A Planet, A People
Global Environment Outlook-3
Planet at a Crossroads
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Over 70 per cent of the Earth’s land surface could be affected by the impacts of roads, mining, cities and other infrastructure developments in the next thirty years unless urgent action is taken, according to the Global Environment Outlook-3 (GEO-3) report of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Over 1,000 people, many from a global network of collaborating centres, contributed to the preparation of GEO-3. It says the planet is at a crucial crossroads, with the choices made today critical to the forests, oceans, rivers, mountains, wildlife and other life support systems upon which current and future generations depend.
Calling GEO-3 “the most authoritative assessment of where we have been, where we have reached and where we are likely to go”, UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer stressed that the facts in the report underlined “the huge amount of knowledge that has now been accumulated about the condition of Earth”. Highlighting the successes of Governments, industry, the public and others in trying to restore and sustain its damaged and beleaguered freshwaters, lands, wildlife, oceans and atmosphere, the study takes a unique look at the policies and environmental impacts of the past thirty years. It outlines four policy approaches for the next three decades (See “Future Choices”), and compares and contrasts the likely impacts on people and the natural world.
More than half the population in the world could be living in severely water-stressed areas by 2032 if market forces drive the global political, economic and social agenda. West Asia, which includes the Arabian Peninsula, is likely to be the worst affected with well over 90 per cent of the population expected to be living in areas with “severe water stress” by 2032. Habitat disturbance and other kinds of environmental damage as a result of rapid and poorly planned infrastructure growth will most likely affect Latin America and the Caribbean region with more than 80 per cent of the land affected, followed closely by Asia and the Pacific, with over 75 per cent.
Concerted action involving Governments and industries could also deliver deep cuts in emissions of gases linked with global warming. With sufficient public and private will, levels of carbon dioxide could begin stabilizing in the atmosphere by 2032. Improvements have occurred in areas such as river and air quality in North America and Europe. The international effort to repair the ozone layer - the Earth’s protective shield - by reducing the production and consumption of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) is another notable success.
Generally, however, there has been a steady decline in the environment, especially across large parts of the developing world. The declining environmental quality and the apparent increase in strength and frequency of natural hazards such as cyclones, floods and droughts are intensifying peoples’ vulnerability to food insecurity, ill health and unsustainable livelihoods, says the report.
Behind nearly all the assessments and forecasts outlined in the report lies the spectre of global warming and its potential to wreak havoc on weather patterns over the coming decades. One of the key driving forces has been the growing gap between the rich and poor parts of the globe. Currently, one fifth of the world’s population enjoys high levels of affluence, accounting for nearly 90 per cent of total personal consumption, while around 4 billion people are surviving on less than $1 to $2 a day. The poor, the sick and the disadvantaged, both within societies and in different countries and regions, are particularly vulnerable. There is evidence that the gap between those able and unable to cope with the rising levels of environmental change is widening.
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Environmental degradation is another ill. India, for example, is losing more than $10 billion annually or 4.5 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP), with human-induced land degradation alone causing productivity losses of around $2.4 billion. The number of people affected by disasters climbed from an average of 147 million a year in the 1980s to 211 million in the 1990s. Global financial losses from natural disasters in 1999 cost over $100 billion. The level of weather-related disasters has climbed, with experts linking this to climate change due to human-made emissions. In the 1990s, 90 per cent of those killed were victims of floods, windstorms and droughts. Declining environmental quality is also a rising health risk. Sewage pollution of the seas has precipitated a health crisis of massive proportions. Eating of contaminated shellfish is causing an estimated 2.5 million cases of infectious hepatitis annually, resulting in 25,000 deaths.
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Land. The main driving force, putting pressure on land resources, has been the growing global population. There are 2.22 billion more mouths to feed than there were in 1972. In the Asia and Pacific region, the area of land under irrigation has risen from under 125 million hectares in 1972 to over 175 million hectares. Excessive and poorly managed irrigation can degrade soils through impacts such as salinization - a build-up of salts. Over 10 per cent, between 25 million and 30 million hectares, of the world’s irrigated lands are classed as severely degraded as a result.
Soil erosion is a key factor in land degradation. Around 2,000 million ha of soil, equal to 15 per cent of the land cover or an area bigger than the United States and Mexico combined, is classed as degraded as a result of human activities. About one sixth of this, a total of 305 million ha, are either “strongly or extremely degraded”. Extremely degraded soils are so badly damaged they cannot be restored. A feature of the past thirty years has been the rise of urban agriculture. It is practised by most households in South-East Asia and the Pacific Islands. About 30 per cent of the Russian Federation’s food comes from 3 per cent of suburban land. An estimated 65 per cent of Moscow’s population engages in urban agriculture, up from a fifth in the early 1970s.
Freshwater. Around half of the world’s rivers are seriously depleted and polluted. About 60 per cent of the largest 227 rivers have been strongly or moderately fragmented by dams and other engineering works. Benefits have included increased food production and hydroelectricity, but irreversible damage has occurred to wetlands and other ecosystems. Since the 1950s, between 40 million and 80 million people have been displaced. Around one third of the world’s population, 2 billion people, depend on groundwater supplies. In some countries, such as parts of India, China, West Asia, including the Arabian Peninsula, the former Soviet Union and western United States, groundwater levels are falling as a result of over-abstraction.
Over-pumping can lead to salt water intrusion in coastal areas. Salt water contamination in Madras, India, has moved 10 kilometres inland in recent years. Some 80 countries, amounting to 40 per cent of the world’s population, were suffering serious water shortages by the mid-1990s. Around 1.1 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water and 2.4 billion to improved sanitation, mainly in Africa and Asia. However, the percentage of people being served with improved water supplies increased from 4.1 billion, or 79 per cent, in 1990 to 4.9 billion, 82 per cent, in 2000.
Water-related disease costs: two billion people are at risk from malaria alone, with 100 million affected at any one time and up to 2 million deaths annually; about 4 billion cases of diarrhoea and 2.2 million deaths a year; intestinal worm infections afflict 10 per cent of people in the developing world; around 6 million people are blind from trachoma, a contagious eye disease; and some 200 million are affected by schistosomiasis, which causes bilharzia in humans.
Forests and biodiversity. Forests, which cover around a third of the Earth’s land surface, or 3,866 million ha, have declined by 2.4 per cent since 1990. The biggest losses have been in Africa where 52.6 million ha or 0.7 per cent of its forest cover has gone in the past decade. Global production of roundwood reached 3,335 million cubic metres, of which around half was for fuel, especially in developed countries. Commercial logging methods are often destructive. In West Africa, about two cubic metres of trees are destroyed to produce one cubic metre of logs.
By the end of 2000, about 2 per cent of forests had been certified for sustainable forest management under schemes such as those operated by the Forest Stewardship Council. Most of these are in Canada, Finland, Germany, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the United States, and more are in the pipeline. Mangrove forests, natural sea defences, nursery grounds for fish, and prime nesting and resting sites for migratory birds are threatened by impacts, such as over-harvesting for timber and fuel wood, tourism and coastal developments. Up to 50 per cent of recent mangrove destruction has been due to clear cutting for shrimp farms.
The loss and fragmentation of habitats, such as forests, wetlands and mangrove swamps, have increased the pressures on the world’s wildlife.
The introduction of alien species from one part of the world to another has emerged as a significant threat in recent years alongside climate change. Alien species often have no natural predators in their new homes and can out-compete native species for breeding and feeding sites. It was estimated that by 1939, 497 alien freshwater and marine species had been introduced into aquatic environments around the world. In the period 1980 to 1998, this had climbed to an estimated 2,214 alien species.
The total extent of protected areas, such as national parks, has grown from 2.78 million square kilometres in 1970 to 12.18 million hectares in 2000. The number of sites has risen from 3,392 to 11,496 over the same period. A survey of 93 protected areas has found that most are proving successful at stopping land clearing and to a lesser extent at tackling issues such as logging, hunting, fires and grazing pressures. The moratorium on commercial whaling, imposed since the mid-1980s, appears to have been a notable success.
Coastal and marine areas. By 1994, an estimated 37 per cent of the global human population was living within 60 kilometres of the coast. This is more than the number of people alive on the planet in 1950. Globally, sewage is the largest source of contamination by volume, with discharges from developing countries on the rise as a result of rapid urbanization, population growth and a lack of planning and financing for sewerage systems and water treatment plants.
The UNEP Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-Based Activities was launched in 1995 and revitalized in 2001. Reducing untreated sewage discharges is a key aim. The global economic impact of marine contamination, in terms of human disease and ill health, may be running at nearly $13 billion. Sewage discharges, combined with run-off of fertilizers from the land and emissions from cars, trucks and other vehicles, are enriching the oceans and seas with nitrogen nutrients.
In 1991-1992, the fish farmers in the Republic of Korea suffered $133 million in economic losses as a result of toxic algal blooms, so-called red tides, triggered by nutrients. Fertilizer use is increasing in developing countries, but has stabilized in developed ones.
Other threats to the oceans include climate change, oil spills, discharges of heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and litter. Sedimentation, as a result of coastal developments, agriculture and deforestation, has become a major global threat to coral reefs, particularly in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, and South and South-East Asia.
Marine pollution is a key target in the UNEP Regional Seas Programme which, with the signing of the Northeast Pacific regional seas agreement in March 2002, now covers nearly all of the planet’s marine environment. Countries adopted the “Dirty Dozen”, the Stockholm Convention on POPs, in early 2001. Just under a third of the world’s fish stocks are now ranked as depleted, overexploited or recovering as a result of over-fishing fueled by subsidies estimated at up to $20 billion annually.
Atmosphere. Depletion of the ozone layer, which protects life from damaging ultraviolet light, has reached record levels. In September 2000, the ozone hole over Antarctica covered more than 28 million square kilometres.
The Montreal Protocol was adopted in 1987. Production of CFCs, substances found to be destroying the ozone layer, peaked in 1988 and is now at very low levels. More than $1.1 billion have been given to help 114 developing countries phase out ozone-depleting substances. By 2000, the total consumption of such chemicals had been reduced by 85 per cent. The ozone layer is expected to recover to pre-1980 levels by the middle of the twenty-first century.
Concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main gas linked with global warming, currently stand at 370 parts per million or 30 per cent higher than in 1750. Concentrations of other greenhouse gases, such as methane and halocarbons, have also risen. Asia and the Pacific emitted 2,167 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 1998, followed by Europe, 1,677 million tonnes; North America, 1,614 million tonnes; Latin America and the Caribbean, 365 million tonnes; Africa, 223 million tonnes; and West Asia, 187 million tonnes.
The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997, requires industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gases by around 5 per cent below the 1990 levels, between 2008 and 2012. It also has flexible mechanisms that allow countries to offset some of their emissions at home by actions abroad. The Clean Development Mechanism allows them to plant trees or back green energy schemes in developing countries. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the costs of implementing the Protocol for industrialized countries will range between 0.1 and 2 per cent of their GDP.
Links:
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
UNEP: Global Environment Outlook-3 (GEO-3)
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