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Political and policy decisions in the next ten months on the recession and on climate change will define whether our planet and its people are heading for a brighter future of prosperity and climate security, or a future of inequality, poverty, conflict, and destructive climate change
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If governments round the world respond appropriately, the twin economic and climate crises could prove a profound and catalysing turning point in moving to a more just, equal and sustainable world. A just and global green new deal could be both an economic and a political turning point that will mark the start of a new era
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Is population growth the elephant in the (development) room? Some commentators assert it is the most pertinent development issue the world faces, but one which policy makers – for fear of impinging ‘human rights’ – are unwilling to address
. What is certain, however, is that unchecked population growth places an ‘ever-increasing’ strain on finite global resources.
So what would be the future implications of such growth? What impact would population expansion have for the environment and, in turn, for food security? Furthermore how would pertinent climatic factors – climate change and changing weather patterns – mitigate or impact ‘future’ scenarios?
This pilot ‘horizon-scanning’ issue considers the future implications of population growth on the environment, and on food security, and details the critical issues confronting development and practice.
Issues covered include:
- Population growth: urbanisation; changing demographics; international migration;
- Environment: water; energy; biodiversity; climate change;
- Food security: growing ‘consumption’, falling production; depletion of arable land; the need for agricultural innovation.
The brief also offers a number of policy recommendations, including:
- Set up a global system for identifying, assessing and managing possible risks and consequences, linked to national and regionally-integrated information systems;
- Donor agencies need to promote family planning, and increase access to family planning commodities - the UN estimates that at least 350 million women worldwide lack access to relatively cheap family planning procedures;
- Levy environmental taxes on international travel, carbon and urban congestion, and introduce selective water pricing;
- Regulate the prices of commodities and larger cereal stocks and provide food ‘safety nets’ – direct and indirect transfers, such as micro-finance, to boost small-scale farming activities;
- Minimise the loss of food energy during harvest, processing and consumption, and through recycling: recycling waste and using fish discards instead of cereal in animal feed could free up food energy for over 3 billion people.
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The Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) promotes and coordinates research on global change in mountain regions around the world
. In its seven years of existence it has actively participated in the design of the international research agenda, as noted by the UN Secretary General in his address on Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions in August 2007. MRI's target is interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, but, on matters relating to biodiversity in mountain regions, MRI defers to its sister organisation, GMBA
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Climate-related shocks are affecting the lives of millions of poor people with increasing frequency and severity
. Without urgent action, recent development progress will stall – then go into reverse.
The forthcoming UNHigh Level Event on Climate Change in New York and the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh in September 2009 provide a historic opportunity for national leaders to make an unequivocal political commitment to fund adaptation: adequately, equitably, and additionally. This will help resuscitate the international climate negotiations and lay the foundations for a fair and safe deal at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Through the Millennium Development Goals, much development progress has been made in recent years, bringing immeasurable improvement to the lives of millions of men, women, and children. This progress is now under threat. The global economic crisis, compounding the devastating impacts of 2008’s food and fuel crises, is expected to result in up to 90 million more people in extreme poverty this year than would otherwise have been the case.
Meanwhile climate change is already increasing the exposure of poor people to livelihood shocks arising from droughts, floods, sickness, storms and slow-onset changes such as shifting seasons, desertification and sea-level rise. For people living on the margins, even a small increase in climate risk can have catastrophic consequences that can span generations. The cumulative impacts could send people into a downward spiral of increasing poverty and vulnerability with profound implications for the achievability of the Millennium Development Goals.
It cannot be a case of continuing development or adapting to global warming – without both, neither will happen.
Key recommendations
Oxfam is calling on the international community to make a new commitment – beyond aid – to fund adaptation to climate change, to insure against future development losses and help to resuscitate the international climate negotiations:
- Funds must be additional to the existing development aid commitment of 0.7 per cent of industrialised country income and be raised and managed in new ways.
- A global adaptation finance mechanism is needed, able to deliver the scale of funding required, and governed according to the principles of equity, subsidiarity, transparency, and accountability.
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Our global responses to the recession and climate change are inextricably linked
. Political and policy decisions in the next ten months on the recession and on climate change will define whether our planet and its people are heading for a brighter future of prosperity and climate security, or a future of inequality, poverty, conflict, and destructive climate change.
This note argues that if governments round the world respond appropriately, the twin economic and climate crises could prove a profound and catalysing turning point in moving to a more just, equal and sustainable world. A just and global green new deal could be both an economic and a political turning point that will mark the start of a new era
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Climate change offers humanity no second chances
. An agreement struck at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 could pave the way for a post-2012 climate regime that staves off catastrophic climate change. Delay or failure will certainly multiply the costs of responding to its negative impacts - costs that are already being borne by poor people. Rich countries must reduce greenhouse gas emissions first and fastest. But whilst deep emissions reductions in rich countries are still critical, climate security will now be won or lost as a result of co-operative efforts in which rich countries finance large-scale emissions reductions in developing countries.
Establishing a Global Mitigation and Finance Mechanism can achieve these reductions while respecting principles of equity and delivering tangible development gains for poor people. This must be a centrepiece of the Copenhagen deal
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Vascular plants remain the key objects in the research of alpine biodiversity and prime indicators for biological monitoring of climate change in alpine habitats
. However, other organisms have clear potential as biosensors as well. For example, insect herbivores appear to be more sensitive to climate change than their host plants (Hodkinson and Bird 1998). In general, animal species diversity may exceed plants by factors of five to ten (Körner 2001). Therefore zoologists are able to provide an important contribution in our understanding of alpine biodiversity patterns in general. Unfortunately only very few of us participate in European or global networking activities as actively as botanists do
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The Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA) is DIVERSITAS’ oldest international cross-cutting research network, founded in Glion, Switzerland in 1999
. GMBA aims to provide the scientific basis for conservation and sustainable use of mountain biodiversity by encouraging and synthesising the often hidden and fragmented results of research on high-elevation organismic diversity, its regional and global patterns and its causes and functions. A central paradigm is that functional insight and theory will only emerge from large-scale comparisons.
GMBA intends to increase the visibility of mountain biodiversity issues:
- through engaging scientists in developing research agendas on important mountain biodiversity themes, forming a research network to tackle focused scientific questions;
- promoting standardised methodologies;
- developing a global mountain biodiversity data portal;
- undertaking analysis, synthesis and integration of activities on particular mountain biodiversity themes;
- investigating policy implications of biodiversity science by engaging in dialogues with national and international policy
- instruments, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity.
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The International Conference on Biodiversity Conservation and Management for Enhanced Ecosystem Services: Responding to the Challenges of Global Change was held from 16-18 November 2008 at the ICIMOD Headquarters in Khumalatar, Lalitpur
. The Conference was accompanied by two preconference workshops on Mountain Transboundary Protected Areas (10-14 November 2008), Linking Geodata with Biodiversity Information (15-16 November 2008), and a postconference workshop on a Research Strategy on Global Change in Mountain Biosphere Reserves (19 November 2008)
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From a global environmental perspective, few other places in the world are as important as the Tibetan Plateau and Himalaya is now concerns about global warming, climate change, receding glaciers, food insecurity and loss of biodiversity all point to the significance of this Asian mountain region in addressing these global challenges
. Tackling these issues require greatly increased scientific research, improved understanding of current land use practices, especially of livestock grazing and greater participation by the local people in the entire conservation and development process. Critical examination of existing environmental conservation and economic development policies and programs is required. New perspectives and fresh thinking on how we view the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayan landscape is also needed if the unique biodiversity of the region is to be conserved
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