[iwar] [fc:Ecological.decline.'far.worse'.than.official.estimates]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-08-26 20:56:51
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Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 20:56:51 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Ecological.decline.'far.worse'.than.official.estimates]
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Ecological decline 'far worse' than official estimates
Leaked paper - OECD's grim warning on climate change

John Vidal in Johannesburg
The Guardian
August 26, 2002

The real level of world inequality and environmental degradation may 
be far worse than official estimates, according to a leaked document 
prepared for the world's richest countries and seen by the Guardian.

It includes new estimates that the world lost almost 10% of its 
forests in the past 10 years; that carbon dioxide emissions leading 
to global warming are expected to rise by 33% in rich countries and 
100% in the rest of the world in the next 18 years; and that more 
than 30% more fresh water will be needed by 2020.

The background paper for last month's Organisation for Economic 
Co-operation and Development pre-Johannesburg meeting on sustainable 
development draws on many previously unseen UN, World Bank, World 
Trade Organisation, and academic papers.

Although the governments of the world's 22 richest nations who make 
up the OECD have seen the document, many of the calculations are new 
and considerably different from their own.

It calculates that less than 0.1% of of the average income of the 22 
members of the OECD actually finds its way to the world's low income 
countries and just 0.05% went to the least developed countries. 
Recent US and EU initiatives, it says, "will not meet targets at any 
time soon".

Donor assistance for environmental protection and basic social 
services has declined to less than 15% of all aid compared with 35% 
at the time of the last earth summit in 1992.

The OECD paper calculates that rich countries now subsidise their 
industries by up to $1,000m a year, including more than $300bn in 
agriculture. This, it says, is having increasing effects on the 
development of poor countries. and on environmental degradation. If 
unrestricted market access were given to just the four richest 
economies in the world, it would increase per capita incomes of more 
than 2 billion people in the world's most populated countries by 4% a 
year.

Meanwhile, the paper finds that foreign assistance from western 
European countries, including private funding and direct investment 
encouraged through national policies, was more globally oriented in 
1900 than it is today.

It says that if the EU, Canada, Japan and the US allowed migrants to 
make up 4% of their workforce, the returns to poor countries could be 
$160bn to 200bn a year - far more than any debt relief could provide.

The paper's calculations of environmental degradation suggest the 
many conventions, treaties and intergovernmental agreements signed in 
the past decade have had little or no effect on stopping the rush for 
timber and mineral resources in the developing world and that 
extinction of species is now reaching 11% of birds, 18%-24% of 
mammals, 5% of fish, and 8% of plants.

Over the next 18 years, says the report, global energy use is 
expected to expand by more than 50%, and by more than 100% in China, 
east Asia and the former Soviet Union. Transport is by then expected 
to account for more than half of global oil demand.

"The non-renewable fossil fuel resource base is expected to be 
sufficient to meet demand to 2020 though problems beyond that point 
are foreseen for natural gas and possibly oil," the report says.

It adds that OECD countries subsidise the emission of global warming 
gases by $57bn - almost exactly what the report estimates it would 
cost to meet international targets. The paper suggests that investing 
the money in reducing climate change emissions would have next to no 
effect on the global economy. "Through the provision of subsidies on 
fossil fuels governments are effectively subsidising pollution and 
global warming as more than 60% of all subsidies flow to oil, coal 
and gas."

Environment and development groups yesterday reacted to the report with horror.

"The rich world knows this is happening," said the chair of Friends 
of the Earth International, Ricardo Navarrez. "We in poor countries 
have always known the climate is changing, aid does not come, and the 
poor are getting poorer. The richest countries are here in 
Johannesburg to keep the system going."

Depleted resources: Key facts from OECD report

Fisheries

· Nearly 50% of all fish stocks are fully exploited, 20% are overexploited

· Only 2% of global fisheries is recovering from overfishing

Forests

· On current trends by 2025 15% of all forest species will be extinct

Development

· 60% of the world's population lives in ecologically vulnerable areas

· 3 million people die each year due to air pollution and 5 million 
due to unsafe water

Foreign investment

· 80% of global finance flows went to rich countries in 2000, with 
the entire African continent receiving less than 1% of direct foreign 
investment

· In 1914 40% of western European investment went to Africa, Latin 
America and Asia. In 1990 less than 20% went to those regions

Water

· Global water withdrawals are expected to rise 31% by 2020

· Most groundwater resources are being replenished at a rate of 
between 0.1% and 0.5%

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