lifting of the yield ceilings that have been set by the green revolution technologies. 32 Biotechnology is still in its infancy, and its application is controversial. Nevertheless, both the science and the technology are advancing rapidly, and the development and diffusion of biotechnologies may play an important role in increasing and sustaining agricultural production in many areas of the world.
While biotechnology holds substantial hope for improving crop production and efficiency of resource use, many other opportunities exist to increase and sustain food production while decreasing environmental consequences. Protection and careful utilization of soil, water, and biological resources underlie many of these opportunities, and promising management approaches have already been developed and successfully used in some places. For example, integrated nutrient management, like integrated pest management, takes advantage of the ecological processes operating in soils and crop ecosystems and uses them in combination with industrial inputs to optimize productivity and reduce pesticide and nutrient spread. 33 Ecologically based pest management takes advantage of biological diversity to reduce the need for pesticide use. Increased use of efficient irrigation systems will conserve and maintain water supplies and lessen competition with urban and other uses. 34 In breeding programs, increasing attention to flexibility and genetic diversity of crop plants can increase the ability of the agricultural sector to respond to climate and other environmental ''surprises." 35 The development of management systems and breeding programs for regional staple crops could also enlarge the food security basket for the poor in many regions. For these opportunities to be useful, new knowledge is needed about both the biophysical crop system and the sociological barriers to implementation. Taking advantage of these opportunities will help to provide the food needs for future human populations, while preserving water in areas of scarcity and reducing pressure on the land.
Over the next two generations, the global market for goods and services is likely to increase two- to four-fold (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 appendix). With that increase will come an enormous demand for materials. Avoiding the waste, pollution, and environmental disruption now
associated with the extraction, processing, and consumption of materials, and reducing energy and water inputs into industrial production, are the foremost issues during the transition to sustainability. In the 10 years since the Brundtland Commission's challenge to industry to produce more with less, there have been substantial improvements in reducing and reusing materials by both industry and consumers. But the trend toward increasing material use efficiency and dematerialization, discussed in Chapter 2, must be accomplished universally and at much faster rates if it is to offset the rapid increases in production forecasts for the next decades.
The demand for materials to meet expanding markets may in some cases be limited by resource shortages. However, given a supply of energy at competitive prices, the increased demand most likely will result in substantial materials substitutions. Absolute materials shortages are unlikely, at least in the next several decades. 36 The materials challenge, instead, is likely to be associated with pollution due to the "leakage" of materials from the manufacturing, processing, and consumption systems. 37 Such leakages include not only those of nontoxic but valuable materials wasted in the production and consumption streams, and also those of a variety of toxic and hazardous substances used in industrial production. More than 12 billion tons of industrial waste are generated in the United States each year; and municipal solid wastes, which include consumer wastes, are generated at the rate of 0.2 billion tons per year. 38 Clearly, such residual production must be brought under control, or better yet, prevented.
Again, some of these leakages represent not just loss of valuable materials but of substances presenting specific toxicological and ecological threats. More than 100,000 industrial chemicals are in use today, and the number is increasing rapidly in the expanding agriculture, metals, electronics, textiles, and food industries. 39 Some of the effects of these chemicals are well known, but there are insufficient data for health assessment for the majority of these chemicals. Some, like the persistent organic pollutants, are widely distributed beyond their points of origin and concentrate as they move up the food chain. Human exposure to these pollutants can cause immune dysfunction, reproductive and behavioral abnormalities, and cancer. Also, heavy metals such as lead, copper, and zinc can reside in the environment for hundreds of years; human exposure to them can lead to kidney damage, developmental retardation, cancer, and autoimmune responses. Nevertheless, global production, consumption, and circulation of many toxic metals and organics have increased dramatically in the last half century because of their utility in many industrial activities, though production began to level off in the early 1970s and emissions began to decline (Figure 4.1). But numerous opportunities exist to reduce material usage as well as
environmentally harmful leakages. Refurbishing or remanufacturing used products or their parts, changing the nature of the product used to a new condition for accomplishing the same purpose (usually provision of a service instead of the product), 40 and recycling and reuse of used subsystems, parts, and materials in products all generally require much less energy, capital, and labor than the original creation of the materials and products. In addition, such processes minimize environmental damage. There is a clear and obvious case for us to examine what we know about the role of industry in the flow of materials, energy, and products, the effects of market forces (e.g., on recycling), and the possibilities for modifying these flows through the system, for more efficient energy use, decreasing environmental damage, and improving the efficiency of providing goods and services.
In recent years, many industries have moved to increase the efficiency of using materials in processing and to control the loss of scrap and other wastes from the production cycle. For example, one corporate plan for introducing customer return programs (copier machines as well as disposable parts like toner cartridges for copiers) led to remanufactured equipment from 30,000 tons of copying machines, thereby reducing both the load on landfills and the consumption of raw materials and energy. 41 Control of leakage is also a means of cost control for industrial production, and there are precedents for the creation of profitable industrial operations based on recapture of consumer materials. Approaches that control the production of garbage and reduce leakage of materials at the consumer end have also been used in some parts of the world. Product recycling has dramatically increased and design of products to facilitate recycling has become a tenet of "industrial ecology." 42 Despite these successes, there is a worldwide loss of valuable materials because of leakage. Thus, one significant set of challenges rests in the development of incentives for higher efficiency and lower leakage from producer and consumer systems. Among such actions would be (1) the provision of incentives to identify heretofore unrecognized economic value of materials; (2) the elimination of historical market distortions (e.g., subsidies) that may interfere with choices that would be more sustainable in the absence of the distortions; and (3) the provision of incentives to move to competitively priced energy whose production does not result in the release of carbon dioxide (i.e., through the use of noncarbon sources or carbon sequestration).
Beyond the challenges related to the reduction and elimination of industrial wastes, the rapidly changing industrial trajectory carries with it the general problem of anticipating problems in new industries and of projecting the dynamics of employment into a future with many more people. The past decade has seen a shift to increasing employment and
Figure 4.1 Global production and consumption of selected toxic metals, 1850-1990. The figure indicates that within the last 20 years, emissions of lead, copper and zinc have begun to decline. Source: Nriagu (1979). Updated in Nriagu (1996). Courtesy of the Macmillan Magazines, Ltd. and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
productivity within industry. Nonetheless, the current trends toward production of more by fewer people could lead to persistent unemployment of an expanded population, a spectre not foreseen by the Brundtland Commission. 43
As the preceding paragraphs make clear, industry is faced with many enormous challenges and much responsibility for reducing and preventing environmental problems related to industrial wastes and leakages. At the same time, however, it also faces a tremendous opportunity for massive market expansion, the development of new technologies (and, therefore new product possibilities, even beyond the products for which the technologies were developed), and the creation of totally new markets based on the requirements of new customers in industrializing countries. There is also great potential for the industrializing world to skip over transitional technologies to new, cleaner technologies without experiencing the same environmental degradation as the industrialized world due to the use of more traditional technologies. The capital, barriers, and
incentives to diffusion must be understood and addressed to meet this potential. Meeting the coupled objectives of designing and producing for product competitiveness and for environmental protection and resource conservation is the critical challenge to industry in the next century, and the resulting effects will be felt in all other sectors. Involving industry directly in these challenges and in finding the means to meet them is an opportunity to bring creative actors into the process voluntarily, as well as under incentive and regulatory forces.
Energy is a critical ingredient in most activities of industrialized and industrializing economies. It is required to extract, process, fabricate and recycle materials, to heat and cool homes and places of business, to produce foods, to move people and goods, and to power communications. For a successful transition to sustainability, energy sources must grow at sufficient rates to maintain other energy-dependent activities, yet at the same time must impose few if any environmental costs in the form of local air pollution, carbon dioxide, toxic residuals, and despoiled land. The world will need to find a way that allows 9 billion people or more to enjoy a lifestyle that requires energy while at the same time protects and sustains human health and the health of the biosphere from local to global scales.
Numerous environmental hazards, including climate change, acidification of water and soil, and air pollution, stem from our dependence on fossil fuel energy. Alone or together, these significant and accumulating hazards can influence a transition toward sustainability. These environmental risks, rather than any limitations of fossil fuel energy resources, are the most significant factors facing the energy sector today. In most industrialized nations, emissions controls are beginning to bring local and regional pollution under control. In contrast, in much of the developing world, local and regional pollution poses serious and growing problems. Regarding global atmospheric changes, in the 10 years since the Brundtland report, much of the world has come to acknowledge the threat from greenhouse gas emissions via international conventions and agreements, but with few exceptions serious constraints on emissions have not been implemented (see Chapters 1 and 2).
For years there have been concerns about limited reserves of fossil fuel. Modern estimates, however, suggest that despite extensive past extraction, the world has very large reserves. In the absence of "externality" taxes (taxes imposed on these fuels to cover their environmental costs) or other policy changes, fossil fuels are likely to remain abundant and cheap for decades to come. A number of direct and indirect subsidies
to energy suppliers and technologies have shaped and continue to shape the evolution of the current fossil energy system. Today, most energy is derived from fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. Oil is primarily used to power transportation. Recent trends in electric power production, especially in the industrialized world, show a move away from coal toward natural gas (see Chapter 2).
Fossil fuel combustion is the source of critical air pollution problems throughout the world. 44 In the leading industrialized countries, emissions of primary particulates and oxides of sulfur and nitrogen are now being aggressively controlled such that local and regional air quality has improved considerably in recent decades, although standards are frequently not met and the adequacy of some standards is still uncertain. 45 At the same time, these problems are increasing in many developing regions. Problems with secondary pollutants formed though photochemical reactions and with long-range transport continue to be significant. For example, while sulfuric acid deposition in the United States has been reduced primarily through the reduction of sulfur emissions from combustion, nitric acid deposition has not declined (Figure 4.2). Globally, CO 2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion continue to grow and threaten to produce notable climate change by modifying the planetary heat balance (see Chapters 2 and 3). While a shift from coal to natural gas may reduce carbon dioxide emissions, emissions of a still more potent greenhouse gas, methane, could result if natural gas energy systems are not leak-free.
Nonfossil energy sources circumvent the serious local, regional, and global air pollution problems of fossil fuels, but each holds its own set of limitations and challenges. 46 Most available sources of hydroelectric power have already been developed in industrialized countries. A number of developing economies such as China, Nepal, and Brazil have large-scale hydroelectric development programs in progress, but concerns about environmental effects on river systems have slowed these programs' growth. The growth of nuclear power has slowed in many parts of the industrialized world due to high costs, public concerns about nuclear wastes, regulatory complications prompted by environmental and safety debates, security issues, and philosophical concerns. However, developing countries such as China and Korea continue to have active programs of nuclear power. Various renewable energy systems have been developed to drawn on such sources as wind, sunlight, and biomass fuels. While these systems show promise, they have had difficulty making headway, even with significant subsidies, in the face of abundant and low-cost fossil fuel.
Opportunities can be seized to increase efficiency and develop or utilize new technologies to reduce the threats associated with meeting the energy needs of the world's population. The efficiency of industrialized
Figure 4.2 Trends in SO 2 and NO x emissions in North America and Europe (OECD countries only), 1980–1994 (excludes Australia, Greece, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, and Turkey due to incomplete data). Source: OECD (1997), Swedish Secretariat on Acid Rain (1996). Courtesy of WRI (World Resources Institute).
economies' energy use to produce goods has been gradually improving (Chapter 2), but energy-efficiency opportunities have only partly been exploited. There are also many new technologies (e.g., photovoltaics, electric cars) that may help provide the energy the world needs with far fewer adverse local, regional, and global environmental impacts. As environmental regulations, including emissions fees and emission trading regimes, come into play, market incentives will induce the adoption of cleaner technologies. This is already apparent in the switch of many electric power systems from coal to gas. If this process is to continue and accelerate, ways must be found to reflect directly or indirectly the full environmental costs of fossil fuel in the market place. This can be done directly with fossil fuel taxes or indirectly through mechanisms such as fuel-efficiency standards for motor vehicle fleets and green energy requirements on electric power systems.
While there are many cleaner energy technologies and more efficient end-use technologies now available, the current stock of technology is not sufficient to support the transition to a sustainable energy system. The market is most likely to commercialize technologies that have already been developed to the point where they show short- to medium-term promise for commercialization. If the energy system is to undergo the
major transition that will be required to meet the needs of the world without serious environmental consequences, a much larger investment will be needed in energy-related basic technology research. 47 Traditional government R&D will be unlikely to meet all of this need, so new mechanisms must be found to support such research. Some of these mechanisms are discussed in Chapter 6. In designing and evaluating institutions and incentives to encourage sustainable energy technologies, it is important to carefully examine their objectives and implications at the system level, using such strategies as material balance modeling and economic input-output analysis coupled with considerations of environmental loadings. Without such a systematic assessment, polices that appear to promote better solutions may in the long run have serious undesirable consequences, such as problems in recycling and disposing new materials.
Living Resources
The human population rests its requirements for food, shelter, and other essential goods on the shoulders of earth's living and other resources. The grassland, forest, freshwater and marine ecosystems of the world provide such goods as food, timber, forage, fuels pharmaceuticals, and precursors to industrial products. The harvest and management of these resources form the base of enormous economic and social enterprises as well. In addition, ecosystems and the species within them provide vastly underrecognized services such as recycling of water and chemicals, mitigation of floods, pollination of crops, and cleansing of the atmosphere. 48 Humans have enjoyed these goods and services for millennia, and in many regions it has been possible to make use of them without degrading their long-term viability or the life support systems they influence. However, our ever-intensifying use and misuse of ecosystem services is now doing much to imperil them, and, consequently, our own long-term welfare. Moreover, the indirect consequences of the other human endeavors discussed in this chapter also exert enormous pressure on these services. In 1987, the Brundtland Commission described the challenge of managing living natural resources for sustainable development as one of implementing conservation measures in the national interest. Among the most critical challenges of the transition to sustainability over the coming decades will be to develop approaches that sustainably manage both the resources societies use directly and the benefits that we accrue indirectly from the world's living capital. 49
Human use of land to obtain goods and services is one of the most significant alterations of the global system. Land transformations and use in forestry, grazing, and agriculture have modified nearly 50 percent of the earth's land surface. 50 Agriculture and urban areas cover 10 to 15 per-
cent, pastures cover 6 to 8 percent, and substantially more land is dedicated to forestry and grazing systems. Harvesting of wood for fuel and fiber and the clearing of land for agriculture removed on the order of 13 million hectares of forest per year between 1980 and 1995. 51 Human alterations of freshwater and marine systems (especially coastal zones and fisheries) have also been great in scale and effect. For example, approximately 50 percent of mangrove ecosystems globally have been transformed or destroyed by human activities, and humans use about 8 percent of the primary production of the oceans. 52 Beyond direct use, human activities affect all lands and waters through their effects on the atmosphere and water systems, biogeochemical cycles, and biotic systems. 53 Elevated CO 2 affects all ecosystems; air pollution and acid deposition affect even those we think we are protecting.
The nonsustainable use of living resources carries a number of critical consequences for humans and the other species of earth. Most obviously, overuse and misuse lead to a reduction or loss of resources and thus directly affect human well-being. For example, a number of recent analyses have raised alarms over the nonsustainable management of ocean fisheries (see Chapter 2). Recent assessments 54 suggest that half of the world's fish stocks are now fully exploited, nearly a quarter are overexploited, and many fisheries have collapsed. Fisheries provide direct employment to about 200 million people, and account for 19 percent of the total human consumption of animal protein. 55 Their degradation has grave implications for economic and food security.
Equally important, however, is the fact that the misuse of resources like fisheries, forests, grasslands, and agricultural systems has tremendous unintended effects on the functioning of ecosystems more generally and on the services these ecosystems provide. For example, land transformation is the primary driving force in the loss of biological diversity worldwide. Biotic extinction rates have increased 100 to 1,000 times preindustrial rates and species are being driven to extinction thousands of times faster than new ones can evolve. 56 With loss of biological diversity and alteration or loss of the ecosystems that support them, many social and economic consequences follow. For example, land use changes in watersheds can seriously degrade the water purification processes of soil/plant systems at enormous cost to urban communities. 57 Degradation and loss of wetlands can expose communities to increased flood and storm surge damage. Decimation of pollinating insects has had important negative consequences on yields of particular crops. 58 Introductions and invasions of nonnative species such as killer bees, fire ants, and zebra mussels through human activities cause enormous damage to living resources and threaten human health.
Clearly, at the heart of the sustainability transition is the challenge to
manage all of the earth's ecosystems to maintain populations, species, and ecosystems in the face of human domination, and thereby to sustain the goods and services the ecosystems provide to humans. Reducing population growth and levels of consumption and waste are central to meeting this objective because by doing so societies relieve some of the pressures now experienced by ecosystems. Beyond this is the need to develop holistic management approaches that take into consideration the interacting components of ecosystems and landscapes rather than simply focusing on a single species or product. Experiments in ecosystem management are in progress in fisheries and forests around the world, and we can draw knowledge from these experiments for social learning. Finally, the management of living resources must acknowledge and plan for the links among human and natural systems at the landscape and regional scales; and research, management, and development plans must integrate intensive land and water uses (e.g., for agriculture and cities) in the context of areas managed for conservation, water catchments, and purification, air quality services, and recreation purposes. 59
Interaction Perspectives
Over the past several decades, most decision making and much research has chosen to treat environmental problems and the human activities associated with them in relatively narrow, discrete categories such as "soil erosion," "fisheries depletion," and "acid rain." This narrow framing of environmental problems is evident in our reviews of "Environmental'' and "Development" perspectives presented earlier in this chapter, and in the organization of environmental ministries, regulation, and research administration around the world. Both understanding and management have benefited substantially from these narrowly focused traditional approaches. Much has also been missed, however. It has become increasingly clear that much of the workings of the world, and the challenges and opportunities those workings entail for a transition to sustainability, lie in the interactions among environmental issues and human activities that have previously been treated as largely separate and distinct. Recognition of the importance of such interactions has been central to emerging international research programs such as those of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP), the International Human Dimensions Program (IHDP), and DIVERSITAS. 60 Such recognition has even begun to emerge in international policy discussions, as exemplified by recent efforts of the UN Environment Program (UNEP), World Bank, and others to draw attention to the connections among global environmental issues and human needs. 61 Despite some progress in implementing these grand designs, however, research support and political action
remain largely confined within the narrow categories of traditional thinking.
Today and in future decades, emphasis will have to be given to the interactions among environmental problems. For example, no longer can we ask about the consequences of climate change on agricultural ecosystems; instead, we must ask about the combined effects of climate change, increased climate variability, elevated carbon dioxide, soil quality changes, crop management changes, and tropospheric and stratospheric ozone changes on crop productivity. Also, it makes little sense to ask how climate change affects one system (e.g., coral reefs), when other changes related to human activities (e.g., land use and urban, industrial, and agricultural effluents) act in concert with global changes to alter these systems. 62 Nor does it make sense to ask about the effects of elevated CO 2 on forest uptake and the storage of carbon when these can only be predicted by accounting for such changes as nitrogen deposition, land use change, air pollution, acidification, and climate change. 63 In the next decade we will see research and problem-solving shift in focus from single issues to multiple interacting stresses. 64
Threats from human activities will result in profound changes in future climate, earth chemistry, and terrestrial biological systems. Environmental transitions expected over the next 50 years and estimations of uncertainty are summarized by the Board in Table 4.3. These estimates reflect the consensus of a large group of international scientific experts based on evidence in the 1995 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The experts conclude with a high degree of confidence that the next 50 years will bring a warmer world, mainly at night; a cooler stratosphere; increased atmospheric water vapor; higher sea level and smaller glaciers. The atmosphere will contain higher concentrations of CO 2 , nitrogen compounds, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and smog. Due to human activities, natural habitat will continue to degrade and to be invaded by exotics, while some plants will flourish as a result of increased CO 2 in the atmosphere.
Just as environmental threats and challenges operate interactively, they are caused by the activities of several sectors and have the potential to influence the transition toward sustainability in many sectors. In the following paragraphs, we discuss three integrative, interactive challenges. The changes underlying these challenges are cumulative and are likely to result in surprise.
The earth's water resources are influenced by almost all human activities, and water supports and links the sustainability of industry, en-
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ergy, human health, urban development, agriculture, and the diversity and functioning of biological systems. Like energy, the availability of water is a critical resource for nearly all human activities. At the global level, the supply of fresh water has been dramatically altered by these activities. Water was not identified by the Brundtland Commission among its "Common Challenges," but, clearly, significant challenges related to water confront future populations. As noted in Chapter 2, although there have been slowing water withdrawals, water quality continues to be a concern, particularly in developing countries, and water supply can be regionally or locally scarce.
Global numbers suggest adequate per capita water worldwide. But global numbers are deceiving—variable distributions of fresh water lead to great disparities in access to water, with scarcities in some areas and excess supply in others. Thus, in a number of regions, water is in short supply relative to needs, in some cases because of insufficient amounts and in others because of poor water quality. As regional populations grow and urban systems develop, these stresses are accelerating with conflicting and increasing demands for water supply. Some estimates suggest that a dozen or more nations in semi-arid climates cannot currently provide minimum per capita water requirements for their citizens and that many more will fail to do so in the future as a result of climate change 65 (see Table 4.4). It should be noted that comparing water availability by nations is suggestive but neglects options for management and sharing among nations as explained below. In many parts of the world, conflicts over water rights are sources of continuing social and economic stress. Also, as noted in the "Cities" section, many people in urban and rural areas do not have access to clean drinking water or sanitation services, and some 250 million new cases of waterborne disease are reported each year, resulting in 5 to 10 million deaths. 66 Thus, water scarcity and water degradation are growing threats to a transition to sustainability, and a major challenge is the need to supply both more water and cleaner water to the growing population.
The demands for and status of water resources reflect interactions across all sectors. For example, the price of energy influences water options; increases in the cost of energy increase the cost of groundwater extraction, pumping, and irrigation operation. In turn, demands on water influence energy options. Increasing agricultural production, either by increasing yield or land under production, will carry with it increased demand for irrigation; and, at the same time, rapidly urbanizing populations will demand greater water for consumptive purposes, increasing the potential for conflicts about the balance between consumptive and nonconsumptive water uses. As more marginal water supplies are used
for irrigation, the need to manage for salinity and drainage will intensify to avoid negative impacts on agricultural productivity.
Increased removal of water from surface water systems, whether for agriculture, urban use, or industry, will potentially damage the functioning of the aquatic ecosystems and the marine systems from which they are taken and into which they empty. Damages to aquatic systems may, in turn, affect the quality and quantity of water available for human use, ultimately influencing the spread of disease and toxic water. Competing human demands will lead to a decrease in the amounts of water available for natural ecosystems, including highly valued lakes, riparian zones, and watersheds. Deforestation and urban developments alter runoff and groundwater recharge patterns. Moreover, pollutants including nitrates from agricultural fertilization and acidic deposition; metals such as copper, cadmium, zinc, and lead from mining; industrial and agricultural activities; and organic pollutants from industrial and agricultural activities have increased in many of the freshwater and coastal marine ecosystems of the developed world. 67 Although reduction of a number of these pollutants has been observed in a number of lakes and rivers, 68 the negative consequences of these changes for aquatic ecosystems and the diversity of biota they hold are enormous. The feedback effects to human welfare argue for the necessity of management approaches that explicitly protect aquatic ecosystems for the services they provide to humans (Table 4.5).
The likely effects of climate change on regional water balances are uncertain. Water supply could be decreased through increased evapotranspiration (caused by warmer air temperatures), especially in areas that already experience arid and semi-arid climates. In other regions, precipitation is likely to increase; depending on the timing and amount of change, water storage and control systems may come under considerable strain. Elsewhere, water resources could prove more plentiful. Rising sea level can produce saltwater intrusion into freshwater reservoirs. In some regions, current reservoir and water-retaining systems may be unable to maintain water supply during drought periods. Finally, dramatic shifts in ocean circulation patterns, should they occur through global climate change, could have major impacts on regional rainfall patterns and climate.
Integrated Strategies for Water Management
Many current technologies can be employed to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of water use, but for those technologies to be applied and new ones to be developed, a new vision of water management will be required. For example, one new paradigm accounting for trends in water
withdrawals has the objective of increasing the productive use of water by increasing the efficiency of meeting needs and allocating water wisely among different uses. 69 Several other strategies that hold promise for better integrated water use and planning recognize the interconnected nature of sectors and activities of humans and life support systems. Strategies for watershed management go beyond the typical framework of hydrology and engineering to consider water resources in the context of interacting physical, biological, and chemical systems that control water cycling and use at a landscape scale. These strategies take into account land use, water quality, and ecosystem processes and protection, as well as urban and economic requirements. Local examples of watershed management abound. On larger scales, work on the Chesapeake Bay and the Columbia Basin 70 provides particularly insightful treatments of the challenges and opportunities for sustainability and adaptive management.
Regional water planning also takes a watershed perspective and seeks an explicit allocation of watershed resources to a mix of water applications, including withdrawals for agriculture, industry, and urban use, and in-stream activities such as waste assimilation, ecosystem and species maintenance and preservation, and recreation. For regional water planning to work, major changes in the way water is valued, allocated, and managed will be required. Regional planning must look seriously at such issues as restructuring agriculture for more efficient use of water, dramatically reducing outdoor urban water use, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas, increasing recycling, and determining and providing environmental water requirements (e.g., for protection of wetlands, fisheries, and endangered species). A number of studies have shown that water is chronically overused because it is underpriced. 71 Pricing policies that reflect the cost of water for particular uses at particular times and that encourage more efficient use and adaptation of conservation, reuse, and recycling approaches will be crucial. Meeting some of these objectives may be exceedingly difficult in poor regions. Changes in approaches to water-related regulation, education, laws, markets, and information dissemination also will be necessary. In addition, heightened efforts to diffuse available technology to all regions without access to appropriate technology are necessary, as are training and institutional arrangements that make their use possible.
Atmosphere and Climate
Changes in atmospheric chemical composition and chemistry also reflect the activities of multiple human endeavors, as well as natural processes. The cumulative and interactive consequences of gas emissions associated with industry, fossil fuel consumption, and agriculture are
linked via atmospheric circulation and chemistry, and the influence of those chemical and physical interactions is felt from regional to global scales. Lessons from the past tell us that we cannot solve urban air pollution problems without evaluating the multiple gases from multiple sources that together regulate air chemistry and pollution. In the case of urban smog in the United States, for example, a decade or more of regulation of hydrocarbons emissions from industrial processes failed to improve air quality; recognition and regulation of the nitrogen oxides emitted from automobiles is now seen as an additional critical factor in controlling pollution. 72 Moreover, while we once thought of smog and tropospheric ozone production as an urban-scale phenomenon, it is now clear that it can be regional in scale. For example, studies in the southeastern United States have indicated that urban emissions of hydrocarbons (volatile organic compounds, VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NO x ), in conjunction with nitrogen oxide emissions from the agricultural sector and hydrocarbon emissions from natural forests, combine to affect regional-scale pollution events (Figure 4.3). 73 Such broad-scale pollutant levels may feed back to reduce agricultural productivity 74 as well as combine to impair human health and the health of natural ecosystems.
Atmospheric changes that were once characterized as local to regional in scale have now been recognized for their role in global atmospheric and climatic change. Sulfur aerosols emitted from a variety of combustion processes are a source of acid deposition and have been under regulation for the last 30 years. Only recently has it been shown that those aerosols that form regionally may have resulted in an increase in earth's reflectance sufficient to offset some of the effects of greenhouse gas increases. 75 Similarly, burning associated with land use changes such as deforestation or agriculture, alone or in combination with industrial air pollution, can have tremendous impacts on the health of people and ecosystems. Fires associated with tropical deforestation and burning for agricultural purposes emit carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur gases into the atmosphere, where they undergo chemical reactions and lead to the production of tropospheric ozone and acidic precipitation. Consequently, high-ozone episodes and acid rain are experienced by people and ecosystems in areas far removed from urban activity. 76
The interaction of multiple atmospheric changes also holds surprises for the regional and global system. For example, the deposition of compounds of nitrogen, a regional change produced by intensive agricultural and combustion processes, 77 may interact with elevated atmospheric CO 2 concentrations, a global-scale change, to affect the ecological and biological responses of terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Models suggest that increased nitrogen deposition in North America and Europe may increase the ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide, 78 although a measurement
Figure 4.3 The evaluation of the effectiveness of VOC-based and NO x -based strategies for ozone pollution abatement is confounded by the potential significant contribution of VOC and NO x emissions from biogenic and other natural sources. In the figure, I-VOC and I-NO x is used to denote industrial VOC and NO x , respectively, and B-VOC and B-NO x is used to denote biogenic VOC and NO x , respectively. Source: Chamedies and Cowling (1995). Courtesy of North Carolina State University.
has not confirmed this. There is reason to doubt that this effect, if it occurs, would continue indefinitely. Long-term nitrogen deposition resulting from human activities is likely to damage vegetation, thereby decreasing its carbon uptake. Moreover, nitrogen deposition may also increase the emissions of other greenhouse gases. 79
Integrated Strategies for the Atmospheric Environment
As for water resources, managing for air quality and for the atmospheric environment requires a different strategy than societies have seen in the past decades. An approach is needed that accounts for the multiple
sources of materials released to the atmosphere, the natural and human-influenced processing of those materials, and the multiple and interacting effects on exposed systems. In the case of the atmosphere, the scale at which this integrated management must take place ranges from the urban airshed to the globe. New strategies must be developed to evaluate the understanding of factors driving air pollution and integrated solutions to air pollution, such as tropospheric ozone, at regional to continental scales. Consortia of local, state, and national and international agencies, industries, and scientists will have to come together to develop research and management programs with longer time horizons and greater spatial domains.
Efforts to improve regional air quality are now under way in the United States and Europe. Scientifically based implementation strategies that control emissions across large regions are being developed for areas of the United States. 80 Similarly, the European Community, in its Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, has developed integrated approaches to controlling sulfur and nitrogen emissions on the basis of both the location of sources and the sensitivity of deposition sites. 81
Global-scale atmospheric changes also require integrated solutions. Many activities (e.g., energy use, agriculture) cause concomitant changes in the atmosphere at local, regional, and global scales, and the tradeoffs and conflicts among alternative strategies must be evaluated across all scales. For example, the burning of natural gas (about 90 percent of which is methane), as opposed to other fossil fuels, has been encouraged because of its higher energy yield per molecule of CO 2 released in combustion and its lesser impact on regional air quality. On the other hand, methane is a very effective greenhouse gas (about 20 times as potent as CO 2 per molecule), so inadvertent emissions of methane used in energy production could offset benefits from reducing CO 2 emissions. Thus, as gas usage increases worldwide, loss rates from gas field drilling and from wellheads must be decreased along with losses from gas distribution lines. Another global methane source, rice paddies, are strongest emitters when fresh organic matter such as post-harvest stubble is plowed into the paddy soil. 82 Burning the rice stubble is an historical alternative to placing the rice stubble in the soil. Yet some areas such as Sacramento, California, in efforts to prevent regional air pollution, are requiring the stubble to be plowed back into the soil, thereby potentially increasing methane emissions in the following growing season. Thus, a balance is needed between decreasing pollution sources and increasing other environmental effects through responsive technological fixes—for example, balancing the risks of local air pollution against greenhouse forcing of global climate change.
Species and Ecosystems
A third area in which interactions and cumulative effects are exceedingly important is the biological component of the earth system. The welfare of species and ecosystems in a rapidly developing world is of critical importance in meeting the normative goals of a sustainability transition. These resources provide many of the goods and services needed to sustain human life—goods such as timber, forage, fuels, pharmaceuticals, precursors to industrial products, and services such as recycling of water and chemicals, mitigation of floods, pollination of crops, and cleansing of the atmosphere. Beyond the importance of these goods and services, the diversity of genes, species, and ecosystems is valued intrinsically, and loss of biological diversity is of major concern because it is irreversible. 83
The major forces or stresses on biological diversity and ecosystem functioning under our scenarios for the transition are likely to be simply an intensification of trends already seen today (see Chapters 2 and 3), with significant and mostly negative effects on the functioning of ecosystems. 84 Some appraisals of possible increases in agricultural productivity suggest that significant land areas could be returned to natural or more varied ecosystems. 85 Nevertheless, as the human population grows, land conversion for agriculture, extractive uses, and urban settlements exert tremendous influence on biological diversity and on the ability of ecosystems to act as biogeochemical buffers and water suppliers (as noted in Chapter 2). Increased use of biofuels could place even more pressure on land use. Atmospheric and water pollution due to industrial and agricultural activities can have effects on species and ecosystems as significant as they have on human health, and the resulting alterations in the functioning of ecosystems can also feed back to affect human well-being. For example, industrial, agricultural, and urban pollution that leads to eutrophication of estuaries can lead to the production of toxic algal blooms and fish kills, thus affecting industry and human health. Climate and atmospheric changes that result from industrial and agricultural activities will affect ecosystems in multiple and interacting ways. Some changes may have seemingly positive effects on ecosystems; for example, plant ''fertilization" due to elevated carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere may lead to enhanced growth and carbon storage in some ecosystems and thus serve as a negative feedback to atmospheric and climate change, at least in the short term. Ultimately, however, climate and atmospheric changes will alter the structure and composition of ecosystems and the services they provide in unpredictable ways. 86
To the degree that our actual development paths involve ever-increasing pressures on natural ecosystems, the goals of a transition to sustainability cannot be met. One of the major threats to ecosystem
goods and services is the lack of understanding about how specific ecosystem functions and services may change with ecosystem transformations and about the options for reducing those functional changes. A second threat is a lack of knowledge about, or incorrect valuation of, ecosystems' worth to society. Effective strategies for sustaining species and ecosystems will have to address both of these issues.
Integrated Strategies for Sustaining Species and Ecosystems
Many of the opportunities discussed above in the areas of energy, water, agriculture, industry, urban systems, and human health are ultimately opportunities for sustaining biological resources and the services they provide. For example, numerous opportunities exist for combining management for sustainable forestry and sustainable agriculture with management for biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. 87 Management of agricultural landscapes to optimize for natural pollinators and natural predators of agricultural pests will at the same time conserve species and ecosystems, because in doing so patches of diverse natural vegetation adjacent to agricultural systems are maintained. 88 Management of regions to maximize water supply and water quality for urban systems can at the same time conserve and sustain the natural systems that provide watershed services. Improvements in efficiency of water and chemical use in agricultural systems (thereby reducing the demands on and losses from these systems) will sustain the quality of down-wind and downstream ecosystems at the same time they protect human health. 89 Opportunities to restore degraded lands have direct relevance to sustainable agriculture and forestry as well as to natural ecosystems.
The focus of preservation efforts is shifting from management of single species to that of multiple species and their interactions with each other and their physical environments. This expansion of the scope of preservation also greatly increases the complexity of the choices to be made both scientifically and in the way that human activities are considered and reshaped. Integrated conservation plans that can simultaneously preserve ecosystems and their species while fostering carefully planned regional economic development illustrate integrated management in which human societies and "nature" are both winners. To take advantage of these and other opportunities, institutions and policies that allow designating regional or landscape-level prescriptions for land use and that enable evaluating and maintaining them over long time scales are likely to be necessary. Development decisions that protect and take advantage of the services natural ecosystems provide will help strengthen prospects for achieving a sustainability transition and therefore should be encouraged.
Integrated Approaches in a Place-Based Context
This chapter has illustrated the strong linkages and interactions that exist between resources and human activities across many different issues, sectors, and scales. Efforts to reach the goals we have sketched for a transition to sustainability cannot be expected to succeed if they are pursued within narrow disciplinary or sectoral frameworks that ignore these interactions. Rather, many of the greatest opportunities identified here for navigating that transition are integrative in defining the problems and seeking the solutions.
As a result of this review of the environmental challenges and opportunities facing a sustainability transition, the Board believes that the most significant threats to it are likely to be the cumulative, interactive consequences of activities across a number of sectors. Society and its decision makers must recognize that agricultural, urban, industrial, and ecosystem processes interact with each other and must be evaluated as an integrated system. This conclusion is shared by other groups that have addressed analogous questions over a period extending back several years, but has been achieving renewed emphasis in recent years. 90
Recognizing the importance of interactions among environmental problems, and of the need for integrated approaches to understand and manage these interactions, still leaves open some questions of appropriate spatial scale. In one sense, the answer is simple: because interactions occur at all scales, integrative research and management are needed at all scales. This is certainly correct as far as it goes. But it is not a particularly helpful observation in improving existing research and management systems. As a step toward developing such guidance, the Board drew on the history of efforts to develop and sustain improvements in agricultural productivity around the world. A major lesson of that experience has been the "location specific" character of useful knowledge and know-how that involves biological and social systems. In the agricultural realm, efforts simply to transfer understanding or technologies created in one part of the world across scales or places have generally not succeeded. Instead, as summarized by a major restrospective sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation—
The location-specific nature of biological technology meant that the prototype technologies developed at the international centers could become available to producers in the wide range of agroclimate regions and social and economic environments in which the commodities were being produced only if the capacity to modify, adapt, and reinvent the technology was available. It became clear that the challenge of constructing a global agricultural research system capable of sustaining growth in agricultural production required the development of research
capacity for each commodity of economic significance in each agroclimatic region. 91
This Board's work suggests that the insights from experience with agricultural production systems have general applicability to the challenges of navigating a transition to sustainability. As the examples covered in the preceding section of this chapter suggest, many of the most successful integrated analyses of challenges to sustainability have focused on specific places. Like the earlier agricultural efforts, they have prospered to the extent that they have been able to integrate general principles and knowledge of global relationships with specific understanding of local environmental circumstances and social institutions. There is no magic scale for such effective integrations—they have ranged from the planetary work on ozone depletion, through continental assessments of acid rain and regional efforts to restore the Columbia Basin, to highly localized efforts to design sustainability strategies for particular communities. What effective integrative analyses do seem to have in common is the ability to take seriously questions of scale and linkages, and to shape research, development, and management strategies to discover the conceptualizations of "place" most relevant to the problem at hand. To emphasize our beliefs that attention to scale matters in efforts to promote a sustainability transition, but that no particular scale has a "natural" rightness for all the challenges likely to be faced, we have chosen to highlight here the need for "place-based" integrative analysis. As suggested in the Chapter 1 review of the progress towards sustainability reported at the 1997 Special Session of the UN General Assembly, selected leaders in government, industry, and advocacy groups have begun to recognize the need for such integrated, place-based assessments of the challenges and opportunities for a transition to sustainability. In Chapters 5 and 6, we turn to a consideration of the indicators, research, and institutions needed to realize the potential of these analyses.
This analysis shows that progress has been made toward identifying environmental hazards and toward a greater understanding of the challenges in each of the sectors identified 10 years ago by the Brundtland Commission. It has also identified some of the difficulties in overcoming these hazards, and the opportunities to address them. What has become evident in the past decade is the overwhelming degree to which there is increasing interaction among the sectors, and the degree to which the consequences of these interactions are cumulative, sometimes nonlinear, and subject to critical thresholds. Therefore, we conclude that most of
the individual environmental problems that have occupied most of the world's attention to date are unlikely in themselves to prevent substantial progress in a transition toward sustainability over the next two generations. Over longer time periods, unmitigated expansion of even these individual problems could certainly pose serious threats to people and the planet's life support systems. Even more troubling in the medium term, however, are the environmental threats arising from multiple, cumulative, and interactive stresses, driven by a variety of human activities. These stresses or syndromes, which result in severe environmental degradation, can be difficult to untangle from one another, and complex to manage. Though often aggravated by global changes, they are shaped by the physical, ecological, and social interactions at particular places, that is locales or regions. Developing an integrated and place-based understanding of such threats and the options for dealing with them is a central challenge for promoting a transition toward sustainability.
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1 Possible large social, economic, or political threats such as war, terrorism, crime, financial collapse, or substance abuse are not part of this analysis. In part, this is because of the configuration and expertise of the board, but more so because of the absence of the kind of thinking and studies of such social threats that makes possible the comparative ranking and analysis of environmental threats that we undertake in this chapter.
2 Kates and Clark (1996).
3 Norberg-Bohm et al. (1992).
4 Researchers developing the list, Norberg-Bohm et al. (1992); UNEP program on The World's Environment , Holdgate et al. (1982); EPA program on Unfinished Business , EPA (1987).
5 Norberg-Bohm et al. (1992) list modified by Clark and Patt (1997).
6 Scored hazards approach by Clark and Patt (1997).
7 WCED (1987).
8 Bongaarts (1984).
10 NRC (1999b).
11 WRI (1996).
12 Personal communication with Thomas Buettner, United Nations.
13 World Bank (1992); WRI (1996).
14 NRC (1991a, 1997b).
15 WRI (1998).
16 WHO and UNEP (1992).
17 World Bank (1992).
19 The condominial sewerage system, which is used in northeast Brazil, has a shorter grid and shallower feeder sewers running through backyards, resulting in shallower connections to the main pipes, lower construction costs (20 to 30 percent lower than for conventional systems), and less pipe.
20 NRC (1995).
21 Berry (1990); UN (1996).
22 Bender (1997); Ruttan (1996); Daily et al. (1998); see Chapter 3.
23 Pinstrup-Anderson et al. (1997).
24 NRC (1991b); Pinstrup-Anderson and Pandya-Lorch (1996); Ruttan (1996); Strong (1998).
25 NRC (1991b); Ruttan (1996); Cassman et al. (1997).
26 Postal et al. (1996).
27 Matson et al. (1997); NRC (1991b).
28 Chameides et al. (1994).
29 Naylor and Ehrlich (1997); NRC (1991b).
30 NRC (1991b), (1992b); Ruttan (1996).
31 See Strong (1998).
32 Kendall et al. (1997); Conway (1997).
33 Matson et al. (1997); NRC (1991b, 1992b); Woomer and Swift (1994).
34 Postel (1992, 1993).
35 NRC (1992a).
36 NAE (1997).
37 NAE (1994a); NRC (1997a).
38 Industrial waste, Allen and Jain (1992); municipal solid wastes, EPA (1990).
39 Raskin et al. (1996).
40 E.g., selling the cleaning of the factory or office (''selling the factory") as opposed to selling cleaning products and tools.
41 Xerox (1997).
42 Product recycling, NAE (1994b); industrial ecology, NAE (1994a,b), and Socolow et al. (1994).
43 NAE (1994b).
44 NRC (1990,1991a).
45 NRC (1990,1998b).
46 PCAST (1997).
47 PCAST (1997,1999).
48 Daily (1997).
49 PCAST (1998).
50 Vitousek et al. (1997).
51 FAO (1997); Noble and Dirzo (1997).
52 Mangrove ecosystems, WRI (1996); oceans, Pauly and Christensen (1995).
53 Vitousek et al. (1997).
54 FAO (1994); NRC (1999a).
55 Botsford et al. (1997).
56 Lawton and May (1995); PCAST (1998).
57 E.g., Chichilnisky and Heal (1998).
58 Nabhan and Buchmann (1997).
59 Noble and Dirzo (1997); Vitousek et al. (1997); Matson et al. (1997).
60 See, e.g., IGBP (1994); IHDP (1998); DIVERSITAS (1998); and the NRC's "Pathways" report [NRC (1998a)].
61 UNEP et al. (1998); World Bank (1998).
62 Vitousek et al. (1997).
63 Schimel (1994); IPCC (1996); NRC (1994).
64 NRC (1998a).
65 Gleick (1992).
66 Gleick (1998).
67 Nash (1993).
68 Smith et al. (1992).
69 Gleick (1998).
70 Chesapeake Bay, e.g., Costanza and Greer (1998); Columbia Basin, e.g., Lee (1993), and NRC (1996).
71 E.g., Mitchell and Hanemann (1994).
72 NRC (1991a).
73 Chameides and Cowling (1995).
74 Chameides et al. (1994).
75 IPCC (1995).
76 Graedel and Crutzen (1993); Andreae (1993); Rodhe and Herrera (1988).
77 Galloway et al. (1995); Vitousek et al. (1997).
78 Schimel (1994); Townsend et al. (1996).
79 Aber et al. (1989); Aber et al. (1995); Matson et al. (1999).
80 Chameides and Cowling (1995).
81 Hornung and Skeffington (1993).
82 Yagi and Minami (1990).
83 NRC (1992a).
84 Vitousek et al. (1997); Chapin et al. (1997).
85 Ausubel (1996); Waggoner (1994).
86 See chapter 2 NRC (1998a).
87 Daily (1997).
88 Risch et al. (1986); Pimental and Edwards (1982); Matson et al. (1997); Thies and Tscharntke (1999).
89 Matson et al. (1997); Crosson (1995).
90 Several decades, e.g., Odum (1994), Watt (1966), and Holling (1978); recent years, e.g., the World in Transition reports of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU 1993–1997); see also Chapter 6, Box 6.1.
91 Bell et al. (1994), p. 362; see also Schultz (1964).
World human population is expected to reach upwards of 9 billion by 2050 and then level off over the next half-century. How can the transition to a stabilizing population also be a transition to sustainability? How can science and technology help to ensure that human needs are met while the planet's environment is nurtured and restored?
Our Common Journey examines these momentous questions to draw strategic connections between scientific research, technological development, and societies' efforts to achieve environmentally sustainable improvements in human well being. The book argues that societies should approach sustainable development not as a destination but as an ongoing, adaptive learning process. Speaking to the next two generations, it proposes a strategy for using scientific and technical knowledge to better inform future action in the areas of fertility reduction, urban systems, agricultural production, energy and materials use, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity conservation, and suggests an approach for building a new research agenda for sustainability science.
Our Common Journey documents large-scale historical currents of social and environmental change and reviews methods for "what if" analysis of possible future development pathways and their implications for sustainability. The book also identifies the greatest threats to sustainability—in areas such as human settlements, agriculture, industry, and energy—and explores the most promising opportunities for circumventing or mitigating these threats. It goes on to discuss what indicators of change, from children's birth-weights to atmosphere chemistry, will be most useful in monitoring a transition to sustainability.
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Responding to the climate threat: essays on humanity’s greatest challenge by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels and Benjamin Santer
Springer Cham, 2023, 194 pp., ISBN 978-3-030-96371-2, ISBN 978-3-030-96372-9
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Yohe G, Jacoby H, Richels R, Santer B. Responding to the climate threat: essays on humanity’s greatest challenge. Cham: Springer; 2023. p. 194. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96372-9 .
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Naumova, E.N. Responding to the climate threat: essays on humanity’s greatest challenge by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels and Benjamin Santer. J Public Health Pol 44 , 507–510 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41271-023-00424-7
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Published : 17 June 2023
Issue Date : September 2023
DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41271-023-00424-7
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- Security Council
Climate Change ‘Biggest Threat Modern Humans Have Ever Faced’, World-Renowned Naturalist Tells Security Council, Calls for Greater Global Cooperation
Climate change is a “crisis multiplier” that has profound implications for international peace and stability, Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council today, amid calls for deep partnerships within and beyond the United Nations system to blunt its acute effects on food security, natural resources and migration patterns fuelling tensions across countries and regions.
Throughout the morning, the Council’s high-level open debate on climate and security heard from a range of influential voices, including naturalist David Attenborough, who called climate change “the biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced”. In video remarks telecast at the outset, he warned that concentrations of carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere have not been equalled for millions of years.
“If we continue on our current path, we will face the collapse of everything that gives us our security,” he said: food production, access to fresh water, habitable ambient temperature and ocean food chains. The poorest — those with the least security — are certain to suffer. “Our duty right now is surely to do all we can to help those in the most immediate danger.”
While the world will never return to the stable climate that gave birth to civilization, he said that, if Governments attending the twenty-sixth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in November recognize climate change as a global security threat, “we may yet act proportionately — and in time”.
Climate change can only be dealt with by unparalleled levels of global cooperation, he said. It will compel countries to question economic models, invent new industries and recognize the moral responsibility that wealthy nations have to the rest of the world, placing a value on nature that “goes far beyond money”. He challenged the international community to finally create a stable, healthy world where resources are equally shared and where — for the first time in history — people “come to know what it feels like to be secure”.
Mr. Guterres echoed those calls, describing the climate emergency as “the defining issue of our time”. Noting that the last decade was the hottest in human history, he said wildfires, cyclones, floods and droughts are now the new normal. “These shocks not only damage the environment on which we depend, they also weaken our political, economic and social systems,” he said.
Indeed, where climate change dries up rivers, reduces harvests, destroys critical infrastructure and displaces communities, it exacerbates the risks of conflict, he said. A study by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that 8 of the 10 countries hosting the largest multilateral peace operations in 2018 were in areas highly exposed to climate change.
The impact is greatest where fragility and conflict have weakened coping mechanisms, he said, where people depend on natural capital for their livelihoods and where women — who bear the greatest burden of the climate emergency — do not enjoy equal rights. He highlighted examples in Afghanistan, where reduced harvests have pushed people into poverty, leaving them susceptible to recruitment by armed groups, and across West Africa and the Sahel, where changes in grazing patterns have fostered conflict between pastoralists and farmers. In some Pacific small island nations, entire communities have been forced to relocate.
“The forced movement of larger numbers of people around the world will clearly increase the potential for conflict and insecurity,” he observed. He called for greater efforts to address climate‑related security risks, starting with a focus on prevention, and creating a global coalition committed to achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century. The United Nations is asking companies, cities and financial institutions to prepare credible decarbonization plans.
In addition, immediate actions are needed to protect countries from increasingly frequent and severe climate effects. He urged donors and multilateral and national development banks to increase the share of adaptation and resilience finance to at least 50 per cent of their climate finance support. Developed countries, too, must keep their pledge to channel $100 billion annually to the global South. “They have already missed the deadline of 2020,” he acknowledged.
Above all, he called for embracing a concept of security that places people at its centre, stressing that COVID-19 has laid bare the devastation that non‑traditional security threats can cause on a global scale. In all such efforts, it will be essential to build on the strengths of the Security Council, Peacebuilding Commission, international financial institutions, regional organizations, civil society, the private sector, academia and others.
Issuing a call to action, Nisreen Elsaim, Chair of the Youth Organization on Climate Change and the United Nations Youth Advisory Group, said young people around the globe are watching the Security Council as it grapples with climate change. Each of the organ’s four meetings on the issue — in 2007, 2011, 2018 and 2019 — have referenced serious climate-related security risks in Somalia, Darfur, West Africa and the Sahel, Mali and the Lake Chad Basin. “Science has forecasted many more countries will join this list if we did not take the right measures now, and if we did not start adaptation specially in Africa,” she said, adding that, in her country, “we are living in continuous insecurity due to many factors that put Sudan on the top of the list when it comes to climate vulnerability”.
She recalled that, in a 2018 Council resolution on Sudan, members recognized the adverse effects of climate change, ecological changes and natural hazards on the situation in Darfur, focusing specifically on drought, desertification, land degradation and food insecurity. “Human survival, in a situation of resources degradation, hunger, poverty and uncontrolled climate migration, will make conflict an inevitable result,” she said. Moreover, climate-related emergencies cause major disruptions in access to health, life-saving sexual and reproductive health services, and result in loss of livelihoods and drive displacement and migration. They also increase the risk of gender-based violence and harmful practices and force young people to flee in search of a decent life.
Welcoming the Council’s recent deployment of a new special political mission, the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in the Sudan (UNITAMS), she said it has a historic opportunity to speak to the root causes of the conflict. Climate change and youth participation is mentioned twice in the Mission’s mandate, and climate change challenges are included in the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement. Emphasizing that young people must be part of the solution, she declared: “We are the present, we have the future, let’s not repeat previous generations’ lapse.”
In the ensuing dialogue, Heads of State and Government, along with ministers and other senior officials described national actions to attenuate the negative impact of climate change and offered their views on the related security risks. Some pressed the Council to broaden its thinking about non-traditional security threats. Several — including leaders from Kenya and Niger — stressed that the link between climate and conflict could not be more evident, while others explored the ability of Governments to meet people’s basic needs, and still others cast doubt on the assertion that the relationship between climate and conflict is causal, instead pointing to political and economic factors that are known to drive tensions.
Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Council President for February, speaking in his national capacity, said the Council, while imperfect, has been willing to lead the way in confronting threats to international security. “That is exactly what climate change represents,” he said, acknowledging that, while there are some who disagree, these cynics “could not be more wrong”. While the causes of climate change may not sit within the Council’s traditional purview, its effects most certainly do. He asked delegates to consider the young man forced onto the road when his once‑fertile home becomes a desert — one of the 16 million people displaced by weather-related disasters each year — who becomes easy prey for violent extremists, or the girl who drops out of school because her daily search for water takes her away from her family — and into the sights of the human traffickers.
“If such scenes were triggered by the actions of some despotic warlord or internecine conflict, few would question this Council’s right to act or its duty to do so,” he assured. “This is not a subject from which we should shy away.” The world must move from 51 billion metric tons of greenhouse‑gas emissions each year to net zero, so that the increase in global temperatures remains within manageable levels. For its part, the United Kingdom Parliament passed a law committing to net zero by 2050, he said, drawing attention to his pledge that the nation would slash emissions by 68 per cent by 2030. He urged the Council to act, “because climate change is a geopolitical issue every bit as much as an environmental one”, stressing that, if it is to succeed in maintaining peace and security worldwide, it must galvanize and support the United Nations family of agencies into a swift and effective response.
Kaïs Saïed, President of Tunisia , agreed with Ms. Elsaim that the world must listen to youth on climate change. More broadly, humans — and not money — must be placed at the centre of the issue. Voicing support for the Secretary-General’s 2021 priorities, especially his efforts to galvanize Member States to confront the multiple impacts of climate change, he described it as ironic that humans are, at the same time, the phenomenon’s drivers and its greatest victims. “It is no one’s right to […] to commit all of humanity to death,” he stressed, noting that Council resolution 2532 (2020) confirmed that insecurity can be driven by a multitude of factors, not just armed conflict. One such driver is the deepening poverty and resource scarcity resulting from a changing climate, particularly in Africa. Climate factors often prolong conflict and create conditions conducive to deprivation, exclusion, terrorism and organized crime.
Calling on the Council to adopt a new, more comprehensive approach and for sufficient resources for all specialized agencies related to climate change, he underlined the need for early warning systems and better prevention strategies. Noting that the COVID-19 pandemic and other recent crises have once again revealed the need for States to strengthen their solidarity, he emphasized the need for prompt action while stressing that the burden borne by States must be differentiated based on their degree of responsibility for causing the crisis. Moreover, mitigation cannot be at the expense of developing countries, he said.
Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya , said that new approaches to investment by the public and private sector need to reach the countries and regions worst hit by climate change. Persistent droughts, constant sea‑level rise and increasingly frequent extreme weather patterns are reversing economic growth and development gains achieved over decades. The result is increased fragility to instability and armed conflict that then come to the attention of this Security Council. The implementation of the Council’s mandate to maintain global peace and security will only get more difficult with time if climate change remains on its present course. Rather than wait for a future tipping point, we must redouble the efforts to direct all the resources and multilateral frameworks of our rules-based international order to mitigate the effects of climate change. While the bulk of this work is happening outside the Council, no body with such a strong mandate should step aside from this challenge.
The climate-security nexus is already impacting Africa. “Listen to us Africans when we tell you that the link is clear, its impact tangible and the need for solutions urgent,” he said. Making recommendations, he said that the Council must do more when crafting mandates for conflict resolution and post-conflict resolution to ensure they dovetail with the efforts to deploy climate change mitigation and adaptation measures. In this regard, he applauded Council resolutions 2349 (2017) and 2502 (2019), respectively on Lake Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that have integrated measures to address the impact of climate change. The 15-member organ can also act strongly against illicit financial outflows, illicit resource exploitation, terrorism financing and money‑laundering in the most fragile regions in Africa. Doing so immediately boosts the resources available to Governments to undertake climate change mitigation and offer the public services and goods needed to consolidate and protect peace.
Brigi Rafini, Prime Minister of Niger , agreed that the impact of climate change on peace and security is increasingly evident, stressing that water scarcity exacerbated by climate change could see gross domestic product (GDP) in the Sahel fall by 6 per cent and hunger increase 20 per cent by 2050. Climate change has increased competition for diminished land and water resources, ramping up tensions between livestock owners and others. He underscored the collective responsibility to tackle this existential challenge, stressing that “climate change and land degradation are no longer purely environmental matters”. Rather, they are part of a broader view that links environmental goals with those for economic and social development, and the pursuit of international peace and stability.
“We need to consider climate change as a threat to peace and security,” he said, urging the Council to shore up its understanding of impact on security and to systematically consider climate change in its resolutions pertaining to specific country and regional contexts. In such efforts, it should rely on the advisory role of the Peacebuilding Commission, and the Informal Expert Group on Climate and Security, co-chaired by Niger and Ireland. The appointment of a Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Climate and Security likewise will raise the profile of this dimension within the Council’s work.
Nguyễn Xuân Phúc, Prime Minister of Viet Nam , said the Earth’s recent calamities have placed great burdens on the political and socioeconomic life of many countries, causing unemployment and poverty, creating instability and exacerbating current conflicts. Against that backdrop, the Council should galvanize the international community’s collective efforts with an approach that is balanced between traditional and non-traditional security challenges. That includes addressing the root causes of conflicts such as poverty, inequality, power politics and unilateral interference and coercion.
Calling for strict adherence to the Charter of the United Nations and international law, he said the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement on climate change must guide the way, and greater resources are needed to support developing countries, least developed countries, small island developing States and landlocked countries. The Council should also enhance its early warning capacity, bolster its mediation and conflict prevention roles, work more closely with regional organizations and fully respect States’ sovereignty and national ownership. Noting that Viet Nam is among the six countries most severely affected by climate change, he outlined various national efforts to address the challenge while requesting more international assistance.
Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway , emphasized that climate change is redefining the global security landscape. “We must rethink and adapt the Council’s approaches to peacebuilding and sustaining peace in three ways,” she said. First, the Council needs better information on climate-related security risks. International research networks and the informal expert group will be important in that regard. Norway has helped establish a Nordic-Baltic expert network. Second, the Council should discuss climate risks in specific country contexts, based on country reporting and briefings. The United Nations must be at the forefront of preventive diplomacy. To achieve sustainable solutions, peace diplomacy must be climate-sensitive, and climate action must be conflict‑sensitive. Third, it is imperative to strengthen partnerships within and beyond the United Nations system, including with affected States and regional organizations. The active participation of diverse groups, including women and youth, is also vital.
The national security communities in many countries have understood the security risks posed by climate change, she continued. While climate change can lead to hard security challenges, there are no hard security solutions. The first line of defence is ambitious climate action. It must begin with the full implementation of the Paris Agreement and 2030 Agenda. Climate action depends on multilateral cooperation. By shouldering a common responsibility to counter climate change, the Council will be better prepared to maintain international peace and stability.
Ralph E. Gonsalves, Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines , emphasizing that the Council has a responsibility to address the consequences of climate change, said a failure to do so would be, in part, “an abdication of our duty”. It is time for the organ to seriously consider drafting a resolution on the matter and to map out a coherent approach, aiming for a working consensus. Affirming UNFCCC’s role as the primary body for dealing with climate change and the Paris Agreement as a major part of the rules-based international system, he said the Council should play its role without encroaching on the work of UNFCCC’s inclusive decision-making body. It should also engage with the Peacebuilding Commission and the General Assembly on climate and security risks that touch on issues of humanitarian support, sustainable development, health pandemics, peace and security.
Stressing that the first step to prevent or contain climate-security risks is for the major, and historical, emitters to fulfil — and indeed exceed — the commitments made in the Paris Agreement, he underlined the principle of common but differentiated responsibility. Climate change is an existential threat that disproportionately affects the most vulnerable, especially small island developing States such as Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. “It has become distressingly commonplace for an entire year’s [gross domestic product] to be washed away by a hurricane overnight, even as we are hindered by a lack of a sufficient inclusion, on favourable terms, into the global financial architecture,” he said. Citing the many natural hazards in Haiti, in particular, he also drew attention to the Sahel region and the battle for dwindling resources. However, no country is immune to such human-made challenges and all must stand in solidarity, with the Council paying close attention to climate change as it crafts its mandates, he said.
Kaja Kallas, Prime Minister of Estonia , said 7 of the 10 countries most vulnerable and least prepared to deal with climate change host a United Nations peacekeeping operation or a special political mission — a fact the Council cannot ignore. She expressed support for the statement to be delivered by Germany’s Foreign Minister on behalf of like-minded countries pointing the way forward for the Council, stressing that “we need to acknowledge that the climate emergency can pose a danger to peace — and we must make it a part of our security policy planning and discussions here”. She pressed the Council to “do more” to fully
aspects of its work, noting that the Secretary-General must receive a mandate to collect data and coordinate policy to this aim.
Among other efforts, she said that Estonia cooperates with small island States and least developed countries in green technology solutions and know-how transfer. The Government also recently launched the Data for the Environment Alliance, a coalition of State and non-State actors that will support the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in developing a global environmental data strategy by 2025.
Simon Coveney, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence of Ireland , said that climate change has many complex impacts, not least on international peace and security, the very business of this Council. Climate change is already causing upheaval, affecting peace and security and the stability of societies. Pointing out that the relationship between climate and security works in complex ways, he said political instability undermines efforts to build climate resilience, and the impact of climactic shocks is compounded when institutions are strained. Ireland is proud to join the Weathering Risk Project to help guide action at the Security Council and beyond, and is keen to understand better not just how climate change contributes to insecurity but how climate action can build peace. Ireland chairs the Informal Expert Group of Member States on this topic, together with Niger, also partnering with Nauru and Germany, as Chairs of the Group of Friends on Climate and Security.
Ireland’s core message today is that the inclusion of climate in Council discussions and actions will strengthen conflict prevention and support peacebuilding efforts. Stressing the need to ensure the full, equal and meaningful participation of women and youth in decision-making processes related to climate issues and the management of natural resources, he declared: “But, in listening to and understanding the concerns and insights of future generations, we cannot abrogate our responsibility to provide leadership today”.
Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Mexico , said the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that international peace and security can no longer be viewed through a single lens, but must also consider multiple drivers of insecurity. Food insecurity, water scarcity and droughts — all exacerbated by climate change — have reached severe levels in several regions of the world. Pledging Mexico’s support to the next Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC in Glasgow, later in 2021, he said climate change requires a comprehensive global response with a focus on ecosystem preservations. Mexico recently submitted its own national plan in that arena, which is coupled with a focus on prevention and adaptation, as well as efforts to reduce inequality and strengthen communities. Stressing that all efforts must be taken in line with the 2030 Agenda, he welcomed the Council’s creation of an informal group to monitor the links between climate and peace and security as a timely measure. Underlining the importance of ensuring sustainable peacebuilding and protecting livelihoods, he agreed with the Secretary-General that post-pandemic recovery efforts are an opportunity to “build back better” and build more egalitarian, adaptable societies.
Emmanuel Macron, President of France , said protecting the environment has, in recent years, meant recognizing climate change as a peace and security issue. Of the 20 countries most affected by conflict in the world, 12 are also severely impacted by climate change, he said, spotlighting the impacts of desertification, the increase in forced migration and agricultural challenges — all of which have resulted in such fallout as the advent of climate refugees and growing conflicts over land and water. Endorsing the initiative to address such matters under the auspices of the Council, he echoed calls for the appointment of a United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Security, as well as for an annual Secretary-General’s report with relevant recommendations.
Recognizing that the effects of climate change are unfairly distributed worldwide, he recalled his recent call for France’s contribution to the Green Climate Fund to be increased to one third of its total. France strongly supports the creation of a “Great Green Wall” in Africa, which aims to restore 250 million hectares of land for agriculture, create 10 million green new jobs and sequester carbon. He also pledged France’s commitment to accelerating the preservation of biodiversity, while calling for strengthened dialogue between the African Union and the United Nations on climate and security. Turning to the Pacific, where many nations are struggling to implement mitigation measures, he called for additional international support and an easing of geopolitical tensions across the region.
Prakash Javadekar, Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change of India , recalled the global democratic effort to take climate action in a nationally determined manner, based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities. He cautioned the Council against building a parallel climate track where such principles are “brushed aside”. Noting that there is no common, widely accepted methodology for assessing the links between climate change, conflict and fragility, he said fragility and climate impact are highly context‑specific. In fragile contexts, where Governments struggle to provide basic services, emergency conditions are largely driven by political violence disrupting harvests and aid supplies, rather than by climate factors alone. “A complete picture of climate vulnerability only emerges with an assessment of the State’s capacity to be the primary responder to interrelated environmental, social, economic and security dynamics,” he said. While climate change does not directly cause violent conflict, its interaction with other social, political and economic factors can exacerbate conflict drivers. He called for the building of robust governance structures at local, national and regional levels to address climate‑ and fragility-related risks, pressing donor countries to provide greater financial, technological and capacity-building assistance to help fragile States enact adaption and mitigation strategies.
John F. Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate of the United States , thanked European and other countries for their leadership on climate change during what he described as the United States “inexcusable absence” from the debate over the past four years. Though climate change is indeed an existential threat, the world has yet to adequately respond to it. Noting that the question of climate change is no longer one for debate, he declared: “The evidence, the science, is screaming at us.” Many of the world’s regions most impacted by climate change are also projected to become future conflict hotspots. Therefore, the issue must feature in all of the Council’s work and reporting. Emphasizing that President Joseph R. Biden understands that “we do not have a moment to waste”, he cited his new coordinated, whole-of-Government approach which aims to elevate the issue and put the United States on the path to sustainability that can never be reversed by any future President or demagogue.
Addressing climate change will require every country to step up and boost their level of ambition, he said, noting that the world’s largest carbon emitters bear the greatest responsibility. First and foremost will be the need to reduce the use of coal globally. “Inaction comes with a far higher price tag than action,” he said, stressing that, not since the industrial revolution has there been such potential to build back better in every part of the globe. Just by doing nothing, humanity will march forward in what is tantamount to a mutual suicide pact, he warned, spotlighting the importance of the climate summit to be hosted by President Biden in the coming weeks, as well as the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC to be held in Glasgow later in 2021. The United States will also work with like-minded countries in the Council, he said, urging Member States to begin treating climate change as the security crisis that it is.
Xie Zhenhua, Special Envoy for Climate Change of China , said that, even as global climate governance enters a new and crucial phase, the spread of COVID-19 poses serious threats to the global response. Given the differences in historical responsibility and development levels between States, he underscored the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and urged developed nations to lead the way. In building back after the pandemic, countries should respect nature, protect biodiversity, champion green lifestyles and “avoid old paths of giving without taking” from the Earth. In that context, he described climate change as a development issue, urging the international community to support developing nations, least developed countries and small island developing States in implementing mitigation and adaptation measures.
“We need to stay committed to multilateralism,” he stressed, underlining the importance of UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement as the main channels for those critical discussions. Any role to be played by the Security Council on climate change must fall under its purview, he added. Outlining China’s commitment to fulfilling its responsibilities under the Paris Agreement, he spotlighted its recently announced plan to have national CO 2 emissions peak before 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality prior to 2060. He also pointed out that the country’s forest cover has been rising steadily for many years, that it leads the world in green power generation and that it tops the list of clean energy patents registered.
The representative of the Russian Federation agreed that addressing climate change requires a global approach that is coordinated, targeted at reducing emissions and implementing effective adaptation measures, especially through UNFCCC. Noting that the Council has discussed climate change on several occasions, he said the issue is often presented as a fundamental threat to stability and as a root cause of problems, particularly in Africa, with warnings about the increasing risks of conflict. While he agreed that climate change can exacerbate conflict, he questioned whether it is the root cause of violence. “There are serious doubts,” he said. The connection between climate and conflict can be examined only in certain countries and regions. Discussing it in the global context is not relevant. “Not all conflicts are threats to international peace and security,” he explained. In addition, considering climate as a root cause of security issues distracts from the true root causes, and thus, hinders solutions. Political and socioeconomic factors, which have a greater influence on conflict risk, cannot be ignored, he said, pointing out that COVID-19 has exacerbated inequalities within and between countries and sparked an uptick in hunger — including in countries that were already in conflict. He urged donors to address the problem of “green protectionism”, seen in their refusal to exchange technology that would allow others to adapt. While discussing climate issues in the Council is seen as beneficial, the “real work” of improving coordination of international activities would be better accomplished in the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and UNFCC. Conflicts — in and of themselves — reduce the ability of States to adapt to climate change, he said, explaining that the increased security risks in the Sahel are, in fact, caused by countries pursuing regime change in Libya.
Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, President of Malawi , speaking for the least developed countries, said building resilience to mitigate the security risks associated with climate change must begin with reflections on COVID-19, as Governments have relegated many other priorities in the quest to fight the virus. Describing the impact of the nexus between climate change and security is “indiscriminate and consequential”, he said water scarcity, desertification and cyclones all foster competition for resources, and in the process, turn people into climate refugees. Least developed countries bear the brunt of these phenomena, despite that their emissions are 30 times lower than those of high‑income countries. Stressing that recovery from the coronavirus must be aligned with efforts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, he pressed developed countries to approach the 2021 UNFCC meeting with more ambition than in years past, as their current commitments to cut emissions remain “woefully inadequate”. They must fulfil their pledges to provide $100 billion in climate financing annually, answer the call to earmark 50 per cent of financing in the Green Climate Fund for adaptation, especially in least developed countries, and to meaningfully transfer climate‑friendly technologies to help least developed countries accelerate their green development efforts.
Gaston Alphonso Browne, Prime Minister and Minister for Finance and Corporate Governance of Antigua and Barbuda , spoke on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States, declaring: “Make no mistake […] climate change’s existential threat to our own survival is not a future consideration, but a current reality.” For the past 30 years, the Alliance has been the single most consistent advocate on climate, he said, highlighting the often-overlooked threats faced by small island developing States. He urged the international community to simultaneously plan and operationalize a system to address inevitable loss and damage which uproot peace and security of small island developing States. Equitable solutions are needed to systematically address difficult issues, such as climate change displacement, including the treatment of climate refugees, and loss of territory. For the past three decades, small island and low-lying States have been sounding the alarm, sending the SOS distress signal. They are losing their territories, populations, resources and very existence due to climate change. The Secretary-General recently stated: “Without nature’s help, we will not thrive or even survive[…] For too long, we have been waging a senseless and suicidal war on nature.” Sadly, small island developing States continue to be the front line for this war. “Our appeal for the Council is to take this threat very seriously before it is too late,” he said.
Heiko Maas, Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany , speaking for the Group of Friends of Climate and Security, said those countries are united by the common belief that climate change is the fundamental challenge of our time. The poorest and most vulnerable are suffering the most, with entire islands at risk of disappearing. “We are putting their future, their safety and their well‑being at risk if we don’t act,” he stressed, calling for concerted efforts by the United Nations in making climate change its top priority. Agreeing with other speakers that the issue has major implications for peace and security, he said it therefore belongs firmly on the Council’s agenda. In July 2020, the Nauru delegation presented the organ with a plan of action, including calling for the appointment of a Special Envoy on Climate and Security; regular reporting to the Council; climate‑sensitive peacebuilding; and more cooperation with civil society, regional and national actors on climate-related security risks. Now, it is time for the Council to adopt a strong resolution reflecting each of those points, he said.
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Human Impacts on the Environment
Humans impact the physical environment in many ways: overpopulation, pollution, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation. Changes like these have triggered climate change, soil erosion, poor air quality, and undrinkable water. These negative impacts can affect human behavior and can prompt mass migrations or battles over clean water.
Help your students understand the impact humans have on the physical environment with these classroom resources.
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The Ahupuaʻa is a complex system and worldview that evolved over thousands of years. It is a sustainable land management way of living that relates all things as divine, sacred, and at times prohibited or kapu. This worldview is manifested by the life from mountain to ocean. It is what would be considered these days as sustainability. In the ahupuʻa worldview, social systems and ecosystem are integrated as one. When social systems are separated from ecosystem, great ecological damage can be done. One example is the deforestation of North Korea by Japanese colonial forces. This deforestation of North Korean lands lead to millions of deaths. When social systems lead by anthropocentric values leave out sustainable development practices, ecological destruction can and will continue to lead to a chain effect of events unforeseen and sometimes unnoticed till it is too late. One example of seeming unrelated environmental problem that occurs during deforestation is water pollution. Forest hold soil, nutrients, and water that sustain the ecological systems. Without forests, soil is washed away with all its richness into the oceans and streams. This influx of runoff water causes a type of pollution called nutrient pollution. Nutrient pollution causes algae blooms which suffocate marine life and blocks light that is needed for some marine plants. Deforestation also is a key contributor to soil runoff water that directly effects one of the most valuable resources in the ecosystem, the coral reefs. The ahupuaʻa worldview can teach us how to heal and restore the damage done to our ecosystems by giving us a model on bridging social systems and ecosystems as one lifestyle. In
Niysoriya KANG
Water pollution is one of the most ecological threats we face today. It is formed when chemical compounds or waste enters water bodies such as lakes, rivers and oceans, dissolving in them, lying suspended in the water and degrading the quality of the water. Water pollution can be caused by many ways such as city sewage and industrial waste, chemical waste, oil spill, and plastic. For this reason, in this essay I am going to explain the effects of water pollution on human health, animals and clean water.
saurav ghosh
International Journal of Natural Disasters & Health Security (IJNHS) SciDoc Publishers
Pollution induces harmful effects on environment and health security. Main deep causes will be analyzed including natural disasters like volcanoes eruption, climate change as well as and men-caused disasters which are nuclear explosions and dioxin sprays.
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The five biggest threats to our natural world … and how we can stop them
From destructive land use to invasive species, scientists have identified the main drivers of biodiversity loss – so that countries can collectively act to tackle them
- Read more on the Cop15 talks to negotiate new UN targets to protect biodiversity in the coming decade
- 1 Changes in land and sea use
- 2 Direct exploitation of natural resources
- 3 The climate crisis
- 4 Pollution
- 5 Invasive species
T he world’s wildlife populations have plummeted by more than two-thirds since 1970 – and there are no signs that this downward trend is slowing. The first phase of Cop15 talks in Kunming this week will lay the groundwork for governments to draw up a global agreement next year to halt the loss of nature. If they are to succeed, they will need to tackle what the IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) has identified as the five key drivers of biodiversity loss: changes in land and sea use; direct exploitation of natural resources; climate change; pollution; and invasion of alien species.
Changes in land and sea use
Clearing the US prairies: ‘On a par with tropical deforestation’
“It’s hidden destruction. We’re still losing grasslands in the US at a rate of half a million acres a year or more.”
Tyler Lark, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, knows what he is talking about. Lark and a team of researchers used satellite data to map the expansion and abandonment of land across the US and discovered that 4m hectares (10m acres) had been destroyed between 2008 and 2016.
Large swathes of the United States’ great prairies continue to be converted into cropland, according to the research, to make way for soya bean, corn and wheat farming.
Changes in land and sea use has been identified as the main driver of “unprecedented” biodiversity and ecosystem change over the past 50 years. Three-quarters of the land-based environment and about 66% of the marine environment have been significantly altered by human actions.
North America’s grasslands – often referred to as prairies – are a case in point. In the US, about half have been converted since European settlement , and the most fertile land is already being used for agriculture. Areas converted more recently are sub-prime agricultural land, with 70% of yields lower than the national average, which means a lot of biodiversity is being lost for diminishing returns.
“Our findings demonstrate a pervasive pattern of encroachment into areas that are increasingly marginal for production but highly significant for wildlife,” Lark and his team wrote in the paper , published in Nature Communications.
Boggier areas of land, or those with uneven terrain, were traditionally left as grassland, but in the past few decades, this marginal land has also been converted. In the US, 88% of cropland expansion takes place on grassland, and much of this is happening in the Great Plains – known as America’s breadbasket – which used to be the most extensive grassland in the world.
What are the five biggest threats to biodiversity?
According to the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity there are five main threats to biodiversity. In descending order these are: changes in land and sea use; direct exploitation of natural resources; climate change; pollution and invasive species.
1. For terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, land-use change has had the largest relative negative impact on nature since 1970. More than a third of the world’s land surface and nearly 75% of freshwater resources are now devoted to crop or livestock production. Alongside a doubling of urban area since 1992, things such as wetlands, scrubland and woodlands – which wildlife relies on – are ironed out from the landscape.
2. The direct exploitation of organisms and non-living materials, including logging, hunting and fishing and the extraction of soils and water are all negatively affecting ecosystems . In marine environments, overfishing is considered to be the most serious driver of biodiversity loss. One quarter of the world’s commercial fisheries are overexploited, according to a 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment .
3. The climate crisis is dismantling ecosystems at every level. Extreme weather events such as tropical storms and flooding are destroying habitats. Warmer temperatures are also changing the timing of natural events – such as the availability of insects and when birds hatch their eggs in spring. The distribution of species and their range is also changing.
4. Many types of pollution are increasing. In marine environments, pollution from agricultural runoff (mainly nitrogen and phosphorus) do huge damage to ecosystems. Agricultural runoff causes toxic algal blooms and even "dead zones" in the worst affected areas. Marine plastic pollution has increased tenfold since 1980, affecting at least 267 species.
5. Since the 17th century, invasive species have contributed to 40% of all known animal extinctions. Nearly one fifth of the Earth’s surface is at risk of plant and animal invasions. Invasive species change the composition of ecosystems by outcompeting native species.
Hotspots for this expansion have included wildlife-rich grasslands in the “prairie pothole” region which stretches between Iowa, Dakota, Montana and southern Canada and is home to more than 50% of North American migratory waterfowl, as well as 96 species of songbird. This cropland expansion has wiped out about 138,000 nesting habitats for waterfowl, researchers estimate.
These grasslands are also a rich habitat for the monarch butterfly – a flagship species for pollinator conservation and a key indicator of overall insect biodiversity. More than 200m milkweed plants, the caterpillar’s only food source, were probably destroyed by cropland expansion, making it one of the leading causes for the monarch’s national decline .
The extent of conversion of grassland in the US makes it a larger emission source than the destruction of the Brazilian Cerrado , according to research from 2019 . About 90% of emissions from grassland conversion comes from carbon lost in the soil, which is released when the grassland is ploughed up.
“The rate of clearing that we’re seeing on these grasslands is on par with things like tropical deforestation, but it often receives far less attention,” says Lark.
Food crop production globally has increased by about 300% since 1970 , despite the negative environmental impacts.
Reducing food waste and eating less meat would help cut the amount of land needed for farming, while researchers say improved management of existing croplands and utilising what is already farmed as best as possible would reduce further expansion.
Lark concludes: “I think there’s a huge opportunity to re-envision our landscapes so that they’re not only providing incredible food production but also mitigating climate change and helping reduce the impacts of the biodiversity crisis by increasing habitats on agricultural land.” PW
Direct exploitation of natural resources
Groundwater extraction: ‘People don’t see it’
From hunting, fishing and logging to the extraction of oil, gas, coal and water, humanity’s insatiable appetite for the planet’s resources has devastated large parts of the natural world.
While the impacts of many of these actions can often be seen, unsustainable groundwater extraction could be driving a hidden crisis below our feet, experts have warned, wiping out freshwater biodiversity, threatening global food security and causing rivers to run dry.
Farmers and mining companies are pumping vast underground water stores at an unsustainable rate, according to ecologists and hydrologists. About half the world’s population relies on groundwater for drinking water and it helps sustain 40% of irrigation systems for crops .
The consequences for freshwater ecosystems – among the most degraded on the planet – are under-researched as studies have focused on the depletion of groundwater for agriculture.
But a growing body of research indicates that pumping the world’s most extracted resource – water – is causing significant damage to the planet’s ecosystems. A 2017 study of the Ogallala aquifer – an enormous water source underneath eight states in the US Great Plains – found that more than half a century of pumping has caused streams to run dry and a collapse in large fish populations. In 2019, another study estimated that by 2050 between 42% and 79% of watersheds that pump groundwater globally could pass ecological tipping points, without better management.
“The difficulty with groundwater is that people don’t see it and they don’t understand the fragility of it,” says James Dalton, director of the global water programme at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). “Groundwater can be the largest – and sometimes the sole – source in certain types of terrestrial habitats.
“Uganda is luxuriantly green, even during the dry season, but that’s because a lot of it is irrigated with shallow groundwater for agriculture and the ecosystems are reliant on tapping into it.”
According to UPGro (Unlocking the Potential of Groundwater for the Poor), a research programme looking into the management of groundwater in sub-Saharan Africa, 73 of the 98 operational water supply systems in Uganda are dependent on water from below ground. The country shares two transboundary aquifers: the Nile and Lake Victoria basins. At least 592 aquifers are shared across borders around the world.
“Some of the groundwater reserves are huge, so there is time to fix this,” says Dalton. “It’s just there’s no attention to it.”
Inge de Graaf, a hydrologist at Wageningen University, who led the 2019 study into watershed levels, found between 15% to 21% had already passed ecological tipping points, adding that once the effects had become clear for rivers, it was often too late.
“Groundwater is slow because it has to flow through rocks. If you extract water today, it will impact the stream flow maybe in the next five years, in the next 10 years, or in the next decades,” she says. “I think the results of this research and related studies are pretty scary.”
In April, the largest ever assessment of global groundwater wells by researchers from University of California, Santa Barbara, found that up to one in five were at risk of running dry. Scott Jasechko, a hydrologist and lead author on the paper, says that the study focuses on the consequences for humans and more research is needed on biodiversity.
“Millions of wells around the world could run dry with even modest declines in groundwater levels. And that, of course, has cascading implications for livelihoods and access to reliable and convenient water for individuals and ecosystems,” he says. PG
The climate crisis
Climate and biodiversity: ‘Solve both or solve neither’
In 2019, the European heatwave brought 43C heat to Montpellier in France. Great tit chicks in 30 nest boxes starved to death, probably because it was too hot for their parents to catch the food they needed, according to one researcher . Two years later, and 2021’s heatwave appears to have set a European record, pushing temperatures to 48.8C in Sicily in August. Meanwhile, wildfires and heatwaves are stripping the planet of life.
Until now, the destruction of habitats and extraction of resources has had a more significant impact on biodiversity than the climate crisis. This is likely to change over the coming decades as the climate crisis dismantles ecosystems in unpredictable and dramatic ways, according to a review paper published by the Royal Society.
“There are many aspects of ecosystem science where we will not know enough in sufficient time,” the paper says. “Ecosystems are changing so rapidly in response to global change drivers that our research and modelling frameworks are overtaken by empirical, system-altering changes.”
The calls for biodiversity and the climate crisis to be tackled in tandem are growing. “It is clear that we cannot solve [the global biodiversity and climate crises] in isolation – we either solve both or we solve neither,” says Sveinung Rotevatn, Norway’s climate and environment minister, with the launch in June of a report produced by the world’s leading biodiversity and climate experts. Zoological Society of London senior research fellow Dr Nathalie Pettorelli, who led a s tudy on the subject published in the Journal of Applied Ecology in September, says: “The level of interconnectedness between the climate change and biodiversity crises is high and should not be underestimated. This is not just about climate change impacting biodiversity; it is also about the loss of biodiversity deepening the climate crisis.”
Writer Zadie Smith describes every country’s changes as a “local sadness” . Insects no longer fly into the house when the lights are on in the evening, the snowdrops are coming out earlier and some migratory species, such as swallows, are starting to try to stay in the UK for winter. All these individual elements are entwined in a much bigger story of decline.
Our biosphere – the thin film of life on the surface of our planet – is being destabilised by temperature change. On land, rains are altering, extreme weather events are more common, and ecosystems more flammable. Associated changes, including flooding , sea level rise, droughts and storms, are having hugely damaging impacts on biodiversity and its ability to support us.
In the ocean, heatwaves and acidification are stressing organisms and ecosystems already under pressure due to other human activities, such as overfishing and habitat fragmentation.
The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) landmark report showed that extreme heatwaves that would usually happen every 50 years are already happening every decade. If warming is kept to 1.5C these will happen approximately every five years.
The distributions of almost half (47%) of land-based flightless mammals and almost a quarter of threatened birds, may already have been negatively affected by the climate crisis, the IPBES warns . Five per cent of species are at risk of extinction from 2C warming, climbing to 16% with a 4.3C rise.
Connected, diverse and extensive ecosystems can help stabilise the climate and will have a better chance of thriving in a world permanently altered by rising emissions, say experts. And, as the Royal Society paper says: “Rather than being framed as a victim of climate change, biodiversity can be seen as a key ally in dealing with climate change.” PW
The hidden threat of nitrogen: ‘Slowly eating away at biodiversity’
On the west coast of Scotland, fragments of an ancient rainforest that once stretched along the Atlantic coast of Britain cling on. Its rare mosses, lichens and fungi are perfectly suited to the mild temperatures and steady supply of rainfall, covering the crags, gorges and bark of native woodland. But nitrogen pollution, an invisible menace, threatens the survival of the remaining 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of Scottish rainforest, along with invasive rhododendron, conifer plantations and deer.
While marine plastic pollution in particular has increased tenfold since 1980 – affecting 44% of seabirds – air, water and soil pollution are all on the rise in some areas. This has led to pollution being singled out as the fourth biggest driver of biodiversity loss.
In Scotland, nitrogen compounds from intensive farming and fossil fuel combustion are dumped on the Scottish rainforest from the sky, killing off the lichen and bryophytes that absorb water from the air and are highly sensitive to atmospheric conditions.
“The temperate rainforest is far from the sources of pollution, yet because it’s so rainy, we’re getting a kind of acid rain effect,” says Jenny Hawley, policy manager at Plantlife, which has called nitrogen pollution in the air “the elephant in the room” of nature conservation. “The nitrogen-rich rain that’s coming down and depositing nitrogen into those habitats is making it impossible for the lichen, fungi, mosses and wildflowers to survive.”
Environmental destruction caused by nitrogen pollution is not limited to the Scottish rainforest. Algal blooms around the world are often caused by runoff from farming, resulting in vast dead zones in oceans and lakes that kill scores of fish and devastate ecosystems. Nitrogen-rich rainwater degrades the ability of peatlands to sequester carbon, the protection of which is a stated climate goal of several governments. Wildflowers adapted to low-nitrogen soils are squeezed out by aggressive nettles and cow parsley, making them less diverse.
About 80% of nitrogen used by humans – through food production, transport, energy and industrial and wastewater processes – is wasted and enters the environment as pollution.
“Nitrogen pollution might not result in huge floods and apocalyptic droughts but we are slowly eating away at biodiversity as we put more and more nitrogen in ecosystems,” says Carly Stevens, a plant ecologist at Lancaster University. “Across the UK, we have shown that habitats that have lots of nitrogen have fewer species in them. We have shown it across Europe. We have shown it across the US. Now we’re showing it in China. We’re creating more and more damage all the time.”
To decrease the amount of nitrogen pollution causing biodiversity loss, governments will commit to halving nutrient runoff by 2030 as part of an agreement for nature currently being negotiated in Kunming. Halting the waste of vast amounts of nitrogen fertiliser in agriculture is a key part of meeting the target, says Kevin Hicks, a senior research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute centre at York.
“One of the biggest problems is the flow of nitrogen from farming into watercourses,” Hicks says. “In terms of a nitrogen footprint, the most intensive thing that you can eat is meat. The more meat you eat, the more nitrogen you’re putting into the environment.”
Mark Sutton, a professor at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, says reducing nitrogen pollution also makes economic sense.
“Nitrogen in the atmosphere is 78% of every breath we take. It does nothing, it’s very stable and makes the sky blue. Then there are all these other nitrogen compounds: ammonia, nitrates, nitrous oxide. They create air and water pollution,” he says. He argues that if you price every kilo of nitrogen at $1 (an estimated fertiliser price), and multiply it by the amount of nitrogen pollution lost in the world – 200bn tonnes – it amounts to $200bn (£147bn) every year.
“The goal to cut nitrogen waste in half would save you $100bn,” he says. “I think $100bn a year is a worthwhile saving.” PG
- Invasive species
The problem for islands: ‘We have to be very careful’
On Gough Island in the southern Atlantic Ocean, scores of seabird chicks are eaten by mice every year. The rodents were accidentally introduced by sailors in the 19th century and their population has surged, putting the Tristan albatross – one of the largest of its species – at risk of extinction along with dozens of rare seabirds. Although Tristan albatross chicks are 300 times the size of mice, two-thirds did not fledge in 2020 largely because of the injuries they sustained from the rodents, according to the RSPB .
The situation on the remote island, 2,600km from South Africa, is a grisly warning of the consequences of the human-driven impacts of invasive species on biodiversity. An RSPB-led operation to eradicate mice from the British overseas territory has been completed, using poison to help save the critically endangered albatross and other bird species from injuries they sustain from the rodents. It will be two years before researchers can confirm whether or not the plan has worked. But some conservationists want to explore another controversial option whose application is most advanced in the eradication of malaria : gene drives.
Instead of large-scale trapping or poisoning operations, which have limited effectiveness and can harm other species, gene drives involve introducing genetic code into an invasive population that would make them infertile or all one gender over successive generations. The method has so far been used only in a laboratory setting but at September’s IUCN congress in Marseille, members backed a motion to develop a policy on researching its application and other uses of synthetic biology for conservation.
“If a gene drive were proven to be effective and there were safety mechanisms to limit its deployment, you would introduce multiple individuals on an island whose genes would be inherited by other individuals in the population,” says David Will, an innovation programme manager with Island Conservation , a non-profit dedicated to preventing extinctions by removing invasive species from islands. “Eventually, you would have either an entirely all male or entirely all female population and they would no longer be able to reproduce.”
Nearly one-fifth of the Earth’s surface is at risk of plant and animal invasions and although the problem is worldwide, such as feral pigs wreaking havoc in the southern United States and lionfish in the Mediterranean , islands are often worst affected. The global scale of the issue will be revealed in a UN scientific assessment in 2023.
“We have to be very careful,” says Austin Burt, a professor of evolutionary genetics at Imperial College London, who researches how gene drives can be used to eradicate malaria in mosquito populations. “If you’re going after mice, for example, and you’re targeting mice on an island, you’d need to make sure that none of those modified mice got off the island to cause harm to the mainland population.”
In July, scientists announced they had successfully wiped out a population of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes using a gene drive in a laboratory setting, raising the prospect of self-destructing mosquitoes being released into the wild in the next decade.
Kent Redford, chair of the IUCN Task Force on Synthetic Biology who led an assessment of the use of synthetic biology in conservation, said there are clear risks and opportunities in the field but further research is necessary.
“None of these genetic tools are ever going to be a panacea. Ever. Nor do I think they will ever replace the existing tools,” Redford says, adding: “There is a hope – and I stress hope – that engineered gene drives have the potential to effectively decrease the population sizes of alien invasive species with very limited knock-on effects on other species.” PG
Find more age of extinction coverage here , and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on Twitter for all the latest news and features
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- The road to Cop15
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Environmental Issues Essay for Students and Children
500+ words essay on environmental issues.
The environment plays a significant role to support life on earth. But there are some issues that are causing damages to life and the ecosystem of the earth. It is related to the not only environment but with everyone that lives on the planet. Besides, its main source is pollution , global warming, greenhouse gas , and many others. The everyday activities of human are constantly degrading the quality of the environment which ultimately results in the loss of survival condition from the earth.
Source of Environment Issue
There are hundreds of issue that causing damage to the environment. But in this, we are going to discuss the main causes of environmental issues because they are very dangerous to life and the ecosystem.
Pollution – It is one of the main causes of an environmental issue because it poisons the air , water , soil , and noise. As we know that in the past few decades the numbers of industries have rapidly increased. Moreover, these industries discharge their untreated waste into the water bodies, on soil, and in air. Most of these wastes contain harmful and poisonous materials that spread very easily because of the movement of water bodies and wind.
Greenhouse Gases – These are the gases which are responsible for the increase in the temperature of the earth surface. This gases directly relates to air pollution because of the pollution produced by the vehicle and factories which contains a toxic chemical that harms the life and environment of earth.
Climate Changes – Due to environmental issue the climate is changing rapidly and things like smog, acid rains are getting common. Also, the number of natural calamities is also increasing and almost every year there is flood, famine, drought , landslides, earthquakes, and many more calamities are increasing.
Above all, human being and their greed for more is the ultimate cause of all the environmental issue.
Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas
How to Minimize Environment Issue?
Now we know the major issues which are causing damage to the environment. So, now we can discuss the ways by which we can save our environment. For doing so we have to take some measures that will help us in fighting environmental issues .
Moreover, these issues will not only save the environment but also save the life and ecosystem of the planet. Some of the ways of minimizing environmental threat are discussed below:
Reforestation – It will not only help in maintaining the balance of the ecosystem but also help in restoring the natural cycles that work with it. Also, it will help in recharge of groundwater, maintaining the monsoon cycle , decreasing the number of carbons from the air, and many more.
The 3 R’s principle – For contributing to the environment one should have to use the 3 R’s principle that is Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Moreover, it helps the environment in a lot of ways.
To conclude, we can say that humans are a major source of environmental issues. Likewise, our activities are the major reason that the level of harmful gases and pollutants have increased in the environment. But now the humans have taken this problem seriously and now working to eradicate it. Above all, if all humans contribute equally to the environment then this issue can be fight backed. The natural balance can once again be restored.
FAQs about Environmental Issue
Q.1 Name the major environmental issues. A.1 The major environmental issues are pollution, environmental degradation, resource depletion, and climate change. Besides, there are several other environmental issues that also need attention.
Q.2 What is the cause of environmental change? A.2 Human activities are the main cause of environmental change. Moreover, due to our activities, the amount of greenhouse gases has rapidly increased over the past few decades.
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Department of Chemist ry, National and Kapodistrian University of At hens, University Campus Zografou, 15784 A thens, Greece. E-mail : [email protected]. Ab stract. In 2016, a United Nations ...
environmental challenge facing us today is the reality of a changing climate. Increasing levels of melting sea ice, more frequent coastal high-intensity storms and extreme drought are immediate threats that will affect the health and security of our future. Already, we are seeing sea-level rise in locations across the planet. In places
Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK ... threats, opportunities and solutions'. ... We close this section of the thematic issue with a thought-provoking essay by Harrison , which predicts that terrestrial plant community diversity will be eroded more than it is ...
Abstract. Environmental threats are harmful after-effects of the human activities to the physical environment plaguing the planet with pollution, deforestation, climate change, ozone depletion, and water scarcity. This chapter addresses the three vital parameters such as water, air and climate, to enhance the consciousness among the people.
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The major impacts and threats of global warming are widespread (Figure II-1). Increasing ocean temperatures cause thermal expansion of the oceans and in combination with meltwater from land-based ice this is causing sea level rise. Sea levels rose during the 20th century by 0.17 metres. By 2100, sea level is expected to rise between 0.18 and 0. ...
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Europe, the magnitude of environmental changes started to increase dramatically. Inten-sive agriculture and expanding industrial activi-ties — the creators of food security and wealth which permitted the human race to expand — would also become threats to the Earth's life support system. However, considering that in
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differentiation of environmental threats indicated by respondents. The threats were di-vided into three groups corresponding to individual spheres of the Earth: Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, and Soils and biosphere. A significant Kruskal-Wallis test indicates that at least one sample (group) stochastically dominates one other sample (group). Due ...
1.1 Environmental Crisis: A De-nition. I de-ne an Environmental Crisis as a dramatic, unexpected, and irreversible worsening of the environment leading to signi-cant welfare losses. This de-nition includes and precludes several things. First, the change has to be dramatic and rapid in its pace. Therefore, the
Climate change is a "crisis multiplier" that has profound implications for international peace and stability, Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council today, amid calls for deep partnerships within and beyond the United Nations system to blunt its acute effects on food security, natural resources and migration patterns fuelling tensions across countries and regions.
the envi ronment as a threat to in dividual, national, or gl obal security has cre ated a new. agenda in the discourse of security studies. The increasing scope of international security now ...
Environment-related threats to human health that do not result from direct exposure to chemicals or air pol-lutants are less common in OECD countries, but may still have significant impacts. A well-known example is the effect on the ozone layer of ozone-depleting substances (ODS) used in cooling systems and spray cans. The deple-
Biodiversity is the variety of different forms of life on earth, including the different plants, animals, micro-organisms, the. genes they contain and the ecosystem they form. It refers to genetic ...
Humans impact the physical environment in many ways: overpopulation, pollution, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation. Changes like these have triggered climate change, soil erosion, poor air quality, and undrinkable water. These negative impacts can affect human behavior and can prompt mass migrations or battles over clean water. Help your students understand the impact humans have on the ...
1. Explicitly address environmental security in project and program design. Expressing the benefits of GEF investment in terms of environmental security, as a component of broader human security, can link global environment benefits to the more immediate concerns of employment and livelihoods, equity, social stability and effective governance. 2.
Environmental degradation is real and presents threats to all living habitat on earth. Thus, the inclusion of environmental issues for a language class is close to a must. This paper is intended to describe 1) the students' perspective on using environmental topics for essay writing class, and 2) their problems when writing essay.
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According to the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity there are five main threats to biodiversity. In descending order these are: changes in land and sea use; direct exploitation of natural ...
500+ Words Essay on Environmental Issues. The environment plays a significant role to support life on earth. But there are some issues that are causing damages to life and the ecosystem of the earth. It is related to the not only environment but with everyone that lives on the planet. ... Some of the ways of minimizing environmental threat are ...
The „environmental crisis‟ is caused due to environment and ecological changes as a result of. developmental process of the 'economic and technological man" of the present century. In fact if ...