Features
UNISON is attending this summer’s Earth Summit to add union power to the fight against unsustainability. Helen Taylor explains why a meeting of foreign dignitaries thousands of miles away affects you personally
Global warning
If you thought that leaving the tap running while you brushed your teeth would deprive someone in South Africa of a glass of water, you might think twice about it.
And using your car for the school run less than a mile away might seem less attractive if it meant that a bus in India wasn’t able to take 50 children on their 10-mile journey to the classroom.
Of course, nothing is that simple. But there’s no getting away from the fact that the way we use the earth’s resources every day has an impact on the lives of people on the other side of the world.
The 20% of the world’s population who live in developed countries use 80% of the fossil fuels, metals, wood, minerals and other resources that are produced globally every year. And those resources are running out fast.
Not only do we need to cut back on the use of global resources, we also need to redistribute access to those resources away from the over-developed countries towards the world’s developing nations.
Every person has the right to an equal share of Earth's limited ecological capacity. And those who consume beyond their fair share accumulate an ecological debt to those who don’t.
That’s where sustainable development comes in to improve the quality of life for everyone without increasing the use of natural resources beyond the capacity of the environment to supply them.
The story so far
Given the size of the environmental problem, an enormous global effort is needed to change the consumption patterns of entire nations. So what have our governments been doing about it?
As far back as 1972, at the UN Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm, world leaders realised that the world was heading for disaster if development continued at its previous rate.
But it wasn’t until the 1980s the UN World Commission on Environment and Development got round to developing a definition of sustainable development: “[development that] meets the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” A crucial turning point in global environmental concern came in 1992, when the UN Conference on Environment and Development took place in Rio de Janeiro.
Dubbed the Earth Summit, this important conference outlined key policies for sustainable development through Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration. And the “think global, act local” creed was put into practice as thousands of local Agenda 21 initiatives took off.
The Rio meeting also formalised governmental commitment to sustainable development, with legally binding conventions on biological diversity and climate change, and a statement of forest principles.
It looked like the world was ready to start saving its precious environment, but nobody was really aware of just how radical a change was needed.
The second earth summit in New York in 1997 looked at the extent of environmental change and found the slowest progress was on social equity and poverty. Falling levels of official development assistance (ODA) and growing international debt were widening the gap between rich and poor.
The Rio+10 summit is now imminent, scheduled for 26 August to 6 September in Johannesburg. It will focus on the social and economic dimensions to development such as poverty, production, consumption and health, as well as the conservation and management of natural resources.
Thirty years from that first meeting in Stockholm, the international community will be able to see how far they have progressed and where they have fallen short.
Trade unions at the Earth Summit
You may think sustainable development has very little to do with trade unions. You’d be wrong.
“Sustainable development is a key issue for union members in the workplace,” says UNISON policy officer Dick Barry. “It is also a very important citizenship issue. So UNISON has a dual role as a trade union. There are also big issues at a policy level where we can campaign for changes in the law to improve people’s quality of life.”
UNISON will send a delegation to this year’s Earth Summit along with other trade unions from around the world. In partnership with ICFTU (the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions) and Public Services International (PSI), the union voice in Johannesburg will work to connect people to policies and bring environmental issues into the workplace.
Contact the article's author Helen Taylor
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UNISON PRIORITIES AT THE EARTH SUMMIT 1. Renewable energy 2. The role of local authorities 3. Tackling unsustainable patterns of production and consumption
4. GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) 5. Transport 6. Climate change 7. Protecting and managing natural resources 8. Sustainable agriculture 9. Health and sustainable development 10. The eradication of poverty |
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