Our Common Journey A Transition Toward Sustainability (1999) / Chapter Skim
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5 Reporting on the Transition
5 Reporting on the Transition
Pages 233-274
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From page 233... ...
More important, these indicators can stimulate social learning-going beyond research, and beyond science and policy debate-to attain the actual policy and behavioral changes needed for a successful course. Learrung of this kind, though difficult to achieve, can be influenced by a set of indicators that shape the awareness and actions of individuals, organizations, and societies in much the way that weather forecasts and economic indicators already influence short-term behavior.
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From page 234... ...
For reporting on a sustainability transition, however, it is clear that multiple indicators are needed to chart progress toward the goals for meeting human needs and preserving life support systems, and to evaluate the efficacy of actions taken to attain these goals. Indicators will be needed to monitor and report on human welfare and planetary life support at global, regional, and local scales to catch the appropriate signals.
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From page 235... ...
Whether indicators signal the ability to understand, predict, or control important environmental or social parameters depends on the relevance and accuracy of the selected goals and measurements. How the understanding that such indicators provide is used to guide human behavior is a matter for society and its governance.
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From page 236... ...
These three classes of variables identified by PSR can be measured using data that often are already collected for administrative purposes. Combining these data with a simple but flexible scenario captures a fundamental idea of sustainable development: that humans can impair the life support systems of the natural world, calling forth responses intended to protect environmental quality.
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From page 237... ...
Issue Selected Indicators Economic Prosperity Fiscal Responsibility Scientific and Technological Advancement Employment Equity Housing Consumption Status of Natural Resources Air and Water Quality Contamination and Hazardous Materials Ecosystem Integrity Global Climate Change Stratospheric Ozone Depletion Population Family Structure Arts and Recreation Community Involvement Education Public Safety Human Health Capital assets Labor productivity Domestic product Inflation Federal debt-to-GDP ratio Investment in R&D as a percentage of GDP Unemployment Income distribution People in census tracts with 40% or greater poverty Homeownership rates Percentage of households in problem housing Energy consumption per capita and per dollar of GDP Materials consumption per capita and per dollar of GDP Consumption expenditures per capita Conversion of cropland to other uses Soil erosion rates Ratio of renewable water supply to withdrawals Fisheries utilization Timber growth to removals balance Surface water quality Metropolitan air quality nonattainment Contaminants in biota Identification and management of Superfund sites Quantity of spent nuclear fuel Acres of major terrestrial ecosystems Invasive alien species Greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse climate response index Status of stratospheric ozone U.S. population Children living in families with one parent present Births to single mothers Outdoor recreation activities Participation in the arts and recreation Contributing time and money to charities Teacher training level and application of qualifications Educational attainment by level Educational achievement rates Crime rate Life expectancy at birth Source: Based on U.S.
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From page 238... ...
the percentage of census tracts defined as high poverty tracts, with 40 percent or more of the population below the poverty line (from 6 percent in 1970 to 13.7 percent in 1990~; and (3) the percentage of total population living in high poverty census tracts (from 5.2 percent in 1970 to 10.7 percent in 1990~.
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From page 239... ...
projects.7 A schematic overview of these studies is contained in Table 5.2, where they are sorted by the concepts of sustaining and developing set out in Chapter 1. As Table 5.2 illustrates, sets of indicators for sustainability tend to focus on maintaining the life support systems important to humans and on monitoring development and economic activity.
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From page 240... ...
1 1 Netherlands Environmental Policy Performance Indicators Adriaanse Ind icator grou p (1993) environmental themes 7 economic totals 0 7 0 0 U.S.
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From page 241... ...
241 'arious Develop Econ Availability of Indicators nmunity People only Society yes no unknown number of indicators able Measure Policy Manse Croup 5 5 8 27 2055 17 7 13 37 3 141 16 1 12 2 923 4 9 6 3 615 17 32*
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From page 242... ...
The most familiar account, of "produced" capital, is what is normally called national wealth physical capital and financial claimsand is marked in the "economy" column in Table 5.2. A second account measures natural capital the resources and capitalized value of services provided by the natural world and is marked in the "life support" column in Table 5.2.
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From page 243... ...
These efforts bring together many sources of illumination, but have yet to produce a set of goals for social and natural conditions that can plausibly lead to prosperity for all while conserving the life support systems on which human economies rest. Consequently, they have not provided indicators set on goals for sustainability.
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From page 244... ...
Multiple indicators will be needed to chart progress toward the goals for human welfare and planetary life support, and to evaluate the effectiveness of actions taken to attain these goals. Charting Progress Toward the Goals First, we describe five kinds of information that is monitored or needs to be monitored at different spatial scales that shed important light on whether human needs are being met and whether human activities are compatible with sustaining life support systems (see Tables 5.3 and 5.4~: · Human welfare is now being monitored by quantitative indicators that are appropriate in concept but implemented with inadequate coverage and frequency.
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From page 245... ...
245 TA~L 5~3 Global and Regional Indicators for Meeting Human Needs IN NEED Frequency [year of Agency of estimate estimate] NEEDS INDICATOR Providing Food and Nutrition Undernourished Nurturing Children Under 5 Mortality Number and percentage chronically underfed for work, health, and growth FAO 5-year intervals [1970- ]
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From page 246... ...
Meeting human needs is a near-term imperative, one that the world community has pursued with some success for at least two generations. Some quantitative data series are available in this area, often over times longer than a generation, together with proven analytical structures in demography, public health, and other applied social sciences.
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From page 247... ...
In contrast, undernourished is an "at risk" estimate, an effort to calculate the numbers resident in households whose income or food production is insufficient to provide a minimal diet sufficient for work, health, and child growth. Key assumptions in such calculations, in addition to dietary energy supply, are the mirumal dietary requirements and the distribution of income and food production within a national account.
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From page 248... ...
There is agreement that changes in atmospheric composition indicate changes in the radiative balance of the planet, with consequences that are likely to include long-term and largescale modifications of climate.~9 The search for reliable indicators of human-caused climate change is well under way. Similarly, some monitoring of ozone and of the gases that deplete the stratospheric ozone layer is in place as part of an international legal regime aimed at eliminating ozone-depleting chemicals.
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From page 249... ...
The Board has not studied trade indicators at the global level, although we believe the long-term growth of trade will play a significant role in a transition to sustainability; we have listed trade as an indicator in Table 5.4 as a placeholder for this belief. Identifying Critical Regions While indicators of circulatory systems monitor the directions of human and environmental systems on a planetary basis, indicators are needed to catch the signals of critical change at the regional level, thereby identifying stresses on ecosystem services resulting from human mismanagement and overexploitation.23 Although humans were modifying the natural world on local and regional scales even before the invention of agriculture, the scale and scope of human-induced change has accelerated over the past century as both population and consumption have increased.
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From page 250... ...
Critical Regions Natural setting Region-specific; not identified Social capacity to respond Region-specific; not identified Feasible steps to mitigate Region-specific; not identified or restore Productive Metropolitan None defined in terms of ecosystem damage or cost Landscapes to rehabilitate Protected places Total area protected World C and Mon Centre (1 Effectiveness of preservation Note: EMEP, Geneva Protocol on Long-term Financing of the Cooperative Programme for Monitoring and Evaluation of the Long-range Transmission of Air Pollutants in Europe; EPA, U.S.
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From page 251... ...
Annual Threat to life-support systems unclear Locally severe damage Unknown Unknown cost Unknown World Conservation Every 3 years Unknown (see Green and and Monitoring Paine (1997)
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From page 252... ...
Two others were firmly in the region marked "endangered" in Figure 5.3, eastern Sundaland-Borneo and peninsular Malaysia which has experienced severe deforestation and consequent forest fire damage, and the basin of Mexico, the scene of rapid industrialization and population increase during the 20th century.25 Thus, regional environments move through trajectories from sustainable to critical as their ability to recover from damage dervishes and the ability of society to sustain the costs of mitigation or substitution of environmental services increases. high .~% c' 'A 0 ~ 0 ~ a, o in a)
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From page 253... ...
These facts imply that useful indicators of regional unsustainability will reflect the specific conditions of each region. Researchers suggested a generic set of trajectories (Figure 5.3~: as intensity of exploitation increases, the modifications made to ecosystems decrease the potential for complete recovery; correspondingly, the costs to mitigate ecosystem damage or to provide substitutes for the goods and services provided by the regional ecosystem rise.27 In the critical zone, costs rise so much that irreversible damage to both natural and social systems is done.
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From page 254... ...
· Advance basic understanding of the social processes and natural vulnerabilities that expands knowledge of the potential risks associated with damage. · Advance basic understanding of the social processes- including politics, markets, and culture-that both form and undermine the capacity to sense and to avoid critical damage.28 · Working with regional communities, develop ways to recognize critical decline before irreversible damage is done, and develop means of learning from experience so that capacity to respond will strengthen over time.
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From page 255... ...
Improved understanding would also illuminate the nonmarket value of species and ecosystems, permitting better-informed choices when utilitarian values and conservation biology come into unavoidable conflict.35 The required long-term ecosystem monitoring and supporting field science is just beginning with the creation of the first two long-term ecological research stations in Baltimore and Phoenix.36 Preserving Ecosystems We described in Chapter 4 how the preservation of species, habitats, and ecosystems has become a significant part of the effort to conserve and
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From page 256... ...
Transnational arrangements for bioprospecting and debt-for-nature swaps have provided financial support for changes in the use of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.39 But conflict persists, as illustrated by the legal and political struggle over private property rights brought about by passage of the Endangered Species Act in the United States.40 As described in Chapter 4, preservation efforts are moving away from an emphasis on single species to an emphasis on management of multiple species and their interactions with one other and their physical environments.4~ This expansion of the scope of preservation also greatly increases the complexity of the choices to be made, both scientifically (especially in selecting indicators for monitoring change) and in the way that human activities are considered and reshaped to ensure the maintenance of critical interactions.
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Source: Olson and Dinerstein (1998~. Courtesy of the World Wildlife Fund.
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From page 258... ...
.49 The indicators collected in each area should be selected to maximize the effectiveness of the protected area in meeting the identified goals of preservation. Evaluating the Efficacy of Actions Indicators of human welfare and life support systems identify urgent needs.
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From page 259... ...
National Capital Accounts Most of the planet will continue to lie outside critical regions and protected areas for the immediately foreseeable future. How should we monitor the evolution of this part of the world for signs of trouble or improvement in a transition toward sustainability?
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260 ._, EM ._, cry V)
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From page 261... ...
Adaptive management treats policies as experiments, designing them so that lessons may be learned reliably from the implementation of policies, even those that fail. In the PSR framework, this means assembling pressure and state indicators to test the effectiveness of responses.
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From page 262... ...
The indicators will usually be in place already, in support of a commitment to sustainable development or for other reasons, so that it may be easier to tackle the issues of repeatability, controls, and power of test without securing the cooperation of the agencies and people implementing the policy. A by-product of a well-functioning set of indicators should thus be social learning through adaptive management.
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From page 263... ...
Chapter 6. The point here is that quantitative indicators are necessary to monitor ongoing transitions and trends.
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From page 264... ...
I N DICATORS AN D SOCIAL LEARN I NG The lack of an operational definition of sustainable development leads to disagreement about which indicators societies should use to measure progress toward or away from sustainability. Without that agreement, one should expect spirited debates over the value, biases, and meanings of indicators.
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From page 265... ...
1993. Environmental policy performance indicators: A study on the development of indicators for environmental policy in the Netherlands.
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From page 266... ...
1997. Valuing ecosystem services.
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From page 267... ...
Visited 4/27/99. The synthesizing center implements provisions of the Protocol to the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution on the Financing of the Co-operative Programme for Monitoring and Evaluation of the Long-range Transmission of Air Pollutants in Europe.
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1994b. Promoting the national spatial data infrastructure through partnerships.
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1995g. Science and the endangered species act.
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Washington: World Resources Institute. Rogers, P.P., K.F.
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From page 271... ...
1993. Through a glass, darkly: Columbia River salmon, the Endangered Species Act, and adaptive management.
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From page 272... ...
6 The Balaton Group, see Meadows (1998~. 7 UN Commission on Sustainable Development (1997~; World Bank (1997~; Netherlands Environmental Policy Performance Indicators, see Adriaanse (1993~; US Interagency Working Group (1998~; Sustainable Seattle (1995~.
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From page 273... ...
(1993~; debt for water swaps, Pearce and Warford (1993~; Hopkins (1995~. 40 Endangered Species Act and private property rights, NRC (1993a, 1995h)
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