greeneconomy-mdgs policymakers brief (2010)

8/7/2019 Greeneconomy-MDGs Policymakers Brief (2010)

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nomyecoGREEN yA Brief For Policymakers on the Green Economy

and Millennium Development Goals

Prepared for the UN Summit on MDGs

September 2010


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Copyright United Nations Environment Programme, 2010

This publication may be reproduced in whole or in part and in any orm or educational

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For more information on the Green Economy Initiativewww.unep.org/greeneconomy

Pavan Sukhdev

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UNEP SpokespersonOffice of the Executive DirectorTel: + 254 (0) 20 [email protected]

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Contents

Dening the Challenge

Meeting the Challenge

Key Messages

for a Green Future

Foreword

Executive Summary


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A Brief For Policymakers on the Green Economyand Millennium Development Goals

Foreword


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The many challenges posed by the 21st century are unparalleled in humanhistory in terms of their scale, complexity, and interconnectedness. The

solutions to these challenges - as encapsulated by the MDGs equally have

to be multi-dimensional and comprehensive.

UNEPs forthcoming Green Economy Report willdescribe how greening the worlds economieslowers environmental risks and ecologicalscarcities, which hurt the poor and disadvantagedthe most.

Indeed, one of the goals of a green economy isto help reduce poverty, while increasing resourceefficiency and improving social welfare. A greeneconomy, both as a journey and a destination,has much to do with the Millennium DevelopmentGoals, and is inextricably intertwined with many

of the drivers and factors involved in trying toachieve them.

Although the environment in an MDG contextis often perceived as being confined to MDG7,which addresses serious issues such as freshwaterscarcity, the spread of slums, greenhouse gasand ozone-depleting emissions, biodiversity lossand deforestation, the environment in reality ismore complex. All the challenges addressed by

MDG7 need to be seen also in the context of theirrelationship to poverty, education, health, andequitable access to opportunity.

These challenges need to be targeted withinternational collaboration and policy solutionsthat reflect a multi-dimensioned understandingof the biosphere and its limits, of society and itsdivisions, of the political economy and its drivers,and last but not least, of our changing economiccompass and the evolution in thinking that isneeded to actually measure our progress towards

a safe economic and ecological destination.

Achim SteinerExecutive Director of UNEP

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Foreword


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Executive Summary


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The underlying task of the 21st century is to provide a secure and sustainable

way of life for a world population that over the next four decades will increase

in size by a third. It was this challenge that in September 2000 led world leadersto adopt the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), ranging from a

halving of the number of people in extreme poverty to a global partnership

of rich countries and poor, connected by open, non-discriminatory trading

and nancial systems.

On current projections the target date of 2015 for

achieving all the MDGs may be missed. But thatis clearly no reason for policymakers to abandontheir efforts; rather, it must be a spur to furtherendeavour. Crucial to the attainment of the MDGs isthe transition to a green economy, an economy thatnot only improves human well-being and lessensinequality but also reduces environmental risks andecological scarcities. The Green Economy Initiative,launched by UNEP in 2008 amid the global financialcrisis, aims to demonstrate how to revive economiesand create lasting employment while at the sametime tackling environmental challenges that, if leftunaddressed, will jeopardize the ability of futuregenerations - rich or poor - to enjoy a decent life.

The Green Economy Initiative targets policymakers,who play such a critical role in shaping the pathof economic development - by setting prioritiesfor investment, both public and private, as well as

providing the necessary regulatory and financialframework for the green economy. But their rolegoes beyond priority-setting and regulation; they

must also lead in shaping public opinion, ensuring

a readiness among UN member states to embraceneeded reform.

The public at large, but governments in particular,must recognise that the solution to the challengesposed by the MDGs is a comprehensive one. Forexample, sustainable agriculture and fisheries, andthe provision of safe water supplies, are targetsof MDG7 - but meeting those targets would inthe process reduce poverty and hunger (MDG1);lower infant-mortality rates (MDG4); and enhancematernal health (MDG5). That in turn would helpempower women (MDG3), who would no longer berequired to spend much of their time in developingcountries simply fetching water, while rising livingstandards would enable more children to go toschool (MDG2) and would help societies combatHIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases (MDG6). Itgoes without saying that a fair, properly regulated

global partnership of trade and finance (MDG8)between rich countries and poor would facilitate -and accelerate - the attainment of all these goals.

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Executive

Summary


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ExecutiveSummary

The first step for policymakers is to appreciate thescale of the challenge, highlighted not just by theincreasing evidence of environmental pollution,the impacts of climate change but also by theloss of what could be called natural capital.

Biodiversity and ecosystems go uncounted byconventional macro-economic accounting yetprovide humanity with food, fuel, fibre andprotection from floods and soil erosion amongother services.

This loss of biodiversity has economic and socialrepercussions. The World Bank has underlinedthat natural capital is essential to wealth creation,

accounting for a quarter of wealth creation in thepoorest countries.1

Some 60% of the worlds coral reefs, for example,could disappear over the next two decadesthrough pollution, fishing, climate change andthe introduction of alien species - yet 9-12% of

the worlds fisheries rely directly on coral reefs.2Fishing is an industry that provides protein to afifth of mankind, particularly those populationsthat live along coasts and subsist on fishing.

Similarly sobering prospects could be in storefor the worlds water and forests. Haiti, thepoorest nation in the western hemisphere evenbefore this years devastating earthquake, is anexample of the umbilical connection between theenvironmental degradation and extreme povertythat MDGs 1 and 7 intend to combat. Once almostentirely covered by forest, the country now hasless than 3% forest cover, which has meant both

a huge loss of arable land through soil erosion,and a propensity to devastating floods. Becauserain is no longer captured and filtered by thehillsides, ground and stream water is laden withpolluted sediment - and by one estimate almost90% of Haitian children, by drinking that water,are infected with intestinal parasites.3

Proportion of terrestrial and marine areas protected (%)

1990 2000 2009

OceaniaSub-

SaharanAfrica

NorthernAfrica

Latin

America

and the

Caribbean

WesternAsia

SouthernAsia

South-Eastern

Asia

EasternAsia

CIS inAsia

CISin

Europe

Developing

RegionsDeveloped

RegionsWorld

20_

15_

10_

5_

Source: UN Statistical Division


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The Millennium Development Goals

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.Extreme poverty is lessening; joblessness andhunger are not.

2. Achieve universal primary education. Despiteencouraging progress, the goal may not be metby 2015, especially in sub-Saharan Africa andSouthern Asia.

3. Promote gender equality and empowerwomen. Poverty remains a barrier to education

for girls; women remain less favoured than menin the employment market.

4. Reduce child mortality. Child deaths arefalling, but not fast enough to meet the 2015target of a two-thirds reduction, compared with1990, in the under-five mortality rate.

5. Improve maternal health. Most maternal deathsin child-birth could be avoided with the right

medical care, but giving birth remains especiallyrisky in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia

and progress has slowed in reducing the numberof teenage pregnancies.

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.The spread of HIV has stabilised in most regions,but the rate of infection continues to surpass theexpansion of treatment. Procurement of anti-malarial drugs is increasing, but poverty still limitsthe use of mosquito nets.

7. Ensure environmental sustainability. The rateof deforestation, though high, is slowing - but theworld has missed the 2010 target for biodiversity

conservation and the target of halving by 2015the number of people without basic sanitation willbe dicult to reach.

8. Develop a global partnership for development.Aid for the least developed countries continues torise, despite the global economic crisis, but onlyve donor countries have reached the UN targetfor ocial aid. Developing and least developedcountries are gaining greater access to developedmarkets, and debt burdens have been lightened

- but they remain well behind rich countries ininformation and communications technology.

Though concern about the loss of biodiversity issometimes seen as a rich-world preoccupation, it is,in fact, the poor who are most aected. For example, ifclimate change were to produce a drought in Ethiopiathat halved the incomes of the poorest of the 88 million

Ethiopians, the fall in global GDP would be a mere 0.003%,but the impact on this population would be devastating.

Moreover, the impact of ecosystem degradation andbiodiversity loss aect sectors such as agriculture,

animal husbandry, shing, informal forestry most,the very sectors on which many of the worlds poordepend for their livelihood (the GDP of the poor).The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity study4has also stressed the fundamental link between

poverty, on the one side, and the loss of biodiversityand the degradation of ecosystem services on theother. This has implications for the achievement ofvarious MDGs - not just MDG7 - as illustrated in thetable.

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The second step must be to act in the interests of themany rather than the vested interests of the few - fossilfuel subsidies being a case in point. The exploitationof fossil fuels continues to benet from considerablesubsidies,5 but the cost to the environment and tosociety comes in pollution (of which the Deepwater

Horizon disaster in mid-2010 in the Gulf of Mexico,impacting jobs as well as the environment, is just oneexample). It is unrealistic to totally eliminate petroleumand coal from the current energy mix, but the searchfor alternative sources - especially renewable ones- must be accelerated, despite resistance by somecritics.

The third step is to agree on and implement

effective regulation, without which business,

supplying the lions share of investment in a greeneconomy, will be reluctant to commit itself. Accordingto an independent survey commissioned by theUN Framework Convention on Climate Change,investment of some US$ 300-400 billion a year overthe next two decades will be needed to deal with

the impact of climate change. This actually amountsto only 1% or 2% of total global investment, andso is clearly feasible. At the same time, as the SternReview on the Economics of Climate Change haspointed out, no new technology is required to reducedeforestation or promote better energy eciency.6Political willpower is enough to produce measurablegains in employment and a cleaner environment,and there are plenty of examples for policymakers to

examine.

Ecosystem services

Provisioningand regulating services

Services from wetlands

and forests

Provisioning

(medicinal plants) andregulating services (water)

Related MDG

MDG1: Eradicate extremepoverty and hunger

MDG3: Promote gender equalityand empower women

MDG4: Reduce child mortality

MDG5: Improve maternal health

MDG6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria

and other diseases

Links with Targets

Steady daily supplies of water, fuelwood and food can

be improved with investments to sustain and ensurenatural and cultivated ecosystems.

Fuelwood and water: improved availability wouldhelp gender equality as burden of provision falls

mainly on women.

Better availability of clean water and traditionalmedical supplies can create improved conditions forhealth.

Links between ecosystem services and the Millennium Development Goals4


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Costa Rica was one of the first countries in the world to recognise the economic and social benefits ofenvironmentally sensitive forestry. Some 26% of the nations land area consists of legally protected forests,with more than half out of bounds to human settlement. The result is a boom in eco-tourism, creatingdirect employment and attracting a million visitors a year (generating over US$ 5 million in entrance fees

in 2005). Just what income and employment would have been generated if the land had stayed unprotected isa matter of conjecture, but studies have found that living in or near Costa Ricas national parks has reducedpoverty and unemployment and increased wages.7

Curitiba, capital of Paran state in Brazil, is an excellent example of sustainable urban planning,growing from a population of 361,000 in 1960 to over 1.8m in 2008 without the pollution and congestiontypically associated with urban growth. While the population density between 1970 and 2008 tripled,average green area per person increased from 1m to over 50m. 8 Key to this success was the adoption

of a radial linear-branching pattern of urban development, encouraging a diversion of traffic from thecity centre and the establishment of housing and industry along the radial axes. Curitiba now has thehighest usage of public transport in Brazil (45% of journeys). Excessive fuel consumption due to trafficcongestion was 13 times less per capita in Curitiba in 2002 than in Sao Paolo and four times less thanin Rio de Janeiro. Less pollution brings measurable health benefits (MDGs 4, 5 and 6); greater energyefficiency and improved public transport are necessary components of MDG7.

Chinas energy policy,9 outlined in the 11th Five Year Plan (2006-2010) and in large part a reactionto the severe pollution engendered by three decades of explosive economic growth fuelled mostly bycoal, aims at producing 16% of primary energy from renewable sources by 2020. (The policy has beenreinforced by the stimulus package announced in November 2008 to combat the economic crisis.) Somepositive results are already evident: in wind power, which has been doubling each year, China is nowsecond only to the United States in terms of installed capacity; in solar power, China is the worlds biggestproducer of photo-voltaic panels and 10% of Chinese households now use solar power to heat theirwater. In terms of employment, some 1.5 million jobs exist in the renewables sector, including 300,000created in 2009 alone.

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Executive

Summary

A B i f F P li k th G E


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Opportunity from crisis

It would be wrong and unfortunate if the currentsituation - of rising greenhouse gas emissions,increasing soil erosion, spreading desertication, rising

ocean acidity and so on - were to induce a pessimisticperspective. A responsible reaction by the worldspolicymakers should be to seize the opportunities thatwill lead to a green economy.

So-called smart buildings, for example, alreadyexist as energy-ecient, environmentally-friendlyconstructions. Intrinsic to the concept is the abilityof a building, be it a shopping mall, an oce block ora private house, to monitor and regulate heating, air-conditioning, lighting and other variables. The resultscan be nancially impressive, given that maintenance- including energy provision - amounts to 80% ofthe cost of a building over its lifetime. Analysts havecalculated that if half of new commercial buildings wereconstructed to use 50% less energy, the savings overthe buildings 50-100 year lifespan would amount to sixmillion tonnes of CO a year - the equivalent of removinga million cars from the roads each year.10 Clearly,

therefore, introducing energy-eciency measures intobuilding codes could have a dramatic eect.

Similarly, smart grids, by which two-way digitalcommunication allows electricity generators toregulate electric appliances in consumers homesand oces, can oer large potential savings of bothmoney and energy. The US Department of Energycalculates that the adoption of smart grids wouldresult in savings over 20 years of US$ 47-117 billion

by avoiding the need to build new power plants,transmission lines and substations.11

A more pressing concern for the worlds poor is thestate of sectors such as sheries and agriculture.Fishing, both coastal and deepwater, supports directlyand indirectly some 170 million livelihoods but theindustry is in a critical condition as stocks decline

through over-shing on an industrial scale bydeveloped nations. Take away government subsidiesand the sheries sector is running at a constant, andultimately unsustainable loss. Yet greening the sectorwith measures to rebuild depleted stocks and put inplace eective management could produce genuine -and sustainable - protability for the industry. Expertscalculate that the benets from greening the sectorwould be three to ve times greater than the cost ofthis transition. The challenge for policymakers is oneof political will.

Agriculture, which employs a sixth of the worldspopulation (but accounts for only 6% of its GDP),is supercially in better shape than sheries:production is already enough to feed the 9 billionpeople expected to live on the planet by 2050. Butreality is too often one of localised food shortages,even famine, and persistent inequality in access

to adequate nutrition. Put simply, the developedworld, where agriculture is a fraction of GDP (3% inthe EU), is overfed and the developing world, whereagriculture is the main component of GDP (almosthalf in much of Africa), is undernourished. Yet neitherthe industrialised and chemical-dependent intensiveagriculture of rich countries nor the low-productivityfarming of poor countries is sustainable in thelong run. To combat soil erosion, reduce farmingsgreenhouse gas emissions (15% of the global total)

and stop the encroachment of agriculture ontoforested land and water supplies, there will have to


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Executive

Summarybe a greening of agriculture. Positive consequences

of sustainable farming in developing countries willbe less poverty and hunger (MDG1) and better health(MDGs 4 and 5).

Arguably the most serious challenge facingpolicymakers (and a key target of MDG7) is theprovision of safe water to the worlds growingpopulation. Access to clean water and adequatesanitation underpins economic growth: the less theaccess, the greater the levels of poverty and disease(each year some 1.4 million children under ve diethrough inadequate access; in eastern Nigeria andnorthern Cameroon a 1% increase in drinking dirtywater brings a 0.16% increase in child mortality).By one calculation, if the Millennium DevelopmentGoals for water and sanitation were met, an extra 322million working days a year would be created simplyby people getting less sick and spending less timephysically carrying water to their homes.12

Fortunately, the water challenge, made worseby climate change, can still be overcome. Thereplacement of aging infrastructure is part of the

solution. So is less wasteful use of water by farmers.But, as with energy use, the key is for policymakersto use the concept of full cost pricing for ecosystemservices: when water and sanitation are delivered atfull cost including payments for ecosystem servicessuch as watershed management - the return oninvestment is strong; economic progress is faster;and the private sector will nance much of theinvestment. This equation is however perhaps easierto promote in the rich world; in developing countries,

with many people living at subsistence level, theneed for water as a survival resource is an ethical

imperative, and any pricing mechanism may need tobe tiered and subsidised.

Managing the waste created as the by-product ofmans economic activity is a challenge that aects rich

and poor alike. Most high income countries now havelegislation requiring less landll and more recycling,often bolstered by the polluter pays principle toencourage more prudent use of resources. Alongwith reducing and recycling, the opportunity in agreen economy is to utilize and prot from whattypically has been simply discarded. The messagefor policymakers is that in a green economy, wastewould refer only to those residual materials that haveabsolutely no potential to be reutilized and thereforehave no economic value.

Seizing the moment

To paraphrase the Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu, eventhe longest journey must begin with a single step. Inthe journey towards the green economy, several stepshave already been taken by far-sighted policymakers.

Tougher emissions controls, either actual or potential,are spurring massive investments by American,European and Japanese carmakers in electric-powered vehicles. The European Union EmissionTrading Scheme, bringing market forces to bear oncarbon pollution, has now been in operation for veyears (albeit with a somewhat awed early stage);cap-and-trade in carbon emissions, though facingserious political opposition, has many advocates inthe United States; and acid rain, a serious problem

for forestry in North America and northern Europein the 1970s and 1980s is now a blight that has

A Brief For Policymakers on the Green Economy

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largely disappeared thanks to cap-and-trade andthe regulation of SO emissions.

Meanwhile, the microfinance credit systempioneered by Grameen Bank in Bangladesh has

shown what can be achieved by empowering thepoor, especially women (MDG3). Grameen Shakti(energy), a not-for-profit subsidiary of GrameenBank, has spread solar heating systems throughoutBangladesh, creating at least 20,000 green jobs,such as installing photo-voltaic panels, and aimingfor a target of 100,000 jobs by 2015.

How to accelerate, scale-up and embed suchtransitions is becoming increasingly urgent.Evidence of climate change is mounting; populationgrowth is adding pressure to natural resources thatare already under extreme stress; and governmentsaround the world are constantly tempted to takeshort-term solutions to economic woes, howeverenvironmentally damaging they may be in thelong term. All this is happening while the world -especially North America and Europe - has yet torecover fully from the global economic crisis of the

past three years.

The Green Economy Report details how the challengesfacing humanity can be met. The green city is notan oxymoron; water scarcity can be overcome; andenvironmental sensitivity is not incompatible withthe economic growth and added employment that aburgeoning world population will require.

The pressing need now is for policymakers to

collaborate with the nancial sector: it is private-sector money, much more than government money,

that will nance the future, and it is the power of themarket, helped by regulators, that will make possiblethe transition from todays unsustainable economicbehaviour to the sustainable future promised bythe green economy. In the process, investors and

policymakers need to put a price on natural capitaland include environmental measures, notably on theimpact of climate change, in their asset management;for their part, governments need to implementthe environment-friendly policies that ultimatelyunderpin economic stability.

However, corporate awareness of the challengeand of the opportunities has yet to be widespread.It tends to be confined to the largest companies,which can though instigate progress by workingwith both partners and competitors.

The onus, therefore, is on policymakers to take thelead. Their actions will be the necessary catalyst forthe transition to a green economy that builds onthe earths natural capital and reduces ecologicalscarcities and environmental risks. The reward - withrenewable energy, low-carbon transport, energy-

ecient buildings, clean technologies, improvedwaste management, enhanced freshwaterprovision, sustainable agriculture and forestmanagement, and sustainable sheries - will be realprogress towards the achievement of the MillenniumDevelopment Goals.

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A Brief For Policymakers on the Green Economy


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Defning the Challenge

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Definingt

heChallenge

The adaptability, inventiveness and ingenuity of humans is beyond doubt,

and those qualities will be needed in confronting - and surmounting - the

challenge posed by the pressures on our environment, be it populationgrowth, increasing consumerism, the depletion of natural resources, the loss

of biodiversity or climate change.

Those pressures are all related: population growthhas an inevitable impact on the environment asa whole, and most scientists agree that climatechange is, at least in part, the consequence ofhuman activities. Greening economic activities

- for example, by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions or by developing alternatives to fossilfuels - is the only answer to these pressures, bothtoday and in the future. To continue with what couldbe called the brown economy may seem attractivein the short term, but in the long term, as it drawsdown our natural capital and creates destabilizationrisks, is not a recipe for sustainability.

One reason has been examined comprehensively

by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC). It pointed out three years ago, Warming ofthe climate system is unequivocal as is now evidentfrom observations of increases in global averageair and ocean temperatures, widespread melting ofsnow and ice and rising global sea level 13 Crucially,it added that most of the observed increase intemperatures since the mid-20th century is very likelydue to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHGconcentrations.

The import of the IPCCs ndings, both then andsubsequently, should be clear to all policymakers.

The thermal expansion of the worlds oceans andthe melting of polar ice already put at risk from everystorm-surge low-lying coastal areas in Bangladesh orislands such as the Maldives, whose atolls are barelya metre above sea level. Indeed, President Mohamed

Nasheed of the Maldives has dramatised the threatthat his nation may literally disappear beneath thewaves by holding a televised, under-sea cabinetmeeting. The IPCC, has summarised the cost ofdoing nothing to limit climate change:

The possible disappearance of sea-ice by the latterpart of this century.

An increase in climatic extremes, from heat wavesto floods.

More intense tropical cyclones. Less water in semi-arid areas such as the Mediter-ranean basin, the western United States, southernAfrica and north-eastern Brazil.

The possible elimination of the Greenland ice-sheet(which would mean a 7-metre rise in sea-levels).

A severely increased risk of extinction for manyendangered species.

A threat of flooding in some areas, affectingperhaps 2 billion people, and increased drought

in others, notably in Africa.

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e o o cy e s o e G ee co o yand Millennium Development Goals

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Defin

ingtheChallenge

Emissions of carbon dioxide, 1990, 2000, 2007 - (Billions of tonnes)

OceaniaSub-

SaharanAfrica

NorthernAfrica

LatinAmericaand the

Caribbean

WesternAsia

SouthernAsia

excludingIndia

SouthernAsia

EasternAsia

CISDeveloping

Regions

Developed

RegionsWorld

EasternAsia

excludingChina

South-eastern

Asia

30_

25_

20_

15_

10_

5_

The commitment by the G8 nations in 2009 to cut theirGHG emissions by 20% by 2050 marks a tipping pointin how we deal with climate change, since it must inturn involve a commitment to a green economy. Afterall, present statistics of the inadequacy of the browneconomy make grim reading: for example, 1.6 billion ofthe worlds people lack access to electricity; a quarter ofthe children in the developing world are underweight;

half of the population in developing countrieshave no access to sanitation; and current modes oftransport, fuelled by petroleum products, produceunacceptable levels of air-pollution (and around 13%of anthropogenic GHG emissions).

Lost capital

In parallel with those statistics is the continuing - andincreasing - pressure on the planets natural resources,

its natural capital. Over the past 300 years, the Earthhas lost some 40% of its forests; some 25 countries

now have no forests at all; another 29 have lost 90% oftheir forest cover.14 Forests absorb CO (so combatingglobal warming) and release oxygen; they absorb andredistribute rainwater; and they are the origin for a widerange of goods, including prescription drugs. So theconsequences of deforestation, easily pursued in thesearch for agricultural land, tend to be dire.

Since 1990, the world has lost roughly half of its wetlands,which slow oodwaters, protect uplands from erosionand improve water quality.15 Much of this occurred in therst half of the 20th century in the northern hemisphere,but, as populations grow, there is mounting pressure forthe conversion of tropical and sub-tropical wetlands toagricultural, industrial or residential use.

Over the past two decades 35% of the worldsmangroves, which protect coastal areas from ood

surges and erosion, have disappeared thanks to theencroachment of aquaculture.16

1990 2000 2007


G

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DefiningtheChallenge

Some 30% of coral reefs, essential for biodiversity, havebeen damaged through shing, pollution or disease.17

The overall eect is that some 60% of the planetsecosystem services - the benets, such as food,freshwater, timber and pharmaceutical ingredients,that people derive from the natural environment -have been degraded over the past 50 years. Unlesspolicymakers take the steps needed for a greeneconomy, still more degradation is inevitable.

Environmental refugees, eeing phenomena suchas drought and desertication, already number some25 million. Within the coming decade, the numbercould rise to 60 million as people in sub-SaharanAfrica react to desertication and head for NorthAfrica and Europe. At the same time, millions more willmove to Africas mega-cities, straining local resourcesto or beyond breaking point. The potential of suchmigration ows, occurring from Africa to China, toprovoke political and social unrest is obvious. Theseforecasts do not include an additional wave which

may arise due to the loss of tropical coral reefs andtheir sheries due to a combination of warmer seasurface temperatures and ocean acidication, bothdue to GHG emissions.

Coral reefs are the worlds most biodiversity-richecosystems, but are under constant pressure frompollution, disease, over-shing and emissions impacts both warming and ocean acidication. Reefs inthe Caribbean area have been reduced by 80% overthree decades. As a direct result, revenue from dive

tourism - more important to the local economies thanshing - has slumped. The underlying explanation isthat in 1983, after centuries of over-shing on thereefs, there was an abrupt switch from coral to algaldomination of reef systems. Control of the algae thendepended on a single species of sea urchin - whichfell prey to a species-specic pathogen. With the seaurchin population devastated, the reefs shifted to astate with little capacity to support sh. The decline of

the reefs is thus a tragic example of how vulnerabilityincreases as biodiversity decreases.

Lost opportunity

The question, given the damage, both actual andpotential, to the environment and thus to overall

living standards, is why the transition from a brown toa green economy has not already been made.

A fundamental reason is what could be called thepower of inertia. It takes initiative, determinationand foresight on the part of policymakers to directindustries and societies to change well-establishedhabits. It also takes courage - the willingness todefy lobbying by well-funded vested interests.Policymakers need to lead and shape public opinion

precisely in order to have the popular backing tocounter vested interests.

This is, of course, more easily prescribed thanachieved. Preserving a rainforest is undeniablysensible from an environmental standpoint - but maynot seem so to small-holders seeking to gain a patchof arable land by cutting into the forest. Similarly,setting fishing quotas in order to rebuild fish stockscan be a matter of urgent necessity, but will still be

resisted by fishermen concerned for their imm ediatelivelihood. As a result of lobbying and industrialaction by fishermen, for example, the EUs CommonFisheries Policy has often softened the quotasrecommended by its experts.

A second reason, complicating internationalclimate-change negotiations from Kyoto in 1997 toCopenhagen in 2009, is what economists would callthe free rider problem. Put simply, why should one

country make an investment to lessen emissions ifanother country refuses, when the benets of theinvestment go to both (pollution and climate changeknow no boundaries) but the costs only to one? Inreality, however, green investments are in and ofthemselves nancially interesting. A new frameworkagreement in climate-change negotiations wouldtherefore reward early adopters. Policymakers needto realise that a green economy is to the advantage ofall countries, rich and poor, developed and developing.

They must then construct the kind of agreement thatcan implement a green economy.

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Support from the business community would clearlyhelp that task - but business needs to be proddedto move in that direction. For the most part it is thebiggest companies that have taken real steps towardsminimising their environmental impact (for example,

by eliminating excess product packaging, helpingboth the environment and the corporate bottom line).The reality is that while most large companies may nowrecognise the need for enhanced resource eciencyor the impacts of climate change on their operations,very few have plans to reduce their GHG emissions, orenhance the life-cycle of their products. That proportionwould surely rise if policymakers were to implement theappropriate regulations.

A key point of the forthcoming Green Economy Reportis that the transition to a green economy makeseconomic and nancial sense, even over the shortterm. It must be admitted, however, that the globalnancial crisis, whose eects are still being felt inmany countries, has dampened the willingness of bothgovernment and business to take the necessary steps- one reason that optimists were so disappointed bythe Copenhagen conference on climate change. When

debt-laden governments in the developed worldembark on austerity programmes, inaction - unlessthey see immediate gains - can become a more likelyresponse.

All of this helps explain the shortfall in meeting theMillennium Development Goals (MDGs). In aimingfor MDG1 (ending poverty and hunger), the worldhas achieved considerable progress in reducing thenumbers of the extremely poor. But that advance has not

been matched in reducing hunger and unemployment- and a signicant reason for that relative failure is the

degradation of the environment: greater drought anddesertication, for instance, mean worse harvests.

The eort to achieve MDG2 (universal primary educationfor both boys and girls) has slowed. The underlying

problem is poverty, which again is often linked toenvironmental degradation. For reasons of cost, cultureor the need to be working, girls in the poorest 20% ofhouseholds, for example, are 3.5 times more likely to beout of school than girls in the richest households.

Poverty also explains the diculty in meeting MDG3(gender equality and the empowerment of women).Parity between boys and girls in primary educationwas supposed to be achieved by 2005, but remains

out of reach in many developing regions. Meanwhile,women in developing regions tend to be the mostvulnerable in the labour market, with the globalnancial crisis eroding employment, directly andindirectly, around the world.

The target of MDG4 is to reduce by t wo-thirds, between1990 and 2015, the incidence of mortality for childrenunder the age of ve. Signicant progress has been

made, but is now slowing. Among the 67 countrieswith high child mortality rates (40 or more deaths forevery 1,000 live births), only 10 are on course to meetthe target. Some of the largest challenges are found insub-Saharan Africa, and once again poverty - and with itthe shortcomings of the brown economy - is the cause.

Improving maternal health, as envisaged by MDG5, isespecially a matter of education and antenatal medicalcare, and considerable progress has been made, for

example in narrowing the urban-rural gap in theprovision of skilled care during child-birth. But the

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progress has not been enough: only a third of pregnantwomen in rural areas in developing regions receive theright level of care. Meanwhile, the failure to provideadequate funding for contraception services hampersthe improvement of womens reproductive health.

The campaign against HIV/AIDS, malaria and otherdiseases (MDG6) has been marked by some success.One target, for example, is to reverse the spread ofHIV by 2015, and it appears that HIV infection has nowstabilised in most regions and infected people aresurviving longer. Even so, the rate of new infectionscontinues to outstrip the availability of treatment (in2008 some 5.5 million people in need of treatmentcould not receive the necessary medications). More

positively, the ght against malaria - which puts half theworlds population at risk - is progressing well: Africancountries with an endemic malaria problem now havehalf the mosquito nets they need, representing a majorincrease over the decade.

The sustainable environment envisaged in MDG7 is theessence of the green economy - and progress towardsthe goal has been mixed. The rate of deforestation, for

example, is slowing: in the past decade, the annual lossof forest has averaged 13 million hectares, comparedwith 16 million hectares a year during the 1990s. But thatis still a rate that causes lasting environmental damage.At the same time, the world has missed this years targetof reducing the rate of biodiversity loss, and a decisiveresponse to the threat of climate-change has yet to beimplemented. Meanwhile, the target date of 2015 forthe halving of the proportion of the worlds populationwithout sustainable access to safe drinking water and

basic sanitation (1.1 billion people lack access to basicsanitation) looks likely to be missed - and the 2020

deadline for improvement in the lives of at least 100million slum-dwellers remains hostage to the increasingrate of urbanisation and slum formation, which makesthe target appear tough to meet.

None of the MDGs can be achieved without the helpof a partnership between rich and poor - the globalpartnership for development that is the intent ofMDG8. At one level, progress towards the goal has beenremarkably robust: debt-relief for developing countriesis being implemented and aid from the developedworld has increased despite the global nancial crisis.Yet it remains true that only ve nations - Denmark,Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden -have met the UN aid target of 0.7% of gross national

income. Fortunately, since trade is a much greater leverfor development than aid, market access for exportsfrom developing countries has increased dramatically(excluding arms and oil, the proportion of importsby developed countries from developing countriesadmitted free of duty reached almost 80% in 2008,up from 54% in 1998). Unfortunately, the Doha Roundof world trade negotiations, which would increasemarket access still more, remains stalled. Meanwhile,

the challenge in meeting MDG8 is to enlist the businesscommunity of the developed world, in particular tonarrow the digital divide between rich and poorcountries in information and communications. At theend of 2008 only 15% of the residents of developingregions had access to the Internet, compared with 68%in the developed world.

In short, the challenge facing humanity from its

pressure on the environment is critical - but, if

policymakers take the right steps towards a greeneconomy, it is not impossible.

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Energy is a key priority

The most important determinant in making thetransition to a green economy from the wasteful,polluting and ultimately unsustainable browneconomy is energy. The world, as a whole, needs tobe more ecient in its use of energy - and needs todevelop new, renewable sources. As the forthcomingGreen Economy Report will show in detail, both

requirements are entirely feasible and both arecompatible with economic growth as well as targetingquicker progress on several MDGs.

The task at hand is to lessen an excessive dependenceon the fossil fuels - oil, gas and coal - that have poweredthe rise to wealth of the developed world. In the 20thcentury, the consumption of fossil fuels increasedtwenty-fold to accommodate the spread of electricity

and the exponential growth of car ownership and airtravel. In 2007, oil satised about 34% of our energy

demand; natural gas about 21%; coal (the dirtiestfossil fuel) some 26%; nuclear power another 6%;hydropower just over 2%; biomass and waste almost10%; and other renewables less than 1%.18

World Primary Energy Demand by Fuel (2007)18

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The task for policymakers is daunting - but not impossible. One obvious

problem is the difcult scal situation facing many governments in the wake

of the global nancial crisis. The contribution of private nancing is also

strained - including venture capital. But it would be a mistake to exaggerate

these difculties. International aid, for example, has continued to rise despite

the crisis, and debt burdens for developing countries have been lightened. In

short, though the Doha round of trade negotiations remains to be completed,

the global partnership envisaged by MDG8 has considerable strength and

promise.

Gas 20.9 %

Oil 34.1 %

Coal 26.5 %

Other renewables 0.6 %

Biomassand waste9.8 %

Nuclear5.9 %

Hydro

2.2 %

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Since the dominance of fossil fuels in the energyspectrum is unlikely to be reversed in the short term,the immediate challenge is to ensure that they are usedless harmfully and more eectively.

One answer for policymakers is the price mechanism:the OPEC price increases of 1973 and 1979 spurredhuge gains in conservation and energy eciency inmany developed countr ies, and it is clear that measuresthat reect the full cost of fuel - however unpopular -can change consumer behaviour.

A second answer is technology. This can involveanything from leaner-burning motors in cars to betterinsulation in houses and combined heating and power(CHP) generation by electricity companies.

What is certain is that total worldwide energyconsumption will rise, and indeed should rise in orderto meet the MDGs. After all, 1.6 billion people lackelectricity and 2.5 billion must depend on biomass(essentially wood and animal dung) for cooking. Theleast access to electricity is in sub-Saharan Africa,where the rate of urban electricity provision is 58%and the rural rate a mere 8%. If the MDG1 target for thereduction of extreme poverty is to be met in electricity-deprived regions, modern energy services will have tobe provided for another 700 million people.

However, renewable energy technologies - solar andwind power, for example - to generate electricity canmake a signicant contribution to improving livingstandards and health. The need is pressing: in Africa,for example, the energy poor spend around US$ 17billion a year on oil-based lighting sources such askerosene lamps - which are costly, inecient and are hazard. Meanwhile, it is hard to exaggerate theharm done when households in developing regions

use coal, rewood and dung for cooking, lighting andheat: indoor air pollution kills 1.6m people a year, halfof them children under the age of ve and the restwomen (who do most of the cooking and are thereforethe most exposed).

Yet green solutions are both tested and available fordeveloping regions. At the local level, the GrameenShakti organisation has developed and marketed solarand biogas systems for the house that could reach75 million rural Bangladeshis (almost half the totalpopulation) by 2015. In Mauritius some 40% of theislands electricity is already provided by bagasse (abiofuel produced by the bre of sugarcane stalks). InKenya geothermal energy provides 10% of the country s

electricity. The simple equation for most countries is thatthe more they use renewable energy the less foreignexchange they will have to spend importing petroleum- and that saving can translate into more provision foreducation, health, mobility, communications and allother aspects that feature in the MDGs.

Kenya, in common with many developing countries,has an energy dichotomy: the modern sector of itseconomy depends on expensive imported petroleum

while the rural population depends on biomass for itsenergy needs. Petroleum is subject to the price whimsof the international market and traditional biomass mayultimately become unsustainable. Hence the creativesolution adopted in 2008 of Feed-in Taris (FITs): theenergy companies responsible for the national grid arerequired to buy electricity from renewable energy sourcesat a pre-determined price high enough to encouragenew investment in the renewables sector. The result isthat those who produce electricity from solar, wind and

other renewable sources now have a guaranteed marketand the incentive for more investment.

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The role of agriculture

Agriculture is another important sector of thegreen economy, not because of its share of GDP(a mere 3% of the worlds total output of goods

and services, though sometimes up to half in thepoorest countries) but because it directly provides1.3 billion jobs the vast majority of them indeveloping countries. Sustainable agriculturalpractices are vital in meeting the MDGs, bethey reducing extreme poverty and hunger orgiving households the opportunity to send theirchildren to school. Hunger, poverty, health andthe environment can all be linked to agriculturalpractices and output.

It makes little sense, however, for policymakersto view agriculture as a uniform part of the worldeconomy. The reality is a sector divided into twotiers: a heavily mechanised, farming industry indeveloped regions such as the European Unionand North America; and labour-intensive farming,often oering mere subsistence-level livelihoods, indeveloping regions such as sub-Saharan Africa andSouth Asia.

One issue that adds complexity to the picture isthe persistent dependence on farm subsidiesin both the European Union and the UnitedStates, leading to skewed production andallegations of dumping excess production ontothe international market. Linked concerns arethe tariff and non-tariff barriers to agriculturalexports from developing countries. These still

exist despite the good intentions professed insuccessive negotiating rounds of the World Trade

Organisation. Food security, an element of theEuropean Unions Common Agricultural Policy, isa powerful idea, but one that can be abused byvested agricultural interests.

A second complication is climate change. At themoment, agricultural operations contribute 14% ofglobal GHGs; deforestation in order to clear moreland for farming produces another 18% of GHGs.Within those gures, agriculture is responsible forabout 58% of nitrous oxide emissions and 47% ofmethane - gases which have a far greater potentialto warm the planet than CO.

Deforestation and farming all too often go

together, with damaging results in terms ofGHG emissions, soil erosion and flood control.But deforestation is not inevitable. In Nepal theforested area, some two-fifths of the country, wasdecreasing by an annual rate of 1.9% during the1990s; this has now been reversed so that forestedland increased by 1.35% a year from 2000 to 2005.The key was to hand responsibility for the forestsover to Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs),of which there are now some 14,000. The CFUGs,second only to the government in the area theymanage, set harvesting rules and product pricesand determine how the profit is distributed. Withtheir vested interest in the future of the forests,the result has been better conservation, enhancedsoil and water management and greater localemployment.19


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A third feature is the conventional method of sustainingor increasing crop yields, both in the developed regionsand the developing ones. This involves the use ofpesticides, herbicides and fertiliser - all of which in theshort term can be very eective. The inevitable result,however, is to lessen the natural fertility of the soil, andso make farmers ever more dependent on expensivefertilisers (the price of phosphate rose ve-fold between2007 and 2008 after surges in demand from China andIndia). Meanwhile, the potential to increase arable land- at present 12% of the worlds land surface - is limitedby water scarcity and desertication.

The solution lies in adopting sustainable farmingmethods: the recycling of organic nutrients; cultivation

methods that prevent soil erosion; biological pestcontrol; crop diversication and rotation. All these andother green techniques can increase both the qualityand the quantity of production, and so enhancethe quality of life in rural communities. One study,

covering 12.6 million farms in 57 developing countries,has shown the encouraging results that can be achievedby adopting best practices - such as the control oferosion to reduce the loss of nutrients in the soil - insustainable agriculture.21 The average yield increasewas 79%, depending on crop type, and all cropsshowed gains in eciency of water use.

Mechanisation is clearly a way forward: the use oftractors and other farm machines signicantly boosts

household incomes, as well as reducing the burden ofdemanding farm work. The downside, however, is thatmechanisation is expensive, both in initial capital andthen in operating costs. Mechanisation and organicfarming are most certainly not mutually exclusive -but policymakers should note that organic farming istypically more labour intensive and can thus generate upto 30% more employment than conventional farming.22

Uganda, a nation in which 85% of the populationis involved in agriculture and which gets 80%of its export earnings from farm products, hastaken an apparent liability - a dearth of expensiveimported chemical inputs for its agricultural sector- and turned it into a comparative advantage bydeveloping organic farming (the country now hasone of the largest land areas in the world, and thebiggest in Africa, devoted to organic agriculture).In 2004 the country had 45,000 organic-certied

farmers, working on 185,000 hectares - some 2%of Ugandas agricultural land. By 2008, the number

4 000_

3 000_

2 000_

1000_

0_

Field Household

Edible crop

harvest4600 kcal Afterharvest

4000 kcal

Meatand dairy2800 kcal Available

for householdconsumption

2000 kcal

Harvestlosses

Animalfeed

Distributionlosses

andwaste

Global losses, conversion and wastage at dierent

stages of the food supply chain (kcal per person)20

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of organic farmers had risen to almost 207,000,cultivating more than 296,000 hectares. Farm-gateprices for products such as organic pineapple, gingerand vanilla are higher than for their conventionallygrown rivals, thereby boosting both incomes for

organic farmers and Ugandas export earnings. Aside-eect beneting Ugandans and non-Ugandansalike is that GHG emissions from the countrysorganic farms are on average 64% lower than fromconventional farms.23

Water provision

Water is clearly an increasingly critical resource on

which agriculture and the rest of the green economy(indeed, life itself) depends. But the underlyingproblem confronting policymakers is that demandfor water will increase while its supply may welldecrease. Agriculture accounts for 70% of water

consumption and a way has to be found to producefood for a world of 9 billion people by 2050 by usingless water than is used today for 6 billion. At thesame time, unless there is improved access to cleanwater and sanitation, it will be impossible to meet

the MDGs for the reduction of poverty and disease,for the provision of universal primary education andfor the empowerment of women.

The economic impact of poor sanitation on acountry such as Cambodia is equal to some 7.2%of GDP (at 2005 prices).24 Moreover, the poor arepenalised for their lack of access: in western Jakartawater bought from a water cart costs ten timesthe price of mains water. Likewise the lack of easy

access to water means households, especially thechildren and women, have to spend time fetchingwater rather than in pursuing other activities - suchas going to school. In East Africa each trip to fetchwater takes more than half an hour.25

Proportion of population using an improved sanitation facility (%)

2000 2005 2008

OceaniaSub-

SaharanAfrica

Northern

Africa

Latin

America

and theCaribbean

Western

Asia

Southern

Asia

South-Eastern

Asia

Eastern

Asia

CIS in

Asia

CISin

Europe

Developing

Regions

Developed

RegionsWorld

100 %

75 %

50 %

25 %



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The challenge is daunting. A growing population;rising living standards; excessive exploitation ofaquifers and river systems; and climate change:all will add up to a difficult social, economic andpolitical test for governments over the coming years.

Indeed, by 2030 the OECD calculates that some 3.9billion people could be living under conditions ofsevere water stress.

But the challenge is not impossible. Fortunately,investing in safe water is extremely cost-effective -and the failure to do so can be disastrous. In 1991,for example, Peru had to spend US$ 1 billion tocontrol a cholera epidemic. If a tenth of the sum,US$ 100 million, had been spent on sanitation, the

epidemic would not have occurred.

One conventional response to water scarcity isthe building of dams. But dams, involving massivecapital investment and frequently the dislocation ofcommunities and damage to the ecosystem, are notthe only - or necessarily the best - remedy. Withoutsuch an option, Singapore is investing heavily instorm-water capture and sewage recycling.

An alternative is desalination - though thisis an energy-intensive response. By contrast,policymakers should bear in mind that small-scalemeasures are often an effective alternative: in ChinasGansu province a US$ 12 per capita investment incollecting rainwater was enough to upgrade thedomestic water supply and supplement irrigation(one particular project benefitted almost 200,000households.26

Jakarta, in common with many cities in developingregions, has many people living in informalsettlements. The question is how to provide safewater and sanitation without at the same timelegitimising the unlawful occupation of land. The

imaginative answer in western Jakarta has beento give the responsibility of supplying water to aprivate utility company. This company in turn hasestablished community-based organisations whichare given access to a single master water meter.The community organisations are responsiblefor distributing the water and for developing arevenue-collection policy. The result is access toclean water at a reasonable cost in an area wherethe government would be reluctant to invest.

Where possible and acceptable on equity grounds,one solution is to price water and sanitation services attheir full cost. The key is for policymakers to introducepricing transparency: when water and sanitationare delivered at full cost including payments forecosystem services such as watershed management- the return on investment is strong; economicprogress is faster; and the private sector will nancemuch of the investment. Argentina, where the privatesector has invested in water supply, found a markedreduction in child mortality in those areas with aprivatised supply, with the best results coming in thepoorest neighbourhoods.

Politically and socially, however, that hypothesis canbe dicult to put into practice. Subsistence farmerscan hardly be expected to pay for water. Indeed, indeveloping countries some form of subsidy will

be the norm for the supply of water to the poor. InJakarta, for example, wealthy households with above

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average water consumption are charged more thanthe cost of supply, with the government then usingthe extra revenue to facilitate supply to the poor.

Given that agriculture is by far the largest consumer

of water, it makes sense to make it more water-ecient, especially in developed countries. A wayof achieving this is for policymakers to introduce amarket in water: individual irrigators can oset thecost of improving their eciency by selling the savedwater to other irrigators.

The provision of safe water and sanitation, asenvisaged in MDG7, is a vital component of thegreen economy. There is no simple solution for

delivering the benefits of water and sanitation. Partof the answer, however, lies in good governanceto ensure greater economic discipline in waterinvestment and management, and that in turn mustinvolve a recognition that the cost of providingwater can be offset by a price more often than iscurrently the case.

Fishing now and in the future

As with agriculture, shing is an industry characterisedby two tiers: several shing nations in the developedworld boast eets of large vessels that vacuum up

vast quantities of sh from the ocean, from tuna tocod; in poor countries, coastal shing communitiesstruggle to wrest a living with their small boats andtraditional shing methods. The fact that the sea,beyond national limits, is a commons, belonging toall but to no one in particular, is a constant challengefor the responsible management of sh stocks.

Again as with agriculture, the sheries sector is ofvital importance: some 20% of the worlds population

rely on sh as their primary source of animal protein;around 35 million are directly employed, full-timeor part-time, in shing; and another 135 million areinvolved in sh-processing and related activities.Assuming three dependents for each of these,the implication is that almost 8% of the worldspopulation is supported by the sheries sector.

100

80

60

40

20

01950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Year

Stock(%)

crashed

over exploited

fully exploited

developing

underdeveloped

Status of exploitation of global sh

stocks27


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Yet the structure and practices of the sector areunsustainable. The total value added for globalmarine sheries in 2005 was about US$ 17 billion- but the industry was subsidised by about US$ 27billion. Overfishing, mostly by the fleets of the

industrialised world, has damaged stocks to suchan extent that without corrective measures, of thesort that will be outlined in the Green EconomyReport, many of the worlds commercial fisheriesmay no longer be viable in the coming decades.

Developed countries should better recognize therisk, stark evidence of which came in 1992 with thecollapse of Newfoundlands cod stocks throughoverfishing, leading to the loss of 18,000 direct

jobs, the shrinking by up to 20% of local towns andthe injection of massive aid by the Governmentof Canada and its taxpayers. From an MDGperspective, this type of remedial action is beyondthe means of most developing countries.

Greening the industry so that it becomessustainable and genuinely profitable meansreducing catches to a maximum sustainableyield. Given that current fishing capacity isbetween 1.8 to 2.8 times greater than that whichcan be sustained, policymakers face a politicallyand socially sensitive task: they must ensurethat poor and artisanal fishing communities aretreated fairly in strategies to scale down capacity.That also means being intelligent in the use ofsubsidies, especially in the developed worldwhere the fishing industry traditionally exercisesan influence disproportionate to its weight in the

labour force. In many cases, such influence leadsto what amounts to a misallocation of capital - at

the expense of artisanal fishing communities inthe developing world and it opens the industryto the risk of being labelled inequitable as well aseconomically inefficient.

Subsidies come in various forms - both helpfuland harmful, or good, bad and ugly in theterminology of Sumaila et al.28 The goodenhance the conservation of fish stocks over time,for example by funding fisheries managementor by using government spending to operatemarine protected areas; the bad, such as fuelsubsidies, lead to overcapacity and excessivecatches; and the ugly, such as the buyback, ordecommissioning, of fishing vessels to reduce

a fleet size, can either conserve a fish-stock ordeplete it further. In theory, buyback schemesshould be very effective.

In practice, decommissioned boats may find theirway back into other fleets; or fleets may be built upin anticipation of a buyback scheme; or boats thatare not part of the buyback may simply increasetheir catch in the absence of their previouscompetitors. Out of a world total of US$ 27.1 billionin subsidies in 2003, Sumaila et al. classified onlyUS$ 7.9 billion as good; US$ 16.2 billion were inthe bad category; and US$ 3 billion in the ugly.

Greening the industry also means putting in placea more effective regulatory regime. A limit on anareas total catch is the most obvious instrument,but in reality is fraught with difficulty. The catchmay well be limited and so help a stock to recover,

but the downside can be severely shortened fishingseasons to the detriment of fishing communities.

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The solution should be to allocate fish quotas andmake these quotas transferable among fishingcommunities. To make such a system work, andto reduce illegal fishing, policymakers need tocollaborate and realise that beggar my neighbour

fishing policies are ultimately self-defeating andunsustainable.

Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU)

shing accounts for about a fth of the total valueof the global shing catch, and is a prime reason forthe depletion of sh stocks. The reason IUU shingpersists is that detection rates and penalties areboth too low to act as disincentives. Sumaila et al.28recommended that penalties need to be increased

at least 24 times to be eective. The EuropeanUnion now has rules that only sh validated as legalby the exporting state or by the state under whoseag the shermen are sailing can be imported intoor exported from the EU.

Pathway to a green future

Transport is central to economic activity, and will remainso. But transport currently harms the environment andgenerates harmful economic consequences, such asproductivity-lowering congestion and the burdenon health systems, and so the taxpayer, of pollution-induced disease.

Complicating the challenge for policymakers,especially in their efforts to meet MDG7, is theclose connection between transport and economic

growth. The present global vehicle fleet of around800 million could well rise to 3 billion by 2050, with

almost all of this increase occurring in developingcountries. Meanwhile, the polluting effects ofshipping and aviation will also rise as global tradeincreases. Yet modern transport, especially by car, isassociated with personal freedom and productivity.

It would clearly be unrealistic - and unfair - todeny the populations of developing regions suchbenefits. Nor would it be sensible to deny countriesthe business efficiencies that come with modernmeans of transportation.

What is needed is a fundamental shift in transportinvestment, emphasising the reduction or avoidanceof trips. This would involve support for public andnon-motorised transport, and a transition - helped

by technological innovation - to cleaner and moreecient vehicles.

The idea, appropriate for both developed anddeveloping regions, should be to encourage achange in behaviour by a judicious mix of taxes,charges and subsidies. In various European andNorth American cities car clubs, with subscriberspaying just for the actual use of a car, are alreadyan attractive (and much less costly) alternative tocar ownership. Other measures that bear imitationare congestion charges, penalising car driversentering city centres; subsidised subway systems;and electronic road pricing. Such policies, especiallyemphasising the provision of efficient publictransport, work not just in developed countriesbut in developing ones, too - as the successfulintroduction of the Delhi Metro rapid transit systemhas demonstrated. The green reward will be a

healthier, more productive workforce and a lesspolluted environment.

greeneconomy-mdgs policymakers brief (2010)

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