Taking full account of the cost of carbon in the price of goods, removing subsidies for fossil fuels and unsustainable agriculture, and adopting a greener measure of economic development are just some of the steps required to put the world on a more sustainable development path.
That is the conclusion of a major new report from the UN’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, which will inform the Rio+20 Earth Summit in June.
“Economies are teetering. Inequality is growing. And global temperatures continue to rise,” panel co-chairs, Finnish president Tarja Halonen and South African president Jacob Zuma, wrote in a foreword to Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A future worth choosing.
“Today we see with increasing clarity that economic growth, environmental protection, and social equity are one and the same agenda: the sustainable development agenda. We cannot make lasting progress in one without progress on all.”
The panel also includes former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, whose 1987 report famously defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.
While today’s report accepts much progress has been made over the last 25 years to reduce environmental impacts, it warns improvements have been “neither fast nor deep enough” and concludes the world is not yet on a path to sustainable development.
It notes that humans are already exceeding the world’s capacity to sustain us, and estimates that the world will need at least 50 per cent more food, 45 per cent more energy and 30 per cent more water by 2030.
Among the 56 recommendations proposed for government and businesses is the removal by 2020 of “inefficient” subsidies for fossil fuels, which amounted to an estimated $412bn (£263bn) in 2009, and unsustainable agriculture, which received a further $384bn across the 34 OECD countries.
Such subsidies “distort trade markets, harm the environment, [and] increase greenhouse gas emissions”, the report says, adding that just eight per cent of fossil fuel consumption subsidies in 2010 reached the poorest 20 per cent of the population.
It also argues that the negative externalities, such as climate change and air pollution, inherent to fossil fuels should be better accounted for in the cost of those fuels via taxes or carbon trading. The environmental impact of goods could also appear on labels, the report argues, allowing consumers to make more informed decisions.
Other recommendations include calls for governments to adopt green procurement policies and, in partnership with the private sector, help establish new sources of funding for clean technologies, perhaps by shifting taxes from employment to consumption in industries such as aviation and shipping.
Incentivising the inclusion of long-term sustainable development criteria in investment and transactions conducted by companies, sharing risk and encouraging businesses to align their practices with such criteria are also recommended measures.
And, in line with UN secretary-heneral Ban Ki-moon’s Sustainable Energy for All campaign, the report says all governments should work to ensure universal access to affordable sustainable energy by 2030.
In addition, the report says a Sustainable Development Index or set of indicators should be developed by 2014 in order to measure progress on sustainable development. All the targets should be included in a new set of Sustainable Development Goals to be drawn up in the coming years and monitored by a proposed new UN Global Sustainable Development Council.
“Sustainable development provides the best opportunity for people to choose their future,” concludes the report. “This makes ours a propitious moment in history to make the right choices and move towards sustainable development in earnest.”
EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard called the report a “wake-up call” and urged leaders to use the forthcoming Rio+20 summit to establish targets for access to sustainable energy and better pricing of goods and services.
“We simply can’t continue as if business as usual was the cheapest solution. It is not. In the longer term, it’s too costly,” she said in an emailed statement. “We need a new growth model where sustainable development moves from the margins to the heart of the key economic decisions. A model that addresses both the economic crisis and the environmental and climate crisis.”
Jim Leape, director general of campaign group WWF International, welcomed the bulk of the report but criticised its lack of “concrete, time-bound commitments for progress”.
“As negotiators develop the text for the Rio Summit in June, we look to them to embrace the urgency and commitments needed to turn this vision into reality,” he said.
