The human race has only one or perhaps two generations to rescue itself, according to the 2003 State of the World report by the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute.
The longer that no remedial action is taken, the greater the degree of misery and biological impoverishment that humankind must be prepared to accept, the institute says in its 20th annual report.
Overuse of resources, pollution and destruction of natural areas continue to threaten life on the planet. Conditions continue to deteriorate rapidly, the report says, although there are some hopeful signs in that technical solutions to the problems have been found and - where there is political will - adopted. In most cases, though, nothing is being done.
Among the worst trends worldwide is that 420 million people live in countries which no longer have enough crop land to grow their own food and have to rely on imports. Around 1.2 billion people, or about a fifth of the world's population, live in absolute poverty - defined as surviving on the equivalent of less than $1, or 62p, a day.
About one quarter of the developing world's crop land is being degraded, and the rate is increasing. The greatest threat is not a shortage of land, says the report, but a shortage of water, with more than 500 million people living in regions prone to chronic drought.
By 2025 that number is likely to have increased at least fivefold, to between 2.4bn and 3.4bn. A probable world population increase of 27% over the same period will create social and ecological instability.
Global warming is accelerating, and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 370.9 parts per million, the highest level for at least 420,000 years and probably for 20m years.
Toxic chemicals are being released in ever-increasing quantities, and global production of hazardous waste has reached more than 300m tonnes a year. There is only a vague idea of what damage this does to humans and natural systems, the report says.
Another threat is the movement of highly invasive species to regions where they may pose problems to native species.
The state of the world's natural life support system is perhaps the most worrying indicator for the future, says the report. About 30% of the world's surviving forests are seriously fragmented or degraded, and they are being cut down at the rate of 50,000sq miles a year, it says.
Wetlands have been reduced by 50% over the last century. Coral reefs, the world's most diverse aquatic systems, are suffering the effects of overfishing, pollution, epidemic diseases and rising temperatures.
A quarter of the world's mammal species and 12% of the birds are in danger of extinction.
On the hopeful side, the report says that renewable energy technologies have now developed sufficiently to supply the world. They could significantly reduce the threat to the world from pollution - but currently there is a lack of political will to introduce them fast enough.
Another industry which causes widespread destruction, mining for minerals, could be largely replaced by re-use and recycling.
Mining consumes 10% of the world's energy, spews out toxic emissions, and threatens 40% of the world's undeveloped forests but these effects could be drastically reduced.
Another crisis which the report identifies is in the world's cities, where one billion people seek shelter in shanty towns, often on hillsides, flood plains, in rubbish dumps or downstream of industrial polluters.
The inhabitants of these settlements live at constant threat of eviction, but also of natural disasters and disease. Urban centers in the south now dominate the ranks of the world's largest cities.
Slum dwellers are organizing for greater rights and better lives, the report says. One of the great challenges for governments is to help their poorest citizens feel secure in their own homes, make a living and improve their environment.
Dark clouds, silver linings
Worst trends · Malaria claims 7,000 lives every day
Reasons for hope · Populations have stabilized in Europe and much of south-east Asia
In late August 2002, several colleagues and I flew from Washington to Johannesburg, South Africa, to participate in the World Summit on Sustainable Development. The journey is a long one, and not only in terms of the seven time zones, 65 degrees of latitude, or the disconcerting seasonal transition—from a damp northern summer to a refreshing southern winter. In moving this far from North to South, we entered a different world.
While State of the World 2002 focused on the agenda for the Johannesburg World Summit, State of the World 2003 is informed by our experiences in being there. The Summit showed us much about where the world is politically in dealing with the vast problems related to sustainable development, but it also showed us in a more immediate way how a large part of the world lives—and how deeply people are affected by the intersection of poverty and environmental decline.
The upscale Sandton Convention Center in which the official Johannesburg negotiations took place would nestle easily into the suburbs of Washington, DC, or even Beverly Hills. But that splendor gives a misleading perception of life in South Africa and the rest of the region.
Some of my colleagues saw firsthand the squalor of Johannesburg’s urban slums, as Molly O’Meara Sheehan describes in Chapter 7, where life has improved little in the decade since apartheid ended. Payal Sampat, author of Chapter 6, met with mine workers at an abandoned gold mine—gold mining is the reason that Johannesburg exists at all—and was able to see the enormous human and environmental price that was paid to extract the precious metal embedded in the jewelry of millions of people around the world.
From its vast human inequality to the coal soot in its air and the falling water tables beneath its surface, Johannesburg is a living, breathing example of why sustainable development is imperative—and of how far we still must go to achieve it. But South Africa also provides the world with one of the all-time object lessons about the possibility of dramatic change. In his speech opening the Summit, President Mbeki drew on South Africa’s precipitous overturning of apartheid as a metaphor for what the world must do to achieve sustainable development.
Other examples of rapid change are more ancient. In Chapter 1 this year, entitled “A History of Our Future,” Chris Bright describes a remarkable advance in human tool-making among a group of people in the Middle East some 40,000-50,000 years ago that led to rapid human social evolution—a critical step toward the development of human civilization and everything that followed. The change seems to have occurred relatively quickly. And like many subsequent human innovations, it demonstrates humanity’s seemingly limitless potential for change in response to outside pressures.
Both of these transformations demonstrate that while dramatic transitions are possible, they only set the stage for continuing cultural, economic, and technological evolution that unfolds after a breakthrough is made. Our ancestors did not move directly from fashioning blades from stone to working on personal computers, but this Aurignacian technology, as it is known, does seem to have set the stage for a surge in social evolution, leading in due course to settled agriculture, cities, and the Industrial Revolution. South Africa’s experience with change has only begun to unfold, but it shows similar patterns: ending apartheid was a historic first step in addressing South Africa’s social, economic, and environmental problems. But it will take decades to overcome the legacy of racial inequality and improve the lives of all South Africans.
From our perch in Johannesburg, looking back on the Earth Summit in Rio a decade earlier, we saw many parallels between the initial euphoria that followed that breakthrough conference and the sense that all things were possible that accompanied the formal ending of apartheid. The Rio agreements provided formal recognition that global trends were not sustainable—and laid out a long-term road map for the creation of a sustainable world—but it did not by itself solve all the problems that stand in the way. Amid predictable diversity of views, the Johannesburg Summit marked the beginning of a shift from agreements in principle to more modest but concrete plans of action that are needed to move the world in a new direction.
The Johannesburg agreements do not have the historic resonance of the Rio treaties, nor do they meet all the tests that we laid out in the last edition of State of the World. Indeed, according to most assessments of the official 54-page Plan of Implementation, including the World Summit Policy Brief written by my colleague Hilary French, the Johannesburg agreement is something between a modest step sideways and a small step backwards. But her analysis of the World Summit also indicates a more profound significance, one with encouraging implications for the future.
One of the first things to be agreed to by World Summit negotiators was that the world still has a long way to go to achieve the substantial ambitions of the historic Rio treaties of 1992. Unlike at the earlier Earth Summit, there were no major treaties up for negotiation in Johannesburg. Instead, the focus was on concrete steps for moving the Rio agenda forward.
Much of the debate in Johannesburg revolved around whether the Plan of Implementation should include new targets and timetables related to sustainable development—complementing and building on the Millennium Development Goals adopted by heads of state in 2000. Despite opposition from the United States, the Johannesburg plan did in the end include several date-specific targets, including halving the proportion of people without access to sanitation by 2015, restoring fisheries to their maximum sustainable yields by 2015, eliminating destructive fishing practices and establishing a representative network of marine protected areas by 2012, reducing biodiversity loss by 2010, and aiming by 2020 to use and produce chemicals in ways that do not harm human health and the environment.
The lack of detail in these commitments and the acrimony that preceded them left many Summit participants pessimistic about the world’s ability to move forward on the most important issues facing humanity in the twenty-first century. The severe North-South splits on financial and trade-related issues seemed deeper than ever, and the U.S. government’s opposition to virtually any substantive multilateral commitments led some to wonder whether a half-century of progress in forging a cooperative global community was about to dissolve in chaos.
These well-founded concerns can hardly be dismissed, but they capture only part of what was going on in Johannesburg. The government negotiators who were niggling over the wording and grammar of deliberately ambiguous paragraphs were literally and figuratively surrounded by one of the largest collections of civil society organizations in U.N. history—ranging from environmentalists and farmers to human rights activists, local officials, and labor union representatives.
More than 8,000 nongovernmental participants were officially accredited to the Summit. In addition to participating in the official summit meetings, nongovernmental groups sponsored a broad range of parallel events, such as meetings of parliamentarians, Supreme Court justices, local government officials, and trade unionists. An estimated 20,000 people representing Africa’s dispossessed marched from one of Johannesburg’s poorest areas to the posh neighborhood where the conference was held to protest what they saw as the meeting’s failure to address the concerns of the poor.
The corporate world was also vigorously present in Johannesburg. According to Business Action for Sustainable Development, an estimated 1,000 business representatives participated in the Summit—with 120 of them being CEOs or Board Chairmen. In comparison, there were 104 world leaders in attendance.
The substantial presence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) at an official meeting of governments may have pointed to a strategy for accelerating the process of global change. Because of their scale and because of the politics that surround them, governments and international institutions are often influenced by archaic ideologies or beholden to entrenched economic interests. Outside groups with fresh ideas and representing new political pressures are often required to overcome the momentum of the status quo.
The coming together in Johannesburg of NGOs committed to social betterment, environmental progress, and the creation of new economic opportunities represents a powerful force for change. And the fact that a large portion of these groups came from the South is an even more profound indication that the world is changing. In response to the failure of governments to agree on any clear principles regarding access to information, NGOs set up a voluntary code of conduct that nongovernmental groups, international institutions, and even governments can elect to join.
This example of NGOs stepping in to fill a gap left by governments provides guidance for how the world can one day get beyond the sort of impasse that has blocked international progress on many economic, social, and environmental issues in the past decade. In his recent book, High Noon, J. F. Rischard argues that the sheer scale and complexity of many problems have reached the point where traditional nation-states and intergovernmental processes can no longer cope with them, let alone get ahead of the avalanche of problems now rushing toward us. Rischard goes on to suggest that traditional hierarchical processes at the international level should be supplemented by what he calls “global issues networks”—voluntary alliances of governments and NGOs working under the auspices of U.N. bodies such as the U.N. Environment Programme or U.N. Development Programme on specific challenges that face the world today.
It is in this area that Johannesburg may have yielded its most significant results. In addition to the official agreements, the Summit produced roughly 280 “partnership initiatives”—agreements among national governments, international institutions, the business community, labor groups, NGOs, and other actors to carry out sustainable development activities. These agreements were a significant departure from earlier approaches, where the emphasis was on accords among nation-states. Examples of the new initiatives include a partnership for cleaner fuels and vehicles announced at the Summit that will involve the United Nations, national governments, NGOs, and the private sector, and a European Union “Water for Life” project that will help provide clean water and sanitation in Africa and Central Asia.
The growing role of developing countries in setting the international agenda was also clearly evident at the Johannesburg Summit. While that fact made North-South gaps more prominent, it also provided a needed focus on the fact that we live in a world where growing inequality is one of the most pronounced and disturbing global trends. To paraphrase U.S. President Lincoln on a similar division a century and a half ago, a world divided against itself cannot be sustained.
South Africa, itself a hybrid of North and South, provides a signal example of a country that is striving to bridge such gaps. But it is also emblematic of one of the biggest advantages our globalized world presents today: diversity. Diversity in South Africa is represented not only by its highly complex racial and cultural mixes but by one of the world’s great “hotspots” of biodiversity. The Cape Floral Kingdom in the southwest, as described in Chapter 3 of this year’s book, is home to 9,000 plant species. Diversity creates tensions and conflicts, but if those are successfully managed, diversity also spawns innovation and resilience that will ultimately make South Africa a stronger country—and has the potential to make the world sustainable.
It is far too early to know whether the diversity and innovation that marked the Johannesburg World Summit will ultimately fill the gaps left by governments. But as you will see in State of the World 2003, it is clear that the world is changing. Slowly, and sometimes chaotically, humanity is responding to stress—and is changing its ways, just as our ancestors did 40,000-50,000 years ago. Daily and powerfully, our fellow Homo sapiens remind us that it is far too early to give up on the human race.
Christopher Flavin, President
WASHINGTON, DC - Although the global community may not be making much progress on the daunting environmental and social problems humanity faces, local and grassroots initiatives are providing cause for optimism, according to the Worldwatch Institute's annual State of the World report.
"Our central message today is that what is often called an impossible revolution is already happening in a surprising number of small success stories around the world," said Worldwatch Institute President Christopher Flavin at today's unveiling of the report at the organization's headquarters in Washington.
"Ours is essentially a good news message this year," Flavin said.
But he warned that "enormous efforts will be required to avoid leaving the next generation a degraded and less stable world, ecologically, economically and politically."
The 20th annual edition of the research organization's review of the health of the planet and its people highlights its deep disappointment in the 2002 United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, which was held in Johannesburg, South Africa this summer.
According to the report's authors, the lack of detailed commitments from the Johannesburg conference and "the acrimony that preceded them left many Summit participants pessimistic about the world's ability to move forward on the most important issues facing humanity in the 21st century."
Despite this disappointment, the institute's report found a silver lining at the Johannesburg conference in the increasing desire and ability of local communities to move forward with their own solutions to environmental and social problems, with or without the support of nation-states or international organizations.
"Over the past 10 years there has not been the degree of progress in addressing the big global issues, like climate change and biological diversity, but the real progress and real success stories are now occurring in these hundreds of smaller scale examples around the world," Flavin said.
"In this year's book we've documented successes in everything from energy to transportation, food and the combating of infectious diseases, all showing that local and national efforts can begin to turn the tide on the critical issues that State of the World has always focused on. We've found that in many respects, the world may be closer to turning the corner on many of these problems than previously understood."
These successes, however, have not occurred in a vacuum, and issues of poverty, disease, pollution and climate change are only a few of the issues that threaten the planet and its people.
A Ugandan mother brings her sick child to the home of a village distributor of chloroquine tablets for treatment. Following minimal training the distributor can sell the pre-packaged antimalarial tablets, a new initiative to promote home management of malaria. (Photo courtesy WHO)
The report details that some 5,500 children die each day from diseases linked to polluted food, air and water. Malaria still kills some 7,000 people every day, still primarily affecting children in some of the poorest parts of the world.
Bird extinctions are running at some 50 times the natural rate, the report states, a clear indication of continued habitat loss largely from human activity.
The global rate of ice melt has more than doubled since 1988, according to the report, and could raise sea levels by some 11 inches (27 centimeters) by 2100.
The positive outlook of the report comes from the growing evidence that the tools to combat many of these environmental and social problems are being developed and successfully implemented.
"Building a world where we meet our own needs without denying future generations a healthy society is not impossible, as some would assert," Flavin said. "The question is where societies choose to put their creative efforts.
"If we can build spacecraft powered by clean fuel cells, we can build cars that run the same way. If we can mine copper and other metals from the Earth, we can also extract them from landfills and abandoned buildings. And if we can protect tourists from contracting malaria,"he said, "we should be able do so for people who live with that threat everyday."
The issues of poverty, overpopulation, environmental degradation, sustainable development and biological diversity are all interrelated, a theme that is consistent throughout the report's eight chapters, which are titled: "A History of Our Future," "Watching Birds Disappear," Linking Population, Women and Biodiversity," "Combating Malaria," "Charting a New Energy Future," "Scrapping Mining Dependence," "Uniting Divided Cities," and "Engaging Religion in the Quest for a Sustainable World."
Finding solutions to the concerns raised by Worldwatch often means addressing one core problem and then building on that success, and the report finds that increasingly the role of women within societies is an integral factor in developing solutions that work.
In the chapter on linking poverty, women and biodiversity, the authors write of a "Working for Water Programme" rolled out in 1995 by three government departments in South Africa. Initially formed for two goals, to remove invasive alien species and to create employment options for marginalized members of society, the program now employs some 20,000 people in 300 projects in South Africa.
Some 60 percent of the participants are women and the program has grown to include projects on reproductive health and AIDS/HIV education.
With the developing world now home to eight of the world's 10 largest cities, this interlinking between poverty and sustainability will only become more apparent in urban areas, according to the report.
"While the inequalities of wealth, power, opportunities, and survival prospects that hobble humanity are crystallized in cities, these places will have an important role to play in any shift toward development that does not destroy the environment," the report states.
"A slum can demonstrate both the very best and the very worst in society," says the report, "showing the ingenuity of poor people in desperate circumstances as well as the failure of government to make the most of this human energy."
The problems of the urban poor often seem overwhelming, but Worldwatch details how even a tiny bit of help can spark positive change. The authors write of how micro loans of as little as $50 have helped the wastepickers of the Payatas landfill near Manilla to secure loans for small businesses, land and housing.
The report also offers the example of the Zabbaleen society of wastepickers in Cairo, Egypt, who have become organized and started a variety of income generating projects that involve composting and recycling of rags and paper. "Local communities are now taking a real leadership role in solving their own problems and even the poorest citizens can play a role in solving the world's problems," Flavin said.
The urban and rural poor also face a variety of health concerns, and how nations choose to battle infectious diseases has far reaching consequences, Worldwatch says in the report. The campaign to eradicate malaria through the use of DDT has resulted in other health and environmental problems, and combating the disease costs Africa some $3 billion to $12 billion annually, a tremendous drain on a cash poor continent.
"The problem with malaria is not just medical, but also the way it deepens the poverty of people who are barely scraping along," according to the report.
In addition, the disease is gaining ground because of environmental and social changes, and in virtually all areas where the disease is native, drug-resistant strains of the parasite have emerged. Worldwatch's report details efforts by countries such as Mexico, Tanzania and Cambodia that move beyond approaching malaria solely as a health issue by addressing the living conditions and education of the people most at risk from the disease.
In the chapter on world energy use, the author details that the use of solar energy and wind power has grown by some 30 percent annually over the past five years. Renewable energy is proliferating in the European Union, Brazil, China as well as the United States, according to the report, and it is now a multibillion dollar global business and is cost competitive with many conventional energy technologies.
"It is a powerful combination of public demand, private investment and public policy change that has created this dynamic growth," Flavin said. "Political support, which may be the leading edge of change in many instances, is clearly growing in many parts of the world and makes us optimistic that this kind of growth in renewable energy will continue."
Flavin noted that despite the Bush administration's reluctance to embrace renewable energy, New York Governor George Pakati yesterday unveiled a plan to require some 25 percent of the state's electricity to be generated from renewable resources within the next decade.
This move, as well as the recent introduction of a climate change bill in the U.S. Senate, should help offset some of the pessimism felt by the obstructionist role the United State has played in many international environmental and social accords and conventions, added Worldwatch Director of Research Gary Gardner.
"We should not underestimate the power of civil society, the power of the democratic process," Gardner urged. "If we look at what is happening in states around the country, we are finding that grassroots pressure is beginning to cause politicians to act."
There is too much at stake to simply give up on the prospects of international agreements and accords, added Flavin, but this report can provide good news that many environmentalists and social activists sorely need.
"Over the past 10 years there has not been the degree of progress in addressing the big global issues, like climate change and biological diversity," Flavin said. "But rather than spending a lot of time bemoaning the fact that certain global processes are not advancing as rapidly as we might think they should, it is better to move forward on those fronts where progress is being made and can be made more dramatically."
The report's message, Gardner said, is that "the building blocks for a sustainable society are in front of us, but those building blocks will not stack themselves."
"The challenge is for us to use these opportunities that have been created in the past decade to help create the kind of sustainable world we want to live in."
For more on the State of the World 2003 report, visit: http://www.Worldwatch.org
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