New UN report: Creating a future worth choosing
What is a future well worth choosing? It’s the question asked and answered in the latest report released Monday from the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability. ‘Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Well Worth Choosing’ is an attempt to find practical solutions to address the institutional and financial arrangements necessary to develop sustainably.
The report covers a number of critical issues, from climate change to the health of our oceans and to the challenges associated with access to safe water, energy access and food security. Perhaps one of the most laudable of the more than 50 recommendations contained within the report is its call for ending fossil fuel subsidies by 2020. It notes, as it should, that the phase out of these subsidies should be done in a way which protects the poor. While more immediate action is needed, this recommendation is a good example of the real challenge to addressing climate change and putting the world on a more sustainable development path.
Anyone serious about addressing climate change has known for many years that fossil fuel subsidies are one of the major stumbling blocks to moving toward cleaner, safer forms of energy. It is a recommendation that has been made several times by governments over the last ten years, for example at G8 and G20 summits. Now the real question is, what will governments do with these recommendations?
TckTckTck partners respond
Many of our partners and allies in the climate movement have responded positively to the report and its conclusions. Commenting on the Panel’s report, Farooq Ullah, Head of Policy and Advocacy at Stakeholder Forum said: “We greatly welcome the report of the Global Sustainability Panel and its messages. It outlines a vision of the future which is people-centric and which exists within the safe operating space necessary for planetary health and our existence. Sustainable development defines new pathways for just, inclusive growth and prosperity.”
Jim Leape, Director General of WWF International was equally supportive.
“The Global Sustainability report gives the highest level political signal yet of greater readiness to take the bold steps needed to build a prosperous future. This report makes the alarming point that while we are already exceeding the Earth’s capacity to support us, by 2030 we will need 50 per cent more food, 45 per cent more energy and 30 per cent more water than we do today. The High-Level Panel report offers a vision for meeting those challenges. 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.”
Dr. Alison Doig, an expert on sustainable development with Christian Aid, sees the report as a welcome wake-up call.
‘The report describes the enormous and unsustainable exploitation of planetary resources underpinning the last decades of economic growth and also shows that this is only half the story. The other half is the astonishing inequality in the distribution of the benefits of this irresponsible natural asset-stripping. With Rio+20 this year and the G20 meeting in Mexico, the world’s governments and most powerful leaders have a major opportunity to set the planet on a new course towards a fairer and greener economy. The report recommends very practical measures which can be taken now, such as committing to a target for universal access to clean modern energy. This is a commitment that the world can make, to the poorest people on earth who are living in the dark with no electricity or clean cooking fuels.”
Other partners are less effusive with their praise, and call instead for greater ambition towards a truly sustainable society. As Sarah Best of Oxfam said:
“The Panel’s report is a welcome rallying cry for the vision of a sustainable, fair, and resilient future that Oxfam fully shares. But their recommendations don’t deliver the quantum leap the Panel calls for. It’s weak medicine for such a life-threatening diagnosis. World leaders will need to do better when they meet at the UN summit in Rio in June.”
Greenpeace International echoed these concerns, paying particular attention to the suggested implementation date for the new regulations:
“An energy revolution, zero deforestation and healthy oceans – that´s a future worth choosing. We welcome that the Panel recognizes the need to measure real well-being, not just Gross Domestic Product. In a truly Green Economy, the economy will be a mechanism to deliver societal goals, and economic growth as an end goal in and of itself will be abandoned. Greenpeace supports Sustainable Development goals to achieve food security and oceans protection, but we need these now, not for 2030 – a date way past the sell-by-date of today´s corporate leaders and politicians.”
At the end of the day, it comes down to (as it often does) whether or not governments have the political will to address the great challenges of our time. It is political will and leadership which will make the difference. As Jake Schmidt of the Natural Resources Defence Council says. “When world leaders meet several times this year – culminating at the Earth Summit 2012 in Rio – they must finally follow through on the commitment to phase-down these subsidies and help unleash even greater low-carbon energy action.”
For access to the full report, including a list of the GSP members and other relevant information, go to www.un.org/gsp.
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