"We´re on a trajectory that is absolutely unsustainable and profoundly dangerous," Jeffrey Sachs announcesin address on "Globalization in the Era of Environmental Crisis"
Geneva, 15 September 2009 - The world "really is unsustainable right now," one of the world´s eminent economists said this afternoon, and steps should be taken rapidly by governments responsibly to reduce population growth and to work together to make the technological progress needed to keep climate change and other environmental problems from sooner or later causing immense human catastrophe.
Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs, giving the 14th in a series of Prebisch lectures at UNCTAD, said current international attempts to respond to climate change are off track. Likening the approach to a high-stakes poker game in which negotiators hold their cards close to their chests, he said "We don´t need global negotiations right now as much as we need global brainstorming, global problem solving.. . the climate-change problem is not a trade negotiation. It is simply the most complex engineering, economic, and social problem humanity has ever faced."
Prof. Sachs called for a massive, coordinated public-private effort with a great deal of input by experts to determine what can be done to allow substantial economic growth to raise living standards for hundreds of millions of poor while coping with environmental problems that already are unsustainable --- highlighted by, but not limited to, climate change.
"We don´t necessarily need diplomats around the table. We need engineers around the table, scientists around the table. We need to put the cards down and have a new kind of process."
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) "should have a large technical body that is filling out options, costing, asking what Tunisia could do, what´s plausible for the next five years for such and such a country," Prof. Sachs said. Referring to the current state of climate negotiations, he charged that "The issue of whether a national goal is binding or not is one of the least interesting questions. What´s binding if you can´t achieve it? It´s silly. We should be talking about what can we do, not what´s binding -- what can we do now, in five years, 10 years. Once we analyze those options we can talk about what to do."
He added: "And no doubt the rich world can and should pay for much of the response."
Professor Sachs said current technology is barely enabling humanity to feed itself, and human activity has long since caused environmental damage that is unsustainable -- for example through human-caused changes to the hydrological and carbon cycles. Along with technology, steps to stabilize population growth will be needed to make a reasonable -- let alone a hopeful -- human future possible. "We should redouble our efforts to stabilize the human population. Every country should take responsibility to bring their population increases under control through voluntary reductions of fertility. . . Africa cannot go on in the countryside with five, six, seven children per woman, which is now the rate in many rural areas. The place is already under profound ecological stress and extreme poverty. We cannot have the kind of economic development we long for if that goes on."
Responses to climate change that will achieve the immense progress required, especially in terms of energy use, will not be achieved by free markets alone, Prof. Sachs warned. "None of this, by its nature, can be done by markets alone. We need research, development, demonstration, public knowledge, testing, monitoring." No private company "will profitably develop these technologies on their own," he said. "Large scale technical systems require clever policies and public-private partnerships. Over time, there are so many wonderful things we can do. We can achieve economic growth at much lower impact if we think clearly, systematically, in systems terms, with a new kind of public-private approach based on shared global goals."
This prescription came after Prof. Sachs painted an extensive portrait of the current and likely future consequences of human-caused climate change. "We´re in the age of this planet where human activity dominates the earth´s processes," he said. "Humanity has become so large in absolute number and in economic activity that we have overtaken earth processes in vital ways to the point of changing the climate, the hydrologic cycle.
"We´re on a trajectory that is absolutely unsustainable and profoundly dangerous. It´s hard for people to understand, the effects are so large. Sooner or later, scientists will tell us, this area is uninhabitable. Then we´ll say, oh, we´ll cut down. . . But when you don´t like your climate any more, it´s too late. The carbon dioxide is going to remain in the air for centuries. If you don´t like these storms, these droughts, the variability, the short rains over the Sahel... Well, there´s a lot more to come, even if we were to stop now at zero emissions… We´re only experiencing half of what we´ve already caused."
Although the climate system is so complex that precise consequences are still unknown -- "we don´t even know a lot of the damage we´re now causing" -- the likely future is "more droughts, more floods, loss of irrigation water when we need it, more intense episodes of precipitation meaning more runoff rather than percolation into soil, loss of crop yields because of temperature stress on crops, more intense storms in such places as the China Sea," Professor Sachs said. "And then there are the rising sea levels."
Referring to human aspirations -- and the aim of much of the UN system -- to speed economic growth in developing countries, Prof. Sachs said, "We can no longer put economy and ecology in separate categories. They never were in separate categories." Sustained and more equitable economic progress around the world is vital, he said, and a way must be found to achieve it while adjusting to and responding effectively to climate change. The world currently not only is unsustainable in terms of the environment "but unsustainable socially," he said. "The gaps between the rich and poor are widening. Many of the poorest people on this planet are dying of their poverty, or if not dying, suffering and falling farther and farther behind."
The Prebisch Lecture series began in 1982 in honour of Raul Prebisch (1901-1986), who served from 1965 to 1969 as UNCTAD´s first Secretary-General. The first lecture was given by Dr. Prebisch himself. The lectures focus on topical issues in the field of economic and social development. Previous speakers have included Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India (1983), and Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz (1998), who in 2001 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Jeffrey Sachs is Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, and Director of the university´s Earth Institute. He also is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals. He served as Director of the United Nations Millennium Project from 2002-2006, and is President and co-founder of the Millennium Promise Alliance, a non-profit organization aimed at ending extreme global poverty.
