Red Sky at Morning
America and the Crisis of the
Global Environment
Gus Speth
Dean, Yale School of Forestry &
Environmental Studies
WARNING
• The presentation you are about to see is
disturbing.
• But Red Sky at Morning is a warning, not a
forecast. Goal is to stimulate action –
urgently.
• Second part of book is all about how to solve
the problems. There are answers.
• But we will not use them or appreciate their
urgency unless we first understand the
problems.
Overview
• Around 1980 a “new agenda” of
global-scale environmental
concerns came to the fore.
Very different concerns than those
mostly local issues that led to the first
Earth Day a decade earlier.
In response, there has been a huge
outpouring of activity and energy. What
emerged is our first attempt at global
environmental governance.
Overview
• The principal focus of all this activity has
been to negotiate treaties. The first attempt at
global environmental governance has been
predominantly an effort to create
international environmental law.
• Despite all the effort, most disturbing trends
noticed twenty-five years ago continue
essentially unabated. Our first attempt at
global environmental governance has largely
failed.
Three Questions
• How did this happen?
• How much time do we have to correct
this failure?
• What should we do?
A Tale of Two Agendas
1970 Earth Day Agenda
1980 Global Agenda
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
local air pollution
local water pollution
strip-mining
clear-cutting
hazardous waste dumps
and pesticides
6. stream channelization and
dam building
7. highway construction
8. noise pollution
9. nuclear power
10. suburban sprawl
ozone layer depletion
climate disruption
desertification
deforestation
mass extinction of species
rapid population growth
freshwater shortages
fisheries depletion
toxification
acid rain, regional ozone
First Attempt at Global Environmental Governance:
Steps Taken
1.
Ozone Layer Depletion
2.
Climate Change
3.
Desertification
4.
Deforestation
5.
Biodiversity Loss
Montreal Protocol
Kyoto Protocol
Convention to Combat Desertification
Nonbinding Principles
Convention on Biological Diversity
6.
Population Growth
Action
Cairo International Plan of
7.
Freshwater Resources
Convention on the NonNavigable Uses of International Watercourses
8.
Marine Environment Deterioration
9.
Toxification
Basel Convention Stockholm
Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)
10.
Acid Rain
Convention on Long-Range
Transboundary Air Pollution
Law of the Sea
Number of
Agreements/Environmental Quality
Environmental Agreements vs.
Environmental Quality Since 1972
400
350
300
MEAs
250
200
150
100
50
Global Environmental Quality
0
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Mid-Term Grades
Honors
Ozone Depletion
Pass
Population
Acid Rain
Fail
Climate Disruption
Desertification
Deforestation
Extinction of Species
Freshwater Shortage
Fisheries Depletion
Toxification
Anatomy of Failure
Why Call It “Failure”?
•
Except for ozone depletion, big trends haven’t been reversed,
problems are deeper and more urgent
•
System has not gotten us to point where we are prepared to act
decisively
•
Some key nations not interested in getting prepared
Why Didn’t It Work?
•
Underestimated power of underlying drivers of deterioration
•
Overemphasized the role of international environmental law
Anatomy of Failure:
The Problem with Global Problems
Three factors make global environmental
deterioration inherently difficult to reverse:
1.
Driven by powerful underlying forces;
2.
Requires extraordinary international cooperation
and far-reaching, intrusive responses; and
3.
Political base to support these measures is thin,
weak and scattered.
Powerful Underlying Forces:
Ten Drivers of Environmental Deterioration
1.
2.
3.
Large and growing populations
Eco-unfriendly technologies
Unsustainable patterns of consumption among the
affluent
4. Unsustainable pressure on landscapes and
resources among the poor
5. Market failure
6. Policy and political failure
7. Scale and rate of economic growth
8. Nature of our economic system – growth at all
costs
9. Culture and values
10. Globalization
“So this is the famous environment everyone’s so hyped up
about?”
Weak Political Base:
Contrasts
1970s Earth Day
Agenda
1980s Global
Agenda
1.
2.
1.
2.
acute, immediate
easy to understand
and perceive
3. current problem
4. us/here
5. opposition off guard
6. U.S leadership
3.
4.
5.
6.
chronic, remote
difficult to understand
and perceive
future problem
them/there
opposition alert
U.S. foot-dragging
In Response:
Weak Medicine for an Ill Patient
• Opted for overly heavy reliance on international
environmental law; neglected measures that
directly address the underlying drivers of
deterioration
• Having selected international environmental
law as chosen instrument, failed to give that
approach a chance to succeed:
- weak institutions created
- crippling negotiation procedures used
- US leadership disintegrated into hostility
Four Political Fault Lines That Have Kept
Treaties Weak
The problem is not weak compliance or enforcement; the problem
is weak treaties.
Environmental treaties are kept weak because:
– Environment vs. Economy. Example: The Bush
Administration (and others) oppose the Kyoto Protocol
because they say it will hurt the economy.
– North vs. South. North reneged on the partnership compact
forged at Rio: instead of doubling development assistance as
promised, the rich countries reduced it.
– US vs. World. “More than any other country, the US is
responsible for the gulf between Rio’s rhetoric and the postRio reality.”
– The People vs. The Process. Treaty making process is
opaque, remote, closed to the public. Only governments get
to play.
How much time do we have?
Consider that the losses are already great:
•
•
•
•
one-third to one-half of global forests gone
half of the wetlands and mangroves gone
90% of large predator fish gone
thousands of lakes in Europe and North America have been
acidified
• fifty dead zones in oceans due to over fertilization
• 80% of agricultural land in dry regions suffers from moderate to
severe desertification
• in the US:
i) original tall-grass prairie: 99% transformed
ii) primary forest, contiguous US: 95% lost
iii) wetlands: 50% lost
Consider that human activities are now
large relative to natural systems. We live
in a full world.
• Atmospheric CO2 up 32%
• Nitrogen fixed by humans equal nature’s
• Humans consume/destroy/appropriate 40% of net
photosynthetic product
• Huge Asian pollution cloud
• Toxic pollutants ubiquitous
• Sixty percent of major river basins already severely or
moderately fragmented by dams and other constructions
• 80 countries with 40% of world’s people experiencing serious
water shortages
• TNC campaign: The Last Great Places. Rush to the finish.
• Future impacts increasingly consequential
• Whatever slack nature cut us is gone
Consider that human impacts are growing
dramatically
- All of history to grow the $6-7 trillion world economy of
1950. Now grow by that amount every 5 to 10 years.
- World economy doubled, then doubled again between
1960 and 2000. Poised to quadruple again by mid-century.
- Growth between 1980 and 2000:
Global population
World economy
Global Energy
Global Meat Consumption
World Auto Production
Global Paper Use
Advertising Globally
+35%
+75%
+40%
+70%
+45%
+90%
+100%
Consider also that change takes time
1. Technology takes time to change. Power plants
and factories built today presumed to last for
decades
2. Treaties and intergovernmental institutions are
not “ready to go.”
Time is running out. We are on the verge of reaping
an appalling deterioration of our natural assets. Only
unprecedented action taken with a profound sense of
urgency can forestall these consequences.
“And this time – no ark!”
For a second attempt at global
environmental governance:
What needs to be done?
Three Steps Needed
1.
Address directly the underlying drivers of
environmental deterioration
2.
Get serious about global environmental governance
3.
Take JAZZ to scale
What Won’t Work
“We just haven’t been flapping them hard enough.”
Reversing the Drivers of Deterioration:
The 8-Fold Way
Transition
From
To
Policy Needs
1. Population
High fertility
Low fertility
Cairo Plan of Action on
Population
2. Poverty
Widespread
Very modest
U.N. Millennium Development
Goals implementation
3. Technology
Environmentally
oblivious
Environmentally
smart
Every new investment
embodies best environmental
technology currently available
4. Prices
Environmentally
misleading
Environmentally
honest/full cost
pricing
Pigouvian taxes, regulations,
etc. that correct market failure;
eliminate perverse subsidies
Reversing the Drivers of Deterioration:
The 8-Fold Way (cont.)
Transition
From
To
Policy Needs
5. Consumption
Unsustainable
patterns
Sustainable patterns
Honest prices, ecolabeling, extended
producer responsibility
6. Knowledge
Widespread
ignorance
Environmental literacy
and capacity
Public education,
sustainability science,
F&ES!
7. Governance
Stalemate
Leadership and action
World Environment Org.
A JAZZ world
8. Consciousness
Consumer society
Contempocentrism
Anthropocentrism
Mars
Conserver society
Future generations
All living communities
Venus
A major wake-up call
In the end it may come down to
something as simple as this:
Reasons for Hope
1. Improved scientific understanding
2. Proportion of the world’s people in poverty is
being reduced
3. New technologies that bring environmental
improvement in manufacturing, energy,
transportation and agriculture are available or
close at hand
4. We are learning how to harness market forces
for sustainability
5. Expanded international environmental law
ready for a new phase
Reasons for Hope
6. Environmental and other civil society
organizations have developed remarkable new
capacities for leadership and effectiveness.
7. Private sector, local governments and
environmental organizations taking the initiative
far ahead of international agreements or other
government requirements.
8. Europe is providing real leadership on policy.
9. Environment is emerging as a force in strategic
business planning.
10. Solutions – including policy prescriptions and
other actions needed to move forward – abound.