"If current trends continue, if current patterns of production and consumption of natural resources prevail and cannot be reversed and 'decoupled,' then governments will preside over unprecedented levels of damage and degradation," said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.
The phonebook-sized report, the fifth edition of the Global Environment Outlook (GEO), was issued ahead of the June 20-22UN Conference on Sustainable Development -- the 20-year follow-up to the landmark Earth Summit, also in Rio. Preceded by a series of forums gathering as many as 50,000 policymakers, business executives and activists, the summit aims at plotting a course for green development over the next two decades.
But the report warned of many challenges, painting a tableau of a planet whose resources were being stressed into the red zone. Since 1950, the world's population has doubled to seven billion and is on course for around 9.3 billion by 2050 and some 10 billion by 2100. At the same time, use of natural resources has zoomed as emerging countries follow rich economies in a lifestyle that is gluttonous on energy and use of water, habitat and fisheries.
"The scale, spread and rate of change of global drivers are without precedent. Burgeoning populations and growing economies are pushing environmental systems to destabilizing limits," said the report.
It analyzed 90 objectives for the environment identified by UN members. Only four have seen significant progress: scrapping CFC chemicals that damage Earth's protective ozone layer; removing lead from fuel; increasing access to clean water for the poor; and boosting research to reduce marine pollution.
In 40 goals that UN member states asked to be monitored, there was "some" progress, such as expanding national parks and tackling deforestation. But there was little or no progress in 24 others, including curbing climate change, fisheries depletion and desertification.
"The scientific evidence, built over decades, is overwhelming and leaves little room for doubt," Steiner told a press conference in Rio.
"The moment has come to put away the paralysis of indecision, acknowledge the facts and face up to the common humanity that unites all peoples," he said."
In other words, despite all the platitudes, all the green-logo's, all the conferences, t-shirts, slogans, carbon-reduction programmes, and other assorted waffle'n'crap, we are no nearer resolving the planet's environmental issues.
It is an EPIC FAIL that ultimately can mean make or break for humanity. It doesn't need a phone book-sized report to tell you this, just look around. 20 years of 'green' improvement and we are no better off than when we started other than some token reforms at the periphery of what needs to be done. All political parties, right left and centre, Greenpeace, Friends of The Earth, and all the other well-meaning pressure groups, lobbyists and reformers cannot or will not understand that there is NO solution inside capitalism. The current system's only goal is making money and to that end the world will continue to be raped until it has no more to give. A Socialist world isn't a crazy pipe dream, it is the only way to save ourselves, our planet and our futures.
SussexSocialist
No comments:
Post a Comment