By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 25 2007 (IPS)

Failure to take drastic action to avert further climate change and loss of biodiversity poses serious risks to the future of humanity, a major U.N. report warned Thursday.

Titled “Global Environment Outlook: Environment for Development”, the 535-page report released here by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) offers a comprehensive analysis of international efforts toward environmental protection and preservation over the past 20 years.

It comes just a little more than a month ahead of a key international conference due to take place in Bali, Indonesia. The Bali meeting will assess what actions should be taken when the Kyoto Protocol treaty to regulate greenhouse emissions expires in 2012.

Since the World Commission on Environment and Development released its own voluminous study two decades ago, the international community has largely failed to respond to the world’s human-made environmental challenges, according to the UNEP report prepared by nearly 400 scientific experts.

The report notes that population growth, unsustainable consumption patterns and urban expansion are undermining progress in the efforts to protect the planet from further environmental damage.

“The international community’s response to the Brundtland Commission [20 years ago] has in some cases been courageous, but all too often it has failed to respond to the magnitude of the challenges,” said UNEP chief Achim Steiner.

The report describes the threat of climate change as “real”, and urges drastic cuts in the greenhouse gases that accelerate climate change. It predicts that by the end of this century, average temperatures might rise from 1.8 to 4 degrees centigrade.

The report’s authors say positive feedback loops such as permafrost melting and increased water vapour may increase that range. Some of them believe that a 2-degree centigrade increase would constitute a “threshold” beyond which “major and irreversible” damage becomes almost inevitable.

Some greenhouse gases may persist in the atmosphere for up to 50,000 years, according to the report, which is highly critical of the role the rich industrialised countries have played in causing environmental degradation.

“We are living far beyond our means,” UNEP researchers said. “Humanity’s footprint is 21.9 hectares per person while the Earth’s biological capacity is, on average, only 15.7 hactares per person.”

On the loss of biological diversity, the report says species are becoming extinct 100 times faster than the rate shown in the fossil record. About 60 percent of the ecosystems assessed in the report are degraded or used unsustainably.

The loss of genetic diversity may threaten food security, according to UNEP researchers, who calculate that there are currently 14 animal species that make up 90 percent of all livestock, and some 30 crops providing around 90 percent of the world’s calories.

The report describes land degradation as a threat as serious as climate change and biodiversity loss, because it affects up to a third of humanity, through pollution, soil erosion, nutrient depletion, water scarcity, and salinity.

Globally, contaminated water remains the greatest single cause of human disease and death, according to the study, which warns that a further decline in water quality could lead to the spread of diseases like malaria and diarrhea in many parts of the world.

As shown by many other studies, the UNEP research concludes that all these environmental problems will particularly add to the hardship and suffering of the world’s one billion poorest people, most of whom live in the developing countries.

“There are unprecedented changes, which are taking place in the context of climate change and biodiversity and land degradation,” Munyarabzi Chenje, one the report’s lead authors, told IPS.

Chenje said “the running theme” of the report “is the even development and welfare of humankind,” adding that millions in the world “are not well-off due to poverty and inequality,” and therefore they are the ones who most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and loss of biodiversity.

In his view, those in the developed world are in a better position to address these issues because they have the resources. The question is whether they are willing to do so.

The report criticised the role of the rich industrialised countries for not showing enough political will to adopt policies that would reduce dependence on fossil fuels, require sustainable patterns of consumption of natural resources and drastically reduce carbon emissions.

“It’s the true geopolitics of our age,” said Jeffery Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, about the industrialised countries’ weak response to the climate change threat – especially from the United States, which is responsible for 25 percent of carbon emissions and has refused to adopt the Kyoto Protocol.

“We already knew about the problem more than 30 years ago,” he said. “We have waited a long time to do something and now the approach is mainly military. The U.S. spends 700 billion dollars in military action. It doesn’t make sense.”

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