What next for the Millennium
Development Goals: how to make
the planet sustainable by 2050
Georgina Mace
One of the main outcomes of the Rio+20
Conference was the agreement by member
States to launch a process to develop a set
of sustainable development goals (SDGs)
that could be a useful tool for pursuing
focused and coherent action on
sustainable development.
The interlinked issues of population,
environment and development.
Environment
Population
Development
Environment: Impacts of people on
ecosystems are already widespread
and intense
Human appropriation of net primary productivity c. yr 2000
(Haberl et al. 2007, PNAS)
State
Pressure
Response
Biodiversity
Trends
1970-2010
Source:
GBO-3, after
Butchart et al 2010
Population
1950-2100: observed and predicted
UN Population Division World Population Prospects, the 2010 Revision
Why is population a concern?
1. We are reaching environmental limits.........
WWF Living Planet Report 2006
Rockström et al 2009 Nature 461, 472-475
Why is population a concern?
2. People are increasingly
living in dense, overcrowded
conditions.........
Poor health and disease burdens.
In urban areas, almost 137 million people
have no access to safe drinking water,
and more than 600 million do not have
adequate sanitation
Infant mortality rate MDG is not
on target
The increasing rates of change in human activity since the beginning
of the Industrial Revolution.
Steffen W et al. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2011;369:842-867
©2011 by The Royal Society
Pressures on the environment must
increase...
• People already dominate the Earth and manage it
for immediate needs, especially food, energy and
water.
• Population numbers are still increasing.
• Consumption is growing faster than population
numbers, especially in developing countries
where poor living standards must improve.
We are going to need more environmental
resources, for more people, distributed more
equitably, in a changing climate.
Development
Population growth
and consumption
rates compared
among countries by
development
Ecological footprint versus human
development index: comparisons across
countries and over time
WWF Living planet report
What is the goal of sustainable
development?
Poverty dynamics
Poverty dynamics: describe how poverty changes over time, whether people
move into or out of poverty, stay poor, or become poor(er) (Hulme et al, 2001)
Some poverty dimensions
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Food security and nutrition
Health, life expectancy and absence of disease
Income and assets
Fuel and energy
Social capital
Housing
Vulnerability and resilience
Water
Education and skills
Access to public goods
Employment
Property rights
Time
Natural Hazards :
The number of severe events affecting people is
increasing
– The capacity of ecosystems to buffer from extreme events has been
reduced through loss of wetlands, forests, mangroves
– People are increasingly occupying regions exposed to extreme events
Extreme events:
e.g. climate change mean & variance
Human community vulnerability
assessment
Brenkert and Malone 2008, Climate Change
Human community vulnerability
assessment
Brenkert and Malone 2008, Climate Change
Managing the whole system for sustainable development
Stocks and
flows of
environmental
resources
Capital
Human
Natural Social
Manufactured
Production &
Consumption
Environment