Mankind faces two stark choices: either pursue the current perilous path of unsustainable economic growth with severe economic and environmental costs, or change course and set on a path of progress and
prosperity with tremendous economic and environmental benefits.
The latest Global Environment Outlook report of the UN Environment Programme prepared by about 300 scientists from 82 countries that was released recently reveals the benefits of action in tackling the global environmental crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and land degradation.
The costs of inaction are immense. Without accelerated climate mitigation, global mean temperature rise is likely to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in the early 2030s and exceed 2°C by the 2040s. This would cut 4 percent off annual global GDP by 2050 and 20 percent by the end of the century. Combined with biodiversity loss, this will make us more vulnerable to disasters and weather extremes as well as jeopardise human well-being and achievement of the sustainable development goals.
Air pollution is responsible for approximately 67 lakh premature deaths globally every year, entailing annual health costs of over 6 percent of global GDP in 2019 alone. Plastic pollution and mismanaged waste are responsible for an estimated 4-10 lakh deaths every year. Global land degradation is estimated to cost more than 10 percent of the annual global GDP in terms of the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
The benefits of action surpass the costs of inaction by several folds. The GEO-7 report indicates that investing in global transformation of systems from energy to food can help avoid 90 lakh premature deaths by 2050—many of them from decreased air pollution, lift 20 crore people out of undernourishment and 15 crore people out of extreme poverty by 2050. Further 30 crore more people can get access to safe water sources by 2050. While this entails upfront costs, the long-term returns on investment are tremendous.
Restoration of 35 crore hectares of degraded land by 2030 is projected to yield ecosystem benefits worth over $9 trillion for an investment of $1 trillion and remove 13-26 gigatons of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the atmosphere. The health co-benefits are estimated at $54 trillion, compared with global costs of around $22 trillion. The annual social and environmental costs of plastic pollution are projected to be $300-600 billion a year.
Shifting to a circular economy and relying on the 3R strategy—reuse, recycle and reorient—and diversification, as well as tackling the legacy of plastic pollution could reduce plastic pollution by 80 percent, increase job opportunities, improve livelihoods and encourage innovation. Apart from reducing annual GHG emissions, it could lead to saving $1.3 trillion in direct public and private costs over the period 2021-2040 and avoid $3.3 trillion of environmental and social costs due to plastic pollution.
The overall macroeconomic annual benefits of transformation are estimated to begin around 2050 and increase to approximately $20 trillion per year by 2070, and over $100 trillion per year by 2100, accounting for more than 25 percent of projected global GDP in 2100.
The report calls for transformative changes in the food, energy, environment, materials/waste, economic and finance systems. This involves shifting to sustainable and healthy diets, eating more plant-based foods, exploiting the potential of cultivated meat and other novel foods, reforming food production and marketing systems, conserving and restoring ecosystems and biodiversity, sustainable land management practices, implementing nature-based solutions and emphasising circularity in the production and consumption sectors to tackle waste and reduce pressure on mining of critical minerals. Transformation in the energy sector involves diversifying energy sources, increasing renewable energy use, phasing out of fossil fuels and improving energy access and security.
Apart from looking beyond the traditional GDP to gauge well-being by also tracking changes in human and natural capital, the report calls for economic and financial sector reforms by phasing out and repurposing environmentally harmful subsidies, estimated at about $1.5 trillion per year from energy, food and mining as well as internalising environmental externalities into the prices of goods and services of about $45 trillion per year from the energy and food systems. This would help deliver an estimated $6-7 trillion per year of investment needed to reach global net zero GHG emissions by 2050, as well as bridge the estimated gap of $700 billion per year for implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
It is sad to note that despite being reviewed by hundreds of expert reviewers and governments, the summary for policy makers of the report based on the latest and rigorous scientific evidence was not approved due to opposition from a few member countries who objected to references about phasing out of fossil fuels and shift to a circular economy. Such summaries and scientific reports are not prescriptive or legally enforceable, they only provide signals to governments on what set of policies or actions are likely to lead to beneficial outcomes.
It is lamentable that long-term interests are being sacrificed by some countries for short-term gains. As some authors rightly argued in a recent article in Nature:
“Scientific evidence should not be the subject of political negotiation.” The approval process of such reports needs a relook to forestall such situations in future.
K N Ninan | Former Professor, ISEC, Bengaluru and Lead Author, GEO-7, UNEP Nairobi
(Views are personal)
(ninankn@yahoo.co.in)