As the gap between rich and poor grows, along with reports of environmental disaster, many worry that their children’s lives will be worse than their own.A report released Wednesday by the UN’s development program warns that unless there’s a serious global change of direction, living standards will plunge in the poorest countries by 2050, reversing decades of gradual gains.
RELATED: The UNDP report
“Understanding the links between environmental sustainability and equity is critical if we are to expand human freedoms for current and future generations,” says former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme.
“Continuing failure to reduce the grave environmental risks and deepening social inequalities threatens to slow decades of sustained progress by the world’s poor majority – and even to reverse the global convergence of human development.”
The vicious circle of poverty, pollution and environmental decay can be halted, Clark said, if leaders can create a new framework that reflects equity and sustainability – with the 2012 Rio+20 summit on sustainable development as a launching pad.
The UN’s human development index is the main global barometer of how advanced a country is for the citizens who live there. It includes measures of life expectancy, literacy, schooling, income and general living standards in 187 countries.
Top of this year’s list is Norway, followed by Australia, Netherlands, U.S., New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Germany and Sweden. Of the top 10, Canada has moved up 2 points since last year, Netherlands and Germany have also risen, while New Zealand, Ireland, Liechtenstein and Sweden have dropped slightly.
The lowest-ranked countries of 2011 are once again in Africa. They include Guinea, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Chad, Mozambique, Burundi, and Niger. The strife-ridden Democratic Republic of Congo is at the bottom of the development ladder.
Meanwhile, the Arab Spring has sent shock waves through Libya, which dropped 10 points to 64th place as sanctions and civil strife took their toll. Egypt and Tunisia each dropped a point to 113th and 94th place.
But sheer numbers don’t tell the tale, says the report, which focuses on how the interplay of inequality and environment threatens progress, especially in the poorest nations. It calls for a universal plan for clean energy, and adoption of an environmental bill of rights.
“It’s poverty and the environment as much as inequality that count,” says Rohinton Medhora of the International Development Research Centre in Ottawa, an expert in poverty and globalization.
“As the good parts of the environment become scarce – clean air, water and arable land – the richest have the most access. The poor and marginalized do not. So the poor get poorer because they don’t have a way to make a living.”
And as the poor become more desperate, they decimate the environment at a faster pace. Trees are cut down for firewood and shelter. Soil is over-farmed and waters over-fished.
“Many rural poor people depend overwhelmingly on natural resources for their income,” says the report. “Even people who do not normally engage in such activities may do so as a coping strategy during hardship.”
About 350 million people rely on forests for their survival or livelihoods, it adds. Another 45 million are threatened by overfishing and climate change that leads to major declines in fish stocks.
Indoor air pollution from cooking and heating fuel, and lack of clean water and sanitation destroy quality of life for many of the poor by attacking their health, social environment and lifespan.
“These absolute deprivations are major violations of human rights,” the report says. “In developing countries at least 6 people in 10 experience one of these, and 4 in 10 experience two or more.” Many suffer multiple environmental deprivations, and in countries of growing wealth, are left behind.
Lack of empowerment, and lack of reproductive choice for women aggravate the problems, it says.
As climate change speeds up, the problems will only get worse, and the pace of human development in poor countries go into reverse. But, the report says, that dire scenario can be halted if political leaders take decisive steps.
A global-scale plan to deliver clean energy to poor households would not drastically increase greenhouse gases it says, but would guarantee a major boost to their living standard.
Giving women choice in the size of their families would decrease environmental pressures and positively affect maternal health. Community forest management could make sure the poorest were not worse off, while reversing environmental degradation.
And, it urges, there should be an international bill of rights to give citizens equal access to a healthy environment: a concept endorsed by more than 100 countries, but more difficult to ensure.
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Source: Toronto Star
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