07/05/2019 – by Hans Dembowski
As the latest UN report on biodiversity shows, the international community must change consumption and production patterns. Otherwise, we are risking our food security, health
The UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) published its global report on Monday: About 1 million of 8 million plant and animal species are said to be at risk of extinction, and that includes 10 % of all insect species and 40 % of amphibians. The Guardian has a comprehensive article on the matter. Loss of pollinators is one of the big threats.
Robert Watson, the IPBES chair warns: “We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health
The IPBES is a multilateral institution and involves hundreds of scientists and diplomats. Its findings must be considered valid. No other agency can speak with more authority. Its set-up resembles the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which issued a similarly alarming report last year. Earlier this year, the FAO published a dire warning that the loss of biodiversity is undermining food security. In D+C, we have only recently published a focus section dealing with our planet’s escalating crisis. No doubt, fast and determined action is needed.
It is irritating however that we have been saying this ever since the earth summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. That UN summit adopted important conventions that dealt with issues such as climate, biodiversity or desertification. The depressing truth is that these conventions did not suffice to stop and even less reverse the most dangerous trends. The situation today is worse than it was back then.
On the upside, public discourse has changed. Teenagers have begun to rally on Fridays demanding climate protection in order to safeguard their future. Last month, a movement that called itself Extinction Rebellion resorted to civil disobedience, blocking traffic in central London for days on end. Worries about the global environment are suddenly triggering mass protests, and policymakers have to respond.
As far as I can tell, there are basically three ways in which they are doing so:
• Progressive policymakers, who are currently in the opposition, have begun to make grand plans for radical transformation. The “Green New Deal” that some Democrats in the USA are proposing is the most prominent example.
• Governments that acknowledge
• Irresponsible politicians keep denying the science and denigrate the protests. They warn of eco-dictatorship, insist that air travel is fun that they will not give up their cars. US President Donald Trump and his Republican Party are providing the wrong kind of global leadership in this context, not only in terms of language. It is reckless to open up protected nature reserves to economic exploitation in our era of environmental degradation.
It is noteworthy that some of the people who preached austerity after the global financial crisis now insist that they will keep on enjoying their steaks and their fast cars. Back then, they said things like “we have lived beyond our means” and “we must tighten our belts”. To a large extent, they were driven by inflation fears. They worried that government debt would erode purchasing power and thus financial wealth.
What they don’t see – or perhaps simply don’t want to admit – is that environmental destruction will drive up prices too. Food will
P.S.: For the most part, the belt-tightening rhetoric was not honest. It was generally used by affluent leaders who were cutting benefits that needy people depended on. Austerity is easier to demand and enforce when it does not affect