- New York City in 2022. Half the 40 million people in
the swarming metropolis are unemployed, the air is thick with pollution,
food and water are as precious as jewels. This was the world of the future
as envisaged in the sci-fi thriller, Soylent Green, in 1973. Now, according
to the World Bank, it could come true unless there are dramatic and immediate
changes to the way we live.
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- Unlike the Charlton Heston movie, the Bank does not suggest
that we will be making food from dead bodies in 20 years' time. But its
warning of an increasingly dysfunctional global society, with enormous
pressure on basic resources such as water, energy and health, is remarkably
similar.
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- Looking into its crystal ball, the Bank sees a world
of nine billion people by mid-century generating a global GDP of $140 trillion
a year. This staggering fourfold increase in the size of the world economy
would be enough to guarantee a large-scale reduction in the 1.2 billion
people living on less than a dollar a day, but the Bank argues that the
price will be environmental catastrophe, social breakdown and lower living
standards for everyone if policies remain unchanged.
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- Released to coincide with next week's summit on sustainable
development in Johannesburg, the Washington-based institution's annual
world development report sounds the alarm bell for global leaders as they
prepare for 10 days of talks, providing a nightmarish prophecy of what
could happen if they fail to turn rhetoric into action.
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- It's not all bad news. The Bank says that economic growth
is vital for tackling poverty, with a 3.6% a year increase in per capita
incomes needed in developing countries if the world is to achieve the 2015
targets set by the United Nations of halving the number of people living
on less than a dollar a day, reducing infant mortality by two thirds and
giving every child a primary school education. It adds, however, that coordinating
globally and acting locally will be critical to ensuring that gains in
social indicators - such as incomes, literacy rates, or access to sanitation
- of the past 20 years are not reversed by population growth pressures
and unsustainable economic expansion.
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- "This growth must be achieved in a manner that preserves
our future," said Ian Johnson, vice-president of the Bank's environmentally
and socially sustainable development network. "It would be reckless
of us to reach successfully the millennium development goals in 2015, only
to be confronted by dysfunctional cities, dwindling water supplies, more
inequality and conflict and even less crop land to sustain us than we have
now."
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- The report contains a litany of potential ecological
and social problems, from slum-ridden urban dystopias to an increase to
the 1.3 billion people who already live on fragile lands which cannot sustain
them. Already, it says, the "biosphere's capacity to absorb carbon
dioxide without altering temperatures has been compromised because of heavy
reliance on fossil fuels for energy. Greenhouse gas emissions will continue
to grow unless a concerted effort is made to increase energy efficiency
and reduce dependency on fossil fuels."
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- Nearly two million hectares of land worldwide (23% of
all crop land, pasture, forest and woodland) have been degraded since the
1950s, a fifth of all tropical forests have been cleared since 1960 and
one third of terrestial biodiversity is squeezed into vulnerable habitats
making up just 1.4% of the earth's surface.
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- Unsurprisingly, the Bank concludes that these trends
cannot continue. "The $140 trillion world of five decades' time simply
cannot be sustained on current production and consumption patterns,"
said Nick Stern, the Bank's chief economist. "A major transformation,
beginning in the rich countries, will be needed to ensure that poor people
have an opportunity to participate, and that the environment is not damaged
in a way that undermines their opportunities for the future."
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- So what is the Bank's blueprint for sustainable development?
It says:
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- developing countries should act to clean up their governments,
promoting participation and democracy, inclusiveness and transparency as
they build the institutions needed to manage their resources;
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- rich countries need to be less selfish by increasing
aid, offering more generous debt relief, opening their markets to developing
country exporters and helping transfer technologies needed to prevent diseases,
increase energy efficiency and bolster agricultural productivity;
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- civil society organisations should be encouraged to
serve as a voice for the weak and powerless, and to provide independent
verification of public, private and non-governmental performance;
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- private firms should be more focused on sustainability
in their day to day activities, and have incentives to pursue profit while
advancing environmental and social objectives.
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- "The world must act to help its poorest people manage
their own resources and build their productivity and incomes now, to empower
these communities and help them prepare for the demands of the decades
ahead," said Mr Stern. "Rich countries can take such a step by
opening their markets to developing world exports and by abandoning agricultural
subsidies and other barriers to trade that depress prices and limit market
opportunities for the very goods that poor people produce most competitively."
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- Given that the average income in the richest 20 countries
in the world is 37 times that in the poorest 20, the Bank feels that the
rich west is in a position to make concessions. "It seems to me there
is a certain hypocrisy about rich countries telling poor countries to undertake
radical reform. The kind of changes we have got to make in the west are
much smaller than the kinds of reforms rich countries are asking poor countries
to make all the time," Mr Stern told the Guardian.
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- So far, the willingness of the developed west to abandon
protectonist policies has not been much in evidence and, as the Bank recognises
in four open questions posed in the conclusion to the report, there are
potential pitfalls ahead.
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- The first is the issue of when consumption is overconsumption.
Telling consumers in the west that they have to cut back is not relished
by politicians. But the Bank wonders whether consumption will become the
modern equivalent of the Cold War arms race; will people in the developing
world see the norm as patterns of consumption in the west?
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- The second vexed issue highlighted by the report is the
future of agriculture and of genetically modified organisms. The United
States is eager to export GM foods to developing countries, often in the
teeth of ferocious local opposition. Should this be encouraged? The Bank
is not sure. "Applying the precautionary principle - balancing risks
to food safety and the environment against prospects for development and
poverty alleviation - will be a difficult task, requiring a broader debate
on credible information."
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- Third, the Bank is concerned about the system of intellectual
property rights presided over by the World Trade Organisation. How can
the interests of patent holders be balanced against those of the users
of products? The system in place has strengthened the hand of western corporations
at the expense of poor countries. The potential for unequal outcomes is
"worrisome", the Bank says.
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- Finally, what are the prospects for global migration?
The report says that global inequality, combined with demographic trends,
will create ever more pressure for migration. "Dealing with this pressure
is a challenge worldwide."
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- The report concludes that the planet will face predictable
challenges which will increase in intensity over the coming decades. But
the fact that the Bank has no pat answers to its four questions suggests
that they will take years, if not decades, to resolve. If the Bank is right,
the most precious resource of all over the next half century could be time.
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- Sustainable Development in a Dynamic World. This report
is available on http://www.worldbank.org/wdr
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