Our Common Journey A Transition Toward Sustainability (1999) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
1 Our Common Journey
1 Our Common Journey
Pages 21-58
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 21... ...
Ours is a normative vision of sustainability, which in our view is defined by the joint objectives of meeting human needs while preserving life support systems and reducing hunger and poverty. This vision is firmly anchored in the goals and aspirations of the world community as expressed through major international conventions and commissions of the past decade.
|
From page 22... ...
International highlevel commissions (such as the Independent Commission on International Development Issues 1980 [Brandt] , the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues 1982 [Palmed, and the World Commission on Environment and Development 1987 [Brundtland]
|
From page 23... ...
The most common emphases concern life support systems, where the life to be supported first is human. Subsumed within this group are emphases on the classic natural resources which, while found in nature, are particularly useful for people.
|
From page 24... ...
24 FOR HOW LON 25 years "Now and in the future" Forever LINKED BY Only Mostly But And Or FIGURE 1~: Sustainable development: common concerns, differing emphases.
|
From page 25... ...
More often than not, when development is discussed, the emphasis is on the economy, with its productive sectors providing both employment and desired consumption, and wealth providing the incentives and the means for investment as well as funds for environmental maintenance and restoration. Yet another form of development stressed is human development.
|
From page 26... ...
A number of additional international conferences on sustainable development have been held, including conferences on small island developing states, population and development, social development, straddling and migratory fish stocks, women, human settlements, and food. Intergovernmental panels and forums are also considering problems of chemical safety, forests, and climate change.
|
From page 27... ...
The disappointing conclusion of the 1997 UN special session was that the impacts of sustainability initiatives on global trends in development and environment have been few, small, and slow. Backed by the UN Environment Program's recently published Global Environmental Outlook 2000,~2 the special session noted: · While population growth rates continue to decline globally, the number of people living in absolute poverty has increased.
|
From page 28... ...
The abundant examples of local successes in sustainable development are not detailed in any one collection, although the submissions of individual countries and organizations to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in preparation for the 1997 special session are a good place to begin.~4 These local pictures are, of course, complete with their own share of environmental horrors, economic greed, and program failures. But compared with 20, 10, or even 5 years ago, the degree to which notions of sustainability have entered mainstream thinking is as
|
From page 29... ...
International Conference on an Agenda of Science for Environment and Development into the 21st Century known as "ASCEND 21," devotes only 3 out of 40 chapters to science and technology and has little to say about priorities or their implementation. With so little to aim at, the 1997 UN special session did not even try to appraise the implementation of Rio's vague intentions for science and technology.
|
From page 30... ...
War, the ultimate expression of conflict, remains the greatest threat to human development, life support systems, and the environment. Driven by population growth and increasing consumption, past and current practices of energy and material transformation have led to the large-scale introduction of pollutants, the widespread destruction of biota,
|
From page 31... ...
In short, in the Board's judgment, the primary goals of a transition toward sustainability over the next two generations should be to meet the needs of a much larger but stabilizing human population, to sustain the life support systems of the planet, and to substantially reduce hunger and poverty. Using goals outlined in international conventions, we define meeting human needs as providing food and nutrition, nurturing children, finding shelter, providing an education, and finding employment.
|
From page 32... ...
To do so is a central challenge for any transition to sustainability. Meeting Human Needs Providing Food and Nutrition To feed the increased population of the next two generations is to meet both the basic need for food and the desire for varied diets.
|
From page 33... ...
The current international consensus, as evidenced in the Rome Declaration on World Food Security calls for a rapid acceleration in worldwide hunger reduction efforts. The declaration calls for a "common and national commitment to achieving food security for all and to an ongoing effort to eradicate hunger in all countries, with an immediate view to reducing the number of undernourished people to half their present level no later than 2015."2° By the year 2015, then, the declaration thus calls for the number of undernourished people to drop by half from 800 million to 400 million and thereafter for the maintenance of this trend for the eventual elimination of hunger.
|
From page 34... ...
For example, diarrhea inhibits the absorption of dietary intake; measles and malaria waste the intake by fever; and parasites, such as worms, rob the intake. In all, 184 million children under five years of age, over a third of the world's children, were estimated to be underweight in 1990 a number that had risen because of increased population growth, even though the proportion of children underweight had actually declined since 1975.
|
From page 35... ...
These included a one-third reduction in child deaths, halving of child malnutrition, immunization levels of 90 percent, control of major childhood diseases, eradication of polio, elimination of micronutrient deficiencies, halving of maternal mortality rates, provision of primary school education for at least 80 percent of children, provision of clean water and safe sanitation for all communities, and ratification of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. Finding Shelter To house the many more people of the next two generations, in the words of one international agreement, is to ensure "shelter and basic services which are financially affordable and adequate in terms of space, quality, health, design, durability, livability, and accessibility."25 There is greater variety of interpretation in these standards than in requirements for food and nurture, but international concern focuses on an end to homelessness, with basic shelter that is affordable, secure in tenure and location, and healthy, with access to clean and safe drinking water, sewage and refuse disposal, and living and working quarters that are free of indoor air pollution.
|
From page 36... ...
or almost a billion people could not read or write. In 1990, the World Conference on Education for All was held in Tomtien, Thailand, followed by the World Summit for Children.3~ At Tomtien, three commitments were made to basic education for all.
|
From page 37... ...
Yet as of the mid-199Os, an increase in the number of educated girls had not been realized,33 and among the majority of bilateral donors, the level of funding for basic education projects and programs in developing countries was inadequate to meet the goals for education set out in Tomtien.34 Finding Employment To employ the present unemployed or underemployed and the emerging labor force of the next two generations is to provide the opportunity for meaningful work, to fulfill a need to engage the mind and body in productive activity, and to receive in turn a level of material security and sustenance. International concerns have focused on job creation, both formal and informal, conditions of work, and remuneration sufficient to maintain households above the poverty level.35 The Copenhagen Declaration, a nonbinding agreement adopted at the World Summit for Social Development in 1995, and the following report,36 set out the commitment by governments to promote the goal of full employment.
|
From page 38... ...
Targets for Meeting Human Needs Internationally agreed-on targets for meeting human needs exist for four of the five major needs of providing food and nutrition, nurturing children, finding shelter, providing an education, and finding employment. These are summarized in Table 1.1.
|
From page 39... ...
World Food Summit, (Rome, 1996~; [WSC] World Summit for Children, (New York, 1990~; [WHO]
|
From page 40... ...
Its key elements were found in the declarations of the 71 heads of state attending the 1990 World Summit for Children, in the resolutions of the 159 nations participating in the 1992 International Conference on Nutrition, in the deliberations of the 1993 World Bank Conference on Overcoming Global Hunger, in a mid-course nongovernmental review in Salaya, Thailand, in 1994, and finally, in the focus of the 1996 World Food Summit. Over this period of consensus building and discussion, the time required for a "half-life" for hunger grew from a decade (year 2000)
|
From page 41... ...
Controlling Emissions into the Atmosphere Goals for controlling emissions into the atmosphere are to prevent changes in the composition of the atmosphere, according to the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution 1979, or in the earth's climate that harm human or natural systems, according to the Framework Convention on Climate Change 1992 and its Kyoto Protocol 1997. The Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, which applies only to several European countries, sets out "to limit and, as far as possible, gradually reduce and prevent air pollution including long-range transboundary air pollution."44 This convention defines specific goals for maintaining the integrity of the atmosphere through the control of potentially harmful emissions and fluxes of sulfur, nitrogen oxides (NOX)
|
From page 42... ...
The 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was ratified internationally in 1994, set a goal of stabilizing "atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases at a level which would prevent dangerous human interference in the climate system."47 The not-yet-ratified Kyoto Protocol set initial binding targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions by industrial nations only for the 2008-2012 time period, specifying reductions in overall emissions of six greenhouse gases by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels. Because of natural variability in climate, scientists have yet to discern with confidence whether they are seeing a slow or rapid rate of climate change.
|
From page 43... ...
The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling 1946, and its amendments, enable the designation of protected species of whales, specific ocean areas such as sanctuaries, open and closed seasons for harvesting, and regulations on whaling methods.52 For fish and other living marine resources, Article 2 of the 1958 Convention on Fishing and Conservation of the Living Resources of the High Seas sets targets for resource conservation programs at levels that ensure "the optimum sustainable yield from those resources so as to secure a maximum supply of food and other marine products."53 Goals for the protection of birds are outlined in the 1950 International Convention for the Protection of Birds (Paris) , which prohibits actions that would lead to the destruction of indigenous or migratory species.54 It establishes protection of all birds during their breeding seasons, and of endangered species year-round, and it restricts the trade of bird and bird components, the removal or destruction of nests, and the mass killing or capture of birds.
|
From page 44... ...
The maintenance of species and ecosystems, according to the convention's first article, entails provisions for "the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources." The convention has no protocols to date, but it requires parties to develop national strategies, plans, or programs to conserve biological diversity and, as stated in Article 6, to integrate "the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity into relevant sectoral or crosssectoral plans, programmer and policies."60 Targets for Preserving Life Support Systems Compared to targets for meeting human needs, quantitative targets for preserving life support systems are fewer, more modest, and more contested. Global targets now exist for ozone-depleting substances and greenhouse gases, and regional targets for some air pollutants (see Table 1.2~.
|
From page 45... ...
Water, land resources, and ecosystems such as arid lands and forests have at best qualitative targets to achieve sustainable management or restoration. For example, the Forest Principles set forth at the 1992 World Conference on Environment and Development do not set quantitative targets for forest protection; but they establish in Article 2b that "forest resources and forest lands should be sustainably managed to meet the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual needs of present and future generations" for forest products and services.
|
From page 46... ...
Greenhouse Prevent dangerous human 2008- Framework Convention gases interference in the climate 2012 on Climate Change (1992~; (specified system; Reduce emissions by Kyoto Protocol (1997) forms)
|
From page 47... ...
Africa 241 Sub-Saharan Africa 218.6 China 210 China 372.3 Eastern Europe and Central Asia Latin America and the 65 Caribbean Middle East 29 South and Southeast Asia 337 North America 7 Eastern Europe and Central Asia Latin America and the 109.6 Caribbean Middle East and North Africa 10.7 South Asia North America 14.5 514.7 01 Pacific OECD 1 Pacific OECD 01 Western Europe 3 Western Europe 0i World SS9 World 1313.9 Source: For data on hunger, Raskin et al. (1998~; for data on poverty, World Bank (1999~.
|
From page 48... ...
Thus, for a transition to sustainability, reducing hunger and poverty (as shown in the example of the "Hunger and Climate Change Reduction scenario" in the appendix to Chapter 3) requires conscious and simultaneous efforts in three directions: encouraging overall growth in income and employment opportunities, increasing the share of the increased income that accrues to poor and hungry people, and providing the crucial public services of nurturing, education, and housing.
|
From page 49... ...
But significant changes in societal responses to issues as complex as those involved in sustainable development generally require slow, interactive accumulations of scientific knowledge, technical capacity, management institutions, and public concern over periods of a decade or more. Moreover, while some adaptive learning can accrue throughout such extended periods, the more fundamental and important learning of changes in deeply held beliefs or perceptions of problems is rare and seems to require the impetus of crisis or surprise.67 A successful effort to promote social learning for a sustainability transition must therefore be expected to require patience and persistence over generations, while at the same time retaining enough flexibility to seize the moment when opportunities arise.
|
From page 50... ...
This report attempts such a strategic reconnaissance in Chapter 4, employing past development experience and present scientific understanding to identify some of the most problematic environmental obstacles to human development that may be met in the transition to sustainability. The chapter then seeks to evaluate the potential social, technical, and environmental opportunities for circumventing or mitigating such obstacles, employing integrated strategies for the management of water, the atmospheric environment, and species and ecosystems.
|
From page 51... ...
See Independent Commission on International Development Issues, 1980. Brown, B
|
From page 52... ...
1999. Learning to manage global environmental risks: A comparative history of social responses to climate change, ozone depletion and acid rain.
|
From page 53... ...
1980. World conservation strategy: Living resource conservation for sustainable development.
|
From page 54... ...
1990. The world summit for children.
|
From page 55... ...
1995b. Report of the World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, 6-12 March 1995.
|
From page 56... ...
10 UNCED (1992~. 11 Small island developing states, UN Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, Bridgetown, Barbados, April 25-May 6,1994; population and development, United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, September 5-13, 1994; social development, World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, March 5-12, 1995; straddling and migratory fish stocks, United Nations Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, New
|
From page 57... ...
; World Summit for Chil dren, UN (1990)
|
From page 58... ...
(1995) , Walter (1998~; regional environmental management, Sabatier and Zafonte (1997~; acid rain, ozone depletion, land, and climate change, Clark et al.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.