Protecting environment is key to ending poverty, says UN report
“Without environmental sustainability we cannot end poverty,” said the UN’s High Level Panel on the post-2015 Development Agenda.
Taxes, incentives, regulations, subsidies, trade and public procurement need to be realigned to favour sustainable consumption and production patterns if the world wants to end poverty, according to the UN High Level Panel charged with setting the new direction for global development.
The report of the 26-member panel, which included UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Queen Rania of Jordan and Unilever CEO Paul Polman, marks a clear break from the practice of treating development and sustainability as separate topics.
“The international community has made great strides in supporting poverty reduction since the Millennium Development Goals were introduced. But reducing poverty long term requires changes to the overarching economic and development system”, said Dominic White, Head of International Development at WWF-UK.
“This report finally recognises the inter-dependency between all our lives and the natural world - that poverty cannot be eradicated and the well-being of all people cannot be secured without addressing the extreme pressures on the environment and the natural systems that support human life on this planet,” White added.
The report calls for hard-hitting measures to be taken in both developed and developing countries to reduce the impacts of consumption, production, trade, waste and pollution.
The Panel’s findings have the potential to influence over USD 25 trillion of international resource flows to developing countries and redrafting government and corporate behaviours.
“We came to the conclusion that the moment is right to merge the poverty and environmental tracks guiding international development” states the Panel report.
The Panel underlined the inadequacies of GDP measure of progress for mandatory social and environmental reporting by all companies with a market capitalisation above USD 100 million.
Proposed goals to secure food, water and energy for a growing world population should include key targets to safeguarding sustainable agriculture, fisheries, freshwater systems and energy supplies, the report said.
The High Level Panel also affirmed that the new development agenda is a global one.
“The world has changed since the MDGs were agreed. The global financial and economic crises have shown that poverty and growing inequality are problems for all countries. Production and consumption choices in one place have environmental and social impacts across the globe.
“We are already seeing the devastating impacts of climate change eroding development gains around the world. Climate adaptation and resilience is an area that we would like to have seen more strongly recognised in the goals and targets” said Dominic White “nevertheless this report represents a welcome shift in understanding how we need to develop sustainably as one community on one planet.”
The challenge now is to build on the positive momentum of the High Level Panel’s report and agree an ambitious set of targets that will spur urgent action,” said White.
About WWF
WWF is one of the world's largest and most respected independent conservation organizations, with over 5 million supporters and a global network active in over 100 countries. WWF's mission is to stop the degradation of the earth's natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving the world's biological diversity, ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable, and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.
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