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Globally
The natural environment has borne the
stresses imposed by a fourfold increase in human numbers
and an 18-fold growth
in world economic output during the past 100 years. Despite
the wealth of technologies, human resources, policy options,
and technical and scientific information at our disposal,
humankind has yet to break decisively with unsustainable
and environmentally unsound policies and practices. Poverty
and excessive consumption continue to put enormous pressure
on the environment. The unfortunate result is that sustainable
development remains largely theoretical for the majority
of the world’s population of more than 6,000 million
people. The level of awareness and action has not been
commensurate with the state of the global environment today;
it continues to deteriorate.
There has been immense change
in both human and environmental conditions over the past
30 years. In an unprecedented period
of population increase, the environment has been heavily
drawn upon to meet a multiplicity of human needs. In many
areas, the state of the environment is much more fragile
and degraded than it was in 1972, when the first international
conference on the environment - the United Nations
Conference on the Human Environment – was convened
in Stockholm. The result is that the world can now be categorized
by four major divides:
The Environmental
Divide - characterized
by a stable or improved environment in some regions, for
example Europe
and North America, and a degraded environment in the other
regions, mostly the developing countries;
The Policy Divide - characterized by two distinct dimensions involving policy
development and implementation with some
regions having strength in both and others still struggling
in both areas;
The Vulnerability
Gap - which is widening
within society, between countries and across regions with
the disadvantaged
more at risk to environmental change and disasters; and
The
Lifestyle Divide - partly a result of growing poverty and
of affluence. One side of the lifestyle divide is characterized
by excesses of consumption by the minority one-fifth of the
world population, which is responsible for close to 90 per
cent of total personal consumption; the other side by extreme
poverty where 1.2 billion live on less than US$1 per day.
The four gaps are a serious threat to sustainable development. Locally
- Australia
According to the Australian Bureau
of Statistics report Measuring Australia’s Progress, Australia is
going backwards on five of the six key indicators of progress
on environmental
issues: biodiversity, land clearance, land degradation, inland
waters and greenhouse gas emissions. The Australian Federal
Government’s 2001 State of the Environment Report paints
a bleak picture of Australia’s environment. It highlights
that the natural environment has improved very little since
1996, and in many critical areas has worsened. Australia
remains a very high, very inefficient per capita use of resources.
Every year, every Australian on average:
- Emits 27 tonnes of
greenhouse gases through energy use
(twice the OECD average
and the third highest behind the USA and
Canada);
- Uses 1540 kL of water (the highest of any continent);
and
- Disposes of 620 kg of domestic waste (second only to
the USA).
Australia generates total material flows (waste, soil
loss, materials used) of almost 180 tonnes per person per
year.
This flow is several times that of other OECD countries
as is the rate of growth of these flows (and their accompanying
energy use, which has grown nearly twice as fast as population
growth in the last 25 years). This is due to both the
type of economy Australia has and to inefficiencies in residential,
commercial and industrial use.
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