How to save the
world in Johannesburg
Jeffrey Sachs*
From: Financial Times;
Aug 14, 2002
The
cynics are already deriding the World Summit
on Sustainable Development that opens in Johannesburg
at the end of the month. Another expensive
gabfest, they complain. But it is important
to note that much of this criticism comes
from rightwing US politicians who have worked
for more than a decade to undermine almost
every United Nations initiative.
The subject of the summit is deadly serious.
No amount of US hostility should deflect the
world from a serious consideration of our
environmental future. The right wing seeks
to cast doubt on the dangers posed by global
climate change, species ex-tinction and ecosystem
degradation, presenting such fears as a rehash
of old, failed forecasts. Haven't we been
warned about the risks of famine, disease
and environmental collapse since Malthus's
predictions at the end of the 18th century,
it asks; and hasn't technology always bailed
us out? The answer is complicated.
Technology has indeed averted disaster, but
only for those who have access to modern technologies
built around first-world science. For a billion
or more people in the poorest regions of the
world, Malthusian catastrophes are a frequent
visitation. Millions every year die prematurely
as a result of poverty. Climatic shocks such
as this year's drought in southern Africa,
delayed monsoons in south Asia and an emerging
El Ni?o cycle put hundreds of millions more
at risk. Moreover, technology does not arrive
as manna from heaven. It is the result of
significant investment by the public sector
as well as the private sector. It was US government-led
efforts of the National Institutes of Health,
the Centers for Disease Control, the US Department
of Agriculture and the universities that contributed
indispensably to US food productivity and
a string of breakthroughs in medical technology
and public health. But these scientific advances
have not reached the impoverished peoples
of much of tropical sub- Saharan Africa and
south Asia, where disease and agronomic conditions
are very different. Nor have scientific advances
yet resolved the global bind over energy use
and climate change.
Free-market fundamentalists are right to
deny erroneous claims that we are about to
run out of energy on a global scale. The world
consumes about 6bn tons of fossil fuels a
year worldwide and still has perhaps 10,000bn
tons ofcoal reserves alone, not to mention
other fuels. The problem, of course, is that
reliance on coal dramatically exacerbates
the risks of man-made climate change. Technological
advances here too could bail us out - for
example, if the carbon emissions from coal
burning could be captured in magnesium ores
and stored beneath the earth's surface, as
Klaus Lackner, professor of geophysics at
Columbia University, has ingeniously suggested.
But this too would require considerable research
and development from government as well as
private sources, and current levels of investment
have been tiny.
The other great hope for heading off ecological
catastrophe is the slowing of rapid population
growth. It took thousands of generations of
our species to arrive at the billionth human
being in about 1830, but just 170 years more
to add an additional 5bn. The sheer momentum
created by the current young age structure
of the world's population will carry the total
up another 2bn or so by mid-century, even
if, from now on, every woman were to give
birth to just two children. Of course, the
world's population is likely to grow faster
than this: hundreds of millions of women in
the developing world are still having more
children than the replacement rate.
Here, again, the US right wing undercuts
policies that could promote sustainable development.
The attacks on family planning programmes
not only threaten 30 years of US efforts but
aim to torpedo the invaluable work of the
UN as well, by crippling the United Nations
Population Fund. Family planning is not, to
be sure, the only policy tool for reducing
rapid population growth in poor countries.
Extensive experience and research has shown
that poor women have fewer children when they
are literate, have opportunities for market
employment, and have access to health care
for their children. High child survival rates
give the parents enough confidence to limit
the number of children. In this sense, increased
education opportunities for girls, expanded
healthcare coverage of the world's poor, as
well as expanded family planning programmes,
should all take centre stage at Johannesburg.
A successful summit in Johannesburg would
therefore undertake a number of commitments.
The governments would commit to take seriously
the challenges of sustainable development
- not only for the one-sixth of humanity living
with high income but also for the five-sixths
of humanity in the developing world - and
especially the one-sixth of humanity whose
lives are a daily struggle for survival. They
would acknowledge the real risks that population
growth and economic activity have generated,
ranging from man-made climate change to the
depletion of fisheries to the degradation
of fragile ecosystems around the world. They
would pledge to pay careful attention to the
emerging scientific knowledge that is increasingly
documenting these risks.
For the poorest of the poor, they would pledge
food aid, expanded access to healthcare and
family planning services, clean water and
sanitation, and a scientific effort to address
the problems of tropical disease and agriculture.
And for the world as a whole, they would
declare a global effort to mobilise science
and technology to ease the harsh trade-off
between energy use and climate change so that
the still bountiful reserves of fossil fuels
could be used safely while other clean technologies
are adopted during the century.
All
of this the world should do with or without
the US at the table, just as it has decided
to move forward with the Kyoto Treaty - limiting
carbon emissions - despite Washington's arrogant
disregard. Sooner or later, the Americans
too will wake up to global realities.
* The writer
is director of the Earth Institute and professor
of sustainable development at Columbia University.