Brundtland Report/From One Earth to One World

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1. In the middle of the 20th century, we saw our planet from space for the first time. Historians may eventually find that this vision had a greater impact on thought than did the Copernican revolution of the 16th century, which upset the human self-image by revealing that the Earth is not the centre ot the universe. From space, we see a small and fragile ball dominated not by human activity and edifice but by a pattern of clouds, oceans, greenery, and soils. Humanity's inability to fit its activities into that pattern in changing planetary systems, fundamentally. Many such changes are accompanied by life-threatening hazards. This new reality, from which there is no escape, must be recognized — and managed.

2. Fortunately, this new reality coincides with more positive developments new to this century. We can move information and goods faster around the globe than ever before; we ran produce more food and more goods with less investment of resources; our technology and science gives us at least the potential to look deeper into and better understand natural systems. From space, we can see and study the Earth as an organism whose health depends on the health of all its parts. We have the power to reconcile human affairs with natural laws and to thrive in the process. In this our cultural and spiritual heritages can reinforce our economic interests and survival imperatives.

3. This Commission believes that people can build a future that is more prosperous, more just, and more secure. Our report, Our Common Future, is not a prediction or ever increasing environmental decay, poverty, and hardship in an ever more polluted world among ever decreasing resources. We see instead the possibility for a new era of economic growth, one that must be based on policies that sustain and expand the environmental resource base. And we believe such growth to be absolutely essential to relieve the great poverty that is deepening in much of the developing world.

4. But the Commission's hope for the future is conditional on decisive political action now to begin managing environmental resources to ensure both sustainable human progress and human survival. We are not forecasting a future; we are serving a notice — an urgent notice based on the latest and best scientific evidence — that the time has cone to take the decisions needed to secure the resources to sustain this and coming generations. We do not offer a detailed blueprint for action, but instead a pathway by which the peoples of the world may enlarge their sphere of cooperation.

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5. Those looking for success and signs of hope can find many: infant mortality is falling; human life expectancy is increasing; the proportion of the world's adults who can read and write is climbing; the proportion of children starting school is rising; and global food production increases faster than the population grows.

6. But the same processes that have produced these gains have given rise to trends that the planet and its people cannot long bear. These have traditionally been divided into failures of “development” and failures in the management of our human environment. On the development side, in terms of absolute numbers there are more hungry people in the world than ever before, and their numbers are increasing. So are the numbers who cannot read or write, the numbers without safe water or safe and sound homes, and the numbers short of woodfuel with which to cook and warm themselves. The gap between rich and poor nations is widening — not shrinking — and there is little prospect, given present trends and institutional arrangements, that this process will be reversed.

7. There are also environmental trends that threaten to radically alter the planet, that threaten the lives of many species upon it. including the human species. Each year another 6 million hectares of productive dryland turns into worthless desert. Over three decades, this would amount to an area roughly as large as Saudi Arabia. More than 11 million hectares of forests are destroyed yearly, and this, over three decades, would equal an area about the size of India. Much of this forest is converted to low-grade farmland unable to support the farmers who settle it. In Europe, acid precipitation kills forests and lakes and damages the artistic and architectural heritage of nations; it may have acidified vast tracts of soil beyond reasonable hope of repair. The burning of fossil fuels puts into the atmosphere carbon dioxide, which is causing gradual global warming. This 'greenhouse effect' may by early next century have increased average global temperatures enough to shift agricultural production areas, raise sea levels to flood coastal cities, and disrupt national economies. Other industrial gases threaten to deplete the planet's protective ozone shield to such an extent that the number of human and animal cancers would rise sharply and the oceans' food chain would be disrupted, industry and agriculture put toxic substances into the human food chain and into underground water tables beyond reach of cleansing.

8. There has been a growing realization in national governments and multilateral institutions that it is impossible to separate economic development issues from environment issues; many forms of development erode the environmental resources upon which they must be based, and environmental degradation can undermine economic development. Poverty is a major cause and effect of global environmental problems. It is therefore futile to attempt to deal with environmental problems without a broader [ page ]perspective that encompasses the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality.

9. These concerns were behind the establishment in 1983 of the World Commission on Environment and Development by the UN General Assembly. The Commission is an independent body, linked to but outside the control of governments and the UN system. The Commission's mandate gave it three objectives: to re-examine the critical environment and development issues and to formulate realistic proposals for dealing with them; to propose new forms of international cooperation on these issues that will influence policies and events in the direction of needed changes; and to raise the levels of understanding and commitment to action of individuals, voluntary organizations, businesses, institutes, and governments.

10. Through our deliberations and the testimony of people at the public hearings we held on five continents, all the commissioners came to focus on one central theme: many present development trends leave increasing numbers of people poor and vulnerable, while at the same time degrading the environment. How can such development serve next century's world of twice as many people relying on the same environment? This realization broadened our view of development. We came to see it not in its restricted context of economic growth in developing countries. We came to see that a new development path was required, one that sustained human progress not just in a few pieces for a few years, but for the entire planet into the distant future. Thus 'sustainable development' becomes a goal not just for the 'developing' nations, but for industrial ones as well.

11. Until recently, the planet was a large world in which human activities and their effects were neatly compartmentalized within nations, within sectors (energy, agriculture, trade), and within broad areas of concern (environment, economics, social). These compartments have begun to dissolve. This applies in particular to the various global 'crises' that have seized public concern, particularly over the past decade. These are not separate crises: an environmental crisis, a development crisis, an energy crisis. They are all one.

12. The planet is passing through a period of dramatic growth and fundamental change. Our human world of 5 billion must make room in a finite environment for another human world. The population could stabilize at between 8 and 14 billion sometime next century, according to UN projections. More than 90 per cent of the increase will occur in the poorest countries, and 90 per cent of that growth in already bursting cities.

13. Economic activity has multiplied to create a $13 trillion world economy, and this could grow five to tenfold in the coming half century. Industrial production has grown more than fiftyfold over the past century, four-fifths of this growth since 1950. Such figures reflect and presage profound impacts upon the

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biosphere, as the world invests in houses, transport, farms, and industries. Much of the economic growth pulls raw material from forests, soils, seas, and waterways.

14. A mainspring of economic growth is new technology, and while this technology offers the potential for slowing the dangerously rapid consumption of finite resources, it also entails high risks, including new forms of pollution and the introduction to the planet of new variations of life forms that could change evolutionary pathways. Meanwhile, the industries most heavily reliant on environmental resources and most heavily polluting are growing most rapidly in the developing world, where there is both more urgency for growth and less capacity to minimize damaging side effects.

15. These related changes have locked the global economy and global ecology together in new ways. We have in the past been concerned about the impacts of economic growth upon the environment. We are now forced to concern ourselves with the impacts of ecological stress - degradation of soils, water regimes, atmosphere, and forests upon our economic prospects. We have in the more recent past been forced to face up to a sharp increase in economic interdependence among nations. We are now forced to accustom ourselves to an accelerating ecological interdependence among nations. Ecology and economy are becoming ever more interwoven locally, regionally, nationally, and globally into a seamless net of causes and effects. [ page ] 16. Impoverishing the local resource base cw impoverish wider areas: deforestation by highland farmers causes flooding on lowland farms; factory pollution robs local fishermen of their catch. Such grim local cycles now operate nationally and regionally. Dryland degradation sends environmental refugees in their millions across national borders. Deforestation in Latin America and Asia is causing more floods. and more destructive floods. in downhill, downstream nations. Acid precipitation and nuclear fallout have spread across the borders of Europe. Similar phenomena are emerging on a global scale. such as global warming and loss of ozone. Internationally traded hazardovs chemicals entering foods are themselves internationally traded. ln the next century, the environmental pressure causing population movements may be increase sharply, while barriers to that movement may be even firmer than they are now.

17. Over the past few Decades, life-threatening environmental concerns have surfaced in the developing world. Countrysides are coming under pressure from increasing numbers of farmers and the landless. Cities are filling with people, car, and factories. Yet at the same time these developing countries must operate in a world in which the resources gap between most developing and industrial nations is widening. in which the industrial world dorinates in the rule·making of some key international bodies. and in which the industrial world has already used much of the planet's ecological capital. This inequality is the planet's main 'environmental' problem; it is also its main 'development' problem

18. International economic relationships pose a particular problem for environmental management in many developing countries. Agriculture, forestry, (?)rnery production, and mining generate at least half the gross national product of many developing countries and account for even larger shares of livelihoods and employment. Exports of natural resources remain a large factor in their economies, especially for the least developed. Host of these countries face enormous economic pressures, both international and domestic. to overexploit their environmental resource base.

19. The recent crisis in Africa best and most tragically illustrates that ways in which economics and ecology can interact destructively and trip into disaster. Triggered by drought, its real causes lie deeper. They are to be found in part in national policies that gave too little attention, too late, to the needs of smallholder agriculture and to the threats posed by rapidly rising populations. Their roots extend also to a global economic system that takes more out of a poor continent than it puts in. Debts that they cannot pay force African nations relying on commodity sales to overuse their fragile soils, thus turning good land to desert. Trade barriers in the wealthy nations — and in many developing nations — make it hard for African nations to sell their goods for reasonable returns, putting yet more pressure on ecological systems. Aid from donor nations has not only been inadequate in scale . but too often has reflected thepriorities of the nations giving the aid, rather than the needs of the recipients.

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20. The production base of other developing world areas suffers similarly from both local failures and from the workings of international economic systems. As a consequence of the 'debt crisis' of Latin America, that continents natural resources are now being used not for development but to meet financial obligations to creditors abroad. This approach to the debt problem is short—sighted from several standpoints: economic. political. and environmental. It requires relatively poor countries simultaneously to accept growing poverty while exporting growing amounts of scarce resources.

21. A majority of developing countries now have lower per capita incomes than when the decade began. Rising poverty and unemployment have increased pressure on environmental resources as more people have been forced to rely more directly upon them. Many governments have cut back efforts to protect the environment and to bring ecological considerations into development planning.

22. The deepening and widening environmental crisis presents a threat to national security and even survival - that may be greater than well-armed. ill-disposed neighbours and unfriendly alliances. Already in parts of Latin America, Asia. the Middle East. and Africa, environmental decline is becoming a source of political unrest and international tension. The recent destruction of much of Africa's dryland agricultural production was more severe than if an invading army had pursued a scorched-earth policy. Yet most of the affected governments still spend far more to protect their people from invading armies than from the invading desert.

[ page ]23. Globally military expenditures total about $1 trillion a year and continue to grow. In many countries. military spending consumes such a high proportion of GNP that it itself does great damage to these societies' development efforts. Governments tend to base their approaches to 'security' on traditional definitions. This is most obvious in the attempts to achieve security through the development of potentially planet-destroying nuclear weapons systems. Studies suggest that the cold and dark nuclear winter following even a limited nuclear war could destroy plant and animal ecosystems and leave any human survivors occupying a devastated planet very different from the one they inherited.

24. The arms race — in all parts of the world — pre—empts resources that might be used more productively to diminish the security threats created by environmental conflict and the resentments that are fuelled by widespread poverty.

25. Many present efforts to guard and maintain human progress. to meet human needs. and to realize human ambitions are simply unsustainable - in both the rich and poor nations. They draw too heavily, too quickly. on already overdrawn environmental resource accounts to be affordable far into the future without bankrupting those accounts. They may show profits on the balance sheets of our generation, but our children will inherit the losses. we borrow environmental capital from future generations with no intention or prospect of repaying. They may damn us for our spendthrift ways, but they can never collect on our debt to then. He act as we do because we can get away with it: future generations do not vote: they have no political or financial power; they cannot challenge our decisions.

26. But the results of the present profligacy are rapidly closing the options for future generations. Most of today's decision makers will be dead before tre planet feels the heavier effects of acid precipitation. global warming. ozone depletion. or widespread desertification and species loss. Most of the young voters of today will still be alive. In the Commission‘s hearings it was the young, those who have the most to lose. who were the harshest critics of the planet‘s present management.

3. Sustainable Development

27. Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The concept of sustainable development does imply limits - not absolute limits but limitations imposed by the present state of technology and social organization on environmental resources and by the ability of the biosphere to absorb the effects of human activities. But technology and social organization can be both managed and improved to make way for a new era of economic growth. The Commission believes that widespread poverty is no longer inevitable. Poverty is not only an evil in itself, but sustainable development requires meeting the basic needs of all and extending to all the opportunity to [ page ]fulfil their aspirations for a better life. A world in which poverty is endemic will always be prone to ecological and other catastrophes.

28. Meeting essential needs requires not only a new era of economic growth for nations in which the majority are poor. but an assurance that those poor get their fair share of the resources required to sustain that growth. Such equity would be aided by political systems that secure effective citizen participation in decision making and by greater democracy in international decision making.

29. Sustainable global development requires that those who are more affluent adopt life-styles within the planet’s ecological means - in their use of energy, for example. Further. rapidly growing populations can increase the pressure on resources and slow any rise in living standards: thus sustainable development can only be pursued if population size and growth are in harmony with the changing productive potential of the ecosystem.

30. Yet in the end, sustainable development is not a fixed state of harmony. but rather a process of change in which the exploitation of resources. the direction of investments. the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are made consistent with future as well as present needs. He do not pretend that the process is easy or straightforward. Painful choices have to be made. Thus. in the final analysis. sustainable development must rest on political will.

5. The Institutional Gaps

31. The objective of sustainable development and the integrated nature of the global environment/development challenges pose problems for institutions, national and international. that were established on the basis of narrow preoccupations and compartmentalized concerns. Governments' general response to the speed and scale of global changes has been a reluctance to recognize sufficiently the need to change themselves. The challenges are both interdependent and integrated, requiring comprehensive approaches and popular participation.

32. Yet most of the institutions facing those challenges tend to be independent. fragmented, working to relatively narrow mandates with closed decision processes. Those responsible for managing natural resources and protecting the environment are institutionaily separated from those responsible for managing the economy. The real world of interlocked economic and ecological systems will not change; the policies and institutions concerned must.

33. There is a growing need for effective international cooperation to manage ecological and economic interdependence. Yet at the same time, confidence in international organizations is diminishing and support for them dwindling.

[ page ]34. The other great institutional flaw in coping with environment/development challenges is governments' failure to make the bodies whose policy actions degrade the environment responsible for ensuring that their policies nrevcnt that degradation. Environmental concern arose from damage caused by the rapid economic growth following the Second world war. Governments, pressured by their citizens, saw a need to clean up the mess. and they established environmental ministries and agencies to do this. Many had great success - within the limits of their mandates — in improving air and water quality and enhancing other resources. But much of their work has of necessity been after-the-fact repair of damage: reforestation, reclaiming desert lands. rebuilding urban environments. restoring natural habitats. and rehabilitating wild lands.

35. The existence of such agencies gave many governments and their citizens the false impression that these bodies were by themselves able to protect and enhance the environmental resource base. Yet many industrialized and most developing countries carry huge economic burdens from inherited problems such as air and water pollution, depletion of groundwater, and the proliferation of toxic chemicals and hazardous wastes. These have been joined by more recent problems - erosion, desertification, acidification, new chemicals. and new forms of waste — that are directly related to agricultural. industrial. energy, forestry, and transportation policies and practices.

36. The mandates of the central economic and sectoral ministries are also often too narrow. too concerned with quantities of production or growth. The mandates of ministries of industry include production targets. while the accompanying pollution is left to ministries of environment. Electricity boards produce power. while the acid pollution they also produce is left to other bodies to clean up. The present challenge is to give the central economic and sectoral ministries the responsibility for the quality of those parts of the human environment affected by their decisions. and to give the environmental agencies more power to cope with the effects of unsustainable development.

37. The same need for change holds for international agencies concerned with development lending. trade regulation. agricultural development, and so on. These have been slow to take the environmental effects of their work into account. although some are trying to do so.

38. The ability to anticipate and prevent environmental damage requires that the ecological dimensions of policy be considered at the same time as the economic. trade. energy, agricultural, and other dimensions. They should be considered on the same agendas and in the same national and international institutions.

39. This reorientation is one of the chief institutional challenges of the 1990s and beyond. Meeting it will require major institutional development and reform. Many countries that are too poor or small or that have limited managerial capacity will find it difficult to do this unaided. They will need

[ page ]financial and technical assistance and training. But the changes required involve all countries, large and small, rich and poor.

II THE POLICY DIRECTIONS

40.The Commission has focussed its attention in the areas of population, food security, the loos of species and genetic resources, energy, industry, and human settlements - realising that all of these are connected and cannot be treated in isolation one from another. This section contains only a few of the commission's many recommendation.

1. Population and human resources

41. In many parts of the world, the population is growing at rates that cannot be sustained by available environmental resources. at rates that are outstripping any reasonable expectations of improvements in housing. health care, food security or energy supplies

42. The issue is not just numbers of people, but how those numbers relate to available resources. Thus the population problem must be dealt with in part by efforts to eliminate mass poverty, in order to assure more equitable access to resources, and by education to improve human potential to manage those resources.

43. Urgent steps are needed to limit extreme rates of population growth. Choice made now will influence the level at which the population stabilizes next century within a range of 6 billion people. But this is not just a demographic issue:
providing people with facilities and education that allow them to choose the size of their families is a way of assuring - especially for women - the basic human right of self-determination.

44. Governments that need to do so should develop long-term multi-faceted population policies and a campaign to pursue broad demographic goals; to strengthen social, cultural and economic motivations for family planning, and to provide to all who want then the education,contraceptives, and services required.

45. Human resource development is a crucial requirement not only to build up technical knowledge and capabilities, but also to create new values, help individuals and nations cope with rapidly changing social environmental, and development realities. Knowledge shared globally would assure greater mutual understanding and create greater willingness to share global resources equally.

46. Tribal and indigenous peoples will need special attention as the forces of economic development disrupt their traditional lifestyles - life-styles that can offer modern societies many lessons in the management of resources in complex forest, mountain and dryland ecosystems. Some are threatened with virtual extinction by insensitive development over which they

[ page ]have no control. Their traditional rights should be recognized and they should be given a decisive voice in formulating policies about resource development in their areas. (See Chapter 4 for a wider discussion of these issues and recommendations.)

2. Food Security: Sustaining the Potential

47. Growth in world cereal production has steadily outstripped world population growth. Yet each year there are more people in the world who do not get enough food. Global agriculture has the potential to grow enough food for all, but food is often not available where it is needed.

48. Production in industrialized countries has usually been highly subsidized and protected from international competition. These subsidies have encouraged the overuse of soil and chemicals, the pollution of both water resources and foods with these chemicals, and the degradation of the countryside. Much of this effort has produced surpluses and their associated financial burdens. And some of this surplus has been sent at concessional rates to the developing world. where it has undermined the farming policies of recipient nations. There is. however. growing awareness in some countries of the environmental and economic consequences of such paths. and the emphasis of agricultural policies is to encourage conservation.

49. Many developing countries. on the other hand, have suffered the opposite problem: farmers are not sufficiently supported. In some. improved technology allied to price incentives and government services has produced a major breakthrough in food production. But elsewhere. the food-growing small farmers have been neglected. Coping with often inadequate technology and few economic incentives, many are pushed onto marginal land: too dry. too steep. lacking in nutrients. Forests are cleared and productive drylands rendered barren.

50. Most developing nations need more effective incentive systems to encourage production, especially of food crops. ln short, the 'terms of trade' need to be turned in favour of the small farmer. Most industrialized nations, on the other hand. must alter present systems in order to cut surpluses, to reduce unfair competition with nations that may have real comparative advantages. and to promote ecologically sound farming practices,

51. Food security requires attention to questions of distribution, since hunger often arises from lack of purchasing power rather than lack of available food. It can be furthered by land reforms. and by policies to protect vulnerable subsistence farmers, pastoralists, and the landless — groups who by the year 2000 will include 220 million households. Their greater prosperity will depend on integrated rural development that increases work opportunities both inside and outside agriculture. (See Chapter 5 for a wider discussion of these issues and recommendations.)

[ page ] 3. Species and Ecosystems: gesources for Development

52. The planet's species are under stress. There is a growing scientific consensus that species are disappearing at rates never before witnessed on the planet. although there is also controversy over those rates and the risks they entail. Yet there is still time to halt this process.

53. The diversity of species is necessary for the normal functioning of ecosystems and the biosphere as a whole. The genetic material in wild species contributes billions of dollars yearly to the world economy in the form of improved crop species, new drugs and medicines, and raw materials for industry. But utility aside. there are also moral. ethical, cultural, aesthetic. and purely scientific reasons for conserving wild beings.

54. A first priority is to establish the problem of disappearing species and threatened ecosystems on political agendas as a major economic and resource issue.

55. Governments can stem the destruction of tropical forests and other reservoirs of biological diversity while developing them economically. Reforming forest revenue systems and concession terms could raise billions of d011d[8 of additional revenues. promote more efficient, long-term forest resource use. and curtail deforestation.

56. The network of protected areas that the world will need in the future must include much larger areas brought under some degree of protection. Therefore. the cost of conservation will rise — directly and in terms of opportunities for development foregone. But over the long term the opportunities for development will be enhanced. International development agencies should therefore give comprehensive and systematic attention to the problems and opportunities of species conservation.

57. Governments should investigate the prospect of agreeing to a 'Species Convention', similar in spirit and scope to other international conventions reflecting principles of 'universal resources'. They should also consider international financial arrangements to support the implementation of such a convention. (See Chapter 6 for a wider discussion of these issues and recommendations.)

4. Energy: Choices for Environment and Development

58. A safe and sustainable energy pathway is crucial to sustainable development; we have not yet found it. Rates of increase in energy use have been declining. However, the industrialization, agricultural development. and rapidly growing populations of developing nations will need much more energy. Today. the average person in an industrial market economy uses more than 80 times as much energy as someone in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus any realistic global energy scenario must provide for substantially increased primary energy use by developing countries.

[ page ]59. To bring developing countries' energy use up to industrialized country levels by the year 2026 would require increasing present global energy use by a factor of five. The planetary ecosystem could not stand this. especially if the increases were based on non-renewable fossil fuels. Threats of global warming and acidification of the environment most probably rule out even a doubling of energy use bared on present mixes of primary sources.

60. Any new era of economic growth must therefore be less energy intensive than growth in the past. Energy efficiency policies must be the cutting edge of national energy strategies for sustainable development, and there is much scope for improvement in this direction. Modern appliances can be redesigned to deliver the same amounts of energy-services with only two—thirds or even one-half of the primary energy inputs needed to run traditional equipment. And energy efficiency solutions are often cost-effective.

61. After almost four decades of immense technological effort, nuclear energy has become widely used. During this period. however, the nature of its costs. risks. and benefits have become more evident and the subject of sharp controversy. Different countries world-wide take up different positions on the use of nuclear energy. The discussion in the Commission also reflected these different views and positions. Yet all agreed that the generation of nuclear power is only justifiable if there are solid solutions to the unsolved problems to which it gives rise. The highest priority should be accorded to research and development on environmentally sound and ecologically viable alternatives, as well as on means of increasing the safety of nuclear energy.

62. Energy efficiency can only buy time for the world to develop 'low—energy paths' based on renewable sources. which should form the foundation of the global energy structure during the 21st Century. Most of these sources are currently problematic. but given innovative development, they could supply the same amount of primary energy the planet now consumes. However, achieving these use levels will require a programme of coordinated research. development. and demonstration projects commanding funding necessary to ensure the rapid development of renewable energy. Developing countries will require assistance to change their energy use patterns in this direction.

63. Millions of people in the developing world are short of fuelwood, the main domestic energy of half of humanity, and their numbers are growing. The wood-poor nations must organize their agricultural sectors to produce large amounts of wood and other plant fuels.

64. The substantial changes required in the present global energy mix will not be achieved by market pressures alone, given the dominant role of governments as producers of energy and their importance as consumers. If the recent momentum behind annual gains in energy efficiency is to be maintained and extended, governments need to make it an explicit goal of their policies for energy pricing to consumers. Prices needed to encourage the adoption of energy—saving measures may be achieved through several means. Although the Commission expresses no preference,'conservation pricing' requires that governments take a long-term [ page ]Page:Brundtland Report.djvu/31 [ page ]Page:Brundtland Report.djvu/32 [ page ]Page:Brundtland Report.djvu/33 [ page ]Page:Brundtland Report.djvu/34 [ page ]Page:Brundtland Report.djvu/35 [ page ]Page:Brundtland Report.djvu/36 [ page ]Page:Brundtland Report.djvu/37 [ page ]Page:Brundtland Report.djvu/38