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Speech by Gareth Thomas, Minister for Trade and Development, at the launch of the fourth Global Environment Outlook report, 25 October 2007
25 October 2007
Let me first just say how delighted I am to be able to congratulate UNEP (
United
Nations Environment Programme) on the launch of “Environment for
Development” – the fourth Global Environment Outlook report.
I’m sure all of you will have recognised just how comprehensive an assessment of
environmental trends the report contains.
I want to outline today, if I may, our view of the importance of what the
environment means for development, perhaps then to briefly describe some of the
ways in which strong environmental leadership has made a difference - and, just
finally, to look at what the UK is doing to help poor people better manage the
environments that they depend on for their survival, and for their livelihoods
and for their well being.
I think we have a range of challenges ahead to reach Millennium Development
Goal 7 - to ensure environmental sustainability. And indeed environmental
sustainability isn’t simply a goal in itself but it is one that is going to
underpin - has to underpin - progress on achieving the other Millennium
Development Goals.
The plain facts, as many of you will know only too well, are that poor people
and poor countries depend on environmental resources far more than rich
countries, and of course poor people usually pay a far higher price when the
environment turns against them. Floods, droughts and pollution hit the poor the
hardest.
And the impacts of climate change, including more frequent and severe floods and
droughts, will be felt first and worst in developing countries. Worldwide, over
a billion people depend on fisheries, on forests and farming to earn a living.
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The importance of environment for progress
And one or two examples, in a sense to illustrate the importance of
environment for progress on the Millennium Development Goals:
In Sudan, the linkages between environmental degradation and conflict are stark.
Desertification, climate change, growing vulnerability to natural disasters: all
are contributing to the environmental impacts on a displaced population in what
is, as you all know, a devastated land.
Now quite clearly it does not have to be this way.
Recent work by UNEP and partners has shown how communities and nations can
reduce tensions and avoid conflict through working together to improve the
management of natural resources.
We see in Central Asia, for example, countries now working together to promote
environmentally sound mining practices - designed to reduce pollution from one
country affecting neighbouring countries, which then creates tension over costs
of clean up.
We see in Central Asia too regional nature reserves being proposed, so that the
benefits from tourism and soil and water protection can be shared between the
countries, again reducing competition, reducing tensions.
I think today’s report highlights the need for sound science, for monitoring and assessment, so we can understand the environmental trends much better, and, crucially, to understand the impact of those trends on the very poorest.
This is absolutely key if we’re going to see improvements in the decisions
that are taken at all levels, particularly by governments, to help ensure a more
sustainable and fairer world.
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Environmental trends and impacts on poor people
I think too, UNEP deserve credit for describing many of the key environmental
trends in their report - war and conflict, water shortages, worsening floods,
severe droughts, air pollution, collapsing fisheries.
But what does this mean for poor people? Not reaching the MDG 7 target means it
will be far harder to achieve the other Millennium Development Goals.
So if we don’t improve environmental health, people will be struck down by
diarrhoeal, respiratory, and other diseases. That will obviously stop us
achieving the health Millennium Development Goal.
Sick children will stay out of school, and sick adults won’t be able to earn
a reasonable income too.
But if we manage the environment properly then it can support and increase
development, it can help us accelerate progress to achieving the Millennium
Development Goals.
Research that we’ve done shows us that rainwater-harvesting, for example, can
increase production of maize, and that this is often a more sustainable solution
than damming lakes or building expensive irrigation schemes.
In, for example, a rainwater harvesting programme in Kajiado district in Kenya,
some 700 people now have access to fresh water. Better still, those water
supplies are owned by the community, they’re managed by their local water
council, with women, crucially too, playing a much stronger role in the
decision-making process around how those resources are allocated.
And in Ghana, there is intense competition for resources in the coastal zone - between smallholders and commercial farmers and between artisanal and commercial fishermen - and added to that, rapid urban development and industrial enterprises like salt mining are causing considerable coastal erosion and pollution.
Now a management plan has been put together which takes into account those
different, competing resource uses, and the impacts on the different
communities. The communities have actually been engaged in the preparation of
that plan, and again it’s helped to resolve conflicts between the different
uses, increase fishing and crop yields. It has benefited all the different
communities there.
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A return on investment
The UNEP report too shows just how effective land management that supports
livelihoods can be.
In Fiji, for example, we’re seeing what can happen when you limit what is
harvested along the coast, and the way in which that has made a difference in
allowing fish stocks to recover. In just three years the incomes of local
fishermen have increase by between 35% and over 43%.
That’s what I call a return on investment.
And in India, the cotton industry supports the livelihoods there of over 17 million people. But the cotton bollworm has been destroying crops, affecting the livelihoods of those farmers.
Initially, farmers have fought back with highly toxic and indeed very expensive chemicals, which are being sprayed in ever larger quantities - but with decreasing benefit for those people.
And the cost of the chemicals too has helped push farmers into dramatically increasing spirals of debt.
What we’re seeing is some farmers, though, beginning to benefit from an
integrated pest management system - using the bollworm’s natural predators,
beginning to reverse the trend - reducing the risks associated with chemicals
and increasing cotton yields. So, a much less expensive solution, and much more
beneficial for farmers' incomes.
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What is DFID doing to address these challenges?
Now what are we as a department, and the UK more generally, doing to try and
address some of these challenges. Well, we’re proud to be the biggest
contributor to UNEP’s Environment Fund - giving some £4.2 million per year.
And we’ve just increased our contribution. The Secretary of State for
International Development Douglas Alexander, announced that we were increasing
our contribution by an additional £6 million over the next four years,
recognising, I hope you’ll agree, the role UNEP can play in helping improve the
environment for the benefit of the world’s poor.
In addition the World Bank is proposing a multi-donor fund to scale up
international effort on sustainable development and climate change. And we will
put into that fund money from the UK’s £800 million Environment Transformation
Fund International Window to help capitalise that fund.
We want to see an open consultation on how the resources from that fund can be
used, how the fund should be set up, how it should work. We want to work with
the wider donor community, with potential recipients, with the private sector
and indeed civil society to develop a truly multilateral solution to tackling
the challenges of climate change and transforming countries’ development paths.
And we’re designing too, a new research programme with the Economic and Social
Research Council, with the Natural Environment Research Council too, on
ecosystem services and poverty alleviation.
Action on water, sanitation and climate change
And we’re also working to increase the money that we spend on effective
programmes to increase access to water and sanitation to tackle problems around
water resources management in Africa, doubling our funds to some £200 million
per year by 2011.
But perhaps most importantly, we see the huge opportunity that the Bali
conference represents this year to launch a process for achieving a global and
comprehensive post-2012 agreement to tackle climate change.
We want that agreement to have proper stabilisation targets that are ambitious,
and that are equitable in terms of their impact for developing countries.
Now of course a whole series of players have a role to secure such an agreement.
But it is only, our view, through the UN that we can secure comprehensive,
binding international action on carbon emissions that are necessary.
UNEP’s been a huge force for good for environmental progress in particular over
the last 20 years. I’m conscious of the role it’s played in the Montreal
protocol, in the establishment of the IPCC, in the establishment of the Global
Environment Facility
Huge challenges remain in this area, as all of you will know. We look forward to
continuing to work with UNEP to address the challenges. Once again let me say
thank you for the work of the report’s authors today. Thank you.